Jaganshi Hiei threw the Demon Sword back at Kurama, his whole body covered in sweat before he fell on the floor on all fours.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"
"H-Hiei..." Shuichi Minamino trailed off.
"Keep that thing away from me!" screamed the fire demon.
Never again. Never again would the Cursed Child of the Koorime wield such a... fearsome, dreadful weapon. Even the infamous Hiei had things he feared.
"Oro?" said Kenshin Himura, not quite understanding what was wrong or why Hiei reacted the way he did.
Demon Sword
A Yuyu Hakusho/Rurouni Kenshin Crossover Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
Hiei gathers past comrades to fight against the nefarious Dai Shin Kan. Also, yes, the Kanamara Matsuri exists.
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 Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. 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 45: Daydream Generation (Part 3)
Weeks later, across different parts of Makai (Demon World) and Ningenkai (Human World)...
Yusuke Urameshi, Kurama, and even Kazuma Kuwabara were busy with one thing or another (also relating to the Chojin), so Hiei really was left to fend for himself when handling the Overfiend's minions, the Dai Shin Kan (as that freaky Onmyouji called themselves).
Hiei had to look for backup elsewhere. For now, Team Urameshi's reunion would have to wait.
He took a different course of action when it came to dealing with the supposedly off-limits dimensional rift within the Demon World that went straight into American territory rather than Japanese territory.
"Like a warp zone in Super Mario Brothers!" Kurama had said. What the hell was a warp zone and who the hell were the Super Mario Brothers?"
At any rate, Hiei aped the same tactic Minamino came up with when he was called upon by Yomi to prove his worth as a viable second-in-command, particularly when it came to dealing with potential A-Levels or S-Levels in the Human World.
Use their connections.
The people Hiei was about to recruit might not be like Raizen's friends (each of which were all capable of gaining their own territories within the Demon World), but like himself, Yusuke, Kurama, and (even) Kuwabara, they were able to raise their power levels within mere months or years of training to S-Level rather than over decades or centuries.
A new generation of power-level-leapfrogging beings might have already come about. Hiei's generation. Yusuke, Kurama, and Kuwabara's generation.
They were the Daydream Generation.
Back in the Demon World, after Hiei got a new sword from Mukuro's armory and weapons storage...
A traveling Demon World circus came to town. As expected of Makai, it was a more "extreme" version of circuses in Ningenkai.
For example, some circuses had zoos full of not only Class-D demonic animals (a la what Tarukane had in his mansion) but also Class-C sentient demon slaves.
As bad as that was, it was much worse years before.
Instead of zoos full of beasts and slaves, circuses used to have zoos full of different human races.
A human zoo.
Tragically, this was a type of zoo that the humans themselves came up with (and the demons copied) in the 19th Century using indigenous tribes. Then again, the practice fell out of favor in Ningenkai during the 20th Century.
Not so with Makai, whose underground market had both versions of the zoo available. Sometimes, slave trade was even done there on the down-low.
In the olden days, before the demon patrols that returned lost humans back to their own world were established, ending up in such a zoo was the fate of many humans who somehow became unwilling immigrants in the Demon World.
Humans either became the cattle or slaves of powerful demons.
Anyway, the first thing that the cloaked Hiei scoped out along with the confused audience of the Makai circus was a sudden prison break full of bikini-clad C-Level women demon slaves.
"..."
They too were probably up for sale with the circus as a front.
Of course. Just because the friendly, non-war-mongering Enki from Raizen's troop back in the day was in charge of the Demon World, it didn't mean it'd suddenly become a welcoming place.
After all, every last demon (creature, really, including the lost, refugee humans) in Makai that was Class-C was considered part of the slave class... roughly 120 million people... while the remaining 6 million or so were Class-B and above, the minority and elite.
In the midst of this chaos were familiar faces. Well, barely familiar faces, since Hiei barely had enough time to interact with either of them during the Demon World Unification Tournament.
Incidentally, these people were probably the ones responsible for the great escape of the imprisoned youkai slaves up for display in a Makai zoo.
"The jig is up, you perverts! Release these women right now!" said a thin, short, flat-chested, and red-faced brunette "girl" in short shorts, circus uniform, and... yoyos. Really familiar-looking yoyos.
"Everything is going to be all right, Kikuko," said another monster girl with monkey ears and a tail while cradling her friend, a lamia (snake girl) whose lower half was the body of a serpent and upper half a "normal" girl with arms, five-digit hands, and a pretty little face that humans would call humanoid and demons would call demonoid.
"K-Kotei! Hss! You came back for me!" said the lamia. "What about the otherss? They...!"
Kotei nodded, smiling. "Don't worry. We're going to bust everyone out."
"HEY! I bought those slaves fair and square!" said the nine-foot tree-like plant demon with a cigar. He served as the circus's ringmaster. "I knew these new girls would be trouble! Get them! Get them before they escape!"
Reverse centaurs or "humanoid" demons with muscular bodies, five-digit hands and feet, and horse heads gathered around the little girl with the yoyo, intending to put her back in her cage.
However, after one of them grabbed hold of the kid's hair, it came off. It turned out to be a wig.
The horse demons were all tied up a second later thanks to the un-wigged child who had scruffy hair underneath his toupee.
"Hey, wait a minute! I know who they are! That's Rinku! And that's Kotei! They're participants of the Makai Tournament!" said a ghoulish woman (one of the tree youkai's minions) with bat wings and claws who had no hips, crotch, or legs to speak of.
Ah, Rinku. 'So that was who he was,' remembered the Jaganshi. It was him and his... girlfriend (or friend or something, Hiei didn't care), the monkey girl.
The same demonic child that beat that certain annoying human with an orange pompadour in the Dark Martial Arts Tournament.
Kotei (who defeated Rinku in the Demon World Unification Tournament) made even quicker work of the bat-winged, half-bodied harpies that gathered around her with flips, kicks, grappling, and, well, monkey kung-fu.
"Sasuga (As expected)!" the yoyo kid praised the monkey girl.
"...We need to get away now, Rinku-kun!" warned Kotei.
"She's mine! She and all the girls in this circus are attractions here! Don't blame me for her status as a slave! Instead, blame her and her parents for being born C-Level!" came the treant's rebuke before blowing poisonous smoke on all three escapees.
"She's not a slave, she's my friend! And there's no slave class in Makai anymore!" said Kotei before doing a monkey flip at one of the batty ladies while choking a horse demon with her furry tail.
Kotei then slowed down and dropped to her knees while her lamia friend called her name. The smoke... or rather, smog... from the tree youkai's tobacco billowed all over the circus tent.
"C-Can't breathe..." said Rinku before he saw the reverse centaurs and halved bat women put parasites into their chests, specifically the demonic implants that reduced power levels of demons to almost nothing.
The same ones that Hokushin and the other monks under Raizen's rule had worn in order to pass the Spirit World barriers and talk to Yusuke Urameshi while undetected by Reikai.
"Boss, we'll be in trouble if these Class-S demons recover! We should kill 'em now!" said one of the horse-headed centaurs.
"Even if we stab them while they're in this state, they're still S-Level demons! They'll just heal themselves after taking the parasites out! Better for us to escape with the rest of the slaves while we still can!" said the talking tree.
"O-Okay, boss!"
The treant harrumphed. "It makes me sick to have these over-privileged S-Levels do whatever they want! I'm a legitimate business demon, dammit!"
In an eye blink, the dozens of bat-winged, halved demon women and horse youkai sporting arms with hands and legs with feet fell on their backs.
"Are you now?" asked Hiei, who put his hood down and killed the implants lodged unto the chests of Rinku and Kotei.
"Wha... and who the hell is this other shrimp?" asked the demonoid tree, smoke coming out of all his wooden bark's orifices. "I'm in the right! She's my slave and I can do whatever I want with her!"
The recovering Rinku almost crushed the ringmaster's head with his devil yoyo, but the Jaganshi held him back with a wave of his bandaged hand. "Let me handle this."
Hiei then went to the frightened "monster" girls and peeled off their prosthetics, revealing humans disguised as cat girls, chicken girls, or rabbit girls.
He knew they were fake demons thanks to his third eye.
The demon horde gulped in unison as the Jaganshi said, "On behalf of the demon patrol, you're all under arrest."
By virtue of the circus illegally harboring humans, the fire demon could have them jailed, plus even the Class-C demon girls could be set free due to this technicality.
"Oh shit! It's the fuzz! We've been narced out!"
Mere minutes later, Hiei, Kotei, and Rinku made short work of the ebony tree monster and his multitude of blood-sucking vamps with detachable upper torsos and muscular horse-head demon men.
"WAAAAH! Kotei! That wass sso cool!"
"Kikuko!" The tearful monkey girl embraced the lamia and intertwined their tails together.
"Hiei! What are you doing here?" asked Rinku after the audience inside the tent seemingly evaporated away amidst the violence.
"Patrol work," said the Jaganshi.
"Oh. Okay! Good luck with that!" said Rinku, who was about to skip gaily towards his lady love when the fire demon grabbed hold of his collar and dragged him way.
"HEY! What's the big idea?" asked the childish demon while picking at the remnants of the sliced-off power-draining parasite on his chest.
Grumbling, Hiei murmured, "Kurama sent me to get you. He needs to... call in a favor."
"Ooooh, is it a new mission from Reikai?" asked the yoyo kid with sparkling eyes.
"Rinku! Let's go! We're going to get Kikuko-chan back to her tribe!" said Kotei. "Her mom and pop are going to be so surprised!"
"J-Just a minute!" Rinku bit his lip and looked back and forth at the Jagan user and the love of his life. "I can't go and do whatever it is you want me to do. Kotei-chan needs me."
Hiei exhaled, his shoulders slumping. Minamino had this "contingency" covered too. If Rinku hesitated to cooperate, all the Jaganshi needed to do was...
Back in the Human World...
Demon World courtship was a funny thing.
Only the residents of Makai would ever say, "You're absolutely sure I'd become strong enough to defeat Kotei-chan in mortal combat once I'm through with this mission of yours? Then I'm in!" in the context of love.
Usually such statements (and their consequences) were followed by lawsuits regarding planned and actual assault, imprisonment, and restraining orders. In Ningenkai, that was the case.
In any case, Hiei and Rinku searched through a trail of broken hearts across the Demon and Human World. To find one man.
Human and demon alike had been jilted by a certain pretty boy swordsman from Makai to Ningenkai, leaving many a swooning, heartbroken girl in his wake.
Hiei and Rinku spotted such girls inside a bar in Roppongi after asking around for the hard-to-miss sky-blue-haired demon that looked, according to the humans, like he was the leader singer of a "Visual Kei" band with a samurai theme to them.
"I can't believe Shishi-chan dumped me! I thought we were connecting with each other so well during karaoke!" said one drunk, pony-tailed girl with chapatsu (light brown) hair.
Maybe females really did like assholes, who knew?
"Sh-Shishi-chan...?" Rinku repeated, unable to keep a straight face.
"You were lucky to even get dumped! I can't even catch his eye!" said the other girl, a raven-haired beauty in high heels and a red dress.
One look with the Jagan, however, showed that she was a demon in disguise, probably touring the human world at her leisure.
Hiei then caught her whisper to the brunette, "How'd these two kids somehow end up inside this club?"
The fire youkai would've complained about babysitting the yoyo kid, but Rinku was actually older than Hiei by a hundred years, so it was the other way around.
To others, they appeared like a happy kid with yoyos and a clown suit playing with his brooding Goth best friend all dressed in black.
Hiei and Rinku were actually stopped by the bouncers of the club because they looked underage. Thanks to the yoyo kid, the humans were left hung to dry, tied up with children's toys before the pair got in.
"Hey, ladies!" said Rinku while jumping up the high stool, which made the girls raise their right eyebrows in unison. "I heard you were talking about a friend of ours."
The childish demon showed off a picture of the samurai youkai in question: Shishiwakamaru.
"Oh my gosh! Are you his son or little brother or something? I hope you're not his son! That would be a huge turnoff!" said the chapatsu girl.
"HEY! Wait! We just want to know where he went...!" said Rinku while buried under the cleavage of the... loose woman.
"And what about you, Goth kid? Who are you in Shishi-chan's life?" asked the high-heeled girl.
"Shut up, you noisy woman," said Hiei before turning to Rinku and saying, "We're wasting our time here. Let's go," while pointing at his watch-like Spirit Detector he availed from Botan, who said it could act as his radar for any powerful beings around the three worlds.
The raven-haired girl sputtered, "W-Wait! I know where Shishiwakamaru is! But I'll tell you in one condition."
Hiei harrumphed and asked, "Well? What is it?"
The secret youkai smiled and bit her lip while... shimmying.
And so from a bar in Roppongi, the Jaganshi, the yoyo-toting participant of the Makai Tournament, and two... bimbos that the samurai demon dropped like hot potatoes took a bus headed for the mountains.
Specifically, the unlikely quartet were headed for a certain remote area in the boondocks familiar to both Rinku and Hiei: Genkai's temple.
Genkai's decimated shrine.
It was actually a repurposed Shinto-Buddhist temple (complete with tori gate) turned into a martial artist abode. And with a long flight of stairs.
"Goth kid! Wait for us!" said the woman in high heels who had to take off her shoes to climb the stairs.
Rinku was nice enough to offer to carry the brunette, but Hiei couldn't care less if either one of the females could make it up, so he ran past the trio to get his whole recruitment gig over with.
He immediately regretted doing so.
"...I came to check up on you to see if you were killed in the battle against the Chojin's forces, but it seems that you're quite hard to kill," Hiei overheard Shishiwakamaru tell Genkai from beyond the closed gates of the temple, while construction work with hired demon and human hands was going on.
"..." was what Hiei said while hiding amongst the trees. Should he even be eavesdropping on them?
"What? Are you disappointed I'm still alive?" retorted the aged martial artist with a snort. "Wait a few more months. I'm living on borrowed time as is. I only came back because the brat needed me, but he doesn't anymore, so..."
The blue-haired bishonen (pretty boy) smirked and flashed his perfect teeth while brushing his antennae-like bangs that hid his retractable horns.
"You really are something else. You're a human at death's door, yet you still manage to amaze with your fighting spirit, holding your own against the Shisejyu."
Genkai snorted. "What do you want? Are you going to rub my nose in the fact you reached S-Level? I helped you get there, you ingrate."
"Speaking of Reikai's classification system, aren't you ashamed of the fact that you're already bordering on C-Class, which is the slave class in Makai in terms of power levels?"
"Back in my day, sonny boy, I can purify my reiki to Sei Kou Ki levels. My Rei-Kou-Gyoko also gathered up my power from my youth and enabled to me to perform like a youngster even at this age."
"Don't talk to me or any demon about age, you old bag. I've lived for centuries. I was around during the age of samurai. When your famous Benkei was still alive."
"Oh ho. Touch. We humans, to you demons, age in dog years," said Genkai. "One year for us is 10 to 20 years of yours. However short our lives, it's just as well-lived, though."
Shishiwakamaru palmed his face into his hand while laughing. "A well-lived life, huh? I couldn't imagine how a human could live such a lifetime in under a hundred years, much less how a fly would live an entire lifetime in a day."
"We have a saying about that. A foreign saying. Carpe diem. Seize the day."
"HA! Seize the day? Only humans would care about the tediousness of counting days. The Demon World doesn't even have sunsets and sunrises."
"If that's the case, then how do you count years in an unchanging landscape like Makai?"
"We don't. Makai time was measured by accomplishments, not days. We only started talking about days or even hours, minutes and seconds thanks to the influence of the Human World. Or power levels thanks to the influence of the Spirit World, which is also occupied by human ghosts."
"Fascinating. No wonder it looks like time is frozen in Makai."
"Maybe that's the case for those with a lifespan comparable to that of dogs and flies."
"Now that's food for thought." Genkai looked over her shoulder. The break time of her workers had already passed. "I'll see you around, Shishiwakamaru. I have other things to attend to in my borrowed time. Good talk, though."
"..." said the samurai demon after the aged Master of the Rei-Hadou-Ken left him to his own devices to supervise the rebuilding of her destroyed temple.
After a moment's hesitation, Shishiwakamaru threw his sword at a certain three-eyed bush.
Or rather, the three-eyed demon within that bush. "What the hell do you want, Mukuro's lackey?"
Hiei batted the weapon back to the swordsman. "You have a strange taste in women."
The word "DIE!" almost escaped the lion demon's lips before he hissed at the fire demon, "How many of my fangirls are here?"
Soon, the howls of "Why is he in love with a grandma? EEEW!" could be heard like squawks and chirps of different talking birds. Maybe parrots.
Somehow, from two floozies, a whole army of Shishiwakamaru's admirers hid within the bushes of Genkai's abode.
Hiei then added, "That yoyo kid is also here with me."
Shishiwakamaru shrugged. "Rinku? I don't give a damn about him."
"HEY! I don't give a damn about you too, you granny-loving imp!" cried out a familiar voice who threw a yoyo at the swords-demon's face.
After dodging, Shishiwakamaru protested, "I'M OLDER THAN HER! And if you give her a power boost, she can look young again. So there's that!"
Another round of "EEEW!" and "GROSS!" as well as disappointed "AAWW!" moans came forth all over the surrounding mountain forest.
In Nerima Ward, Tokyo...
After Hiei promised Shishiwakamaru a means to escape his groupies of human and demon girls from two worlds, they along with Rinku headed straight for Nerima.
The fire demon contemplated charging already at the Dai Shin Kan outright with their motley crew of demons through the dimensional portal that led directly from Makai to Ningenkai's Mount McKinley.
A gang of three S-Level demons was nothing to scoff at, after all.
Hiei held back because wasn't even sure if the so-called Dai Shin Kan were even stationed in Alaska, but Kurama suspected that it might be the case.
According to the fox's investigation, back in 1986, the Japan Airlines Flight 1628 came across a UFO in Anchorage, Alaska, which was where Mount McKinley was located.
Since humans usually mistook Demon World activity as extraterrestrial in nature (as was the case of Hiei's patrol that returned lost humans back to their own dimension), then perhaps the Unidentified Flying Object was proof of the Chojin's forces setting up camp in Alaska.
"What if you changed into your imp form? Maybe that will drive all the ladies away from you," suggested Rinku, his arms at the back of his head while walking.
"I did that once. They went, 'Kyaa!' and 'Kawaii!' on me. They then hugged me like a plush toy and bathed me like a pet. You just can't win with those fangirls of mine."
"Jeez." The yoyo-toting demon kid scratched his cheek.
Even the revelation that the closest Shishiwakamaru ever had to an object of his affection was a dying grandmother wasn't enough to deter his admirers.
In fact, they swore to change Shishiwakamaru's warped tastes in women "back to normal" so that he'd again yearn for the comforts of nubile youths rather than the elderly.
'Ugh. I can never understand girls,' Rinku decided.
Hiei shushed his two fellow Ankoku Bujutsukai participants... one from Team Roku Youkai and the other from Team Ura Otogi... then made them hide in a corner after hearing a thump and an old, crotchety voice scream, "HIRYU SHOTEN HA!"
Shishiwakamaru's ears perked up, then he moved forward from where they hid, his eyebrows furrowed. The voice sounded like Genkai's.
However, instead of the diminutive pink-haired martial artist who could change her appearance from a sporty grandmother with graying pink locks to a beautiful 25-year-old girl with bright cherry blossom hair, a elf-eared demon with windswept red hair landed on the samurai-like demon.
"OW! Damn old hag!"
"OOF! Hey! Get off me! What...? JIN!?"
And indeed, the person who'd landed on Shishiwakamaru was Jin the Wind User of Team Masho Tsukai (AKA Shadow Channelers, Devilish Trainers, or Messengers of Malevolence).
"SHISHIWAKAMARU? Hey, look at that! It's Hiei! And Rinku too! Are we having a reunion?"
"I'd answer, but GET OFF ME FIRST!"
Meanwhile, Hiei's eyes narrowed at the humongous tornado that shot out of the sky. The presence of a hurricane shouldn't be a surprise for anyone who'd seen Jin fight, but that localized twister appeared to have gotten the better of the wind user rather than the other way around.
Also, a wrinkled old gnome that looked even more ancient and wizened than even Genkai hopped on a stick and declared, "Even if you are a demon, it's a hundred years early for you to take me on! Stop pestering me and go back to Makai where you belong!"
Jin got up, dusted his pants off, then whistled low.
"That was... INCREDIBLE! How did you do that? It takes a huge amount of my youki to even make one of my Shura Senpuken, yet you're able to produce a twister that won't look out of place in Kansas City with little to no reiki!"
"Like I'd tell that to a demon who's clearly holding back in order to learn how to use one of my most powerful moves! Figure it out yourself if you want!" said the grandmother (or perhaps great grandmother) before hopping away on her pogo-stick-like wooden staff.
Shishiwakamaru slammed the handle of his sword unto Jin's head, who barely flinched at the assault. "At least apologize after landing on someone!"
Rinku slapped his cheeks together with both hands. "You're kidding! That old woman defeated you? Did you lose on purpose?"
Jin undid the cloth straps of what little of a top he had and showed his energy-sucking parasite to Rinku.
"I am, but that's not the point! I might be in bigger trouble with that granny if I had pulled out all the stops on her! If I learn her technique, I won't need to use up so much of my demon energy during fights! Imagine that!"
"What do you mean?" asked Hiei.
Jin tapped his chin and pursed his lips. "Even though I'm fighting at a fraction of my strength, that crafty granny made that tornado by barely using any reiki herself. I still haven't figured out how, but at the heat of the battle, she did an uppercut and hit me with one of the biggest typhoons I've ever seen!"
"Maybe she used a deflecting technique like the Rei-Kou-Kyou-Hansho (Spirit Wave Light Mirror Counterstrike) that Genkai used against me," suggested the blue-haired bishonen.
Jin nodded. "Maybe."
Then, with a huge grin on his face, the redhead inhaled deeply before saying the following in one breath:
"This place is amazing! So far, I've fought a powerful Japanese human martial artist who can change genders, his schoolgirl martial artist fiance with a mallet that can shoot me to the sky, his tank-like rival who could soak up damage yet can also turn into a small black pig, a Chinese Amazonian girl with huge mace weapons, a cross-dressing okonomiyaki chef with razor-sharp spatulas, and a nearsighted Chinese kung fu expert who can hide all sorts of things under his sleeves!"
"I don't know what more to say, man," said Rinku with a shrug, who covered his eyes by tipping the visor of his cap. "Er, congrats?"
"Are you sure you didn't stumble upon one of those silly Human World circuses? Or maybe you landed on your head too hard?" Hiei asked.
"No, man. This is for real! It's crazy here in Nerima! It's like there's some sort of martial artist convention or bushido parade here! Oh yeah, there's even a perverted old man who gathers more reiki than Urameshi can the hornier he gets and that great grandmother who can shoot tornados from her fist!"
Jin then slung his arm over Shishiwakamaru. "And that gender-bending guy I was talking about... or I think he was originally a guy... is an even bigger playboy than Shishiwakamaru here! He must've gathered a million fiances or something! He's as dense as lead, though."
"...Huh," was all the samurai youkai could reply.
Jin did an inward fist pump. "Even though most humans are weak, some of them can be quite incredible, like Urameshi! So what brings you guys to this Human World neighborhood anyway?"
"Actually, we have a mission from Hiei..." began Rinku, only for him to end up turning as red as a tomato after a certain buxom someone grabbed Jin from behind.
The double agent "nurse" that Butajiri (Team Masho's sponsor) hired to trap Hiei and Genkai inside a barrier in order to take them out of the competition against the Shadow Channelers... Ruka the Enchanted Barrier Witch... embraced the wind demon, pressing her barely covered breasts on his barely covered back.
She licked her lips. "Hello, Jin. Miss me?"
"Ruka! Great timing! I was just looking for you!" said Jin, who turned around and grabbed his fellow redhead by the shoulders while staring her straight in the eyes. "I have something I want you to do that no one else can!"
It was Ruka's turn to blush, unused to seeing happy-go-lucky Jin be so... forward. "W-Wait... Y-You're taking things too fast! I never thought you'd...!" she stuttered while grabbing her cheeks and swaying all around.
"All right! I'm ready! Trap me inside a barrier, Ruka!" said Jin while giving Ruka a thumb's up sign.
"YES, I DO! Wait, what?" came the buxom redheaded lady's spit-take.
"Form that barrier you trapped Hiei and Genkai with back in the Ankoku Bujutsukai so that I can use all that dark energy to form a tornado without using up my own demon energy!" explained Jin, still smiling, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was about to befall him.
"Oh-ho. It's a barrier you want, huh? Then I'll give you a barrier!"
A minute later, and Jin was stuck inside a barrier so small, he could only curl in a fetal position to fit inside it. "Uh, thanks? It's kind of overkill, though."
"Jin, YOU MORON!" And then Ruka punted the balled-up Jin to the sky, in front of his bemused friends.
"Huh. Now that looked mighty familiar," the old Chinese woman whom Jin challenged remarked after seeing the scene from a distance before hopping away on the wooden stick she rode on.
Afterwards, on the first Sunday of April 1993, during the Shinto Religion's Kanamara Matsuri (Festival) in the Kanayama Shrine of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture...
"A PENIS FESTIVAL? You got us into a penis festival? Is this your idea of a DATE or a JOKE!?" Juri, the referee of the Ankoku Bujutsukai during its semifinals and finals, slapped her date for the day, the Beautiful Suzuki, right on the face with her tail.
Like her literal tail. She was a sea creature type of demon with webbed pointy ears and a fin-tipped tail. She also had mint-green hair (the same hair color as Yukina, Hiei's sister) and tan skin while regularly sporting blue eye shadow and lipstick.
Everywhere around them were penises, or at least representations thereof.
Penis drawings. Penis paintings. Penis candy. Penis bread (i.e., a penis-shaped baguette or something). Penis statues. Penis candles. Penis lanterns. Penis medallions. Penis logs. Penis cannons. Penis-shaped vegetable carvings. And other penis-related souvenirs.
It looked like a perverted nightmare straight out of Sigmund Freud's demented (and literally Freudian) mind. Or the Japanese interpretation of a gay pride parade.
"My idol career might end before it begins if people saw me in this pervy penis festival of yours!" Juri complained.
"It's a fertility festival, my dear girl," corrected the Blond and Bold Suzuki. "They also have vaginas here. Penises and vaginas."
Near them, a (bottle) blonde European girl giggled about STDs in her native language and availed of a vegetable-carving service where one paid the vendor for the privilege of carving a penis daikon (winter radish).
Juri had never seen a Demon World equivalent of... this back at home. Never. And besides, there were barely any vagina representations present at all, the lying bastard.
"No, it's not a fertility festival! Who do you think you're fooling, you brush-haired dummy?" Juri called Suzuki's bluff. "It's called Kanamara Matsuri, (Festival of the Steel Phallus), for goodness's sake!"
"Not exactly. You see, the reason why these silly humans are celebrating something as unusual as the existence of a steel dildo roots from youkai folklore, before the Reikai Barriers were put up. A sharp-toothed demon that hid inside the vagina of a young woman castrated two young men on their wedding nights, and it was only with the help of a metal phallus made by a blacksmith that the demon's teeth were broken and the young maiden could be... fertile again!"
"..." said a pouting, cross-armed Juri, which sent shivers down the jokester demon's spine. What a cutie pie!
Suzuki continued. "Soon after, the item was enshrined in this very temple, and the people celebrated its creation with a festival that venerates it and its utter manliness. It's a festival that's popular among couples because it provides divine protection for family or business prosperity as well as safe delivery and fertility. Meanwhile, human prostitutes prayed here for protection from sexually transmitted diseases!"
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Or are you intentionally pissing me off? Do I look like a prostitute to you?" demanded Juri while wrapping her tail on Suzuki's neck, intending to choke him. She stopped after she saw the goofy grin on her date's face. "I-I could sue you for sexual harassment, you know?"
The Gorgeous Suzuki rubbed his neck and scratched his cheek. "I didn't realize the Demon World even had lawyers. Or law, while we're at it."
"The strongest demons are the lawyers, judges, jury, and executioners of Makai! Or at least that's what Enki-sama and the rest of Raizen's friends claimed," said Juri with a wag of her finger and a wink.
"Look, it's either we go to this penis festival or we have to wait until it's October and fly all the way to the U.S. during Halloween to be able to pass ourselves as humans instead of demons!" explained the blond.
Juri rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Still, even if this is a fertility festival, you better not get any ideas, Mister!"
"I won't! Festivals like these are meant to be enjoyed ironically!" insisted the former old man turned clown turned... bland brush-haired blond. "Come on, it's going to be a lot more entertaining than you think!"
And then, while they were talking, a surge of smiling, cheering people (Japanese and otherwise, which meant even curious foreigners were getting in on the action) carrying a huge penis effigy passed them by, the phallus bobbing up and down the sea of humanity.
"...I'm going home," said the female sea demon, but the persistent master of disguise grabbed her by the hand, led her to a candy stall, and fed her a piece of penis candy.
The Impertinent Suzuki said with a smirk, "Remember to swallow," after paying the vendor for a whole bag of penis sweets.
"Die, pervert," the sea creature demoness grumbled in between chews, but she nevertheless ended up doing what he said anyway, which made her blush redder and harder than a throbbing, veiny... well... y'know.
"Come on. You trust me, right? Otherwise, you would've left as soon as we got here!" reasoned the blond who looked like a bright-eyed and thinner version of Zeru, the first victim of the Kokuryuha.
After Juri saw that loads of giggling couples both married and unmarried had gathered the festival grounds of the Kanayama Shrine, taking pictures of the insanity and kinkiness happening around them, her shoulders slumped, she sighed, and said, "FIIIINE. Let's get this over with."
In her mind, she concluded, 'He really is like a younger, handsomer version of Matsumoto-san. What a pervy joker.' Incidentally, Hitoshi Matsumoto was the popular boke (comic) half the popular owarai (Japanese television comedy) duo Downtown, along with Masatoshi Hamada, he tsukkomi (straight man).
Before they knew it, the odd couple was partaking in the penis-related activities, such as carving daikon into phalluses, helping participants get their pictures taken with the different phallic and outright penile representations found in the temple, and singing along as the... bright pink giant mushroom with a thick shaft passed them by during the mikoshi parade.
All throughout, Juri never let go of Suzuki's hand.
If there existed a Japanese word that described a person who was initially cold and even hostile towards another person before gradually showing their warm side over time, Suzuki would totally call Juri that.
"GANBARE! (HANG IN THERE!)" the two chanted while following the parade for the steel phallus (and the pink penis effigy behind it) along with loads of people too busy to notice the demonic appearance of the webbed-eared, tail-swinging former Ankoku Bujutsukai referee.
'She'd also fit in at Akihabara, though,' thought the Human-World-Savvy Suzuki.
Speaking of Akihabara, people ended up whispering "Who are they? Cosplay otaku?" and "Kimoi! (Gross!)" at the group of costumed youngsters just ahead of them that parted the crowd like Moses would the Red Sea.
A group composed of a kid in a circus outfit and yoyos, a samurai straight from ancient times save for the neon hair, a muscular and fanged genie, and a dark and brooding midget dressed in black and white robes.
Like they all came straight out of a role-playing videogame.
"H-Hiei? Jin? Rinku? Shishiwakamaru? What are you guys doing here?" asked the Proud Suzuki while locking arms with his date. "Isn't that a crazy coincidence...? Hey, what's the matter, Juri-chan?"
The sea monster girl's face went blue in the middle of sucking on a penis-shaped icicle. A penisicle. She gulped and shuddered.
They saw.
"Pardon us for interrupting your enjoyment of the dildo parade, but we have some urgent business we'd like to discuss with your idiot boyfriend," deadpanned Shishiwakamaru, addressing Juri.
It was one thing for the novice demon girl idol to romp around a phallic festival with a date. Her idol career hadn't taken off yet to make her recognizable in Ningenkai streets, after all. However, to have people she knew know about this...!
"IYAAAAA! Don't misunderstand! I'm not that kind of girl!" she screamed and let go of Suzuki. This time around, she went as glowing red as a stop sign, dropping her penis frozen treat and running away into the crowd like a bat out of hell. Or Makai.
The Irate Suzuki growled, "You jerks! I almost scored with that cute sea monster referee chick back in the Dark Martial Arts Tournament, dammit! I have half the mind to shoot you all down with my Rainbow Cyclone!"
"Please don't. This festival is gay enough as it is," said the bright-haired swordsman demon. "Damn, and here I thought I've seen everything in the Human World. How could I have missed this perverted festival in all the centuries I've visited here?"
In Lake Baikal, Siberia, North Asia...
Touya the Hexed Ice Master came along with Chu of the Drunken Fist and Koto (the cat/fox/whatever girl announcer of the Ankoku Bujutsukai, of all people) in the bitter coldness of Siberia exactly because of its reputation as one of the coldest places in the Human World.
That, and Antarctica was even further away from Japan. It was around 9,022 kilometers (5,606 miles) from Japan to Siberia versus 13,867 kilometers (8,617 miles) from Japan to Antarctica.
"Why not just go to Sapporo? It's cold there too," Koto had asked Touya after she packed her bags to fly (in a Human World airline) to Siberia rather than use the ice demon's method of running, swimming, and skating there on foot along with his drunken buddy Chu.
"It's much colder in Siberia, though. It might soon be possible for me to defeat that man if I could produce temperatures reaching absolute zero," said the shinobi to his traveling companion before agreeing on a rendezvous at one of the stations of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Touya was of course referring to one of the semifinalists of the Demon World Unification Tournament: Kujo, the man who defeated him and the twin brother of Natsume, who in turn defeated Chu in the preliminaries.
Kujo even defeated Enki's wife Koko and almost could've become supreme ruler of the Demon World had he overcome his powerful buddies, the finalists Enki and Saizo (the demon who actually defeated the martial artist demon).
While Koto essentially invited herself to the trip, Natsume turned down Chu's invitation to Russia and Siberia, telling him to instead keep on training so that he truly would become more powerful than her in a year's time.
"She'll be here. We're gonna have a double date!" Chu promised both Koto and Touya, but it'd been days, and there was no sign of the powerful pigtailed demon girl anywhere in Siberia.
"Date? What's that?" Touya replied with a quizzical quirk of his eyebrow, much to an inwardly groaning Koto's chagrin.
Because historically, Siberia was part of Russia since the l7th Century, Chu took the opportunity to go straight to Moscow after days of searching around for youki signatures of a certain Class-S beauty.
As for the absolute zero temperature that Touya attempted to reach, it was the lower limit of the thermodynamic temperature scale; a state where the enthalpy and entropy of a cooled ideal gas would reach at minimum value, taken as 0 Kelvin, stopping all kinetic motion.
This was equal to -273.15 degrees Celsius (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit). Coldness couldn't get any colder than absolute zero. In fact, the coldest known place in the universe, the Boomerang Nebula, had a temperature of -272 degrees Celsius; about a negative degree short of absolute zero.
In comparison, dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide that could give the average human skin extreme frostbite upon barehanded contact and could make rubber become as brittle as chalk) had the temperature of only -78.5 Celsius (-109.3 degrees Fahrenheit).
Touya's ice powers, unlike Shisejyu Seiryu's ice powers or Koorime Yukina's ice powers, did more than just freeze opponents to death with hypothermia.
As Kurama found out, the shinobi's ice was so deadly it could absorb more than just immediate body heat, but also spirit or demon energy, which forced opponents to fight at a fraction of their power.
Ergo, if the glassy-eyed demon could reach absolute zero, it might be possible for him to completely absorb all heat and life energy from an opponent, instantly killing them, or at least defeating them in combat, making their wellspring of power inert.
Every time Koto finished up with her Siberian winter sport fun (skiing and snowboarding), she'd go and look for Touya to either feed him some packed lunchboxes full of Siberian food or invite him to spend more time around the more "civilized" or populated areas of the region (which he always politely declined).
After they ate their lunch on the grass in front of the panoramic frozen Baikal Lake... one of the oldest lakes in existence with the purest of waters, plus it was a continent rift lake at that... Touya started to again hone his ice powers with self-training and meditation, while the monster girl announcer (and sometimes referee) watched.
A few hours later and Koto found herself covering her mouth's gasps as she climbed stairs to the castle that the ice shinobi created out of thin air... or, to be more accurate, solidified water vapor (through the process of deposition, wherein gas got solidified into solid matter without first going to the liquid phase to allow instant freezing).
"This is amazing, Touya-senshu!" cheered Koto in her play-by-play commentator mode. "You have the powers of a god king now, creating architecture with a wave of your hand! You'd surely have a better shot at ending up in the finals at the next Demon World Unification Tournament now!"
"You exaggerate. What does the counter say about my power level?" asked Touya.
"Wow! It's over 246,000!" said Koto, checking out the Demon World's own version of the Spirit Detector, the Power Level Counters made available to all the organizers and staff of the Makai Tournament (funded by Yusuke Urameshi and his inherited kingdom). "Your training is paying off! You were less than half that power level back in the tournament!"
The ice youkai frowned. "It's not enough. All those S-Plus monsters like Raizen's friends, Mukuro, Yomi, and most of the members of Team Urameshi have 1,000,000 as a power level! I won't rest until I'm at least powerful enough to reach the absolute zero temperature!"
"Then fight me and let's see the limits of your abilities," a voice said at the topmost veranda of Touya's winter stronghold. To be specific, it came from one Urameshi's comrades, the incumbent right-hand man of Mukuro and leader of her 77 Elite, Jaganshi Hiei.
"WHOA! What is this? The New Team Roku Youkai has arrived along with fellow second-rounder of the Makai Tournament, Hiei-senshu!" said Koto who somehow ended up with a Human World loudspeaker.
Interesting. A fire demon had just challenged him, an ice demon, to a match.
From below them were Rinku, Shishiwakamaru, the Handsome Suzuki, and Jin, who themselves attempted to climb Touya's ice castle right in the middle of Lake Baikal.
"If only Chu hadn't gone to Moscow, the whole gang of surviving Team Urameshi victims would've been complete!" That last remark earned Koto dagger-stares from everyone save Hiei. "What brings this eclectic cast of characters together here in Serbia's Lake Baikal?"
"She has a good point. What are you all doing here?" asked Touya, his arms crossed.
"Long story short, Reikai has a new mission!" shouted the Gorgeous Suzuki, who climbed the castle's multiple Escher-like stairs the old-fashioned way.
Meanwhile, Rinku used his yoyos as grappling hooks to ascend the tall fortress. As for Jin and Shishiwakamaru (in his imp form), they both flew upwards to the topmost floor. Regardless, Hiei still reached Touya first.
"Remember all those rumors about some arrogant Chojin character wanting to conquer Makai, Ningenkai, and Reikai? Well, they're true. The Overfiend exists," said Jin. "Not only that, he's forming an army of undead A-Level and S-Level minions both human and demon alike. Many of them former enemies of the Spirit World."
"And those minions just did a number on Mukuro's number one guy," said Shishiwakamaru, who smirked at Hiei. In turn, the fire youkai sneered. "We're here to exact revenge and maybe even shut down their operations for good."
"I've even heard that Yusuke, Kurama, and the others are dealing with the long-dead enemies of Reikai themselves, revived by the Chojin like zombies," said Rinku, who made it minutes before the Out-of-Breath Suzuki reached the topmost room. "He's a necromancer too, Touya! He revived Zeru, a former teammate of mine and Chu's!"
"What's it going to be, ice demon?" asked Hiei. "Are you in or out?"
Koto had heard everything, and when she herself had reached the top of the stairs, her heart dropped to her stomach when Touya said, "Fine. I'm in."
She then perked up a bit when he added, "But under one condition," her ears wiggling.
The Forbidden Child of the Koorime tilted his head to the side. "And what condition is that?"
"Fight me, Hiei of Team Urameshi. One-on-one. Here and now."
"EEEH?" the rest of the gathered demons said.
Before Koto knew it, she ended up refereeing a match between a member of Team Urameshi and a member of Team Masho, just like the good ol' days. "Um... A-Alrighty then. Ready? GO!"
After the seven demons (Hiei, Rinku, Shishiwakamaru, Jin, Suzuki, Touya, and Koto) took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow (funded by the cat girl using her pop idol money to save them travel time)...
"Another round for the Chinese Russian!" said one of the gathered Russians (in Russian) inside one of the many Moscow pubs that Chu had decided to visit, particularly the ones offering vodka drinking contests.
"I've heard of him, tovarisch (comrade)! There was one pub in town where this tough bearded samurai outdrank all the patrons! It was crazy! He drank the vodka like water, or milk from momma's tits!"
"He's like a bigger version of Jackie Chan from Drunken Fist! He even has that gourd canteen from the movie!"
Chu the Demonic Drunken Master was currently in a drinking contest with a huge, burly man with scars all over his body, a mohawk, and chest hair as thick as his bird-nest beard, the last man "sitting" in their duel. Almost every patron save onlookers and the bartender was out cold at that point.
So about five people were left sober and watching Chu battle it out with a proud Rusky heavyweight drinker.
Chu burped and the other guy farted. A guy near them fainted, and soon there were only four spectators left. It was a dead heat. Everyone was silent save for the frothing Russian who passed out from the bodily smells emanating from either burly man.
"I can't believe she didn't come with me to the Human World, man," said Chu in Japanese, which meant no one in Moscow knew what he was saying. He hiccupped. "She might've even dumped me while I'm away, charmed by the shtrength of another Esh-Level warrior or shomething!"
The Ruskies scratched their heads and shrugged collectively.
"What is the Oriental saying?"
"He must want more vodka! Give him more vodka, barkeep!"
"Chush' sobach'ya (Bullshit)!"
The bearded man with a mohawk curled his lip at the drunk demon and said, "I must break you," in English, quoting Ivan Drago from that infamous capitalist pig propaganda movie, Rocky IV, which everyone in Russia loved watching ironically a la Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Of course, Chu didn't understand English either. He just smiled, took another swig, and pointed at his glass. "Onigoroshi (Ogre Killer) is still my favorite drink, but vodka has quite the kick! MORE!" He then threw his glass on the ground and took a whole bottle of vodka in his lips.
Incidentally, Onigoroshi was the strongest drink in Makai.
"Oh-ho, is that how it's going to be, huesos (cocksucker)? Then so be it! We drink to the death!" said the hulking drunkard, who himself cleared the table and took his own swig of vodka.
"Chto za huy (What the fuck)!? Who's going to pay for those glasses, you bastards? Stop wrecking my property!" complained the bar's owner.
The few (conscious) patrons in the bar cheered hard enough to rouse the people who Chu knocked out throughout the drinking contest and make them cheer too before they promptly fell unconscious again.
A few minutes later, five of the members of the New Roku/Six Youkai plus Hiei and Koto (or perhaps they were the New Shichi/Nana/Seven Youkai?) arrived inside the Moscow pub after following Chu's path of alcoholic destruction.
"There he is! There's Chu!" said Rinku at the drunken demon who'd defeated his last challenger. "Hey, Chu! You want to come with us? We're going to bash heads and kick ass in Alaska!"
"I'M IN!" Chu said with no hesitation, who got up and handed the barkeep his empty bottle of booze. As for the owner of the bar, he calculated the tab and instructed his bartender to get the payment from the wallets of the knocked out patrons that the demon defeated.
"Well, that was fast," said Jin to Shishiwakamaru, who replied, "Did you expect any less from that drunken lout?"
The two demons heard (and smelled) a huge burp from behind them, which sounded like a tiger's roar.
"GANGWAY, GUYSH!"
"HEY! What's the big idea?"
"OOF! Dammit, Chu!"
The samurai demon and the wind master then ended up catching the teetering Chu before he fell to the floor. The youkai was completely wasted.
"I guess we'll have to say our goodbyes here," said Touya to Koto.
"When will you be back here in the Human World?" the pouting foxy cat girl asked the ice demon. "I was looking forward to seeing you reach absolute zero with your powers and all..."
"Sooner than you think," said the winter shinobi. "I enjoyed the lunches you've been bringing me all this time. Maybe we can have lunch again when I get back."
Koto did a Cheshire Cat grin and nodded. "I'd like that. Take care of yourself, okay?"
Touya nodded. "Of course. "Till we meet again."
"Till we meet again," she repeated.
"NATSUUMEEE!" cried Chu in his sleep before promptly forming a snot bubble on his left nostril that expanded and shrunk in cadence with his loud snores.
"Speaking of which, it would've been nice to have Natsume here. She probably outpowers all of us by leaps and bounds, even with all our powers combined," said Rinku.
"If that's the case, then why not have Raizen's friends clean up this Chojin mess instead of relying on us for help?" asked the Perceptive Suzuki. "Natsume and Hiei alone could probably be enough to take on the Overfiend's top generals."
"There's no need. We will finish this threat before it even reaches the likes of Raizen's friends, Yomi, or Mukuro. Let's see what this Chojin's got," Hiei said. He then turned around and addressed the New Roku Youkai.
"You people want to go beyond the second round of the next Demon World Unification Tournament, right? Then take down the Overfiend along with me. Make names for yourselves. Become legends."
The New Roku Youkai pumped their fists upwards. "DAMN RIGHT! BANZAI!"
The seven demons (sans Koto) then embarked on a journey towards Anchorage, Alaska on foot, using the same route the Jaganshi took to hunt down Rezo, the slaver of the sexually abusing father of Mukuro, Chikou.
30 minutes later, inside the Moscow bar full of knocked-out Rusky drunks (care of Chu) that Hiei and his recruits had recently left...
A pigtailed Asian woman with martial artist clothes shook her head and exhaled at the devastation before her when she entered the pub.
"Chu was here," she concluded while absently touching the demonic parasite attached to her chest that was hidden underneath her clothes and held back her conqueror-class S-Level youki to about C-Level to D-Level.
'Ugh. What am I even doing here?' The girl, Natsume... one of Raizen's most powerful allies who joined the Demon World Unification Tournament organized by Raizen's descendant, Yusuke Urameshi, and was able to even reach the third round... groaned.
"What will it be, Miss?"
Using the only Russian she knew, the Class-S youkai said, "Yesli u vas net sake, vodka (Unless you have sake, vodka)," a pink flush on her cheeks.
Even though she metabolized alcohol so fast, she had no concept of what being drunk even meant, the multiple drinking contests she'd partaken while looking for Chu had probably taken their toll, giving her that flushed appearance.
Why else would she feel so tipsy?
It'd been quite some time since the fire demon last saw his fellow participants of the Ankoku Bujutsukai (Dark Martial Arts Tournament) that had also joined the Makai Unification Tournament.
Even though none of these six ghost fighters (or to be more accurate, demon fighters)... Jin, Touya, Shishiwakaru, Suzuki, Chu, and Rinku... made it past the second round, neither did Kurama or Hiei. Also, they all didn't do too shabbily (except for Chu, who forfeited to Natsume in the prelims) for a tournament composed of 164 S-Level Competitors.
The Spirit World Barriers were down, true, but any S-Level demon that stepped into Human World soil would be considered a sign of aggression on the Demon World's part and the offending demon would be dealt accordingly by the Reikai Tantei (Spirit World Detectives), the Reikai Tokubetsu Bouetai (Spirit World Special Forces), and the Makai Government (led by Enki).
Many S-Levels solved this by learning how to hide their power level or forcing themselves to reduce it with things like the parasitic implants Hokushin and his priests used.
As a result, there were S-Levels like Yusuke running amok in the Human World, monitored by the Spirit World lest they pulled a Yakumo or Shinobu Sensui and became Malevolent Gods on Earth.
In hindsight, Hiei realized that the Demon World Tournament that brought worldwide peace to the Demon World (the same way the Collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War in the Human World) was a complete and utter mess.
During the preliminaries, Chu the Drunkard Demon lost to Natsume (Kujo's twin sister) by forfeit, and Shura the Artificial Demon Spawn lost to his "Papa", Yomi.
In the first round, most of the expected people advanced. Yusuke defeated (the worthless) Nekobaba, Rinku got defeated by Kotei (a monkey demon girl), and the braggart-in-armor Zakuro (who swore he'd kill either Yomi or Urameshi) lost to some unknown demon named Toboso.
In the second round, most of Yusuke's rivals and comrades from the Dark Martial Arts Tournament lost to Raizen's former allies. It was a complete wipeout.
Touya the Hexed Ice Demon lost to Kujo (Natsume's twin brother), Jin the Wind User lost to Souketsu (who was also a wind user), Shigure lost to Kurama (who fought injured in the third round), Shishiwakamaru the Demonic Swordsman lost to Hokushin (one of Raizen's monks), and Hiei lost to Mukuro (the best the fire demon could do was destroy the shackles left on his mistress's wrists).
In the third round, Natsume lost to Mukuro, Kurama lost to Kujo, and Yusuke lost to Yomi in a 60-hour iron-man (or iron-demon or iron-half-demon-versus-demon) match. In the fourth round, Koko (Enki's wife) defeated the energy-drained Yomi. Then, in the quarterfinals, Koko lost to Kujo.
During the semifinals, Kujo lost to Saizo (a long-eared and winged demon who also defeated Tetsuzan, another friend of Raizen's, in the second round) and Mukuro herself lost to Enki.
In the finals, neither of the two of the surviving Three Kings made it. It was instead two unknowns (old geezers, really), Saizo versus Enki, who fought for the right to rule Makai.
Enki eventually won the whole thing. None of the preliminary favorites to win (much less the organizer of the whole tournament himself, Yusuke) even made it in the last remaining rounds.
Hiei remembered Urameshi remark that seeing the results of the Demon World Unification Tournament was like being a Hanshin Tiger's fan and seeing the team's performance in every Yomiuru-Giants-dominated Japan Championship Series (in baseball) since their last win in 1985: Disappointing yet expected.
The Jaganshi didn't follow Human World (much less Japanese) sports, but he understood what the half-demon meant.
'It can't be helped.'
Inside the high-rise building in Ichigaya Ward known as the Lion Tower, owned by Celestial Constellation Orion (CCO) Enterprises (a dummy corporation under the control of the yakuza that was part of the Overfiend's army)...
The "human", non-shikigami Onmyouji (Spirit Medium) of the Chojin, Houji Sadojima, looked over the window of the topmost floor of the building (with his own eyes rather than with the eyes of his pale, mummified shikigami).
He looked about the same age as his fur-coat-wearing self a good hundred years ago, when he was under the command of Makoto Shishio.
Like with Kirin in Mukuro's 77 Elite, the Dark Priest of the Dai Shin Kan served as the necromancer of the Overfiend (as well as a direct conduit of his strength).
The bowl-cut Sadojima noticed the shadow on the corner of his bookcase move. "It took you long enough to get here."
"I've been busy, Houji," said Edward Gein, the Chojin's own Doctor Victor Frankenstein, who emerged from the darkness in true shinobi fashion, his cloth skull mask flapping in the air.
This was the man responsible for giving each of the souls that the Overfiend snatched away from Reikai new life care of a living body (or at least a "living dead" body).
"I have just one question for you, Gein. Are the Dai Kaijin ready?" asked Houji, his back still turned.
"We'll see. That's the whole point of this experiment, after all. To see how far they could go against Reikai forces," explained the ninja of the dark arts.
"If you could only make them better bodies from the get go, then we wouldn't need experiments like this," scoffed Sadojima.
"Rest assured. They'll do much better than those humans you blasted with the Chojin's jaki to boost their power back in Shinjuku," said Gein, which made the Onmyouji grind his teeth.
The Puppet Master produced an Iwanbo... the original "skin suit" that Houji was most familiar with during their days in the Juppon Gatana... and said, "Remember, it's not the bodies but the souls inside the bodies that make the human or demon. See you in Alaska."
To Be Continued...
For your information, in the manga's canon, Raizen and Mukuro are older than Kurama and Yomi. On Chapter 157 of the Yuyu Hakusho manga, Yomi said to Kurama in his prerecorded message, "When we were born, they (Mukuro and Raizen) were already known as the two heads of our world."
I expanded on this canon so that Kurama is a Monarch-Class Robin Hood figure who lost influence the past millennia thanks to his former underling's rise to power, forcing him to occupy the body of a human infant to rejuvenate himself.
Apparently, antediluvian S-Level demons like Raizen remained powerful until their death, so it made sense to me that at the very least, the supposed legendary youko would at least be the fourth most powerful of Makai.
Aloha,
Abdiel