Youtou Shinnoken: Demon Sword

A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda

Original concept by Chad Yang

Welp. Shin Ju versus Reikai Senshi. Who you got?

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and Studio Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallop, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted materials that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.


Chapter 50: Living Sin (Part 2)


July 12, 1993. A date that would be remembered by the Reikai (Spirit World) in infamy.

Of course it just had to be a Monday too.

That was the date when the Spirit World was alerted of an attack orchestrated by the whole ten members of the Shin Juppon Gatana (New Ten Swords).

The same group of people that the Reikai Senshi (Spirit World Warriors) had to risk life and limb against just to take down two of its Class-A members.

However, the alert that something was amiss came about at the early morning. Around breakfast, when everyone had just risen from bed.

Botan made use of multiple Spirit World Compact communicators to mobilize Koenma Daio's troops. The compacts were distributed to them back in June during the Sanno Festival.

They were actually modified Spirit Detectors that could double as walkie-talkies. The monocle prototype she introduced back at the festival was unanimously discarded at tacky in favor of the old wristwatch model.

Back in the day when Yusuke Urameshi was still a novice spirit detective in junior high, they used separate compacts to communicate to each other.

Regardless, the response times of the Spirit World Warriors were quite impressive, although the unexpected snag of the Shin Ju attacking somewhere other than the Tokyo delayed their confrontation regardless.

All the same, the Spirit World had something prepared for this emergency in the form of a train.

A special Reikai train that emerged from the Astral Plane. It took about 4 hours (or 3 hours and 24 minutes) to get from Tokyo to Sapporo on the speedy Spirit World mode of transportation powered by spirit energy and looked like an old-timey train from the 1800s, which made Kenshin Himura and his gang feel right at home riding it.

Except for Sano. Even when it came to 19th Century technology, the strange train didn't sit well with him. He remained a technophobe and a Luddite even as a hundred-year-old ghost.

Normally, an ordinary sleeper or overnight train would take 16 hours to get from Tokyo to Hokkaido (hence the term). However, desperate times called for desperate measures.

The Oniwabanshu were the first to arrive at a secret section of the JR Train Station, followed by the Reikai Tantei then finally the Kenshingumi. The Reikai's ferry-girls, who flew to their destination instead, were awaiting them there.

They could use the dimension-jumping powers of Kazuma Kuwabara to get there in a second, but the Spirit World decided to conserve his energy for the battle ahead.

The sheer distance of teleporting every one of the Reikai Senshi could completely sap him of his energy. He was also reserved as their exit strategy of sorts if worse came to worst.

However, Kuwabara's (unstable) powers were still used to allow the shinigami (plus Likka Ikumi) to scout the area first a good hour before the train arrived at its destination.

At that point, Hokkaido was within the Jigen Tou's dimension-cutting range, thus allowing Kuwabara to deploy the Reikai scouts.

They were accompanied by Kazuma and Detective Daiji Matsudaira, who would then relay the information on where the Shin Juppon Gatana were located to the rest of the Reikai Senshi.

The ferry-girls were there to offer air support while Kuwabara, Daiji, and Likka were the scouts or rangers that scoured the land for enemy locations.

In short, they were the Spirit World Warrior's recognizance group prior to battle.

The ferry-girls divided the huge area they were supposed to search into four quadrants. Botan was assigned the northeast quadrant, Sayuri (Uchiko Shikoku) the northwest quadrant, Ayame the southeast quadrant, and Hinageshi (with Sayaka) the southwest quadrant.

They combed through every nook and cranny of Hokkaido, helping Kazuma navigate through the different mountains (like Mount Yurappu, Mount Kenashi, and Mount Otobe) as well as cities and towns (Hakodate, Esashi, Otobe, Assabu, Nanae, Hokuto, Shikabe, Mori, Yakumo, and Kaminokuni) of the area until they could pinpoint the locations of where the attacks were taking place in the island.


At the island of Okushiri, Misao Makimachi's reincarnation Likka Ikumi had finally arrived.

She was dropped off there by Kazuma after their Spirit Detectors' radars indicated blips of Class-A demons on the area. She, Kuwabara, and Matsudaira soon split up in order to triangulate the specific positions of their enemies.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Reikai Senshi remained in their Spirit World train headed to an earlier Hakodate stop-off (Sapporo was a lot further into the heart of Hokkaido).

Nevertheless, they still needed to get to the Esashi Sea Port on foot to rendezvous with the ferry-girls. Or they could simply swim to Okushiri if they were up to the challenge.

Okushiri Island was an island in Hokkaido, Japan. It had an area of 142.97 square kilometers or 88.84 square miles. Meanwhile, Okushiri Town and the Hiyama Prefectural Natural Park encompassed the entire island. It had many sheep pastures and beech forests on it.

It also had two kanji used for its name meaning "wife's hips" or "wife's buttocks".

Likka cringed. What an unfortunate name. "Who came up with this island's name? A dirty old man?"

She then remembered the encyclopedic Natsuki informing her back at the train that the name was of Ainu origin as they were looking through maps of Hokkaido.

It was originally named Ikusyunshiri before the name was bastardized into something more... perverted.

Ikumi shook her head and slapped her face with both palms to calm herself. She didn't have time to be distracted by trivial quibbles.

After all, she was the one who insisted that her past memories as Misao were already completely restored, thus she was more than prepared to join the ranks of the Spirit World Warriors and help them out.

...Except that was a lie and the effects of the Kanji Killer's hypnosis of her had worn off months ago.

In fairness, she still kept up with her ninja training sessions with Detective Daiji by sheer willpower and muscle memory alone, but a Misao Makimachi she was not.

She also looked the part. She wore her hair in a long braided pigtail and she even sew her past self's uniform by memory (or what was left of her memory).

'Fake it until I make it,' she told herself repeatedly as she shadowed behind the policeman and the teleporting thuggish guy.

They then split up to search for the individual Shin Ju, and Likka ended up gulping hard as she was left alone by the spirit detective and the police detective.

"Ehehehe. N-No sweat. N-No worries. I can handle this. I'm the new Makimachi Misao, after all!" Not Misao murmured to herself.

But who was Misao Makimachi anyway? Was she anything like the goofy cosplayer and anime maniac known as Likka Ikumi?

She breathed in and out to relax and checked her wristwatch-shaped Spirit Detector. It worked kind of like radar.

It showed the nearest powerful targets in blips. It was color coded to indicate which one was Class-A, B, C, D, E, and S.

She could even toggle from color to color or class to class to simplify her search since E-Level entities merely meant all the nearby living creatures that weren't insects, plants, or microorganisms, so they appeared as a whole cluster of blips on the radar.

She went on the move, running through the streets of Okushiri Town and... doing ninja stuff. Y'know, climbing walls, running through roofs, and moving along bushes.

After a few minutes of doing that nonsense, she spat out a leaf, dusted herself off, and walked around town, asking people if there were anything suspicious going on.

Simply asking passersby what was going on helped a lot more than roof-running and wall-climbing. She also remembered how Misao used to hand homing pigeons messages tied to their leathery feet in order to communicate with informants and her fellow Oniwabanshu, but this was the tail end of the 20th Century!

Who still used pigeons?

Instead, she followed the lead of the shinigami responsible for scouting the northwest quadrant of Okushiri: "Sayuki Uchikoku What's-Her-Face".

Or "Sayu" would if only. She'd. Stop. Talking. About. Daiji.

"...Like, omigod! He's a widower, right? I can't wait to see him get killed! Er, no offense, kiddo. Your brother-in-law is such a tall, dark, and handsome hunk, I'd die to end up in his arms! Or maybe the other way around. Tee-hee."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure. Whatever, Girlie Girl," grumbled the modern onmitsu girl with a grimace while helping an old lady cross the street.

"Just tell me if I'm anywhere near one of the Shin Ju already! I've been following this blip on my radar since forever, and none of the people in this town are even aware of any supernatural shenanigans!"

There was just something about Sayuri the Shinigami that rubbed Likka the Misao Reincarnate the wrong way. As though she reminded her of someone back in her past life (although they'd just met).

"...EEK! A BAT! GROSS!" came the girlish scream of the scythe-bearing death goddess. "Get away from me! Wait, why are you an eye?!"

"..." Likka was just about to give Shikoku a piece of her mind and tell her to take things seriously when she saw a big explosion in the sky overhead, which made her turn as white as a sheet.

"Eh? EH? Sayuki? No, I mean, Sayuri! Shikoku Uchiko! Scythe Girl! Are you there?" Ikumi called out to her compact, but there was no answer. Only static.

She flashbacked to the briefings the Reikai Senshi had after the Sanno Festival, wherein they talked about the different members of the New Ten Swords they knew about so far.

Aside from the Kanji Killer who hypnotized her and his copycat (that she figured out was her sister's killer, although neither Natsuki nor Daiji would talk to her about it directly), there was one other Shin Ju guy she remembered that was in the news.

Karasu.

The bird-themed villain who, for some reason, made use of bombs. In the Heisei Era and to many news outlets, he was instead known as part of the Mad Bomber group, a cult full of thin, long-haired men who were suicide bombers.

Except there was no cult of suicide bombers. Karasu alone did his terrorist bombings all by himself, and people presumed he was multiple "suicide" bombers when he survived his own explosions every time.

And the "bat" that Uchiko spotted wasn't actually a bat but instead an organic bomb with bat wings and a single eye. The Trace Eye.

Karasu also stood out in Likka's mind because she recently figured out that one of his "suicide" bombings almost killed the widower she called a brother-in-law.

She then smelled it. The rusty tang of blood all over the town square as the townspeople ran away and screamed in panic. She averted her eyes and held her breath after taking a whiff of the nauseating stench of death.

Ikumi gulped when she realized the S-Level blip on her Spirit Detector's radar was right above her.

However, the Class-S zombie that suddenly towered from behind her amidst a bloodbath of Okushiri Town civilians wasn't Karasu.

"Well, look at what we have here. Fresh meat," said the blindfolded man with a creeper's smile, a turtle shell "backpack", and earrings. He then frowned and asked, "There's something mighty familiar about this situation."

'Oh crap! Who was this old fart again? We never talked about him in the meetings!' thought Ikumi before she narrowed her eyes in familiarity.

They had met before. In a past life.

Usually, when one heard those words, it was in a romantic context. It wasn't in this case.

With a shrug at the (somewhat familiar and almost nostalgic) presence of Misao's reincarnation, Usui Uonuma allowed history to repeat itself as he stabbed his Rochin spear into the face of the girl.


A memory from Likka's past resurfaced in her mind. Of the same bearded swordsman attempting to kill her for thwarting Makoto Shishio's plan of putting Kyoto in flames.

Back then, her life was saved by Usui's fellow Juppon Gatana member, the righteous Mad Buddhist Monk Anji Yukyuzan.

This time around, she was saved by some other person she had met before as well... also in her past life.

The Rochin clanged hard against twin platinum kodachi (short swords).

"UNCLE JIJI!" Likka screamed and gasped in relief at the same time after the dashing spy came to her rescue.

Detective Matsudaira spared her a glance and a nod before throwing one kodachi in the air and doing a Jissen Kenbu (Single-Blade Sword Dance) against the blind swordsman.

Every one of those strikes and kenpo strikes were blocked thanks to Usui's unbreakable Tinbe turtle shield and his supernaturally keen sense of hearing known as the Shingan (Mind's Eye).

"Ohohoho. I remember you. You were Cho's replacement after he got defeated by the Battousai way back when. The Okashira of the Oniwabanshu."

The short sword that was supposed to land on Usui's head was deflected by his spear, only for it to "shatter" into a rain of multiple short swords, like exploding glass shards.

Uonuma raised his turtle shield like an umbrella against the steel squall, only for the detective to attack with his other platinum blade, spinning in order to do a Kaiten Kenbu (Spiral Sword Dance).

The blindfolded, mustachioed swordsman smirked then let his other hand holding his spear with a heavy counterweight fly at the pirouetting ninja-turned-cop.

From there, in the middle of Daiji's bladed dance, Usui unleashed a one-handed Hyakka Ryoran (Multiple Flower Bloom) attack that used both the heavy spherical counterweight and the pointed end of his spear to hit an opponent multiple times.

The policeman reacted immediately, turning his single-kodachi move into a dual-wielding one as he split his platinum blade into twin steel blades with his willpower and material creation skill. The Kaiten Kenbu became the Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren (Spiral Sword Dance Six Series).

Normally, with all things considered equal, Daiji would've drawn first blood and then danced out of the way of the flurry of stabs and death blows.

Things weren't equal at all though, and like the Class-A Kurama facing off against the Class-S Shinobu Sensui, the Class-A Daiji ended up scourged by the Class-S Usui's Hyakka Ryoran.

It was only through his Ryusui no Ugoki (Water Movement) that he ended up slashed and bleeding instead of dismembered and dead.

He heard Likka scream after him, his vision unsteady. However, he kept himself from collapsing, grasping his wounded body.

That was the gap between an S-Level and an A-Level.

Daiji went down on one knee, cursing under his breath and grinding his teeth at the word, "S-Class..."

This made Likka freeze, but Daiji shot her a glare and shook his head at her to urge her to move forward and find the rest of the Shin Ju. Or perhaps even escape from Hokkaido altogether.

With a bullish snort and a cold sneer, Uonuma moved in to finish off the ninja when his blindfold fell, revealing his closed, burned eyes.

Usui gulped and gurgled, his neck wounds squirting blood. Had the policeman not been Class-A, he would've ended up breathing through his neck. Or outright decapitated.

"A-Class, huh? You're quite something, Oniwabanshu Okashira Shinomori Aoshi," Uonuma said with his own grit teeth before his mouth twisted into a rictus grin.

Likka herself went red at the display, her cheeks heating up. As usual, even when faced against someone more powerful than him, Daiji still looked, '...So cool!'


It was only after Detective Matsudaira made himself scarce with his afterimage-filled movement that Ikumi forced herself to run off to continue her mission, splitting the attention of the Class-S Shin Juppon Gatana member between the two of them.

One down, nine (or maybe seven, if they hadn't gotten replacements for Suzaku and the Kanji Killer yet) to go.

Her heart in her throat, she traveled on foot to the northeastern area of Okushiri, her lungs burning from the exertion. Like a small economy car sputtering and running on fumes.

Even though she recently trained with both her best friend Natsuki and her brother-in-law Daiji to become part of the group, her body was still trying to keep up with her reawakened muscle memory from a century ago.

She was just an ordinary school girl a few months ago, dammit.

A few weeks of pushups, sit-ups, and jogging wasn't going to cut it. Regardless, she soldiered on, climbing from tree to tree, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and crawling from crevice to crevice as she neared the last known coordinates of Uchiko before she faced off against a bat bomb.

A place where a pillar of smoke and fire emerged, followed by panicked and fleeing island residents.

The screams started to grow louder as she neared the inferno. From erratic screeches to a haunting chorus.

She willed herself to move forward and finish her mission like the onmitsu that she was supposed to be.

Because she was once the (Replacement) Okashira of the Oniwabanshu, dammit.

Some people had past lives where they were Egyptian royalty or something. For her, she was an actual ninja! She was living the dream!

Still, she dared not to look at the splashes of red and piles of limbs at the corner of her eyes. The ones who didn't make it.

She avoided staring at them like she'd avoid staring directly into the sun.

Hiding behind a fence, she finally found what she was originally looking for.


Karasu. The crow demon with the ability to synthesize bombs with his demon energy. Right below his feet was an unconscious Uchiko. It looked like she fought a bear and lost.

Sweating bullets as she pushed the idle thought of 'Can death (goddesses) die?' at the back of her mind, Likka relayed the info to the remaining shinigami (who then relayed the info to the rest of the Spirit World Warriors).

Ikumi froze as the masked man seemingly turned towards her direction, his long, narrow eyes narrowing further into small axe wound slits.

He wore this organic-looking thing over his ear, like a macabre call center headset or something you'd see on Halloween, its proboscis appendage hanging over his masked mouth like a microphone.

Soon after, her heart sank.

A portal opened from the ground just beside Karasu, and out emerged a green-haired dude with a scar on one of his eyes and this mountain of muscles in a business suit with dyed blond hair that kind of looked like Souther from Fist of the North Star.

Green was A-Level. Blondie was S-Level. More importantly, the blond gangster-looking fella held a nodachi (longsword) on one hand and an unconscious, black-and-blue Kuwahara (or whatever his name was) on his other (metallic) hand, grabbing him by the neck.

The same guy that was supposed to teleport the rest of the Reikai Senshi to the island.

'This is bad. That curly haired old man is... well, was our ticket to getting the rest of the Spirit World warriors on this island on time!'

Likka then felt a cold hand on her shoulder, making her jump.

"Well, lookie what we have here. Fresh meat," she heard a shrill-voiced someone say before she backed away and threw her kunai at a demon with a red flowing mane and blue tattoos all over his face and body. A-Level.


The ripped-apart Daiji attempted to do a sneak attack on Usui, only for the blind spearman (and his Shingan) to block or deflect them in short order thanks to his supernaturally sensitive senses.

Matsudaira shifted tactics and attempted to penetrate Uonuma's defenses by slicing apart either the shield or the spear. However, to his chagrin, Usui was himself a Quest-Class entity just like the detective.

Every time his Tinbe got scratched and worn down by the platinum blades, it "healed" itself instantaneously. Ditto with the Rochin spear and its counterweight.

Thinking fast, the copper tested the reflexes of Usui by turning one of his kodachi into a pistol with infinite rounds, firing at different angles and attacking with the Jissen Kenbu and Kaiten Kenbu while the mustached man was busy defending with his shield.

However, just as he was about to shift into Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren at the last second after forcing Uonuma into fighting one-handed again, he stopped as he heard a familiar Chinese-accented voice say, "Detective."

It was Feng Xinhai. His wife's murderer. The one-armed man. Another S-Level. Flanking him from behind were his minions: Itsuki, Karasu, and Rando.

All three held hostages of some sort. Itsuki used disembodied hands to hold down Kuwabara. Karasu held Uchiko by the hair. Even Rando grabbed hold of a gasping Likka, who was tangled in a web of the spider demon's silk threads.

Feng turned towards Usui and mocked, "Are you having a bit of a problem with Class-A, Usui?"

Uonuma harrumphed, his neck wound healed up long ago. "I've done no better than you have against your li'l pet, Xinhai."

"Ah. But the difference between you and I is that I intentionally play with him. Because he makes me stronger," Xinhai answered back.

Instead of attacking Usui, Daiji instead shot his gun at the bulky Chinese Triad boss, who dodged out of their way but his large frame was still hit by the zooming bullets regardless.

Wasting no time, amidst a rusty tang of red mist, Matsudaira executed his ultimate technique.

Only to again halt after a grinning Feng shoved Daiji's black-and-blue sister-in-law right in front of him, gripping her head like a softball.

Using her as a meat shield.

The absolute coward.

When Xinhai attempted to slash the copper through Likka with his Izuna technique, Daiji suspected as much and tore her right off of his prosthetic grip, tufts of her hair remaining within the Chinese man's metallic fingers.

"OW! DAMMIT, UNCLE JIJI!" said Ikumi in the heat of the moment.

However, in exchange, Feng still managed to slash the detective with his long sword.

"Ugh," grunted Daiji, leaving Ikumi speechless.

"Tsk. Tsk. You're letting your feelings get the best of you again, Detective. Will you never learn, my dearest Blue Meanie?"

In mere minutes after they landed on Okushiri, the One-Eight-Ten Killer and his crew of Karasu, Itsuki, and Rando were able to intercept the Reikai Senshi scouts composed of one shinigami, both the Oniwabanshu, and one of the Reikai Tantei.


"Have your Trace Eyes found the rest of the shinigami, Karasu?" asked Feng.

"Not yet. They may have gotten away. They must've been given advanced warnings by their fellow scouts," reported the crow youkai, who pointed at the Spirit Detectors and communicators worn by the Reikai Senshi that they captured.

"There you go again. Bossing everyone around," said Usui. "I have half the mind to cut your fuel source apart and drag you back down to Class-A, Xinhai Feng," he threatened while pointing his spear at Daiji, who lay in a pool of his own blood.

"Do that and I'll personally make sure you won't get the Jagan from the Reikai's personal Jaganshi pet," warned Feng, referring to Hiei and his third eye.

Uonuma chuckled, his one eye opening, revealing the surgically implanted Jagan of the deceased Kanji Killer. "Kill the Jaganshi and I'll take both your eyes."

Nonetheless, he backed off all the same from the injured copper.

Although spots of blood formed on his holey business suit from all the gunfire rounds that Daiji emptied upon his bulky frame, the blond Triad boss barely winced or stuttered as he ordered Itsuki to, "Bring Kuwabara Kazuma to me."

Itsuki obliged, teleporting his fellow teleporter right in front of Xinhai.

From a distance, a twinkle of light emerged from the horizon. A blue blaze with the roar of a turbine.

They didn't have much time left.

Feng raised his sword, aiming it at Kuwabara's neck. He then hesitated, thinking whether or not it'd be better to maim him rather than kill him outright so that the mad scientist known as Gein would have an easier time experimenting on him.

Or maybe he should just kill him so that the Onmyouji could revive him as part of the Shin Ju.

Imagine the Shin Ju having two instead of just one Gatekeeper Itsuki. The rest of the Reikai Senshi wouldn't even stand a chance!

He stopped just short of drawing blood on a groaning Kazuma after hearing a rumbling from the distance. Growing in tempo and volume.

It all came tumbling down a second later. The delayed roaring thunderclap after the lightning strike.

"JUST WAIT A GODDAMN SECOND, SOUTHER!" shouted a certain sleek-haired young man. "TOUCH HIM AND THEY'LL HAVE TO SCRAPE THE GROUND OFF OF WHAT'S LEFT OF YOU!"

The half-demon spawn of Makai's own Satan, Raizen. The demonic descendant of one of the Three Kings: Yusuke Urameshi.

She was in no position to laugh (plus parts of her scalp still hurt), but the half-unconscious Likka still guffawed nonetheless upon hearing the older teenager's observation that matched hers.

She had half the mind to tell him, "Isn't he, though? He totally looks like Souther from Fist of the North Star!"

Yusuke burst forward with a bright-red aura (youki instead of reiki) at seeing his best friend about to get executed by the bleach-blond Triad boss. Like a shooting star or a passing comet.

A sight that sent shivers down the spines of even the group of hardened criminals, mass murderers, mercenaries, terrorists, and demons before him.

"Urameshi..." Kazuma himself stirred, one of his eyes cracking open at the burning light that was Yusuke.


Yusuke landed on the ground with enough force to scatter all five of the ten Shin Juppon Gatana away. This was the least that a demon who could turn mountains into molehills could do.

From what Feng could presume, the leader of the Urameshi Team and one of Koenma Daio's topnotch spirit detectives has foregone getting escorted by any one of the remaining four shinigami.

He simply left the port and swam to the island on his own (judging by how wet he looked). Or perhaps like Jesus Christ on a hurry, he ran on water.

"Urameshi Yusuke," said Xinhai before summoning the plasma creature that stood beside him to combine with his aura, engulfing them in black flames. "Karasu. Itsuki. Rando." He took a baleful breath. "Usui. Assist me."

Uonuma smiled. "Two S-Levels and three A-Levels against one S-Level? Even if he is the Son of Satan himself, it seems a tad unfair."

"Who cares? We're supposed to be the bad guys, are we not?" retorted Xinhai before he willed his familiar (who also had its own fiery version of his nodachi) to fight for him.

Meanwhile, Feng continued his plans execute Kazuma regardless as Urameshi screamed at him to stop while facing off against the fire creature, Rando, Itsuki, Karasu, and Usui at the same time.

Before the mob boss stabbed Kuwabara regardless, the old-looking teenager made a small knife-sized Jigen Tou during the gangster's brief distraction and opened a portal in front of him where the weapon eventually plunged into.

Feng had enough presence of mind to retract his blade, realizing that Kazuma made a second portal from behind him, teleporting his own blade to his back that would've skewered him had he moved his blade all the way through.

The same tactic that the Chinese mafia leader used with Itsuki's assistance to intercept Kuwabara earlier. 'Clever girl.'

In the blink of an eye, the ginger-haired teenager then disappeared, taking with him the ferry-girl Uchiko.

Probably in search of the rest of the Reikai Senshi off the nearest port in Esashi.

All this happened because of Yusuke's intimidating presence.


"Still suffering from the effects of my Kugai (World of Suffering) curse, human?" Rando taunted.

As the pale-faced youkai predicted from his recent rematch against Urameshi, the Reikai Tantei free agent had the tendency to use his Shot Gun technique when faced with multiple foes.

However, his attempt at countering the blasts with the Inner Blood Turmoil or even the Shield of Sand was thwarted when Yusuke blinked into existence right in front of him, grabbed him by the ankle, and swung him right at the incoming projectiles, swatting his body back and forth in such a way that he caught all the blasts.

As for Itsuki, the demon summoned his own familiar in the form of Uraotoko (Reverse Man) in order to swallow all the energy projectiles from Yusuke's Shot Gun.

He intended to have his pet swallow Urameshi and trap him in his empty dimension, but he wasn't fast enough to react to the half-demon's punch to the gut from his blindside (his scarred, closed eye slashed by Kuwabara once upon a time), which nearly liquefied his guts.

Yusuke learned like Sensui did that even though the Gatekeeper was a talented dimensional sorcerer, his waifish physique couldn't take blunt-force trauma.

As for Karasu, his raven hair turned into gilded locks as he swallowed and absorbed all the youki blasts raining down upon him in order to trigger an even bigger magnitude of explosion. To the suicide bomber's surprise, Urameshi grabbed hold of him from behind, his hands and arms interlocked onto his midsection.

Then, before the youkai could gather enough combustible elements to deliver Kingdom Come unto Yusuke, the hanyou (half-youkai) did a German suplex on him, burying his head into the asphalt and detonating him like a landmine.

'H-He's acting just like Toguro...!' was the last thought in Karasu's mind before he ended up stuck inside a huge crater, his smoking legs dangling from the hole he made.

Yusuke then eyed the one Shin Ju member that wasn't a former enemy of the Reikai Tantei who huddled behind his turtle shield in order to weather the storm of the teenager's Shot Gun.

"C'mere, you Middle-Aged Beardy Ninja Turtle!"

"Bring it on, Green Horn! I'll teach you to respect your elders!"

The familiar of Xinhai manifested in front of Urameshi, ready to slice him in half with a sound-barrier-breaking Tobi Izuna when the half-demon flipped him the bird and fired his Rei-Gan from his middle finger.

"Not you again! Fuck off, enemy stand! FAKKU GAN (FUCK GUN)!"

The shot not only obliterated the flaming kagemusha (body double) of Feng, but also pierced through the creature and ended up blasting Uonuma anyway, even with his shield ready to block the comet-like projectile head on.

Afterwards, nothing but a long, wide trench and a landfill's worth of rubble was left behind the ensuing explosion.

And this all happened in the span of fifteen seconds.

Xinhai and Likka stared at what they'd just witnessed while motionless, wide-eyed, and slack-jawed. Yusuke just cleaned house against four of the Ten Swords in barely a quarter of a minute.

"Just who is that boy?" murmured a bright-eyed Likka at this youth that couldn't have been more than at least three years older than her.

"...What? Lady, we already met! It's Urameshi Yusuke!" called out Yusuke to the Misao reincarnate, much to her chagrin.

She had met him and knew he was friends with Kenshin, but this was the first time she saw him in action.

"Dude, you're amazing! Keep it up!" said Likka and a chuckling Yusuke gave her a thumb's up sign.

Meanwhile, at the corner of her vision, she eyed the prone form of her unconscious brother-in-law.

Feng raised his longsword at Yusuke, only to involuntarily flinch as the teenager spared him a glare. "Ta made niao," Xinhai cursed in Chinese under his breath at how his body language betrayed his intentions.

"..." Daiji cracked an eye open, his jaw clenched. He'd been pretending to be unconscious all the while, waiting to strike at the right moment, only for Yusuke to steal his thunder.

He didn't know what to feel at seeing the cold-blooded murderer Xinhai react this pathetically against Urameshi.

Yusuke grinned and raised a finger gun aimed at Feng, its "barrel" making a whistling sound as it gathered and coalesced pinpoints of spiritual fire into a miniature star.

"Tell you what, Souther. Let's play a game. Kill me before I hit you with a fully charged Rei-Gan. You have ten seconds."

His veins (or perhaps nerves) popping at the side of his head, Xinhai grinned himself and said, "I'll cut your finger off before you can try, si pi yan (asshole)."

And so the battle was on. Feng let his nodachi fly in every which direction, limiting Yusuke's escape routes to a tunnel-shaped space, herding him right into his trap.

He couldn't hit the insanely fast upper Class-S teen at all, but he expected that. The mobster barely hit the limit that separated S-Class from A-Class.

Regardless, as soon as the teenager shot his reiki blast, Xinhai planned to combine the hot ki from the projectile with the cold ki from his vacuum slashes to create a Tornado Ripper.

Afterwards, the Triad Boss could then finish Urameshi off with a sound-barrier-destroying Sonic Shockwave that should rip apart anything stuck within the eye of the twister.

However, before he could execute any of his plans, Yusuke had already grabbed hold of his blade in mid-swipe then pointed his cocked and loaded Rei-Gan in his face. "Five. Four..."

'This boy...' thought Xinhai in Mandarin. 'Just a few months ago, he had to demonize himself to overcome the Kugai curse. But now, without breaking a sweat, he's taking us all out! Did he...?'

Xinhai repeatedly punched Urameshi in the face with his metal prosthetic fist, but the most powerful noodle vendor in the world didn't even flinch from the strikes.

'Did he grow even stronger in such a short period of time? Or could it be that he has discovered how to harness his suffering like I did?'

"...One. Game over, man. Game over. CHOU REI...!"


A spear suddenly protruded out of Yusuke's chest, which made him gurgle and spew blood from his mouth. '...The hell?'

Usui, whom the teenager assumed he'd taken out with the Fakku Gan, had burrowed underground like a mole then stabbed him at the most opportune (or inopportune, as far as Yusuke was concerned) time.

The blindfolded spearman then boasted, "Just as nothing... not even your strongest Ray Gun... can penetrate my Tinbe shield, my Rochin spear can penetrate through anything!"

"I was almost worried for a second there. I thought the claims that you were S-Level were greatly exaggerated, taken from malfunctioning gauges," a smirking Xinhai told the blind swordsman.

Uonuma snorted. "I've faced the likes of Tenro and witnessed the power of the Chojin firsthand. It'd take more than fireworks from a child with a watered-down demonic bloodline to take me down!"

Just as Usui said those words, the stabbed Urameshi disappeared from their midst. All that was left of him was his blood all over the blind man's spear.

However, thanks to Uonuma's otherworldly senses and reflexes, he deflected the incoming barrage of fists from the bleeding Yusuke.

"Hmmm. You're right. Your shield is blocking my fists," observed the half-demon while increasing the intensity of his punches, amazed at how his mountain-disintegrating strikes were merely clanging an impotent clarion call on the Shin Ju's turtle shell defense.

The sneaky Xinhai backed a good distance away from the fight. "You should've aimed for his head or decapitated him. He's a demon. They have non-beating hearts."

"...Get back here, you coward!" screamed Uonuma, more upset with his comrade than with this teenaged enemy who was presently trying to punch his head off.

Every time Yusuke thought he had cracked Usui's Tinbe open, the shield would reconstitute itself and become even harder and denser than before, like how a broken bone would strengthen after healing.

Or how a katana that kept getting reheated and reforged with layer upon layer of steel became heavier and thicker.

"You're a tough nut to crack, aren't you?"

"You have no idea, kid."

However, whenever Uonuma attempted to counterattack by deflecting a fist and making an opening to strike, he'd hit nothing but air then he'd get bombarded by skull-crushing blows that forced him back into the defensive.

As much as he hated to admit it, the boy's demon blood wasn't as watered down as he believed. Or hoped.

It was then that Xinhai attacked in cadence with Urameshi's attacks, slashing his air-based Tobi Izuna and ground-based Matoi Izuna at the pair, forcing the teenager to go on the defensive himself because he got attacked on two fronts by a pair of S-Levels.

"Dammit, Xinhai! Hit him, not me!" complained Usui, who himself had to use his shield to block the vacuum slices headed his way as well.

Meanwhile, the trio of Karasu, Itsuki, and Rando started to rise from their slumber, which increased the pressure on Yusuke to finish Usui off before the rest of the Shin Ju ganged up on him.

Regardless, it was because of these mounting distractions that the spearman managed to stab Yusuke's foot into the ground to keep him from fleeing.

Usui then broke the tip of the Rochin and regrew a new Rochin with his Quest-Class manifestation powers so that he could finally split the trapped Yusuke's head open like a watermelon.

For good measure, Feng prepared to create a twister from the hot energy emanating from the two warriors as death insurance for Urameshi. Nevertheless, Xinhai's head ended up rolling on the pavement a second later.

"...Zhe shi shenme (What is this)...?" said the head of the Chinese man before espying a certain three-eyed fire demon before him.

"XINHAI! YOU BASTARD! How dare you die before I kill you!" a wide-awake Daiji shouted after his arch-nemesis, much to a bewildered Likka's further confusion.

Hiei then undid the bandages and chains on his right arm and blasted the three other Shin Juppon Gatana nuisances with the atomic heat of his Dragon of Darkness Flame before any of them could teleport, bomb, or do a variety of special techniques on the Reikai Senshi.

A carefree Yusuke then called out to Hiei, "It's about time you showed up, Shrimp!"

Hiei rolled his three eyes. "Hn. I was here the entire time. Before you arrived."

Urameshi nodded, the hole in his chest now just a gaping gash. "Yeah, yeah. I know. You had my back all the while. That's why I wasn't worried about going all out. I owe you one, Hiei."

The Jaganshi harrumphed some more.


Uonuma felt the presence of the fire demon before him. Even though he couldn't see him, he could sense his ki. Smell his scent. Taste the fire and brimstone his black aura produced.

"You're Hiei, aren't you? It's really you, JAGANSHI HIEI! GIMME YOUR JAGAN!"

In his excitement, the mustachioed zombie ended up missing Urameshi's head by a mile as the teenager dodged and weaved in place. Usui couldn't finish him off even at point black distance!

Yusuke then finally extracted his stabbed foot from the ground and threw the broken Rochin into the air. "So if your shield can't be penetrated by anything and your spear can penetrate anything, which one will win? The shield or the spear?"

Before Usui could answer, Yusuke answered for him. In action rather than mere words.

The hanyou fired the Chou Rei-Gan (Extra-Large Spirit Gun) he wasn't able to fire earlier right into the Rochin fragment. The Tinbe readily blocked the spear tip, which created a small scratch from the impact.

Both the Rochin and the Tinbe were made of the same solidified spirit material. With all things equal, the Rochin should've left only a scratch on the Tinbe; the irresistible force and the immovable object should've canceled their abilities out.

However, because a huge surge of energy pushed the Rochin into the Tinbe, the deadlock ended and the Tinbe shattered from the combined forces of the spear and the energy blast. Usui ended up losing an arm and a leg soon after.

In barely over a few minutes, Yusuke and Hiei had taken out half of the New Ten Swords. As expected of the duo who pushed two of the Three Kings to the brink of defeat in the Demon World Unification Tournament.


Inspired by how Yusuke and Hiei rescued them all like big damn heroes, Likka herself went off to rescue as many of the surviving people injured by the assault of the Shin Ju as possible.

Because as she was now, this was the best thing she could do. She didn't want to become the burden that led her loved ones to harm.

She was not going to be their liability.

So she ran back to where she came, to the pools of blood and giblets she couldn't stand to look at earlier, keeping her eyes peeled and wide open.

She eventually found the fleeing and lost people and did a bit of crowd control, rescuing whoever she could rescue while leading them away from the ensuing chaos between the Reikai Senshi and the Shin Juppon Gatana.

Some were stuck in rubble. Others were... worse off.

She steeled herself, humming one anime opening after another to the crying children she found in her midst. To calm both them and herself.

There were still about five more of the Shin Ju left, after all.


Yusuke blinked, yawned, and stretched.

"Is that it? Is it over? Are all the bad guys dead? If that's the case, then we should help the ninja chick rescue the townspeople."

His scars from the previous battle had healed up, the laceration in his chest in particular finally transforming into scar tissue.

"It's never that easy, Yusuke," said Hiei, his third eye wide open and looking for potential nearby threats. "We only took out five of them. Don't let your guard down."

"..." Detective Matsudaira had cloudiness in his already icy eyes as he stared at his wife's murderer's decapitated head.

Just like that, the man he'd been chasing after all this time was finally dead. However, he wasn't the one who killed him.

If Xinhai was dead, then what was he fighting for at this point?

However, the cynical ninja turned cop knew better than to believe things were that simple.

He put two-and-two together as soon as Xinhai's head dissipated into flames. "...Fire demon! I mean, Jaganshi Hiei! The man you killed is an imposter! His kagemusha (doppelganer)! The real Xinhai Feng is still...!"

Before Daiji could finish his sentence so that Hiei could shoot a glare at him for his impudence in addressing him so familiarly, a portal opened from below the diminutive youkai.

One of Itsuki's portals, to be precise.

"Hiei...!" Yusuke shouted after his disappearing comrade who fell into the dimensional rift. He himself then had to face ghouls in tattered robes coming after him.

Daiji also ended up fighting against these entities that surrounded them short sword to scythe, his flowing water movement the only thing saving him from being ganged up on.

He checked their power level on his Spirit Detector. Every one of them was Class-A, just like him.

Although he struggled to take on only one of the countless apparitions while dodging the rest, a neutral-faced Urameshi was having a free-for-all brawl against multiple specters at the same time.

None of them could even touch Yusuke as they buzzed around him like gigantic mosquitoes with scythes: This man who was even stronger than the One-Eight-Ten Killer himself.

"...Bravo, Urameshi Yusuke. Your reputation precedes you. You and your fire demon friend have taken out half of the Shin Juppon Gatana," a voice from above them said.

Standing atop the pile of rubble Yusuke created earlier was a man sporting a bowl haircut, a mink coat, a western three-piece suit, and a long scythe not unlike those wielded by the wraiths surrounding them.

"Who the hell are YOU?" demanded the half-demon before shooting a Shot Gun at the strange person's direction, only for the phantoms to go in front of the man and use their bodies to shield him from the rain of spiritual spitfire.

"Greetings and salutations. I am Sadojima Houji of the Dai Shin Kan. The Conduit of the Chojin's Power. I'm here to oversee the battle between the Shin Juppon Gatana and the Reikai Senshi as the Overfiend's representative."


Meanwhile, Hiei had fallen into the trap of Xinhai's three underlings.

He ended up teleported so high in the sky that he couldn't use his feet to launch himself at high speeds and defy gravity.

His Jagan opened in time to see the energy mines surrounding him like glowing balloons (the same ones Karasu used in the ending stanza of his death match against Kurama).

To compensate for the lack of ground to run through, Hiei spun himself like a top a la Kenshin in order to control the speed of his descent while maneuvering the rat maze full of "air" mines like an airplane doing a barrel roll.

However, his third eye spotted Rando from a distance, charging up his copycat Rei-Gan (or rather, You-Gan) aimed right at the aerial minefield. They weren't going to play "fair" at all.

A chain reaction of detonations then ensued after Karasu moved the mines close enough together to ensure a domino effect of explosions with Hiei in the middle of the conflagration.

However, the S-Level had gone through much tougher, much more death-defying fights against demons that were stronger than these A-Levels.

Hiei appeared before the trio of Karasu, Rando, and Itsuki soon after, the explosion he was supposed to be in serving as some sort of fiery sunset that cast the sky in a golden red light.

Strange. He could've sworn he disintegrated those resurrected zombies with the Jaou-En-Satsu Kokuryuha (Tyrant Immolation: Black Dragon Wave).

Why were they still alive? Was it because Itsuki's warp powers spirited them away in time?

No matter. He'd disintegrate them yet again if he had too.

He fired off another Dragon of Darkness Flame, with Rando attempting to stop it with his Shield of Sand and Armor of Sand to no avail, the heat turning his telekinetically controlled earth shield into glass and him into a glass statue.

Alas, when it was time for the Kokuryuha to vaporize the explosive Karasu, he burst forth with even more energy, seemingly absorbing the dark flames.

Then, when the S-Level energy proved too much for the crow demon to handle, Itsuki came to his defense by making his Reverse Man swallow the wayward black fire dragon into his pocket dimension.

Tsk. Hiei never realized how troublesome Itsuki and his dimension warp could be. It almost reminded him of Kuwabara's Dimension Sword or Mukuro's ability to slice through reality with her bare hands.


"Dai Shin Kan...?" repeated Yusuke before smashing the skull of another wraith with a casual punch. "So wait, you're not part of the Shin Ju?"

The bowl-cut businessman with the long death scythe shrugged. "According to Chojin-sama's predictions, a fight between the combined forces of the Reikai and his ten elite would result in an impasse. A deadlock. I'm here as his representative to tip the scales using his awesome godly might."

"How exactly can you do that?" Matsudaira asked the man whom he swore he'd met before. Was it déjà vu? Or perhaps a memory from his past life? Probably the latter.

"Let me show you the true power of the Chojin's jaki (negative energy), then."

The Onmyouji shut his eyes and chanted verses from a dead language, which made a glowing, almost holographic circle of runes emerge on his feet and rotate around him until it ended up in front of him.

Two beings appeared before him. One was the crystallized corpse of Rando, the other was a dying Usui who'd lost an arm and a leg battling against Yusuke earlier.

Using the jaki that suddenly emanated from Houji's body... the same black energy that surrounded the resurrected Saint Beasts, their leader Suzaku, and even living beings like the participants of Genkai's tournament... the conduit of the Overfiend's limitless power reconstructed the destroyed body of Usui and restored Rando to his living form.

"!?" was the unsaid interrobang exclamation of Daiji, who was so distracted he almost got sliced in half by one of the A-Level familiars of the Onmyouji.

"HEY! No fair, we just killed those guys!" screamed Yusuke before plowing through multiple shikigami with his scatter-shot blasts. "So you could also heal and revive your friends like a healer from an RPG? That's cheating! Infinite lives, no game over!"

Houji cackled. "I have no idea what you're talking about, child, but it's game over for you." Sadojima's smile went even wider. "Do you feel that? They're coming for you. The remaining five members of the Shin Ju."

'So that's how the Chojin recruited our enemies from past and present. Dead or alive. It's his Onmyouji that resurrected them and/or powered them up,' the detective realized.

A scuffed-up Daiji dodged multiple scythe attacks from the cloaked beasts, intending to make them finish each other off with their sharp blades, but every time they were sliced up by his own blades or their own blades, they quickly spawned back their amputated appendages.

Also, his deep wound was still bleeding, limiting his movement. 'Dammit. I'm being more of a hindrance than help to the kid, aren't I?'

Urameshi shot a glare at the distance, feeling the swirling, swelling dark energies from afar. His Spirit Detector beeping, alerting him of five incoming Class-A and Class-B signatures.

'B-Level? There are Shin Ju even weaker than Rando?' However, the readings from his wristwatch-like device belied the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach as he recognized three of those people by their presence.

Yusuke's senses tingled with either dread or anticipation as he felt the presence of five people. The huge, muscular person. The short, monkey-like one on the big guy's shoulder. A slender skull-masked man. A lithe, athletic man. And another tall, thin man with a huge sickle weapon tied to a rope.

Unbidden, the reiki inside Urameshi burst forth in reaction to the other auras, destroying one of the Jyu-Rei-Jyou: Shu no Go (Spirit Cuffs) that bound his energy from his swell of emotion without needing to deactivate them with the Jyu-Rei-Jyou: Ante (Spirit Cuffs Ante) command.

The shikigami spirits nearest Yusuke disintegrated immediately from his midst. Without the half-demon moving a muscle.

However, the rest flew away from him, avoiding the wildfire that was his aura altogether.

Daiji himself had had enough. While the wraiths were distracted with Urameshi's outburst of power, the copper went to work on himself.

Using his synthesis powers, Officer Matsudaira stitched his own wound with a surgical needle and thread then covered it up with bandages he also created from his spirit energy.

Gritting his teeth to endure the pain (and before Yusuke could fire off the energy surrounding him), the policeman stabbed the multiple shikigami by throwing an endless supply of kodachi, turning every inch of them into pincushions.

Detective Matsudaira then kicked, punched, and corralled the knife-ridden creatures right into the burning light surrounding the half-demon, using his kenpo to push the A-Level annoyances into the gigantic blue blaze.

"Whoa. Not bad, Detective Ossan (Old Man). As expected of one of Kenshin's allies," said the young half-demon. 'He was able to keep up and outsmart shikigami at the same power level as he is. Dayumn.'

A sweating Houji gulped after seeing his helpers eliminated in an instant. What was up with these people?!


With a snarl, Hiei diverted the Black Dragon Spirit technique from Itsuki's Uraotoko and absorbed it unto himself for the sake of increasing his speed, stamina, and power.

Or he would've done so had Karasu not intercept the fire dragon first while taking off his mask.

"I still remember what happened to Bui after you absorbed one of your flame dragons back in the Dark Tournament. It's a power up, isn't it? I won't let you do that, Hiei."

"..."

Even though the youki-enriched Kokuryuha almost overloaded his body to the point of premature detonation (or maybe because of it), the crow demon decided to take another shot at absorbing the dark flames of the Black Dragon Wave anyway, probably with the intention of doing a kamikaze attack on the fire demon soon after.

Meanwhile, the annoying Itsuki already has a warp portal in front of him to swallow up any ensuing blasts and shield him from harm.

It was then that the Jaganshi decided to kill two birds with one stone.

Before Karasu could fully absorb the Kokuryuha, he was stabbed in the stomach by Hiei's katana. They then disappeared both from Itsuki's midst, only to reappear from behind him.

The Forbidden Child of the Koorime (Ice Maidens) then used the same blade to also run Itsuki through along with Karasu, resulting in a Shin Ju shish-kebab of sorts.

Coughing up blood, Itsuki grimaced and smirked. "You really are something else, Jaganshi Hiei."

Finally, before Itsuki's portal to nowhere altogether dissipated because of its owner's injury, the fire youkai lifted them up by his sword then chucked them inside.

A muted explosion from Karasu soon followed inside Itsuki's landfill dimension as the portal closed to the size of a mouse hole.

Hiei then avoided a longsword slash that split the earth he stood on into a long cavernous trench.

"!"

It was Feng Xinhai. The man Hiei thought he had decapitated.

Actually, the fire demon realized he did behead the serial killer turned Triad Boss, judging by the blood spilled on his business suit and the long healing wound on his neck filled with muscle fibers and tendons that reconnected themselves like wriggling worms.

As though the One-Eight-Ten Killer somehow gained Toguro Ani's healing powers.

Wasting no time, the Jaganshi blasted the Lower S-Class nuisance with not one, not two, but three Dragons of Darkness Flame to ensure complete vaporization.

This only made Xinhai grin in anticipation.


"Dammit, we've gotten even more casualties, have we?" a preoccupied Houji mumbled to himself before materializing the ashes of Itsuki and the bits of pieces of an exploded Karasu in front of him. "Stop being embarrassments to the Chojin's name, Shin Ju!"

"You should stop resurrecting them like an asshole, ASSHOLE!" retorted Yusuke before disappearing again with his hard-to-detect speed that reminded both Daiji and Houji of... well, a certain ever-smiling boy from the original Ten Swords.

"Whu...?" was the only thing Sadojima could blurt out before he felt something he never imagined Urameshi would do.

Shove his fingers up his butt.

Yes, you read that right.

The hanyou did what was called kancho, a children's game or prank by school-aged Japanese kids that involved clasping their hands together so that the index fingers were pointing outward then inserting them into someone's anal region when the victim wasn't looking.

Yusuke truly was chaos incarnate. Even Matsudaira couldn't make heads or tails out of the young man's unpredictable actions, a huge dollop of sweat trickling down on the side of his face.

To think, the boy would do something so... childish to such a threatening foe.

"W-What the hell are you doing, you demonic hellspawn!?" demanded the teary-eyed, uptight, and mink-coat-wearing businessman, who had half the mind to slice Urameshi up with his scythe (but couldn't because of the... awkward position they were in).

Feeling like an underpaid teacher being harassed by a naughty school boy. What Yusuke told him afterwards belied that impression, though.

"It's you, isn't it? You and the Chojin. You're the ones who revived our enemies like it's the Night of the Living Dead, aren't you? You're the ones who are responsible for Keiko's...!"

Urameshi's harsh glare "softened" into something more... mischievous. A combination of sinister mirth. Sadistic glee. Both his index fingers still stuck in the crack of Sadojima's stinky behind.

"All righty, then. Whatever. That ship has sailed. It's now time to pay the piper, Mister Onmyouji."

"W-What are you planning to do? A-Also, get your stinking fingers off of th-that place already!" Houji the Onmyouji cried, almost begged, as he sweated bullets.

His rectum then started heating up. It was at that moment that the playful gesture ceased appearing so infantile and turned into something that was outright brutal.

"...KANCHO REI-GAN!"

It was one of the most fearsome versions of the Rei-Gan ever developed.

"REEEEEEEEEEEEE...!" Sadojima screeched like a little girl after realizing the world of hurt he was about to experience.


Feng called upon his flaming shikigami (made of purplish jaki flames reminiscent of the black Demon World fire of the Dragons of Darkness Flames) and crossed swords with it before slashing their swords in unison.

From there, the fire dragons were bombarded with multiple cross-shaped crescent vacuum waves of Tobi Izuna, creating a deep, persistently rotating updraft (supercell) that the fiery beasts swallowed whole.

Big mistake.

All of Hiei's three eyes then widened after the flames of his three Kokuryuha got swept up by a growing air current fed by the Makai flames that their serpentine bodies were composed of.

From there, the hoarse Xinhai growled words of thunder with his sonorous Chinese accent.

"TORNADO RIPPER!"

The Jaganshi attempted to counter the twister by summoning more Dragons of Darkness Flame that circumvented it in order to vaporize the Chinese mobster, but they too were swept up by cyclone, their flames turning it into a black fire tornado of sorts.

Soon, Hiei was (literally) caught in the eye of the storm.

What should've been at best an F2 or F3 tornado according to the Fujita Scale (by Tetsuya Fujita of the University of Chicago, not Goro Fujita the alter ego of Hajime Saito) turned into an F5 force of nature that even Jin the Wind Demon would've been proud of thanks to the fire demon's own powerful technique.

"Diu nia sing (Fucker). You're pretty strong, aren't you? Alas, I've used your strength against you."

Then, to add injury to insult, Xinhai tensed his muscles and delivered a supersonic Tobi Izuna right in the middle of the Tornado Ripper. The resulting sonic boom from the vacuum wave ripped through the sound barrier, creating a concussive force that blasted Hiei away for good measure.

Had it been an energy explosion instead of a kinetic one, Hiei would've survived by absorbing part of the firepower to heal himself. However, Feng knew better and blasted him with a blunt-force attack instead that caused internal and external damage by collision.


The conduit of the Chojin's negative karma would've been roasted inside out by the cruelest Rei-Gan ever invented had the fully healed blind swordsman Usui not saved his goose by nearly cutting the top half of Yusuke's head.

Urameshi ducked then back-flipped in time to move a good distance away from the two members of the original Juppon Gatana, his pointer fingers still emanating immense power. He then turned his Kancho Rei-Gan into a Dual Beretta Rei-Gan instead.

Usui moved in front of the trembling, pale Houji, his Tinbe shield at the ready. "We're now even, Houji. You save my life, I save yours. Now gimme more jaki so that I can teach Junior here a lesson in manners!"

"Y-YES! Of course! Anything for you, my hero!" said Sadojima to Uonuma as he clung to him, sending shivers up the blindfolded spearman's spine.

"Stop that! You're seriously creeping me out, Houji! Who do you think you are, Kamatari? Is that why you use scythes now? I don't swing that way!"

Nevertheless, Houji huddled behind Usui and his Tinbe that blocked the ensuing Rei-Gan shot with the impenetrability of an underground nuclear bunker.

However, in less than an eye blink, Yusuke somersaulted behind them and the Tinbe before firing a second shot at their exposed backs.

The blindfolded Usui chuckled before throwing his Rochin at the incoming reiki comet from behind, piercing right through it and detonating it while his Tinbe completely neutralized the resulting explosion into harmless heat and light.

Urameshi barely had time to dodge the spear, which took out a good chunk of his shoulder before piercing deep into the ground with possibly enough force to drill to the other side of the world.

Uonuma then spat out, "You got a lot to learn before you can beat me. Try again, kiddo. MWAHAHAHA!"

'That mustached blind man wasn't only revived by Houji. He also became even more powerful than before!' Yusuke concluded. 'That Houji guy is bad news!'

"Kill him! KILL HIM, Usui! That kid's too dangerous to be left alive!" Sadojma ordered the harrumphing Shin Ju, his butt clenching in remembrance. 'We might even need Tenro-sama to deal with him!'


To Be Continued...

And here we go. Also, happy 50th Chapter, Youtou Shinnoken/Demon Sword!

Ciao,
Abdiel