Demon Sword
A Yuyu Hakusho/Rurouni Kenshin Crossover Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
More Team Shin Roku Youkai versus (the powered-up) Dai Kaijin action. No Eskimos were harmed in the making of this extremely Tokusatsu-like arc.
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 47: Daydream Generation (Part 5)
At the lower Kuskokwim, around where the Yup'ik Eskimo lived...
Rinku took one of his toes' Devil Yoyos and wrapped its string on his right index finger, took out a toy top from his fanny pack, made a "Trapeze" (a technique where the yoyo whirled in the middle of the string that bridged together two fingers from opposing hands) and used the yoyo's movement to make his top spin.
The jittery Urashima disappeared and reappeared several times, looking more worried after every reappearance, before dropping on his knees altogether and begging, "I-I give up. Please spare my life."
The yoyo master smirked, turned his back, then felt a loop of fishing wire wrap itself around his neck.
"I got you! I win!" said Ura Urashima.
Before Ura could pop Rinku's head off like a champagne bottle cork, the boyish demon reacted immediately.
Letting his top fly off into the air, Rinku shifted from the Trapeze to a "Double or Nothing" (where the strings were wrapped around the fingers), before doing the "Matrix" (basically shifting from Trapeze to Double or Nothing movements really fast in a loop, but this time with an extra roll to ensure that the yoyo kept spinning).
Meanwhile, Ura turned back to his red demonic self. Second, his arms were chopped off. Third, the rest of his body followed suit. Finally, his head got drilled by the whirling top, turning his brains to mush.
Actually, Rinku figured out that Urashima's special powers were like the save file in role-playing videogames.
Whenever the fisherman fought the kid, he'd see the pattern of his different tricks, reset time (since his special Dark Item had something to do with reversing time), then exploit his knowledge of the "future" by trial and error.
Thankfully, Rinku had been sparring with the likes of the monkey girl Kotei, his not-girlfriend who had a faster reaction time than he had, forcing him to add the Satan Top to his arsenal.
Urashima must've realized that in every reset, the top would react differently, making it the unpredictable wildcard factor that kept him from exploiting any predictable patterns from the toy-based fighter.
Rinku's spinning top that kept the dexterous Kotei on her toes whenever they sparred ultimately killed the overmatched Ura Urashima.
In the end, because he was checkmated (no matter how many times he reset time, he ended up dying), Urashima had no choice but to die in a blaze of glory.
At the Middle Kusko River, around where the Alaskan natives, the Deg Hit'an Athabaskan, lived...
'Holy fuck, I must really be drunk,' Chu thought when he first saw... that.
The Class-S (around S-Minus) version of Kuro Momotaro was apparently a pheasant-winged behemoth with ape-like nimbleness and opposable thumbs on both hands and feet, a long and furry prehensile tail, sharp claws instead of nails, and a growling wolf's head on his chest.
That was actually Kuro's ultimate beast armor pelt, the Chimera Armor Pelt. Immune to all damage, or at least the damage that Chu could dish out.
Kuro's special ability as a demon allowed him to physically "memorize" any harm done to him by his enemies, from the strength of a blow to the sharpness of a blade or even the explosiveness of an energy blast. Then, after healing, he'd become "immune" to the same technique, even when done on a grander scale.
For example, the destroyed Maken no Sou (Armor of the Demon Dog) allowed Momotaro to become immune to Chu's brute strength as soon as he was revived by the jaki of the Chojin's conduit, the Onmyouji.
Kuro's second form, the Machi no Sou (Armor of the Demon Pheasant), forced the drunkard demon to shoot him down from the sky with his orange projectile energy bombs (also named Onigoroshi or Ogre Killer, after his favorite drink), including a Shotgun version of it that he learned from training with Genkai.
The third form of Dark Momotaro, the Maen no Sou (Armor of the Demon Monkey), attacked the drunk with impunity, the armor designed purely for offensive combat while supplemented by Kuro's unusual immune system and kinesthetic learning skills.
Momotaro literally went apeshit on Chu, in other words.
At this point, with his back against the wall, Chu went all out and unleashed everything and the kitchen sink against his S-Level opponent, bombarding him with a blitzkrieg of Onigoroshi and its powered-up version, the Blockbuster or Ogre Boulder, his demonic aura strong enough to levitate him off the ground a la what Bui did when he fought Hiei.
What the mohawked youkai didn't count on, though, was Kuro Momotaro having a fourth beast armor, thinking that at S-Level all he had were improved versions of his previous armors.
"This is what happens when you only have three types of attacks: Martial arts, energy blasts, and using both at the same time." The winged monkey with a dog head chest walked through the blasts of alcohol-tinged youki like a tank.
And so there they were, with Chu getting dragged on the moist ground of the tundra by his mohawk hair, down into the river, and right at the deepest parts of Middle Kuskokwim by this... thing with wings, a monkey's tail, and clawed hands and feet as well as a snarling canine for a chest.
Dammit, he needed a drink. He'd drink anything... Russian vodka, Makai Onigoroshi, Japanese sake, or even household rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol... to wet his whistle.
Instead, Chu got a mouthful of cold Kuskokwim water filling his esophagus, stomach, windpipe, and lungs.
Meanwhile, Kuro (and his dog head) held his breath (or their breaths) for so long that the drunk wondered if the shape-shifter had a little bit of fish DNA or developed an Armor of the Demon Shark or something.
With bubbles escaping his mouth, the alcoholic youkai held a hand up in the air and concentrated hard.
Instead of letting his aura waft through his body like a bad hangover, he learned through his training from hell with Genkai that he could also project his energy elsewhere without having to throw or "fire" it like his Onigoroshi projectiles.
So that was what he did. Then Poison Peach Boy realized too late that the demonic drunkard had pulled a fast one on him, his youki materializing right above the waters of the river, making the surface boil from the heat of a particularly huge Blockbuster.
Like a setting sun at the onset of dusk, the Ogre Boulder descended upon Kuskokwim, which vaporized the water and killed the fish instantly with its high temperatures (mostly Kuskokwim salmon).
Kuro Momotaro attempted to swim away, but the still-kicking Chu put him in his own headlock, which put them in a deadlock of sorts while the ticking time bomb of an energy blast loomed above them.
A sinkhole appeared in the middle of Middle Kuskokwim after an explosion, water geyser, and tsunami later.
The surface drainage from the running subsurface water made it appear like the bigger version of a kitchen sink full of dishwater being sucked in by an open drain.
From this whirlpool emerged a smoking, bleeding, wet, yet otherwise unharmed Kuro, who flapped his wings and hovered above the drainage hole while holding the muscular Chu on his shoulder, like a mohawked sack of rice.
Momotaro burst out laughing. "What do you know? Even an Onigoroshi of that scale and magnitude wasn't enough to defeat me! I truly have transcended my limits and become S-Level! There's nothing that you and your limited arsenal of superpowers can do to harm me."
The drunk smirked. "Is this how you want to win fights? With crutches like a handicapped person? You couldn't have defeated me without that dark priest's help."
Kuro responded by raising Chu up above his head and then breaking his back with his knee.
Flashes or lightning and supernovas burned the punk youkai's retinas. To his alarm, the muscles from his limbs froze up; they'd absorbed so much shock and damage from Kuro's aggressive assault that it felt to him like they were made of broken glass and death.
With Momotaro's wolf head biting Chu's sides, its fangs digging deep into the demon's flesh, the chimera flew high up in the air, right into the stratosphere, then dive bombed right back down, with every intention of smashing his enemy's coconut head into a fine pulp of bone and gray matter into the ground below.
On one hand, Chu noticed that he was stone cold sober. The pain-dulling effects of Onigoroshi (the alcoholic drink) that also powered up his Onigoroshi (the spirit ball) and Sui Ken (his drunken fist) had long ago run out.
On the other hand, there was no way that the mohawk-sporting, Bohemian drunkard warrior's fighting pride would allow him to lose this war of attrition. Not until he beat Natsume. Speaking of which, a related memory popped up in his head.
"You rely too much on your drinking to power yourself up, so when you fight sober, you're complete shit!" were the lovely words of the martial artist demon known as Natsume, one of the participants of the Demon World Unification Tournament. "Don't be so easy-to-read in battle!"
Grumbling and suffering from a killer hangover, Chu's face flushed red for other reasons than drunkenness before he did a headscissors takedown on Peach Boy at the last minute before impact.
From there, all hell broke loose.
Despite lacking energy because of his soberness, Chu stuck on Kuro like black on darkness, the sober alcoholic engaging the sin against nature in a punching and kicking match with youki-imbued hands, feet, forearms, shins, elbows, knees, thighs, biceps, and shoulders (as well as pectorals, abdominals, and spine for extra protection).
Not all of his combos landed, but he always ended them regardless with a skull-cracking headbutt.
Kuro attempted to counter Chu's aggressiveness with all his animalistic instincts, but he couldn't time the unpredictable sways, bobs, and weaves of the parrying and blocking "drunk" boxer.
What was the difference before and now?
"How...!?" was all the mutant could sputter amidst this... living contradiction of blunt-force stupidity and unreadable, complex movements that rendered the already durable youkai nigh-untouchable.
Whenever Momotaro did land a swipe or a bite, his nemesis shrugged it off like a light tap. It was almost unfair how this tough powerhouse that wouldn't go down easily in multiple hits was so hard to hit.
The thing about drunken fist was that it didn't actually require the martial artist to be drunk. It instead called for mimicry of drunken movements, requiring the utmost balance to control chaos or imbalance.
As fluid as water. As destructive as a tidal wave. Like a more unpredictable version of Aoshi or Daiji's Ryusui no Ugoki
Thanks to Natsume's sparring matches with Chu, she transformed the drunken brawler who used his face as a shield more often than not into a complete master of coordinated moves made to look uncoordinated.
Control over chaos. To hit and not be hit.
Soon enough, Chu tested Kuro's stamina. The morphing demon might be immune to damage, but soon, as the drunken boxer settled into his rhythm, he began piling on damage faster than Momotaro could heal from it, which also sapped his energy all the while.
In the end, Chu ripped Momotaro's guts out from his wolf head's gullet and choked him with the bloody intestinal cords a minute later, all the while resisting the screams of agony of every nerve of his own body.
In another part of the middle portion of Kuskokwim, where the Deg Hit'an Athabaskan lived...
It was heaven and hell. Ice and fire. The bitter cold versus sweltering heat.
The waters of Middle Kuskokwim shifted from vapor, to ice, to water, to back again to steam in mere seconds because of the fluctuating extreme temperatures between Touya and Zeru, which also killed all the nearby wildlife (mostly fish like Rainbow Trout) in an instant.
Some animals exploded into giblets. Others simply broke like ceramic.
Apparently, their bodies were unable to adapt to the quick changes in moisture, humidity, and hotness or coldness of the area.
Touya the Hexed Ice Master saw Team Roku Youkai's Zeru revive himself using a flame in the shape of a phoenix. Even without the Onmyouji's power up.
The fire demon then absorbed the negative energy anyway for good measure, recovering from the Ju Hyo Tsuka that sapped him of all his power earlier. He even healed the frostbite on his extremities, like his fingers and toes.
Touya attempted to make Zeru's version of damnation freeze over. He instead got burned by it, his Frozen Hell going up in white smoke.
How was the fire demon doing this?
Touya flashed back to his quick match against Hiei back in Siberia's Lake Baikal. The fire demon never gained enough momentum to unleash his Dragons of Darkness Flame even though he was S-Plus and the ice demon was merely S-Flat at best, the Frozen Hell absorbing his youki.
Dammit, Hiei was using Makai flames, and yet Zeru's Ningenkai flames somehow wouldn't die in the coldness of the Ju Hyo Tsuka. Touya forced the Jaganshi to depend on his superior swordsmanship and faster reflexes to defeat him in the end, but he couldn't do the same to someone much weaker?
"I know what you're thinking, and I have an answer to that," said the glowing-red blond while rolling his eyes at the blizzard Touya blasted into his face. "If you really did fight Hiei and held your own, then he must've held back against you, because your ice powers are nothing special. Like Seiryu of the Shisejyu."
Touya replied calmly, "Is that your idea of an insult, you watered-down version of Hiei who couldn't even handle Makai flames?" yet said nothing more.
His attempt at making a bigger blizzard... nay, a hailstorm... of icicles of varying lengths, sizes, and sharpness with his ice breath superpower known as the Ma Teki Sendan Sha (Shards of Winter) was rendered moot by the buckshot of fireballs and brimstone (or rather, superheated Alaskan rocks) from Zeru.
Damn. They were equals in almost every respect, their opposing powers canceling each other out. However, it was the blond, pointy-eared, and pale-skinned muscleman demon who had the advantage, thanks to his... internal combustion?
After the Icicle Falls failed, Touya shifted to hit-and-run tactics, hiding himself in a haze of steam after Zeru shot a beam of concentrated energy at him.
However, the burning demon merely walked through the landmine-like Cold Spires that shot out off the ground, snow, and half-frozen river that would've impaled him had they not melted and vaporized against his skin instead, which shone like the sun.
Imagine that: A sparkling vampire-looking fellow.
"Unlike you, who've been training in cold places to master ice, I've learned how to use my firepower even in the coldest regions of Alaska, like in Barrow!" boasted Zeru, his temperature rising from 10,000 degrees to 100,000 degrees Celsius. "I can produce heat even in Antarctica!"
"..."
Zeru diversified his projectiles from the energy beam to his meteor-shower fireballs, a fire whip, and a fire chain and sickle.
In turn, Touya also dodged and countered these with humongous walls of ice made of Kuskokwim waters (Freeze Charm Light Crystal Wall), ninjutsu mirages, and hiding in the thick haze of water vapor (as though he were mimicking his ex-teammate Bakken's strategy).
A castle made of ice crystals emerged in the middle of their battle, full of staircases and rising towers that gave Touya the advantage in terms of matter manipulation.
Every attempt of Zeru to destroy the ice demon resulted in collapsing sharp ice shards and an avalanche of falling, unstable snow.
Then, before the blond could regroup, the green-haired, glassy-eyed youkai shot his own wintry cyclone... the Freeze Charm Running Calamity Wave... into the ground, completely incasing the flame youkai in ice.
However, when Touya attempted to finish his frozen opponent off with two Ice Cutlasses (or the Ice Driver), Zeru melted the ice, blocked the swords with a firewall or fire barrier, and counterattacked with a high-pressure fire blade of his own sprouting out of his forearm.
"Enough of this nonsense." Zeru raised his right hand high up in the air and let a streak of spiraling flame dance around it. For a minute there, Touya thought that his opponent would summon a Human World fire version of the Dragon of Darkness Flame (perhaps a Dragon of Mortal Flame?).
Instead, a firestorm (or perhaps a fire tornado) destroyed the castle of ice, which cleared the area for Zeru's fire beam. He then whipped around the flame vortex at Touya while using his other arm to produce his laser blasts.
The ice demon froze the flame with his ice breath and conglomerated all his temperature-altering youki into his own ice beam that turned the fire demon's fire beam into harmless heat and light.
Like with Hiei, the flame youkai trapped the snow youkai inside his fire barrier, intending to finish him off with a flash of fire that would make his temperatures rise from zero to hundreds of thousands or even millions of degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, the fire demon himself approached his millionth degree Celsius of internalized heat: A temperature so hot, it could turn rock into gas without melting it first.
He was about to reach "black body" temperature... the temperature that literally vurned people's bodies as black as coal and as hard as a rock. The temperature of a Kokuryuha or a detonated atom bomb.
Was Zeru honestly reaching Makai flame levels of high temperatures by building up his energy from the inside, like a pressure cooker or an internal combustion engine?
Could Touya risk doing the same technique on himself as Zeru did, only this time using coldness rather than heat? In Absolute Zero (Kelvin) temperatures, at that? Wouldn't he get killed by doing so?
Then again, Zeru didn't die from the intense heat he produced within his body. However, to turn oneself into something colder than ice or dry ice was still a bit...
'No. I have to do this. If only to defeat the likes of Hiei, Kurama, or even... Kujo. I want to have a rematch with Kujo and beat him. Completely. An actual semifinalist of the Demon World Unification Tournament.'
Then, a heartbeat later, and that area of Kuskokwim suddenly resembled Barrow, Alaska at its coldest. Furthermore, even dry ice was produced from carbon dioxide freezing around the ice demon. All particle movement had stopped.
It was the (almost) Absolute Zero version of the Freeze Charm Running Calamity Wave.
Touya successfully pushed Zeru's effigy to the ground, shattering it into millions of pieces, only for him to realize that at the last minute, his opponent formed a mirage of himself, then reshaped whatever the ice beam hit to look like a frozen person with his flame powers.
The ice demon was hit with the 1,000-degree Celsius (or 1,832-degree Fahrenheit) flash fire that even rose to hundreds of thousands of degrees the next second, but never hotter than that because Touya's cold aura immediately killed the heat and flames in an instant.
They were at another impasse once again.
Touya's freezing aura of nigh-Absolute Zero Kelvin (-273.15 degrees Celsius or -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) slowed down particle movement to a crawl while he insulated himself from the effects of his own power with perfect self-control.
Meanwhile, Zeru's unstable high-pressure aura maintained his "black body" temperature of 1.4 to 4.4 million degrees Celsius (or 50 to 150 million degrees Fahrenheit), the same temperature of a detonated atomic bomb at ground zero, his pores spouting tongues of flame instead of sweat.
It was again heaven and hell. Ice and fire. Hotter than the sun and colder than the far reaches of the universe.
Who would win? The irresistible force or the immovable object?
The fire demon released the majority of his pent-up energy at the ice demon's freezing aura, the opposing forces snuffing each other out.
They then attacked at the same time, with Touya's Ice Cutlass cutting Zeru while Zeru's fire sword sliced Touya.
They fell at the same time, the surrounding temperature dropping to tropical levels of heat and moisture, their demonic energies completely exhausted.
At Mamterilleq's Upper Kuskokwim, where the Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan lived...
Faster and more powerful than the winds produced by Rando's Rasengan and Xinhai's Tornado Ripper combined, multiple twisters emerged from the whirling hands and feet of Jin the Wind User, who engaged in battle with his former Team Masho teammate, Risho the Earth Charmer.
On Risho's part, he created a more refined version of his clay armor; a form-fitting yet completely solid rock armor that he moved with his earthen telekinesis despite their weight.
"As always, you have no honor, Risho. You're desperate enough to make a deal with the devil and sell your soul for more power," rebuked Jin. "Do you really think you can find a shortcut to achieve what we've worked so hard to get?"
"You traitors of demon kind can whine all you want, but the fact remains that I did find a shortcut. I am S-Level," retorted Risho. "Around your power level, in fact. Some people work hard, while others work smart, Jin."
Alaskan rocks and minerals of all shapes, sizes, forms, and geological origins orbited around the earth charmer demon and traveled upwards and forwards.
The smaller stones traveled at supersonic bullet speeds, while the larger ones... some as big as cars, trucks, houses, and buildings... ascended up to the sky then let gravity to do the rest.
"Unlike those other dead guys that need to first be revived and trained before reaching S-Level with Houji's negative energy, I was alive from the get go! That's why my living body was able to reach a higher power level than any of them! I don't need to waste precious jaki to escape my own death!"
At that point, the river bed became a valley of multiple waterfalls due to Risho eroding the soil and making the land shift downwards in accordance to his will, thus creating a canyon on what was once flatland in one fell swoop.
Jin stared upwards and whistled when the first of the bigger rocks (more like entire hills and mountains, really) fell from the sky. One of them was as huge as a Tokyo high-rise apartment.
"I better use both hands for this."
Unaware of how suggestive his words were, Jin windmilled his arms and produced a Double Shura Senpuken of about F2 to F3 speeds. Then, in true S-Level demon fashion, he blasted the rock into a sandstorm with his high-pressure wind drill.
Jin licked his lips, his ears wiggling while he grinned. He couldn't wait to show off his improved air control against his fellow wind demon and one of Raizen's comrades, Souketsu. He hadn't even used his special attack yet!
To himself, Risho clenched his jaw and thought, 'Relax. As long as I can wait out Jin's storm, I'll have him at the palm of my hand.'
More rocks the size of minivans and, sometimes, skyscrapers went high up the sky and blotted the sun like floating islands or solidified clouds. They then fell one by one once Risho released his telekinetic hold on them.
The earth charmer's rock telekinesis had improved so much at Class-S, he could even lift himself up with his stony armor, mimicking flight while hurling the nearest flying debris at his opponent.
"You should've stayed down on the ground instead of fighting up here in the air, Risho. This is my domain!" said Jin.
Risho answered, "Make me," before hurling huge islands and peaks at the wind user in an aerial dogfight of sorts.
"Your funeral, buddy." The floating patches of earth and stone then exploded into millions of fragments and grains with one supersonic spin of Jin's body.
The red-haired, pointy-eared demon then used Risho's rocks against him by resisting their telekinetic force and hurtling them with the assistance of his tornadoes and even centrifugal force.
Risho's stone armor held together even with the combined barrage of his own boulders, sand, fragments, shards, and so forth as well as the might of the F5 Shura Senpuken.
"Let's end this! SHURA DENGEKI SENPUKEN!" Instead of just twin twisters forming a double-helix spiral of destruction, the multiple tornado arms Jin made beforehand converged into his one arm, forming a thunderous swirling super typhoon, its eye serving as the pinprick point of his drill.
Lightning and thunder strikes boomed and struck the stone armor of Risho, partially melting it. Furthermore, the dirty thunderstorm from all the gathered dust resulted in the rising smoke becoming thick and ionized enough to produce electricity of its own.
Risho retreated back to the ground where their fight started, which made Jin follow him with his hurricane in tow, right into the foot of the falls that was once a level river bed.
The earth charmer smiled, his stone armor crumbling, revealing a quartz armor that resisted the force of Jin's destructive F5 typhoon. The trap had been set.
The land-controlling demon then gathered the dust fragments in the air as well as the surrounding land and rocks that remained on Kuskokwim and then made them all converge into an avalanche that buried Jin alive in tons of dirt... in Risho's domain.
"It's not going to be my funeral, Jin, but yours. Welcome to your grave."
The crystalline-armored Risho then burrowed out of the mound of dirt and rock that was once a valley. It was all over.
He was about to smugly rejoin the rest of the Dai Kaijin when Jin also blasted his way out of what could've been his final resting place, out of breath and every bone in his body fractured.
Risho smirked. "You should've stayed buried." In an instant, he summoned huge quartz monoliths that towered over him and the wind user. "Now you're going to have an even messier death."
True to his words, the telekinetic earth demon smashed the hollow quartz towers against each other, which made it rain shards of sharp crystal death that could rip apart flesh and shatter bone in a matter of seconds.
In a last-ditch effort to win, Jin summoned what remained of his power and whirled all the shards back at Risho, who covered his eyes with his arm and survived the ripping quartz storm.
More shrapnel flew everywhere, shattering what was left of the quartz towers, broken by the same flying shards that Jin desperately shielded himself against, making his problems worse.
Risho merely waited for the wind demon's stamina to give out, which resulted in him getting ripped apart by a shower of crystal quartz shards that ricocheted all over Upper Kuskokwim.
Meanwhile, thanks to his thick armor, the earth demon was none the worse for wear.
Bloodied, battered, and beaten, Jin remained standing not because of his physical power, but because he still had a little youki left to lift himself up by air rather than by muscle power.
The quartz-armored Risho also lifted himself up with his youki and prepared to do one last Bomber Tackle, in order to turn his former teammate into a red chunky stain on the muddy ground.
"This time, I'll make sure you stay on the ground."
With only one eye open and part of his pointy ears frayed, the bleeding Jin smiled a red grin and said, "This is your first and final warning. Stand down or face utter defeat."
"Who do you think you're kidding?" shouted Risho, but the floating Jin avoided the impact of the Bomber Tackle by his short hairs.
Nevertheless, because it looked like even a stiff breeze could knock the wind demon over, the earth demon continued attacking with his floating rocks and landslides.
As expected of a master of the element of air, Jin dodged and deflected back the geological formations at the armored Risho with spinning, double-helix, and circular motions, the wind pressure resisting the weight, mass, and telekinetic movement of the solid objects.
Then again, Jin's heels soon touched down the ground, his spaghetti legs barely able to keep himself up, his youki completely spent. His wings clipped. Their last dance formed into a spiral of some sort.
"I've got you now!" cried Risho, who had a boulder flying from behind Jin while he attacked at the front with another Bomber Tackle, sandwiching the demon between a rock and a hard place. Or a quartz-armored demon and a boulder.
"HIRYU SHOTEN HA!" screamed Jin.
"Wha...? NOOOO...!"
Before Risho knew what was happening, a storm surge occurred, gathering leftover winds and youki that merged into a super typhoon that reached F5 speeds and "beyond" (although any tornado higher than 200 miles per hour or 300 kilometers per hour was classified as F5) in an instant, blowing him and his armor sky high.
Touya had actually helped Jin figure out the martial arts technique from Nerima that even an ancient (human) grandma could do by teaching him how to keep his aura cold.
It was the combination of an aggressive opponent's hot energy and the passive user's cold energy that allowed the Rising Dragon Wave to work.
At the North Fork of Kuskokwim, in Lake Minchumina, where the Alaskan natives known as the Koyukon Athabaskan lived...
Shishiwakamaru pondered, 'If Team Urameshi hadn't eliminated both our teams, could it have been possible for Team Masho to end up fighting my team, Team Uraotogi, in the semifinals of the Dark Martial Arts Tournament?'
The imp demon masquerading as the demonic version of Benkei Musashibo might very well had ended up facing his current opponent, Gama the Body Painter Bearer, back then in the Ankoku Bujutsukai.
Perhaps.
The toad youkai wrote on his stomach "Kinko" ("Equilibrium") and painted on the ground "Jishin" ("Earthquake") with his blood paints. Sure enough, as though he were Risho the Earth Charmer, he made the ground shake while he himself remained secure with his balance and footing.
'Huh. Is that the Class-S version of his painting powers?' the pretty boy youkai wondered before retreating into Lake Minchumina's waist-high waters and grabbing the handle of his blade forged by the Goofy (Yet Useful) Suzuki, the Ma Koku Mei Zan Ken (Banshee Shriek Sword).
The swordsman attempted to rub out the paints on his wrists and ankles with the water, but to no avail. 'They won't come off.' He then considered skinning off his wrists and hands.
"I got you now, Shishi...!" screamed Gama, who'd started writing the first few strokes of the kanji "Shi" ("Death") on the swordsman's shoulder.
The blade flew out of its scabbard like a swan unfurling its wings.
Despite the roiling waters, rumbling ground, and painted-on shackles on his wrists and ankles that limited his movement, Shishi still unsheathed his sword fast enough to slash Gama apart without spilling any of his deadly blood on him.
The toad demon couldn't get near him.
Regardless, the withdrawing Gama dipped his brush on the blood spurting out from the damage he took from Shishi's blade to write the kanji "Ryou" ("Heal") on his wound, which made it close instantly.
'I guess that proves it. Instead of makeup and body paint, he now uses calligraphy to make any word become reality,' thought the swords-demon.
To Gama, Shishiwakamaru said, "You're committing the same mistake as before, when you faced Kurama," before stabbing his Banshee Shriek Sword on the ground. "Don't underestimate me."
Even though he was supposedly constrained, the S-Level Shishi could still summon his Bakuto Doku Shoku Sou (Chorus of a Thousand Skulls), the Black Sabbath of long-dead demons converging onto the hapless toady of the Chojin.
"Shouldn't it be the other way around, you human-loving scum?" said the painter demon. Immediately after the cannibalistic demonic ghouls came out, the calligraphic Gama wrote "Yoroi" ("Armor") on himself, which resulted in him acquiring special samurai-style armor.
After fending off several demons with his brush sword (he put the kanji "Ken" or "Sword" on the handle of his painting tool), the pale-skinned demon wrote "Yakubarai" ("Exorcism") on one of the flying ghouls, which made it turn white and eat the rest of the other demonic spirits until all of them disappeared altogether.
"!?"
Gama then charged at Shishiwakamaru freely with his steel-sharp brush blade on hand, unmindful of the Banshee Shriek Sword's slashes thanks to his armor.
'Dammit. What a troublesome foe. How do I defeat him?' thought Shishi while charging up his demon energy for another Bakuto Doku Shoku Sou.
"Rumor has it in the afterlife that you've fallen in love with a certain human grandmother. I wasn't alive to witness the rest of the Ankoku Bujutsukai, but even then, I still know of your defeat against Genkai. And your confession of love to her."
Shishiwakamaru's face turned red then blue, unable to deny what Gama had spoken. He really couldn't forget the cherubic face of the young Genkai, only to blanch in remembrance of the wrinkled visage of the old Genkai, putting him at his own "Genkai" ("Limits").
The toad demon then lacerated the distracted imp demon without worrying about being slashed apart himself. In particular, he tattooed the words, "Fu Ju" ("Sealing Curse") on Shishi's chest, which sealed away the bishonen youkai's youki.
Shishi now had no choice but to rely solely on his swordsmanship. He had no demon energy left to spare.
"This is what happens when you become a ningen fucker." Gama smirked after writing "Hayai" ("Fast") on his armor for good measure. "You become as soft and weak as these humans you love."
"How ironic, then, that your bodies are made from human-demon hybrids." Shishiwakamaru snorted. After fighting both Soujiro Seta and Genkai throughout his lifetime, he knew better than to underestimate humans.
For mouthing off, Gama prolonged Shishi's suffering by writing "Mekakushi" ("Blindfold") on his face, which rendered him blind. The toad youkai then sliced the imp youkai apart piece-by-piece, skinning him alive.
The blind, bleeding swordsman should've been able to slash the sadistic toad demon apart were his movements not constricted by these damn shackles and curses.
What would Genkai do in a situation like this?
Wait a minute. He remembered exactly what that damn old woman did to win against him in the Ankoku Bujustukai. But that wasn't enough. No, he needed to be absolutely sure he'd win.
So he taunted Team Masho Tsukai's Body Painter, stating, "You call yourself a youkai? You should be ashamed of yourself, fighting like a coward! Using curses instead of skill to win. You're no real demon. You're a fake demon. You might as well write 'Nisemono' ('Fake') on your forehead."
"If you're attempting to lure me into doing something foolish, then you have another think coming," said Gama, who continued slashing Shishi apart. "I also don't want to hear such things from a Benkei wannabe."
Shishiwakamaru (a play on Benkei's Ukiyo-e painting nickname, "Oniwakamaru") cackled. "I've surpassed Benkei. I made him run away from me when he saw my powers. You yourself couldn't even realize the full potential of your own S-Class powers, you filthy little toad."
The swordsman then felt it. Pure bloodlust. Even a blind swordsman could use his sixth sense to locate any enemy by the intensity of their bloodthirstiness.
Speaking of blood, Gama's purple blood spilled all over the waters of Lake Minchumina, with Shishiwakamaru stabbing at his (unprotected) thigh then backing off.
Before the pale-faced zombie did the predictable and heal himself, Shishi wrote with his finger using Gama's blood on his blade the words "Modosu" ("Revert").
Right at that instant, the wrist and ankle markings, the "Fu Ju" ("Sealing Curse") kanji on his chest, and the "Mekakushi" ("Blindfold") characters on his face vanished.
Reverted, if you would. In other words, their effects were rendered null, so now Shishiwakamaru was back to full health and with no curses.
The hatred that made Gama's deadly blood boil still remained, though. "You want a man-to-man fight, Shishiwakamaru? Then I'll give you a man-to-man fight, you unmanly, watered-down version of Benkei!"
From there, the toad youkai wrote "Oniwaka" (Demon Child) on his chest plate, right below "Hayai", which transformed him from the toady, long-chinned creature that he was to the true demonic version of Benkei Musashibo.
Shishiwakamaru blasted Oniwakamaru with a head-on Bakuto Doku Shoku Sou with one slash of the Ma Koku Mei Zan Ken. The latter shrugged it off, as though he were an S-Level Togoru Ototo and the ghouls gathered by the Chorus of a Thousand Skulls nothing more than prey to an apex predator.
"I AM THE TRUE ONIWAKAMARU! The shadow cannot exist without the man!" said the now-gigantic Gama, who'd transformed into Benkei Saito Musashibo, the sohei (warrior monk) whose brush became a long naginata (and the characters written on its handle said as much).
No matter how many times Shishi stabbed the Oniwaka version of Gama, he would not stay down. Even after the pretty boy swordsman grew horns and lengthened the Banshee Shriek Sword to naginata-length, Gama was still able to drag his opponent's body around like a rag doll with his true polearm.
"This shadow has outlived the man! And surpassed him!" gurgled the tiny-voiced Shishiwakamaru in his original imp form, no larger than an infant or a small toy dog.
"Benkei" guffawed at the pathetic sight and was about to write "Shi" in Shishi's own blood when his body froze. Gama had lost too much of his own blood and used up most of his life energy to become a better fake Benkei than Shishiwakamaru did.
Appropriately enough, because of how closely Gama imitated the famous sohei, he ended up recreating the "Benkei no Tachi Oujou" ("Standing Death of Benkei"), wherein the arrow-riddled, wound-covered Benkei died while still standing and protecting the honor of his lord, Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
And like the true opposite of Benkei, Shishi the imp demon ended up surviving even though he looked like he had one foot in the grave.
"This is why I've won and you've lost," began Shishiwakamaru after returning to his humanoid form. "Give a fool enough rope and he'll hang himself neatly for you."
At another area of Kusko River's Northern Fork, in Lake Minchumina, where the Koyukon Athabaskan lived...
"Seems like you got the short end of the stick, dude. Instead of reaching S-Level, the best you could do is A-Plus," said the Gorgeous Suzuki after checking his Spirit Detector. "Nice try, but better luck next time."
The sometimes-clownish, sometimes-aged demon then shooed his seething opponent... Team Masho Tsukai's Bakken... away. "I'll be merciful and let you go. I, the Beautiful Suzuki, have no time to waste for small fry."
"It doesn't matter what power level that wristwatch from Reikai assigns to me," said the tanned shinobi who originally had the talent to turn his sweat into thick white clouds. "The nature of my power at A-Level is that even if I'm fighting the likes of Hiei, Kurama, or Yusuke in a rematch, I'd still defeat him."
Instead of answering, "O-ho. That's tough talk from someone whose head I smashed open like a coconut earlier," the Sidetracked Suzuki bemoaned, "I can't believe I missed the rest of my Kanamara Matsuri date with Juri for this crap. I wonder where she is now. I could've sworn she was into me, but..."
"PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR OPPO...!" was all Bakken could get out before being shot by red laser beams emanating from the glowing-red Suzuki's Dark Item, the Kaleidoscope World goggles, the red hue signifying power. "GUUUAGH!"
"Fine, fine. Let's make this quick so that we Roku Youkai can get this mission over with as soon as possible. Then I can get my second date with a certain lovely sea creature! Maybe we can go to the Paantu Matsuri next. When does that happen?"
For a Class-A youkai, Bakken carried himself well enough, avoiding the orange-colored Suzuki giant's stomps like the cockroach that he was, hiding in his sweat-induced fog or burrowing under crevices before tensing his muscles and (barely) surviving the supersonic punches of a blue-colored Suzuki.
The violet-colored Suzuki (a combination of red and blue or power and acceleration, leading to explosive or instantly destructive capabilities) then made use of a skill that the Master of Disguise hadn't used yet.
The Northern Fork became the site for spontaneous combustion and explosions galore. Different kinds of explosion happened, some with fire, others with simple built-up concussive pressure bursting in an instant.
However, like a fly that refused to be swatted, the bleeding, burned, and dying shinobi demon kept escaping, using some sort of steam-induced mirage or optical illusion trick to keep him from being targeted easily.
'Holy crap, stand still, will you?'
Wait. So far, the Beautiful Suzuki showcased his red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet powers. He was still missing a color; one that wasn't part of the primary and secondary colors of the color wheel, yet was part of the rainbow all the same.
Indigo. One of the seven colors of the rainbow. The color whom Isaac Asimov called as a color not worth having the dignity of being considered a separate color, because in his eyes it was merely deep blue.
What effect would it produce? The Bold and the Beautiful Suzuki didn't wait to find out. Doing so ended up being one of the biggest mistakes in his life.
At first, it didn't look that way. Suzuki's indigo radiation (perhaps even ultraviolet radiation) permeated into Bakken and burned him alive, turning his skin into bacon, his hair going white and his muscles atrophying as he vomited blood.
'Cool! I get it! The color indigo gives me the power of...!'
Then Bakken grinned, absorbing the energy until himself. Suzuki took a look at his Spirit Detector. The demon's energy went up a notch, becoming S-Minus.
Damn. What the hell did he hit him with?
The indigo-hued Bakken recovered from the initial shock of receiving the almost ultraviolet-like radiation on his person that gave him a hyper-accelerated version of radiation sickness.
"...The power of poison, venom, sickness, deterioration, and decay, huh? That's swell, Suzuki, because that's the exact power I've been developing ever since the Chojin plucked me out of Hell!"
With a full-on stab of Bakken's entire hand, Suzuki froze, the steam demon producing toxins he transferred by touch. "Feel that? It's a more potent version of Tetrodotoxin. A pufferfish neurotoxin. Enjoy."
Like Karasu and Edward Gein, Bakken also showcased the transformative or transmutation powers of a Quest-Class demon, except this time instead of turning youki into solid matter, he turned his bodily fluids into deadly chemicals using his youki and jaki reserves.
"Wha...?" Faster-acting than "normal" Tetrodotoxin or TTX, the poisoned Suzuki ended up paralyzed in mere seconds rather than in minutes.
Suzuki attempted to heal himself from the effects of the neurotoxin by using his yellow healing powers, but Bakken ended up destroying the Kaleidoscope World by sweating out hydrofluoric acid... an acid that could melt glass... his skin strangely immune even though the acid ended up melting the Master of Disguise's beautiful face.
The scar-ridden Bakken cackled, his shoulders hitting his neck as he gasped out hollering laughter. "So much for being the Handsome Suzuki! Don't worry, I'll teach you a thing or two about decay! You'll think twice before using that flippant tone on me again, YOU ASS-CLOWN!"
Unable to grab his melting face, the bulging eyes of the Horrified Suzuki could only watch as Bakken manifested his swirling youki and jaki, filling the blond youkai's sweat and blood with a fast-acting version of AIDS, instantly overwhelming his immune system.
That wasn't all. To ensure that the Luckless Suzuki was as dead as could possibly be, Bakken made the colorful demon's body gangrene and decay while he was still alive using the Black Plague virus and have uncontrollable bleeding out of every orifice due to ebola.
Suzuki's demonic immune system was unable to even prevent the spread of Bakken's concoction of diseases, ranging from leprosy to anthrax. His remains then became a puddle of biohazard that only Bakken was immune to a moment later.
The muscular plague demon stomped on what was left of Suzuki with a wet squelch, intending to infect the rest of the New Six Demons with the gunk.
However, minutes later, something else happened just then. Something unexpected.
The arm. The amputated arm of Suzuki that Ura Urashima chopped off earlier. It washed ashore on the riverbanks of Kuskokiwm, shining different colors of the rainbow before it altogether floated into the air and turned its mass into pure energy and light.
"What in the world...?" began Bakken before he saw the face of God. Or something close to one.
From there, a whole new Suzuki clone sprouted from the arm without him using the Kaleidoscope World's green power of regeneration. Recreated directly from the miraculous white light amidst the aurora borealis in the dark skies.
The Godly Suzuki boomed, "BEHOLD! THE ULTIMATE FORM OF THE RAINBOW CYCLONE! AURORA VORTEX!" while the helpless Bakken's eyes burst from the brilliance of the rainbow youkai's colorful aura.
The Rainbow Cyclone and Rainbow Cyclone Redux combined small samples of color powers into one big photosynthetic blast of varying wavelengths.
The Aurora Vortex, on the other hand, combined all concentrated levels of his color powers together, mixing the youki particles into light energy as white and bright as sunlight.
It was Suzuki's version of Sei Kou Ki, in other words.
The Master of Disguise then changed outfits in an instant, turning into what appeared to be a caricature of Shinobu Sensui, complete with a huge pointed chin, a target with a bull's eye on his forehead (in reference to Sensui's bindi), a huge cowlick, and long, gangly limbs.
"Today, people refer to angels as direct servants of God. But I believe the term originally applied to individuals cloaked in this power like myself."
Neither of them was supposed to know who Sensui was, though. Bakken certainly had no idea what the hell Suzuki was referencing.
The Northern Lights that blanketed the sky first swirled into a new sun, much smaller yet nearer than the sun of the solar system.
The Angelic Suzuki then picked the blinded Bakken up, raised his face by tipping up his chin with his fingers, and saying, "Rejoice and burn inside my light. This is my acknowledgement of your strength, demon. Here it is: My strongest technique."
"N-NO! Please, have mercy...!"
The bright light of heaven itself radiated through the demon's skin, charbroiling him from the inside-out. His poisons, venoms, chemicals, and diseases were then vaporized wholesale into nothingness.
At the edge of Kuskokwim's North Fork; deep within the Kuskokwim Mountains...
Like with what happened in Hiei's fight with Zeru, the Jaganshi slashed the top half of the Nagasone Kotetsu apart with the Sword of Darkness Flame, the metal melting under the high temperatures of his flaming sword, the Makai fire softening the tempered steel to its melting point and beyond.
Initially, the so-called Heaven Sword was delighted to hear that Hiei had decided to include his fire techniques like the Rengoku Shou or the Jaou-En-Satsu Ken into the mix to compensate for the full speed of the Shukuchi.
"Now I get to know what it's like to spar with Shishio-san," the Ten Ken had said, adding that the Sword of Darkness Flame looked a lot like this Shishio person's Homura Dama.
The ghost boy quickly ate his words when he started doing a lot more dodging than actual attacks. As usual, the Jagan User's second snaking Kokoryuha, destructive as it was (it razed the surrounding Kuskokwim wilderness like a forest fire mixed with a German blitzkrieg), proved too slow to catch the supersonic Heaven Sword.
However, Soujiro committed the same mistake Bui made when the latter fought Hiei for the first (and last) time in the Ankoku Bujutsukai. The Heaven Sword "tricked" the fire demon into blasting himself with the Dragon of Darkness Flame.
To Seta's surprise, this didn't in fact disintegrate or turn Hiei into a shadow on the ground. Instead, to the phantom's chagrin, the three-eyed demon increased in speed and strength, matching the quickness of the Shukuchi every step of the way.
The Kokuryuha energized Hiei the same way the Onmyouji could power up his allies with the Chojin's wellspring of negative energy.
So every last advantage Soujiro had in terms of speed was neutralized by Hiei's absorption of the Kokuryuha, and every advantage the Jaganshi had in terms of firepower and strength, Seta had no answer for.
Hiei harrumphed. Even at this juncture, even with his back against the wall, the Heaven Sword continued to smile. 'What's his problem?'
Furthermore, several members of the New Six Demons... to be more specific, Rinku, Chu, Shishiwakamaru, and Suzuki... soon joined the flying shadow's side, and even Seta couldn't handle the might of five S-Levels on his trail.
And so, at the edge of Kuskokwim, within the Alaskan Mountain range leading to Mount McKinley, the Dai Shin Kan (and Gein) ended up regrouping, with Hiei and some of the Shin Roku Youkai on hot pursuit of them all.
"HAHAHAAHA!" cackled Shishi, who blasted an endless stream of Bakuto Doku Shoku Sou at the firebombed and scuffed-up Soujiro. "Where's your Chojin now, human? Don't even stop running, because if you do, I'll make damn sure you don't have any legs left to stand on!"
The sweating, wounded Seta smiled at Shishiwakamaru but did nothing more.
"Gein, you bungling idiot! You quack! Your experiment is a total failure! What do you have to say for yourself?" demanded the mink-coated high priest of the Overfiend and CCO Enterprise President Houji Sadojima, who by then had healed from the damage given to him by Shishiwakamaru's Chorus of a Thousand Skulls.
"Houji, Houji, Houji. Experiments are never 'failures', since every one will get us closer to the truth," berated Edward, who now rode inside his Iwanbo Version 3.1. "If a hypothesis is proven wrong, then that only means you should come up with a different hypothesis as a result of new evidence. It's all about trial and error."
"Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter," quipped the powered-down Suzuki, who could only do a Rainbow Cyclone Redux at that point against the muscular, salamander-like meat puppet that Gein rode like a horse.
"Ah, finally! Someone who understands!" said the skull-masked former doctor before backhanding Suzuki away. "If anything, the results of this experiment proved my hypothesis of mind over matter as correct."
"NO EXCUSES! Because of you, I've wasted the power of the Chojin again on worthless Dai Kaijin that don't deserve to be part of the New Ten Swords," continued the Onmyouj, who shielded himself from the Devil Yoyos and Satan Top of Rinku with transmutation runes.
"We have them on the run, Chu! What are you waiting for? Blast him with your Onigoroshi!" said Rinku, who would've tied the Onmyouji up had he not missed and caught a shikigami doppelganger instead.
"Er... I've kind of run out of youki, kid. But I can still do this," said the alcoholic demon before lifting huge boulders on his back and chucking them at Iwanbo's head.
"...When are you going to give them bodies that will allow them to get S-Level powers from the get go without my assistance, Gein?" demanded Houji.
"Don't you get it? These human-exposed demons have achieved in a short period of time what usually takes centuries to accomplish," answered back Gein, who had a wrestling match with Chu through his Iwanbo Version 3.1 meat puppet. "The same way the Toguro Brothers, Sensui, and Genkai went beyond their human limitations due to their exposure to youkai."
"And how does that help us, Gein-hakase?" asked Soujiro, who, with a half-melted sword the size of a kodachi, had both Shishiwakamaru and Hiei to deal with, their whirling blades becoming a rain of sparks.
Ah, the Heaven Sword. Oh, how Edward Gein (formerly Shoji Sugino) wished he could give the phantom menace a half-demonic, half-human body that wouldn't hold back his ghostly body's natural S-Level abilities.
"For now, the best I could do is this: A monster with an A-Level body that bears S-Level potential," said Edward. "It's about time you made your appearance... Yatsume."
Hiei stopped in mid-stab of the Ten Ken after he saw a creature with gibbon limbs, fanged jaws, an elongated tongue, a black mask with white ragged crescents for eyes, and a black costume that seemed painted on his gangly body full of bandages.
"This is Yatsume Mumyoi (the Nameless Yatsume)," Edward introduced Mumyoi to Hiei and the New Six Demons. "The fifth member of the Dai Shin Kan."
Rinku assaulted Gein's Iwanbo meat suit from high up the air with a multitude of spinning Satan Tops and Devil Yoyos while Chu attacked low, his swaying, fluid movements avoiding the tree trunk of a Sitka Spruce thrown at him with ease.
"Believe it or not, he was once human: A member of a gold-mining clan back in the Meiji Era with a special tradition that enabled them to lengthen their limbs about one and a half times longer than normal."
The Iwanbo-suited Gein didn't even flinch when both the yoyo kid and the demonic drunkard got knocked over by the apparently stretchable limbs of the "mummified" Mumyoi.
"Because he's a mere human revived in modern times, he'd normally be no match against S-Level youkai like you. However, thanks to the DNA of a certain Saint Beast traitor, I'm sure Yatsume is now powerful enough to handle the likes of you."
"Should I...?" Houji asked Gein, indicating his intention to blast Mumyoi with jaki, but Edward shook his head, assuring, "There's no need."
To the New Roku Youkai, the skull-masked puppet master wearing a meat puppet made his Iwanbo Version 3.1 guffaw. "It's foolish to go up against the Chojin's zombie army. Once you're dead, you'll soon become part of it."
"One, two, three, four... There are only five of them, Gein! I thought they were supposed to be _six_ demons here," said the shinobi apparition (Touya and Jin were nowhere to be found). "I want more victims. Feed me."
"Where are you getting all your confidence from, small fry?" asked the Dazzling Suzuki. "According to this Reikai power level wristwatch, you're just a mere A-Level human! Even if your Onmyouji powers you up with his jaki beam, it's still one S-Level against five!"
The Invisible Suzuki then shoulder-tackled the shinobu into a Chu uppercut before being finished off by Rinku, who did the "Suicide" yoyo trick to lasso the mummified ninja and slice him up.
However, as Rinku, Chu, and Suzuki refocused their onslaught on the Dai Shin Kan generals of the Chojin (plus Gein), the four pieces of the Nameless Yatsume regenerated like a Hydra from Ancient Greek Mythology, forming into four "newborn" Yatsumes from the one Mumyoi they thought they killed.
Yes. That just happened.
Two of the Nameless shinobi burrowed underground while the other pair of regenerating ninjas unfurled their body bandages and wrapped up both Suzuki and Chu. These creepy ghouls then fell on all fours and spider-walked their way towards the blue-faced drunkard and disguise master.
'I knew it,' thought Hiei, who burned alive the Yatsume nearest him with the Sword of Darkness Flame while Rinku turned the Mumyoi he fought with into a chunky puddle care of an extra-fast spinning Satan Top.
To both Hiei and Rinku's chagrin, the Yatsumes they killed regenerated then and there while adding even more clones into the mix. As weak as they were against the S-Levels, they more than made up for it in resiliency.
They were like cockroaches, almost.
"KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!" the Yatsumes repeatedly chanted like the bloodthirsty demonic audience of the Dark Martial Arts Tournament. "WE ARE THE NAMELESS YATSUME! WE ARE LEGION! WE NEVER FORGIVE! WE NEVER FORGET!"
"Oh, did I forget to mention?" interjected Gein, who did a spinning pile driver on the tied-up Chu and Suzuki with his latest Iwanbo creation. "Aside from giving Yatsume some of Suzaku's DNA, I was also able to clone him the same highly regenerative body I made Toguro Ani a good fifty years ago, making him reach Regent-Class."
Just as Quest-Class beings defied the Law of Conservation of Mass and (at times) Ontological Inertia, so too did Regent-Class beings defy Death and Entropy.
They healed and regenerated themselves with an endless wellspring of life energy, making them capable of living for eons without showing signs of aging.
Meanwhile, Chu grabbed both the Yatsumes that tied him up and crushed their skulls together, instantly "killing" them. As for Suzuki, he used x-ray vision to find the rest of the burrowing shinobi and disintegrate them with his Rainbow Cyclone.
Even these Yatsumes ended up multiplying after they were murdered. Like a persistent pestilence.
From one Mumyoi Yatsume, there came four. Then eight. Then sixteen. In the confusion, Suzuki changed outfits and posed as one of the Nameless, which allowed him to murder his "comrades" by making them taste the rainbow, but at the expense of Chu mistaking him for one of the Yatsume and punching his lights out.
Sure, the Uber Suzuki could take on a hundred full-powered B-Plus Toguros or five S-Minus Sensuis with no problem, so sixteen A-Plus Yatsumes shouldn't even be enough to give him pause.
However, they were multiplying faster than rabbits in Australia. Without the need of procreation, at that (thank goodness). For sure, if they reached 64 and higher in numbers, even self-respecting S-Levels would have to take pause.
More than 50 A-Plus creatures would be enough to take down the likes of even the Full-Powered Suzuki with his Aurora Vortex. More than 300 to 600 of them could overwhelm all New Six Demons.
As for Hiei, an additional 500 or so Class-A Yatsumes should be enough to take him down.
They needed to find a solution to this hydra-headed problem now before things got to that point.
Shishiwakamaru took a break from attempting to turn the elusive Soujiro into his whipping boy ghost in order to produce a Chorus of a Thousand Skulls for each and every A-Plus Yatsume he found, with the intention of completely atomizing them so that they'd have nothing left to regenerate from.
For all the good it did. Like bug spray on an anthill.
Even the bowl-cut Onmyouji joined in on the cloning mayhem by producing more of his cloaked shikigami, their bony arms turning into long, decapitating scythes that sliced apart the Yatsumes and made them multiply even more.
Sure enough, from 64 Mumyois, there came 128 of them. Then 256. Maybe. Then they lost count. Soon, Hiei and four of the New Six Demons ended up drowning in a black-and-white sea of flaying limbs, snapping maws, and white bandages.
It was a growing infestation of Nameless Yatsumes.
It didn't help that on top of all this, the Dai Shin Kan (and the lone Shin Ju member responsible for this mess) also attacked them by picking their spots at the sidelines.
To Be Continued...
Here's another Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh reference. The Chimera Armor Pelt of the S-Class Kuro Momotaro or Poison Peach Boy is reminiscent of the combined form of the robots Ken-Oh (Sword King), Hou-Oh (Phoenix King), and Juu-Oh (Beast King), which was Raijin-Oh, except in this case, Kuro has fused the Simian Armor Pelt, Avian Armor Pelt, and Canine Armor Pelt together.
Aloha,
Abdiel