Demon Sword
A Yuyu Hakusho/Rurouni Kenshin Crossover Fan Fiction by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
I suspect this arc happened because I've been watching too much Detective Conan.
Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and St. Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and Sony. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.
Chapter 25: Smile Bomb (Part 7)
From behind a narrow alleyway hidden in shadows created by Kabukicho's neon lights, near Shinjuku's Skyscraper District...
"Xinhai started off as the reincarnation of a swordsman considered to be a complete joke during his own time; a whipped dog, if you will. He merely copied my style in his attempts to grow stronger, but in the end, because of his own depravity and desperation, he somehow became one of the strongest Shin Ju out there."
"S-Shinju? As in Shinjuku? What are you talking about? How do you know Xinhai Feng's name? What did you do to the real Hamada Takumi?" asked Natsuki.
For a cunning serial killer that had never been on the police's radar until a copycat of his exposed his techniques to the general public, the Kanji Killer was completely nuts.
"You have no idea who Xinhai Feng is and how powerful he has become. Even if I told you, it'd all sound gibberish to you. Shin Ju. Class-S. Jaki. The Chojin. None of these things will register in your brain at this point regardless of how intelligent you may appear."
"You're the reason why Xinhai has become so powerful. The very fact that you're trying to hunt him down for revenge is what gives him great strength. You share a dark bond with him. Your obsession, your cries for justice, and your never-ending trauma is what makes him strong, and even with that knowledge, you'll still pursue him, like sheep to the slaughter. What has Xinhai done to you make your hatred of him this strong?"
"SHUT UP!" The adrenalin coursing through Natsuki's damaged body assisted her in landing a sharp blow that tore apart the Kanji Killer's facemask and broke his shades. To her horror, her desperate actions revealed a man that perfectly fit the ridiculous description she heard earlier: He had flaming charcoal eyes, symmetrical teeth, a face-splitting grin, and a zombie-like complexion; a cross between the decaying corpses of a mime and a clown. "W-What are you?"
The Kanji Killer smiled a slightly crooked, bloody smile after he recovered from the blow. "Good hit. But you know what? The fact that Xinhai is using you and many others to produce the dark energy that the Chojin needs to build his army pisses me off. How about I do you a favor by killing you and destroying his main energy source?"
The unmistakable mention of the name of the man Natsuki tracked down from Taiwan to Tokyo compelled her to stand up and growl, "I don't know what your deal is, but I have no intention of dying here without confronting that man even once."
Alas, the shaky girl's valiant speech was drowned out by the incessant cackling of the Kanji Killer, the mere notion of cutting off Xinhai's main source of jaki exciting him enough to use the Shin no Ippo to the fullest. "In the distant past, I was called Kurogasa. You may call me Udo Jine, because that name means nothing in this era, and you yourself won't be seeing the next sunrise."
Again, Natsuki found herself paralyzed in the face of the Nikaido Heiho succession technique. Her dizziness, clammy skin, and compromised health doubled the One-Sided Heart's standard effectiveness and turned her into a flesh-and-blood statue. 'Dammit, no. I don't want to die yet. I won't let that man win. I will not die a victim.'
Just as Udo barreled towards Natsuki for the kill, his uchigatana raised above his head at the stationary girl, a sharpened, thorny stem of a single rose stalk pierced through his hand with the precision of an sniper. The black-eyed serial killer roared in indignation.
"Who's there?" Udo grumbled, his pupils dilating as soon as he took a gander at the redheaded vision of androgyny that was Shuichi Minamino. The undead murderer couldn't help but do a double-take at what he swore was the taller, more suave version of Battousai. Beside him was a leather-clad, tight-pants-wearing blue-haired girl with a baseball bat in one hand and a sheathed sword strapped to her belt. "Who are you people?"
"Would you believe, Tuxedo Mask?" was what Kurama was tempted to quip because of his rose-throwing, speech-giving shenanigans. However, he instead opted to answer, "I'm Kurama. This is Botan. We've come here in order to know more about the Chojin's M.O. in gathering jaki, Kanji Killer. What's your connection to that young girl you almost killed?"
"I see. You're one of the Spirit World's in-name-only Spirit Detectives! However, since you found me without my intentionally letting you do so, perhaps you're the exceptions to the rule." Jine wiped the side of his mouth, expecting spittle on his fingers but getting blood instead, which surprised him somewhat. Xinhai's little girl could really hit.
Speaking of Natsuki, she crawled right beside a nearby garbage bin as her attacker and two rescuers talked, her petite bosom heaving at the midnight air she could barely breathe. The new arrivals, for some reason, were speaking the same "language" and spitting out the same strange terms as Udo had. For all she knew, they were probably hitmen speaking in code about their jobs and their targets. 'What the hell is going on? Who are they? What's their relation with the Kanji Killer and Xinhai Feng?'
Kurama gave Natsuki brief sidelong glances while still keeping his eyes trained on the weapon-wielding maniac before him. Using his thieving prowess during his days as the Legendary Youko Kurama, he sneaked into the Shinjuku Police Station a couple of days ago to spy on the development of the Miki Kishida murder case, especially after finding out about Akio Oogata's demise while under the watch of one of Shinjuku's finest.
About one and a half to two weeks ago, he'd slipped special ground-elder weeds into the garden and potted plants of the Shinjuku Police Station in order to listen in on updates concerning the case. He'd essentially bugged the entire building while he investigated the Kanji Killer at the same time, which immediately alerted him that the resolution of the case was nearing fruition on that very day.
At any rate, Kurama turned towards Botan and whispered, "Ask Kenshin if this guy is the same Jine Udo from his past." In response, the angel of death grabbed hold of Kurama's sleeve, pushed him back gently, and fell into the standard kendo ready stance with her baseball bat by pure instinct. "I'm guessing that's a yes?"
"I didn't even ask Kenshin; apparently, Kaoru remembers him quite fine." Botan's voice shook at the sight of Udo even though she once upon a time faced down the Lord of the Underworld himself. 'Kaoru, what did this man do to you? I can smell your fear.'
At that moment, a slew of memories flooded inside the ferry-girl's head, including but not limited to flashes of Kenshin and Jine battling as well as a first-person perspective view of her... no, Kaoru... tied up near an abandoned altar of sorts.
"Botan, what's happening to you? Wake up!" a concerned Kurama shook the frozen shinigami awake, the redhead unaware of the issue concerning the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and its resulting effects on Botan's psyche after she ate it.
"Is that woman a Reikai Tantei too or a shinigami? I've always been curious what's it like to kill Death." Udo chuckled while licking his blade of the remnants of Natsuki's blood. "Do you even bleed? Will you go to hell? I want to know." With quickness that would've surprised even Hiei or a sufficiently angered Yusuke, a frothing Jine leapt at Botan, slicing through the baseball bat and the intuition-powered counterstrike from Kaoru's century-old muscle memory.
Udo would've sliced Botan in half (and perhaps Kaoru as well) had Kurama not produced a Rose Whip, lassoed it unto the serial killer's blade, and used the murderer's momentum against him with a judo-like, whiplash throw towards the nearby wall.
Instead of smacking face-first into bricks, Jine somersaulted in midair, landed on the wall with his feet, rebounded, used his renewed momentum to slice through the whip's thorny bindings, and swooped right at the redhead with both his blades drawn this time around.
Even though his weapon was cut apart by his opponent, Kurama decided to continue striking with the Rose Whip at the approaching Udo even though the Chojin's minion kept on dicing the plant-based whip apart with the brushstroke swipes of his twin blades, the kanji for "Hei" blinking over and over like a neon light at Roppongi thanks to the flashes of the whirling blades.
Just as Botan stumbled down the ground on her posterior, she realized something important. "Kurama! Remember to watch out for Jine's Shin no Ippo attack like Kenshin discussed earlier!"
Ironically, it was Udo who froze up and stopped dead on his tracks upon hearing Kenshin's name mentioned. "Battousai? Are you talking about the Hitokiri Battousai, you blue-haired wench?" Like a viper, he fidgeted to the side by reflex to avoid one last whiplash from Kurama's Rose Whip before rendering it harmless with a scissor cut from his wakizashi and uchigatana.
"N-No. I'm talking about some other Kenshin. Uesugi Kenshin, actually. We chat with legendary figures from age-old wars from time to time to talk about... stuff," was Botan's lame excuse for an excuse.
Like a deranged lemur, Jine ogled the sword Botan sported with ever-widening irises and barely any presence of the sclera or the white part of the human eye, chortling with disturbingly uniform teeth.
"That's the Demon Sword, isn't it? And you two are part of the detective team that directly answers to Koenma Daio! It's so nice to meet you at last! I'm guessing that idiot Rando failed his mission after all; I myself was too busy to get updated on the latest news on that failure of a Shin Ju. Get Battousai out here so that he can give me the sword duel that I deserve!" His right sword arm flared in remembrance of the night Battousai tore its tendons apart with the Twin Dragon Flash.
"H-He's busy right now. You have to call him back at a later time. Maybe if you give us more information about that Xinhai Feng person you were blabbering about and that girl you almost decapitated right now, then maybe he'd surface just for you!" Botan bluffed; on a somewhat related note, she was never particularly good at playing the western game of poker.
Taking advantage of Udo's sudden shift of focus, Kurama pulled out a blade of grass from his hair and turned it into a sword... the same Tsukeyaki Blade he used against Hiei when they first met... and struck at the former hitokiri's blind spot. However, Jine's own overexcitement proved to be beneficial, as evidenced by his offhand parry and flabbergasting combination attacks against the gobsmacked young adult.
"No. I know how the Youtou Shinnoken works. It reacts differently to every person who wields it. Your possession of it has turned Battousai into a dormant volcano of sorts. Maybe if you handed it to that redheaded boy, then I could perhaps confront a Battousai who's worth fighting against instead of a rurouni that doesn't want to kill!"
Jine sneered while he gradually ripped apart Kurama's shirt into ribbons; judging by Botan's flinch and slow retreat, his deduction hit more or less home. "You're no swordsman. That little girl I just pinned down is more of a swordsman than you are. If you want to beat me, use the Demon Sword."
Botan gripped the Youtou Shinnoken tightly, remembering that she herself insisted on bringing it along in order to help Kurama beat an enemy that Kenshin himself defeated long ago if worse came to worst.
Natsuki's eyes fluttered and blurred as she bore witness to the spectacle before her. From her estimations, the Kanji Killer outmatched the effeminate man in the swordsmanship department hands down, but the acrobatic flips and artful dodging of the redhead allowed him to stay in the game and keep the fight at a steady stalemate of sorts.
With a grunt and several gasps for air, she focused again on the match while trying to decipher what in the blue hell were these crazy people talking about. Their conversation sounded almost cartoonish in nature... something about using what she guessed was an ancient artifact of doom, with the redhead unwilling to do so while the stock villain goaded him to give in to the dark side or whatnot.
Natsuki nodded to herself with a begrudging pout. Now that she put the conversation in proper context, it all made sense... almost. If she were to think in terms of a fantasy world reminiscent of comic books or cartoons wherein a so-called "Spirit World" existed, then Udo's claim that her own angst was producing "jaki" that made Xinhai stronger to the point of attaining "S-Level" powers all added up.
Judging by how the girl with the crimson leather jacket and skintight pants referred to herself using two names, she clearly suffered from some sort of manic-depressive or schizophrenic issues. Nevertheless, these rogue fugitives from the mental ward probably had a spiritual explanation for that as well.
The fading Natsuki grabbed hold of her hair and nearly tore it from its roots as she desperately tried keeping the nightmares... her real nightmares... at bay. His hands. His breath. His sweaty body. The endless nights that killed her will to live over and over again.
If what Jine told her about Xinhai Feng and jaki were true, then her entire quest for revenge would have been all for naught, because there was no way in hell she'd ever forgive that man regardless of how much more powerful her hatred made him.
"Kurama! Watch out for the Shin no Ippo! You must concentrate hard in order to overcome his kenki from freezing you!" the baseball-wielding woman with the dyed hair reminded, to which Kurama responded, "Don't worry, Botan. I have it under control. Remember Gama."
'Ugh. They lost me again. What are they talking about now?' Natsuki pouted as the temptation to stand up and show Kurama how to dispatch Udo rose, but she stopped short of doing so as soon as she saw Jine's eyes sparkle in tears and blood. Just as the serial murderer swept his twin blades in crisscrossing calligraphic arcs at the stationary Kurama, the red-haired young man whipped his hair back and forth. Like magic, a verdant strand of rope materialized into existence and sliced the swordsman apart limb from bloody limb.
"DAMN YOU! Y-You can still attack even without m-moving your... BLARGH!" The Kanji Killer's bleeding eyes rolled up until only the previously unseen eye whites were visible, his own body parts flying around him in a sticky mass of torn flesh and bodily fluids.
'This is insane! Where'd that rope thing come from? Oh wait... it's the same Rose Whip that the Kanji Killer ripped apart earlier! Come to think of it, how is that guy able to make whips, roses, flower petals, and swords appear out of thin air anyway? Is he a magician or something?'
Natsuki also supposed that she should've been more shocked with the violence and gore happening before her than the supposed bottomless pockets of Kurama's attire. If she were someone else, perhaps that would've been the case. The darkness crept further into her vision, the continuing gush from her stab wound cutting her contemplations short.
In the background, Natsuki heard the blue-haired girl in tight clothing shout something about a Black Martial Arts Tournament and gamma rays or whatever while cheering for Kurama's triumph; in other words, more nonsense. 'I'm blacking out. Well, at least the Kanji Killer is dead. Who is this Kurama person...?'
Her half-delirious thoughts ended after seeing the impossible happen, with Kurama probably possessing the same gaping-mouth, bulging-eyed expression she had when the Kanji Killer stabbed her earlier. 'Oh no. No. This can't be happening! What sort of nightmare am I in? Who is this man? Nothing makes sense any...'
Natsuki's mind went blank after witnessing something that couldn't be explained away by magic tricks and science as she knew them.
Kurama had already finished Udo off before he could become a real threat; so why were his nerves on edge, then? Maybe his earlier experiences with both the resilient Genbu of the Shisejyu and the determined Gama of the Masho Tsukai Team had taught him never underestimate those higher level demons who'd fallen victim to his Rose Whip.
Two thoughts immediately sprung into Kurama's mind: He needed to get far away from whatever was left of Jine, and he should move in front of Botan and the Youtou Shinnoken in order to shield them from the supposed Kanji Killer in case he was still alive.
Kurama commenced his self-taught breathing and concentration exercises in order to release his body from the binds of the Shin no Ippo; he could've freed himself at any time, truth be told, but tying his Rose Whip unto his hair and using it as a surprise whiplash attack proved to be the best course of action. 'I shouldn't panic. I shouldn't be desperate. Logic is panic's prey.'
He could only draw back so far because of the narrow alleyway, but he had a destination in mind. In case Udo pulled the same stunt Toguro Ani did against Kuwabara during the Dark Martial Arts Tournament... namely, creating a fake duplicate while his real self attacked from behind... he moved beside Botan, made another Rose Whip, and kept a close eye on the fainted teenage girl right beside the garbage bin.
"K-Kurama! What are you doing here?" a fidgeting, moist-eyed Botan exclaimed as she firmly gripped the Demon Sword without a second thought. "D-Do you want to use the Youtou Shinnoken now?"
"N-No." To Kurama's surprise, his voice cracked. "Hopefully, never. I'm only here to protect you and the sword. Stand behind me. Jine will either be after that girl or Kenshin, so I at least have a good idea on what his next move will be."
In an eye blink, while the half-formed, fetus-like abomination that was Udo waddled towards Kurama like a mucus-covered, one-legged zombie, a streak of hot lightning coursed through the redhead's spine and turned his legs into wobbling and buckling strands of spaghetti. The world spun, and as his body lost balance and floated in midair for a fraction of a second, he didn't know where he was or what had happened.
His back flared with the electrifying sting of cold metal. Rivulets of clear and red fluids flowed through him. He choked on his own spit, which left a stinging, congested feeling at the roof of his mouth. In one gasp, his lungs collapsed, the air escaping through his lips with a hiss and his body crumpling to an unsteady crouch as a result. However, before him, the quasi-formed Kanji Killer continued to squirm.
What was going on?
Who hit him? What hit him? Was it a puppet-like doppelganger of Jine, which was what Toguro Ani used against Kuwabara in their fight in the Ankoku Bujutsukai? He fell with a shuddering thud. Whoever it was that attacked him, he'd soon enough know, at any rate.
Afterwards, from behind him... or rather, above him, as he lay on the gritty ground... the visage of Botan with saucer eyes, dilated pupils, and a face-splitting grin greeted him. In her hands was an unsheathed and bloodied Demon Sword, its tip filled with what Kurama presumed was his blood. He felt his face slacken and his body stiffen without the assistance of Udo's One-Sided Heart binding technique.
"Pathetic. You are not my equal. You're nothing but a second-rate, trying-hard Battousai copycat. Now get out of my face and let me fight with the true Battousai!" Botan told him in a dissonant, baritone voice that was at odds with her round, innocent face.
The next thing Kurama knew, he heard a scream assail his ears. In place of the lump of tumor-like protoplasm that appeared to be a parody of Jine stood a shaking and tearful Botan, her skin as white as rice paste.
'But Botan was supposed to be behind me and Udo in front! I don't know what to believe!'
Too many things happened at once, so Kurama's concentration remained jeopardized. However, he could distinctly read Botan lips as she said, "What the hell were you thinking? Why did you turn your back on Jine?"
For a second, there were two Botans sandwiching Kurama, but by his next eye blink, he espied a healthy although somewhat frayed Udo towering over him while the other Botan continued to cry out for him to get away from there.
Botan screeched her artificial body's lungs out until her throat became raw. She still had barely an idea why Kurama decided to expose his back on the barely formed mound he reduced Jine to, or why he looked so surprised when the Kanji Killer predictably stabbed him. What was he thinking?
From outside Botan's line of sight, a shuffle of movement occurred, and by the time she focused on Udo, he'd vanished into thin air. She kept herself from yelping, backpedaling to the opposite wall in order to avoid any surprise attacks from behind. She could hear herself breathe. She touched her face, surprised at how wet it was. Her sweat felt cold to the touch, and so was her clammy skin. She eventually made sense of the cacophony of noises and broken sentences inside her head.
'Let's think about this logically,' the disembodied Kenshin telepathically relayed after recovering from his own surprise. 'When Rando became part of the Chojin's army, he was able to use powered-up versions of his techniques. The same can be said for the rest of the Shisejyu. It doesn't make sense that Jine became a regenerator after being resurrected. What actually happened was...'
Memories of Kenshin's hesitation to completely immerse himself with his Battousai self replayed themselves in Botan's mind, and they incidentally came from two separate time periods as well: A couple of weeks ago and a hundred years past. The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge worked its magic, unlocking the exact reason why Kaoru didn't want Battousai to take over Kenshin's soul.
'Hypnotism,' the Kaoru from the back of Botan's mind supplied, which compelled the ferry-girl to buckle her knees in remembrance of Udo's use of the Shin no Ippo on the kendo master to the point of complete asphyxiation. 'It's got to have something to do with hypnotism! Jine hypnotized us into thinking that Kurama beat him. Before, his hypnotism only freezes people, but now, it's strong enough to create illusions! Just trust me on this, Botan! We don't have much time!'
Reminiscences of Battousai exchanging sword strikes against the taller and more bloodthirsty Udo flickered into the shinigami's consciousness. Every last strike left Kenshin less and less human; even though his drive to protect Kaoru pushed him forward, he lacked the morals to give his good intentions meaning and purpose without the burden of hypocrisy.
Kenshin wasn't as corrupted or insane as Jine was when he fought as Battousai, but Botan knew by instinct that if he were to go off the proverbial deep end, something would break inside of him that could never be mended. After her initial puzzlement, the blue-haired lady at last understood why Kaoru didn't want Kenshin to permanently become Battousai.
In any case, as Kaoru warned, Udo's attention turned towards the leather-clad angel of death, specifically the special Reikai artifact she hugged close to her chest. "How does that Demon Sword work? Do you have to rub it until a genie pops out? Or perhaps I should pop you open like a champagne bottle instead?"
'If he's using hypnotism, how can I tell that what's happening is real or not? How can I tell that he isn't using his powers right now?'
Botan only had a moment to decide. Blanketed by the Kanji Killer's shadow as he approached her, her hand trembled while it hovered at the tip of the Youtou Shinnoken's handle, her heart throbbing and her head pounding after every heartbeat.
She unsheathed the magical Reikai artifact, her pony-tailed blue hair changing into a darker hue, her lithe form becoming more muscular, her tight clothes transforming into kendo gear, and her pink eyes burning with azure resolve.
"You." Jine hesitated for a moment, recognition apparent in his eyes as Botan used the Demon Sword to turn into Kaoru Kamiya. How could he forget that face? His last hours as a human being were forever burned into his consciousness. "You," he repeated with a snarl, moving away from the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu master's sword arm and feinting a back-pass strike with the intention of luring her into an opening.
A couple of things happened there consecutively, such that none of the involved combatants... Kurama, Kaoru (or Botan), and Udo... were able to predict the outcome of or even discern what happened during the skirmish.
Firstly, Kurama hurled his hair-tying Rose Whip at the Kanji Killer as the latter placed his uchigatana from behind him and switched it between hands, the whip's jagged edges nearly tearing through the uniformed murderer's skin.
Secondly, because she had "front row seats" during the mad warrior's fight against Kenshin, Kaoru was able to anticipate Jine's intentions, diving away from the wakizashi stab and striking at the Kanji Killer's ribs.
Thirdly, Udo had enough presence of mind to use his Shin no Ippo at the transformed Botan before she could strike further. He then kicked the ferry-girl away while throwing his short sword at Kurama from behind him.
It was at that juncture that the very thing that Jine had been aiming for happened. A streak of red lightning appeared before Kurama while the Kanji Killer himself tumbled back. Meanwhile, Botan found herself transformed back to her former self, he hair flying from the blast of wind created by the fiery blur before them.
The rainbow of afterimages eventually faded from everyone's eyesight, revealing the form of the red-haired, purple-eyed, kimono-clad former hitokiri from ages past.
"Kenshin!" Botan and Kurama chorused while Udo's jaw seemingly unhinged itself from its sockets as his cackle reverberated across the Skyscraper District's tight passageway.
Kurama gulped, his emerald eyes dilated and shaking at the awesome sight of Kenshin Himura's fighting prowess.
The wakizashi shattered like glass upon meeting the supersonic impact of the Demon Sword. Kenshin summoned enough inner strength to "steal" the artifact from Botan's (or Kaoru's) grip and unleash a textbook-perfect battoujutsu strike at the short sword before it could hit Kurama.
In one move, Himura was able to accomplish a variety of objectives: Save Kaoru (and Botan) from certain doom, keep that blade from killing Kurama, and halt the enemy's momentum. Even he, the ever-humble former vagabond, would've patted himself on the back for his deed.
He met eyes with Kurama, hoping that his message of, 'I can't hold on forever; remember that I can only keep this physical form up for an hour at most because I haven't recovered from my fight back in Genkai-dono's abode,' was loud and clear.
"At last! I've been waiting for this moment, Battousai! Every second, every minute, and every hour since I was reborn, I've counted till our inevitable showdown! Even in hell, I waited for you, or at least that part of you that actually mattered to me! It's fate! It's destiny! Our rubber match has been a century or so in the making, and it's about to start NOW!"
Jine hooted and hollered as he got up from his forced lotus position and circled around Kenshin with his unbroken sword drawn. Meanwhile, Kenshin slid his Youtou Shinnoken back into its trusty scabbard in preparation for another sword-drawing strike. "I can honestly say I wasn't at all looking forward to seeing you again, Kurogasa."
"I go by a different name now, but it doesn't matter. You can call me by any of my different names, yet I'd still be me," Udo chattered, licking Kurama's blood off of his blade. "The last time we fought, you chose to be a rurouni. Will you make the same mistake twice?"
The fact that Jine was capable of projecting illusions with his mind kept Kenshin wary of his foe's every muscle twitch and movement. He also remembered Rando using that same skill to escape certain doom from Yusuke's Spirit Gun... something even Yusuke wasn't aware of... but he was uncertain how much more powerful Udo's mirages were when compared to Rando's. 'For all I know, he could've stabbed me by now.'
Kenshin had one other option, though; strike so fast that Jine didn't have enough time to cook up an elaborate dream to lull him into dropping his guard down. And so he did.
Ducking below the behind-the-back, hand-switch strike that injured him many decades' past and jumping back to give himself more space and leverage, Kenshin exploded with an ear-piercing, eyestrain-inducing, and heart-stopping battoujutsu slash right into Udo's exposed limb, hoping against hope that he wasn't being hypnotized into injuring Kurama, Botan, or the mysterious girl Jine attempted to kill just then thanks to the serial killer's new powers.
He got his wish in regards to Udo not using hypnotism to escape his weapon's wrath. Just like with their previous fight, the Kanji Killer backed away from Kenshin in order to avoid the initial strike and deliver his counterstrike. Thanks to the double-hit nature of the Double Dragon Flash, the Demon Sword's guardian followed through the perceived opening with a mighty blow from his scabbard.
Unfortunately for the redhead, the ex-hitokiri and ex-shinsengumi member countered the counter with his own scabbard, which left Kenshin open for the diagonal slashes of the "Hachi" kanji. "Weren't you even listening? I've replayed our fateful battle in my mind a million times before. I now know the meaning behind your name 'Battousai', and I've long ago developed a counter for your Sou Ryu Sen."
Nostrils flaring and teeth gritted, Jine invaded Kenshin's personal space and locked gazes with the unflappable spirit guardian, his eyes probing every muscle and pore of his quarry's face. "Is this all you've got?"
Dodging away from the Dragon Hammer Flash, the Kanji Killer released a flurry of precise strikes at Kenshin, only to see them all get deflected by the Dragon Nest Flash and an unnamed baton-whirl technique that served as the red-haired assassin's umbrella of sorts to weather the metallic firestorm of sparks and chipped steel.
Several times, Kenshin broke through Jine's tight offensive. However, the swordsman who wouldn't kill kept flipping his blade, intending to incapacitate his enemy instead of finish him off. 'For Kaoru's sake... For Tomoe's sake...'
Botan grabbed hold of her chest, feeling a trembling tightness that reached to her extremities. She choked in anticipation and dread. There were a lot of things she wanted to do, but too many events were occurring simultaneously for her to focus on just any one matter.
'The Fruit of Knowledge.'
She then remembered that she still had the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge along with her; a souvenir from her trip to the World of the Dead. It helped Keiko remember her recently erased memories, and it might or might not have caused Kaoru to enter Botan's mind (unless Kaoru existed more because of the Demon Sword than because of the magic, soothsaying fruit. She was still unsure of that issue).
As chaos reigned supreme in Udo's back-and-forth fight against Kurama and Kenshin, Botan chanced upon the fruit, wondering, 'What if this magic doohickey can help us expose Jine's illusions while they're happening? Maybe that's all we need to do in order to win this battle!'
There were several problems with that idea, though... namely, her. Or rather, the idea of her remembering whatever she did before she purged her memories and past identity made her... 'Well, for starters, speechless.'
From what she'd gathered from the world's folktales and legends, amnesiacs usually yearned for their lost memories. No story she'd ever read, listened to, or watched featured people actively trying to avoid recalling their past lives.
She had few memories of her time in the Elysian Fields, particularly of people from all walks of Buddhist life. Men. Women. Children. Teenagers. Students. Businessmen. Secretaries. Entertainers. Pop stars. Murderers. Monks. Yakuza. Geisha. Prostitutes. Suicide victims. Everyone and anyone who had a load to bear. They came there for the same reason one went to a bar: to forget. That was the whole point of that place, in fact.
Every time she recalled those sob stories, her soul died a little. After all, her happy facade despite her job as the grim reaper was mainly born of the idea of having hope against hope. The tortured spirits who eventually ended up in purgatory had their sins, guilt, past mistakes, regret, and wasted potential as their crosses to bear.
Meeting suicide victims in purgatory was par for the course. She even heard that Aokigahara, Japan's most popular forest for suicides, had a dimensional portal leading straight to purgatory exactly because of its sea of bad karma.
She met a boy who committed suicide after seeing her sister starve to death before his eyes during the Second World War. He went there, burdened by guilt, unable to find his sister's soul because it had immediately passed on for reincarnation without the encumbrance of regret.
She met a man who was part of the vigilante group formed from xenophobic paranoia against Koreans after the Great Kanto Earthquake, which led to his betrayal of his Korean best friend and the latter's family. This was something he never forgave himself for in his later years.
She met a hibakusha as well. Even in her spirit form, the symptoms of radiation sickness remained. Only after she was... purged did the psychosomatic remnants of her lifelong disease go away.
She'd rather not talk about the rape victims. It somewhat disturbed her how detached they were coming in, and how carefree they were going out, as though they were lobotomized of both their suffering and their identities in one fell swoop.
Botan was one of those poor unfortunate souls and she had no intention of opening the can of worms that was her past life; let sleeping dogs lie and all that. Nevertheless, she pondered: Did she suffer the same reluctance when eating the amnesia-inducing lotus blossoms?
When it came to steel versus steel, Kenshin's new sword proved itself far more durable than the Black Hat's slightly chipped uchigatana. However, when it came to swordsman versus swordsman, the reverse was instead true. Predictably, the Battousai faker had led Jine away from the rest of his prey in a bid of heroic, self-sacrificing bullshit.
This wasn't enough.
"Damn you, you weren't this weak before! Fight me! Are you mocking me? Do you take me for a fool? The Battousai I knew wasn't this much of a fool!"
Udo's swings turned ragged as he searched and probed Kenshin for any sign of the man who soundly defeated him once upon a time, which filled the concrete floor around them with ruts and grooves. Alas, all he found was a shadow of the Battousai's former self, doing nothing more than circle around him like a wasp and block his offensive in order to protect the lives of three other weaklings.
This wasn't the man that defeated him. Why was he being such a major disappointment? Was this truly the strength of the person who conquered three of the Chojin's pawns? Then again, that wasn't the whole story.
"I hate seeing you like this, you fucking bastard. Show me the true limits of your strength," Udo growled, grinding his disturbingly well-proportioned teeth to the point of him feeling bits of dental grit on his tongue. He didn't even need to use his newest skill, the Evil Eye, to finish off this version of Kenshin.
Jine heard something stir from behind him, but he gave it no heed, his body trembling wit a burning fire he himself couldn't comprehend. His normally sallow face acquired a burgundy hue that made him look like a gaunt version of Enma Daio. He pressed on, taking advantage of Kenshin's slowing reflexes and shortened stamina while his mind weighed in on his options.
"Dammit, Battousai! What is wrong with you? Why are you being such a huge letdown? I expected more from you! You were supposed to be the best of us hitokiri! The conqueror of the Shinsengumi! The herald of the new age! Why must you fill this fight with lies?"
Kenshin flinched as his body sputtered from the offensive, his breath turning into gasps, his corporeal body drenched in the ghostly equivalent of perspiration. His recent exertion proved too much for his temporary form to handle.
Jine harrumphed. The fool couldn't even last against him after a mere couple of minutes! Where was the renowned stamina that allowed the effeminate redheaded bitch to survive against a gauntlet of Juppon Gatana, the Okashira of the Oniwabanshu, and the monstrous Makoto Shishio? Was this the same demon-slaying shinigami that nearly finished him off the first time he crawled out of hell in order to take hold of the legendary Demon Sword?
"You don't understand a thing. I'm fighting as my true self. To fight as Battousai would be the lie."
The wild-eyed Udo looked over the gasping Kenshin's shoulder to see the woman who kept him from fighting the true Battousai hold up some sort of circular object in her hand. 'It's her fault. She's serving as the sheath that's keeping the Battousai's sharp blade from surfacing. Once I destroy that sheath, the blade will finally be exposed.'
"If being a hitokiri is the lie and your vagabond self is the truth, then I would rather have the lie. If it's the mask that I should go after, then I will force you to become the mask... a mask that has been welded onto your face and bolted down to your bones! Battousai! WAKE UP! BECOME THE MANSLAYER ONCE MORE!"
Kenshin looked down on himself; like a typical oriental ghost, his feet weren't visible anymore. 'Not yet. I can't fade away just yet. I have to hold on for a little while longer for everyone's sake. I won't give up until every last wisp of my being is gone!'
Jine leapt over the shell of his former conqueror, his sword at the ready as he dive-bombed the girl with two faces, hoping against hope that the anger resulting from her death would at long last awaken the Hitokiri Battousai, or even the elusive Youkiri Battousai.
Meanwhile, something stirred inside the redhead after hearing those words, but unfortunately for Udo, it was the wrong redhead.
"What is wrong with you? Why are you being such a huge disappointment? I expected more from you! Why must you fill this fight with lies?"
Those were the words that jolted Kurama awake from his shock at seeing two individuals flit around the narrow alleyway like the larger versions of flies or hummingbirds, overcoming the cumbersome limitations of physics, gravity, and their body weight in order to fly.
In the background, Kurama heard Jine declare, "No wonder Shishio Makoto was able to kill you! The Battousai I knew... the one who crippled me and forced me to kill myself in dishonor... wasn't there to fight your final battle! Your death match was instead fought by a vagabond who doesn't want to kill!"
"I don't know how you knew about my fight with Shishio, but Battousai is nothing more than a mask. The desire to protect those around me was the one constant in my life! That's why I embraced the vagabond in me as my true self; he alone understands what pushed me to become a hitokiri in the first place!"
Kurama was different from Kenshin. He wasn't a human pretending to be a youko in order to become stronger. He was a youko pretending to be a human in order to survive. His human self was the mask. His human self was the lie.
Kurama looked up after staring at his trembling hands in time to see Kenshin stumble all over himself to get the Kanji Killer away from the rest of them. The half-youko gulped as he considered his options.
These were two swordsmen with Hiei-like speed. For the longest time (although the fight had so far lasted only a couple of minutes), he felt helpless against the two warriors, to the point of them becoming untouchables in the literal sense and him turning into an inconsequential insect.
At any rate, even though those probing words of Kurogasa weren't meant for his ears, it compelled him enough to wave his whip as the Kanji Killer made a second attempt at Botan's "life", scourging the scoundrel with a barrage of whiplashes.
Emboldened by Kurama's assistance, Kenshin launched a counteroffensive in between the gaps and loops of the continuous Rose Whip strikes, which turned them into a whirling dervish of silver and green with little to no openings for counterattacks. For once, Jine went on the defensive. As this happened, Kurama's mind started to wander again.
Before his allies started affixing "Youko" to his original name "Kurama" once his true form appeared in the semifinals of the Ankoku Bujutsukai, the tall, svelte, and white-haired fox demon was merely known as "Kurama", and for thousands of years since the Heian Period of Japan in the tenth century BC, uttering that name to any demon would elicit the same impact as the names "Alexander the Great", "Genghis Khan", "Napoleon Bonaparte", and "Adolf Hitler" would to any human nowadays; a legendary figure surrounded in myth and legend as well as historical fact.
The deadly accurate Udo avoided further scourging by slashing apart Kurama's second Rose Whip by the gaps between the thorns, so the tide of victory again turned for the by-now translucent Kenshin. The half-demon had already used his "Gama Gambit" against Jine, and his earlier ploy wherein he hit the serial killer with his single-stemmed rose hadn't come to fruition yet for some reason. What should he do now?
Youko Kurama's legacy had been nipped at the bud a good eighteen and a half years back by some entity sent by the Spirit World to take him down, but the true hindrances to the realization of his true potential had haunted him decades earlier: His blind former disciple that managed to come back even more powerful than he ever was, a god of war held back by his heart's own limitations, and a hate-filled and genderless creature whose fury offered it immeasurable strength.
'I don't want to be the youko any longer. I've decided to become human.' Contrary to his expectations, no separate vision of a silver-haired humanoid fox filled his vision. He himself provided the rebuttal to his own remark: 'A wolf in sheep's clothing will always remain a wolf. The same could be said of a fox. You can never become the mask you're wearing, no matter how hard you try.'
Who was he, then?
Kenshin went into the defensive after the Rose Whip was shredded to bits, attempting to take advantage of Udo's overzealous aggressiveness with counterstrikes from the Ryu Kan Sen and the Ryu Sho Sen. Then again, like with his fight with Hajime Saito, Jine proved himself to be tireless and unfazed by his weakening strikes, which was to be expected out of a former Shinsengumi member.
Kurama blearily noted that he was Kurama; nothing more, nothing less. The disembodied voice in his head insisted that this wasn't the case... that his dream where he combined his two selves together was the lie, and that he should stop lying to himself in regards to who he truly was.
However, he soon realized that there was no disembodied voice. There was no separate entity of Youko Kurama living inside him. The voice he heard was his own voice; a growl of a fox attempting to bleat.
Was he Youko Kurama? Or was he Shuichi Minamino? Had his lie become so ingrained in his being that once he noticed his fangs, his claws, and his ears, he panicked and covered himself up with his sheep's clothing even further?
He couldn't trust himself with the sword. His despicable self lurked right at the surface of his borrowed skin, maintaining a happy facade while he still got what he wanted.
'Like Udo, I want to choose the lie as my truth. Like Kenshin, I will use that lie to attain my truth. My unchangeable truth is that I'm Kurama, a demon who has found something more important to him than power and riches, and I'm willing to lie to myself a little longer to keep those treasures.'
The fragments of the two torn Rose Whips on the alleyway floor began growing into little green tendrils in reaction to the swell of youki from Kurama's body just as Jine had Kenshin cornered.
'Nevertheless, I am still Kurama. I cannot deny myself who I am either. I can only howl at my own reflection for so long before recognizing who it really is. A fox will always be a fox. My folly over denying who or what I am can only last so long. But at the very least, my pride as a youko will not let me depend on some Reikai Artifact to win my battles for me.'
The torn plant fibers looped and intertwined themselves the same way that Udo's earlier illusion of him regenerating did with his muscle sinews and cell tissues. Soon enough, a whole rose garden filled with vine-like tendrils swallowed Jine whole before he could finish off the literally fading Kenshin.
As the fight raged on around her, Botan remembered Kurama's sudden transformation into Youko Kurama back inside Reikai's Hall of Judgment about a week ago. She recalled everything about the silver fox she saw back then. His glee. His anger. His laughter as picked up the hapless Koenma Daio and dug his claws into the toddler god's neck, the Demon Sword glowing with a pulsating golden fire that threatened to tear the entire building apart.
She didn't know what to think at the time. Even until now, she didn't know how to react.
She remembered it because of the active part she played to stop it. Or rather, the active part Kaoru Kamiya played to keep both Kurama and Kenshin from losing themselves to their dark sides.
At the time, it was the Kaoru inside her who stopped the Kenshin inside Kurama from becoming consumed by their combined, god-like powers while the rest of the Boueitai and Koenma himself stood back in awe of what was happening. They really put on a show back then.
Botan held her lips with her fingers as she kept herself from smiling. 'Was it Kurama or Kenshin that I... well, we...?' Botan couldn't help but ask her head's tenant, her cheeks burning pink.
'W-W-We don't have time to think of such things, Botan! Focus!' Kaoru admonished; were she in corporeal form, she would've turned the other cheek, raised her nose up in the air, and walked away in petty indignation.
Kaoru was right, though; there was one important issue that was at the forefront of Botan's mind. Had Udo lacked the power of hypnosis and hallucinations, this mission would've been over with any number of times earlier on by either Kenshin's or Kurama's hands.
Granted, she also wished that Kaoru wasn't so adamant about having the ex-hitokiri fulfill his non-killing vows when the opportunity arose, but there was little she could do about that too. Also, they were supposed to investigate where the Chojin got all of that jaki anyway, so killing Jine outright might've been a bad idea.
At the time being, they had no other choice but to fight and/or survive against Jine and his insistence in... What? Giving his opponents leeway so that his fight would last a little longer? Offering his enemies a fighting chance to finish him off until the very last minute, where he cheats with his hypnotic stare anyway? Nothing that the fence-toothed cuckoo swordsman had said or done made any sense to her anyway.
The fact of the matter was, she, Kurama, and Kenshin (or maybe Kaoru too) needed to find a way to counter that hypnosis nonsense before Udo gained enough common sense in his logic-bereft mind to use that skill of his to slit their throats while daydreaming or something.
She needed to think out of the box, which was fortunately a talent of hers.
For some reason unfathomable to Jine, the plant-using teenager lashed out at him with extreme prejudice by somehow gathering enough demonic energy to summon a sentient rose bush to tear him apart with shrapnel-sharp flower petals and jagged-edged vines. Why was he so angry? Who was this exasperating, green-eyed, red-haired Reikai lackey anyway?
The entangled Kanji Killer glared at the green-thumbed human with a strange aura of demonic energy. How dare this interloper sabotage his attempts at making Kenshin give him the fight he'd been longing for since more than a century ago! Kurama couldn't even fight man-to-man, instead opting to depend on his plants to do his bidding! Udo hated cowards like that.
Scourged from mere contact with the semi-sentient plant beast, Udo swung his arms freely and whacked off every last fiber and thorn of the rose bush before it sheared his skin off of his bones, the tough coils requiring innumerable strikes before they gave ground. A couple of minutes later, and it looked like early fall within the confines of the Shinjuku alleyway.
Afterwards, as Kurama collapsed to his knees in a trembling, pallid heap while his skin bore the same gray complexion as Jine had, Kurogasa turned his head just in time to see a familiar red blur head towards him.
"Sou Ryu Sen..." Kenshin said as he prepared to draw his sword out once more.
"I told you, that's not going to...!" Jine again prepared to jump back and counter the double-hitting technique with his scabbard when a golden-eyed, lion-haired Battousai struck with his sheath instead of his drawn sword.
"IKAZUCHI!" The force of the sheath-based strike forced Udo to crumple into a ball, his body bursting with a fine mist of sweat and blood. Nonetheless, just as the patriot assassin with amber eyes unsheathed his sword to deliver a decapitating blow, he stopped and opted to lacerate the Kanji Killer apart with a Ryu Sou Sen instead.
In the corner of Jine's eye, he saw the shinigami trollop transform into the raven-haired kendo master once more, shouting out for Kenshin to stop short from delivering the fatal slash. 'It's her. She's the one who possesses the Demon Sword right now. The girl I kidnapped way back when. Did she become a shinigami somehow? It doesn't matter; she's the one standing in the way of my ultimate battle against the hitokiri they call the Strongest, then and now.'
Ignoring the sting from his abdomen and the shakiness of his legs, Udo pursued the retreating Battousai, his quarry's shining eyes returning to their dark violet hue as Jine feinted an assault, stabbed at Kenshin's knees, used the Shin no Ippo as the ex-vagabond took flight once more, and brought him back down to earth with a complete "Hei" combo.
At that point, Kenshin attained complete transparency. Any moment now, and he would burst. Meanwhile, the bloodied and bruised Udo went the opposite direction in order to sever the annoying ferry-girl's influence on the Battousai's willingness to go all out in a fight.
"Don't even think about it. You're already finished," Kurama rasped as he again moved beside the tight-lipped, preoccupied Botan; he kept an eye on the both of them in seeming wariness of past events.
Jine shook his head. 'He never learns.' To Kurama, he demanded, "I'm already through? You flatter yourself too much, boy. Why don't you make yourself useful and grab hold of the Youtou Shinnoken so that the shinigami behind you will finally stop keeping Battousai from achieving his full potential!"
For one reason or the other, the presumably half-demon adolescent's green eyes acquired a luminescent gleam similar to when Kenshin transformed into the Battousai. It would've excited Udo had the teen gotten possession of the Demon Sword, but as it was, it only made him snort and attempt to stab Kurama's eyes out in annoyance.
A moment later, Jine noticed that his entire sword arm was enveloped by a flowering weed of some sort. He tried to tear it out from its roots, but that only cause him to yowl in agony; it felt like he was tearing his very nerves out of his arm.
For the first time, the Kanji Killer realized how frightened his victims felt whenever he used the One-Sided Heart on them. He'd lost all feeling from his limbs, his body paralyzed from the neck down and numbed by the growing parasite inside him. "W-What? How...?" he sputtered.
With a toss of his hair and despite unsteady feet, Kurama had enough bravado to comment, "I planted that Shimaneki So into you by tossing that seed-tipped rose into your hand when we first met. I was wondering why it took so long for it to take root in your body, but I then figured out that you needed to be softened up a bit more than normal in order for the seed to work. You were too strong at the time for it to be effective. Like I said though, you're already through."
Udo's rubbery face stretched and squashed into a gamut of expressions before he settled with the one he was presumably born with: A look of insanity.
"I see. Clever. I thought you and the vagabond were alike, but it turns out that you're even more cold-blooded than even Battousai hoped to be. I normally hate puppet masters like you, but even I can appreciate how diabolical your plans are. You've got me. I've lost."
Soon, the Deathbringer Weed violently sprouted out of Jine's every last pore and orifice, the wriggling mass growing over the bloody mess that was the Kanji Killer's body like kudzu grass over a statue thanks to it feeding upon his A-Class powers.
A collective sigh of relief was exhaled by all the surviving people save for the unconscious girl. Kurama noticed Botan hide something inside her pocket before she went to the aid of the worn-out and disappearing Kenshin. He himself was about to go tend to the wounds of the forgotten young woman with the cane when something important occurred to him just then.
"Watch out, everyone! Udo is still a threat to us all! He can still use his hypnotism again to...!"
A second later, everything went back the way it was when Kenshin first appeared: A wakizashi crumbling into pieces in front of a bemused Kurama thanks to the ex-hitokiri's battoujutsu, Botan returning back to her normal self after transforming into Kaoru, and a bruised-but-not-covered-head-to-toe-in-weeds Jine stumbling from the strength of the spirit guardian's sudden entrance.
"Oro?" Flabbergasted, Kenshin nearly fell over face-first into the concrete ground, the sudden shift of "reality" tipping him over, his Demon Sword held up high while what was left of Udo's short sword clattered all over the alleyway's pavement.
"Oh crap, not again," Botan murmured under her breath while Kurama seethed, "You won't trick us twice, Kanji Killer! You don't have the power to turn back time. We know that this is just an illusion!"
Jine chuckled. "Is that so? Then tell me this. Which is the illusion and which is real? Was everything that happened after Battousai appeared real or imagined? Is what you're seeing right now real or imagined? You only have a few seconds to decide, I'm afraid."
It was Kurama's turn to be impressed by Jine's gambit. At this point, there was little he or any of the others knew about the Kanji Killer's new powers, and he quite frankly had no idea which reality to believe at that point.
To be Continued...
Next: The return of Cat Eyes.
We're off to find our dreams,
Abdiel