Youtou Shinnoken
A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
Let the battles commence.
Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and St. Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and Sony. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.
Chapter 22: Freckles (Part 4)
Back in the Human World... specifically, Tokyo, Japan... three weeks after the assault Rando and the Shisejyu staged at Genkai's temple...
"Your girlfriend is being mean to me because you just gave her the 'Just friends' speech without even realizing it!" Botan wailed in between her one-woman cat fight, which only served to confuse Kenshin all the more.
"Kaoru-dono! Stop... hitting... yourself. And Botan. Er..." Kenshin's eyebrows wiggled as he thought of an appropriate response. "Botan, please grab hold of my sword so that I can talk to Kaoru-dono directly."
"NO! You talked to her a minute ago, and I want to have control of my body for once!" Botan refused, but she then blew her stray bangs up with a frustrated exhale as another alien thought entered her mind. "Oh, now she's wondering why you're still calling her 'Kaoru-dono' even though we've already dropped using honorifics."
An ear-to-ear, feline grin nearly tore the shinigami's face apart as she announced to Kaoru, "It's because I've managed to make Kenshin do on the same week we've met what you couldn't do all throughout the months you knew him, you harlot with a stick up her butt!" Predictably, more self-strangulation occurred after that observation.
Once Kenshin broke the two arguing girls up by handing his sheathed Demon Sword to her... "them"... and making Kaoru take over Botan's physical form for the time being, the shinigami spoke using Kaoru's voice, stating, "This can't be real. This has to be a dream."
"K-Kaoru-dono? I mean, K-Kaoru... dono? Is it okay for me to call you Kaoru... dono?" Kenshin stumbled upon hearing the time-displaced girl from his past life abruptly speak to him yet again with her canary-like intonation, his efforts at dropping the "dono" suffix ending up futile. "S-Sorry... what did you say about a dream?"
Kaoru made Botan do a flat poker face in a manner that even Botan herself couldn't do. "Kenshin, I'm a dead spirit who ended up a hundred years into the future, talking to you through the physical manifestation of death that also happens to be a cheerful young woman in a pink ceremonial kimono who flies around on an oar. How can I not possibly think of this as a dream?"
The disturbed, Botan-bodied Kaoru paced back and forth the alleyway. "I haven't even begun to talk about half of the crazy things I've seen, like you living inside your sword like some sort of genie or something. Heck, I'm not even supposed to know what a genie is, but because I'm sharing my mind with the grim reaper, it makes perfect sense to me! Again, no. I'm sorry. This has to be a dream. I refuse to acknowledge this surrealistic, Dali-like world as reality... whoever Salvador Dali is. Just... no."
"Since you put it that way, then I agree. I don't know who Dali-san is either, but I do concur." Kenshin cleared his throat. "However, for good or for ill, you'll still have to come to terms with your... our present situation."
Kaoru squared Botan's shoulders and used the Youtou Shinnoken as a cane-like support of sorts. "Why did you have to die? I want to be upset with you or even saddened by your demise, but since we're now in the future, I'd feel like a fool for punishing you for breaking your promise to me decades ago. Besides, I can't really mourn for you now that I'm talking to you face-to-face. It's... bizarre. I don't know what to feel. It's hard to come to terms with anything because of all these weird circumstances, you know?"
Kaoru pinched the base of Botan's nose while also wrinkling its bridge. "By the way, I don't like the smell of this new Tokyo. Is that... smog? Foggy smoke? I guess this new generation traded in horse poop for... what's that? Exhaust? Horse poop for exhaust; the great price we have to pay for having horseless carriages."
Kaoru looked at Kenshin bewilderedly as the latter made an apologetic chopping motion with his hand. "Kenshin, are you... apologizing for the pollution? Because it's not your fault; I blame irresponsible scientific progress. Also, greed."
"No. I'm actually saying sorry because... well... now that we've had our little talk, can you please give Botan back her body? I mean, I know it's unfair that you don't have a physical form yourself, but even Koenma-dono has no idea how that happened, so let's just find a way to fix that later on, shall we? Pretty please?"
"Fine. I'll talk to you later." Boldly... or maybe because she discovered from Botan's memory banks that people from the nineteen nineties were much bolder than people back in the turn of the century... Kaoru kissed Kenshin on his non-scarred cheek before handing him back his sword and letting Botan take hold of her body yet again.
Botan sighed after confirming that she had control over her bodily functions. "I am not a telephone booth, Kenshin. Don't turn me into your medium for contacting your dead girlfriend's spirit without my permission ever again!" she admonished with a karate chop to Kenshin's noggin. To Kaoru, she teased, "Oh, and thanks for using my lips to give that kiss on Kenshin's cheek, honey. That was real smooth."
Botan then yelped as she used her right hand to block her left hand from poking her eyes out. "Botan, please stop teasing Kaoru-dono. Kaoru-dono, please stop... abusing Botan's body," Kenshin pleaded before the two (well, three) individuals heard the shriek of sirens blare inside the blue-haired girl's pink kimono.
'Why are your breasts making car alarm noises? Is someone trying to steal them?' Kaoru asked, which Botan accordingly ignored in respect to Kenshin's wishes and in realization of the genuine importance of the distress signal. She searched through the pockets of her shinigami uniform and produced a wristwatch-like device.
"Kenshin, this is a spirit detector. Like its name suggests, it detects spirit energy and pinpoints its whereabouts like a radar device. Do you know what radar is? Well, I'll just explain it to you while we go searching for whatever it is the detector is picking up. Here, wear this over your wrist like a bracelet so that you can track the source of the ruckus."
The former hitokiri and rurouni allowed the ferry-girl to strap the contraption tightly on his thin left wrist as he gave it a dubious look. "I'm sorry, but I have no idea how to use this. I also don't like the sound of wandering around and not knowing what it is I'm looking for. I already did that in my past life as a vagabond. Shouldn't we be running away from whatever it is that's producing these energy signatures? What if they're part of the Chojin's army who are after the Demon Sword?"
Botan raised an eyebrow at Kenshin's question. "Really? It's kind of strange for the Strongest Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu to prefer running away to fighting. Oh, no... wait. Kaoru's correcting me again. It's that rurouni side of you that's decided that discretion is the better part of valor, right? Fine. I still say we should check these," the death god took a look at Kenshin's detector, "B-Class blips on the radar and plan our next move once we find them."
"Why?" Kenshin insisted because he had other plans; namely, finding a way for Kaoru to separate from Botan's soul and having her... rest in peace or something. He hadn't fully thought the whole state of affairs through, he had to admit.
"Because it could be Yusuke fighting a demon... while his S-Level powers lay dormant, which is why it's registered as B-Level for some reason... or maybe it's detecting the presence of Kurama or Hiei... Oh, you don't know who Hiei is yet. Well, whatever; the bottom line here is that these radar blips could be our allies or enemies, and we won't be able to find out unless we check them out."
"Why would the Spirit World invent a device that couldn't tell reiki from youki or jaki?" came Kenshin's perfectly reasonable question, which the Kaoru inside Botan's brain punctuated with an assenting, unseen nod.
"Because more often than not, high-level Reikai Tantei are able to detect friend from foe using their own heightened sense of ki discernment. It's like inventing a solar flashlight; it'd be pointless. The spirit detector is just there to assist us in locating strong spirit energy sources that don't belong in a given area," Botan assured with a dismissive wave of her hand, which left both Kaoru and Kenshin anything but reassured.
"Okay. Let's go," Kenshin finally relented, which prompted the ferry-girl to summon her flying boat paddle. 'Who knows? Maybe this new mission will help me get some leads regarding this Youkiri Battousai business and what happened to all my friends back in Tokyo after I died,' he mused as he got on Botan's unlikely mode of transportation and flew off along with the goddess of death who bore the heart and mind of his long-lost beloved.
Back at the Nalanda Shop, Shibuya... or the Dream World, or the Astral Plane, or Level 10 Block 2 of the Purgatorial Sector, depending on your point of view...
"...Up a monkey's ass as he spreads drizzling brown diarrhea all over your face, you mountain hag!" the leather-garbed Sanosuke Sagara verbally rampaged at Shizuru Kuwabara while she guffawed, paused, took another look at the revived spirit's getup, whispered, "Village People," and doubled over in a second fit of hysterics.
"Hey, Sano," the acid-washed-jeans-wearing, Hawaiian-shirt-clad Yahiko called out to his undead comrade while ignoring the eldest Kuwabara daughter's continued peal of laughter upon seeing his own chosen garments. "Those wristwatch radars that Koenma gave us earlier are acting up. Something must be afoot; they're probably reacting to some warrior-level entities around our vicinity."
"Firstly, I don't know what radar is. I also don't know how these tacky bracelet things are supposed to work either." Sanosuke took one look at himself, scowled, then said, "On second thought, tell me how these radar things work and let's search for whatever supernatural entity is out there. I'll do anything to stop embarrassing myself and get the hell out of this shopping spree from hell."
Yahiko nodded. "Well, come to think of it, these aren't really radars in the literal sense, but they're basically telling us that some powerful warriors that are either from the Spirit World or the Chojin's army are just sprinting distance from here... or at least sprinting distance for you and me, anyway."
The boy pointed towards the single blinking green pixel in the middle and the flashing arrow on top of the digital display. "See here? Just follow the direction that the arrow is pointing at like you would a compass and then stop when you yourself could sense the spirit energy of whoever it is that's making his spiritual presence felt."
"How'd you know how to use that thing, Beach Boy?" Shizuru asked, and Yahiko let the insult slip as he replied, "I used to help Koenma's Reikai Tantei and Enma Daio's Tokubetsu Boueitai with several of their missions. This is actually one of the more advanced spirit detectors I've seen; the previous versions sucked ass and broke easily whenever the enemy's power level went above C-Class."
Sanosuke still had no idea how a bracelet with blinking lights could help him find spiritually empowered entities, but he ultimately decided to humor Yahiko and roll with it. "Okay, I got it. Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go meet or beat up whoever it is we're supposed to meet or beat up! It's about time we got out and paraded in that circus of a city, because we're certainly dressed for the part."
"HEY! What am I? Chopped liver? What am I supposed to do now?" Shizuru asked, her hand resting on her hip as she assumed a confrontational pose.
"You'll have to stay here, Shizuru. The Dream World is the safest place for you at this point, and I don't want you to get involved if these blips turn out to be demons or, worse yet, the Chojin's minions," Yahiko said matter-of-factly as he placed his sword underneath the straps where a leather belt would've been looped through. 'Well, now. These denim trousers aren't half-bad.'
"AH! So my two customers have decided on their outfits, huh? You've made some fine choices!" Hinageshi took out a receipt-printing calculator from behind her and typed in the costs.
"Let's see; the leather pants costs eleven thousand, five hundred, and thirty-three yen, the bomber jacket costs about the same, and the leopard-spotted undershirt costs two thousand, three hundred, and seven yen. As for the Hawaiian shirt, it costs two thousand, six hundred, and fifty-three yen, while the acid-wash jeans cost four thousand, eight hundred, and forty-three yen. In total, that's thirty-two thousand, six hundred, and eighty-nine yen all-in-all. Will you be paying by card, check, or C.O.D.? Also, do you want separate receipts? I have to recalculate the costs if they're separate!"
"Are you using American prices and converting them to yen? Those are absurd price tags for a clothing store that... exists... in... our... collective... subconscious." Shizuru cleared her throat. "And another thing, I demand a discount!" she haggled, her shopper's instincts kicking in, but the two revived ghosts quickly assured her that it was all right and they would pay for the outfits in full.
"This isn't what I'd call yen. It's play money, as far as I'm concerned," Yahiko reasoned while waving one of the bills.
'This is stupid; that pacifier-sucking brat should've had us wearing these modern-day clothes before sending us out to Japan,' Sanosuke reflected as he counted the wad of Koenma bills he had on hand before giving several bills to the red-haired saleslady. "Keep the change. To be honest, if I had the choice, I'd give you the whole wad of talking 'yen', but I have a feeling I'll be needing it to get more useless stuff from the Spirit World."
Yahiko and Sanosuke exchanged looks and nodded before turning towards the entrance of the shop and making a beeline towards it.
"Could it be that these Reikai trinkets are merely reacting to the aura of Kenshin and that Sousuke dude?" Sanosuke tried to nonchalantly suggest, although his voice nevertheless betrayed a hint of expectation in his tone.
"We can only hope," Yahiko responded as he opened the door to the Nalanda Shop and felt an otherworldly force bring his astral projection back to the land of the living. Sanosuke followed behind the boy before he too disappeared into the featureless void.
"Bye-bye! Thank you for your patronage! Come again!" Hinageshi automatically called after her "satisfied" clients before she yelped, "ACK! I FORGOT TO TELL THEM!"
"Tell them what?" Shizuru queried once the ringing in her ears subsided from the diminutive ferry-girl's sudden shriek.
"Their clothes will morph and change in accordance to their needs! Those aren't just ordinary garments like the ones found in the Human World. They're special-grade, top-of-the-line Spirit World armor that latches onto the wearer's energy signature and even adjusts to his unique personality," Hinageshi exposited after looking over her notes.
"Armor, huh? And they have to pay for it too? That seems excessive," Shizuru mentioned offhandedly, not really paying attention to the junior shinigami's lengthy explanation. "Hey, wait a minute. We somehow ended up in the Dream World, so were they trying out imaginary clothes? Did they really even buy those outfits? How does that work?"
Once Kenshin, Botan, and the "unseen" Kaoru flew over the neighborhood, subway station, and avenue of Omotesando, Tokyo, a horrifying and pitch-black pulse of dark energy flung the both of them off the oar and into the roof of the Harajuku Station building where Shizuru, Sanosuke, and Yahiko got off earlier on.
Kenshin caught Botan in midair, somersaulted, and landed safely on his feet before he saw the oar they were riding on burst into charred cinders and ashes.
"Battousai! It's been ages. How have you been?" the shriveled and cloaked figure of the unholy Onmyouji priest that helped both Rando as well as the merged personas of Iehik and Iehog out three weeks back drawled. He floated in the afternoon sky with his torn rags for clothes that covered his whole body save for his wizened, clawed hands.
"You," Kenshin stated as he gently set the disoriented Botan down on the roof. Meanwhile, a couple of onlookers from below had started to form a crowd as they watched the spectacle of a traditionally garbed samurai-looking individual talk to a floating, hooded specter. "What do you want? What is the Chojin up to this time?"
'Hey, that weird floating guy with the croaking voice looks more like the grim reaper than you do,' the Kaoru in Botan's head noted, which prompted the ferry-girl to replay the memory where she first welcomed Kenshin to modern-day Tokyo, much to the kendo master's chagrin. 'That's not fair! I'm not even teasing you; I'm just pointing it out!'
The wraithlike entity cackled in delight. "Ah, so you and the Spirit World are now acknowledging the existence of my master? It's about time that you realized how big of a threat our presence truly is in the three worlds. As for your question, let's just say it's in my best interests to keep you here for the time being."
"I don't have time for riddles or obtuse answers," Kenshin warned, his purple eyes shining with a glint of gold as he brandished the Youtou Shinnoken; unlike Shaku's sakabatou, the default form of the Demon Sword had the blade on the correct side. "If you won't let us go, then we'll force our way out and discover for ourselves what it is you're hiding."
The cloaked figure shook the dense abyss where his head should be. "You'll make time, as you'll soon understand."
With the supersonic speed worthy of the Grecian God Hermes, Kenshin employed the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu's Shinsoku to launch himself at the dark phantom and slice him in half using the Ryu Sho Sen. He landed just behind the mob of commuters, whom all clapped at him and his display, much to his embarrassment and surprise.
'BOTAN! Did you see that? Kenshin just slashed at that guy with a normal-edged blade in cold blood! He's now going to lose his humanity, transform into Battousai, and... and...!' Botan conked herself to prevent Kaoru from using her eyes and nose to begin bawling.
"It's fine. Kenshin is presumably dealing with a demon now, so attacks that are normally fatal to humans are nothing against him." The shinigami's pink eyes afterwards widened into saucers after seeing what happened to the occultist's rotting, zombie body.
Meanwhile, down on the streets of Harajuku, people from all walks of life were abuzz with fascination and excitement over the high-flying, red-haired girly swordsman.
"I don't know what the occasion is, but that was awesome! The production values were topnotch! Are you part of a new Sentai show? Where are the cameras?"
"People will do anything for publicity nowadays."
"But that was so cool! Did you see how high up she went with that upward slashing thing she did on that puppet with strings? I'll buy whatever it is you're selling, sister!"
"You're a pretty young thing. Can I get your phone number?"
"Er, I don't think that's a she."
"Oro?" Not knowing what else to do, the short ex-rurouni grabbed the back of his head and bowed sheepishly at the exultant throng of salarymen, office ladies, and high school students. "Uh, no, I'm a guy. No, this isn't part of a... Sentai show? What's that?"
"KENSHIN! The Onmyouji...!" Botan screamed to catch the redhead's attention from her high perch.
Kenshin turned in time to see the empty rags he just slashed in half reform into a banshee-like zombie. 'The Onmyouji is still standing. Well, floating. My suspicions were correct; he's using a shikigami to project himself in this realm! Also, I don't have to hold back any longer.'
"What happened to the powers you've unleashed during your battle against Hiruma, Battousai? That attack was pathetic," the Onmyouji's oriental familiar mocked with a warbling voice that, Kenshin guessed, was also masked by his aberrant powers. "The Chojin has no interest in Battousai the Manslayer; a mere killer of men is of no significance in these worlds filled with demons, ghosts, monsters, and celestial entities."
Just then, the shining imprint of an inverted star with a circle of rune-like markings bearing ancient curses appeared on the broad, tree-lined avenue of Omotesando, scarring the landscape like an anomaly of nature and bathing everything in a crimson light.
Afterwards, the Onmyouji's projection spoke in tongues that the scar-faced spirit guardian could not recognize, spewing incomprehensible words of blasphemy and sacrilege. After everything was said and done, a globular dome covered the entire area of the station, the colors of its entrapped territory inverting like a film negative while the people themselves... which included Kenshin and Botan... became as still as mannequins.
"The residents of the Spirit World aren't the only ones who know how to create barriers." If the Onmyouji's decomposing shikigami had the ability to smile, it would've at that moment.
By the time the unlikely pair of a leather-clad Sanosuke and a casually dressed Yahiko reached Yoyogi Station, they immediately realized what they were dealing with.
"It's reiki that's causing the spirit energy trackers to go off, so these are probably B-minus humans. They're around the same power level as us, so it's likely that they're Spirit World Detectives or high-level martial artists," Yahiko supposed as soon he and his rooster-headed companion were within range to sense the spiritual presence of the detected entities.
Sanosuke gulped as memories of his first and second fight against Kenshin came to the forefront of his mind. On both occasions, the Ishin Shishi patriot wiped the floor with him, the first one had him losing his precious zanbatou, the second had him humiliated in front of his former fellow Sekihoutai member, Tsukioka Tsunan.
Who knew that getting beat up by what looked like a preteen girl with no chest to speak of using what amounted to a toy sword could get Sanosuke feeling nostalgic and emotional? Kenshin Himura; the first and only Ishin Shishi that the waif-thin yet ox-strong man ever trusted.
"There are about two of them. We'll have to split up. I couldn't make heads or tails out of this infernal contraption anyway, so I'll just find my guy using my own battle instincts," Sanosuke declared. After a minute of waiting for a response, he turned towards Yahiko and yelled, "HEY, SAMURAI BOY! Did you hear me?"
"Y-Yeah. W-Which one do you want to go to?" Yahiko stuttered.
"Eh. It doesn't really matter. I'll take the left one, you take the right one. Is that all right?"
"Fine."
"Oh, and Yahiko?" That caught the Tokyo Samurai's attention for the simple fact that Sanosuke rarely ever called him by his first name.
"What it is, Sano?"
"Say hello to Kenshin for me if you do come across him."
Yahiko chuckled. "Same to you, buddy. Let's go."
The two resurrected spirits in borrowed bodies and magical clothes sprinted off into two separate directions, the sea of humanity not minding them in the least.
"I can't stay here. Why the hell did I agree with those bozos to stay here? I should just go home," the smoke-deprived, nicotine-longing Shizuru decided aloud when she suddenly heard a rumble from outside the temporally displaced Nalanda Shop and felt the malicious presence of a vengeful entity. "What's going on?"
Shizuru saw the color on Hinageshi's face drain. "This isn't supposed to happen. Only astral projections bearing special items like the Reikai Yen you're holding are supposed to consciously gain access to Yumekai."
The portrait of Koenma on the one paper bill that Shizuru gripped informed, "Someone is using jaki to corrupt and destroy this store's link with the physical realm. Shizuru-kun, you'll have to wake up now in order to avoid harming your body if ever our connection to the Ningenkai is suddenly severed."
"Wait. E-Excuse me? What 'harm' are we talking about? And since when did I fall asleep anyway?" Shizuru questioned with an incredulous eyebrow raise, unprepared by the sudden turn of events.
"Yes, you have to wake up now!" Hinageshi ordered, pushing Shizuru to the entrance. "Go outside the shop to wake yourself up and avoid running into whoever it is that severed the Nalanda Shop's link to the real world in the first place!"
While they were talking, the entrance and fire exit of the mystical store collapsed in a rain of concrete, plaster, and metal. Afterwards, the shelves and displays of the Spirit World shop began flying all over the place as an earthquake commenced.
"WAH! It's too late to get out through to that route!" Hinageshi yelped as Shizuru led the both of them into the nearest counter to avoid any falling debris and wreckage.
"Shizuru-san, you need to wake up more than I do because I'm a grim reaper and you're a living human being. If you don't wake up soon and get killed here, you'll never wake up alive again!" Hinageshi screeched amidst the rumble, which made Shizuru look at her as though she had grown three heads. "I don't want to be the one to ferry your soul! I just met you and I think you're a nice person, albeit one with a mean streak!"
"Wait, did you just say I'll be dead if I don't wake up soon? That's what you meant by harm earlier? Well, aren't you obtuse! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Shizuru shook Hinageshi so hard that the ferry-girl felt as though she were sitting still by moving in cadence with the quake. "Never mind that; HOW DO I WAKE UP?"
Without a word, Hinageshi slapped Shizuru so brutally that the latter ended up sprawled on the floor.
Then, just as Shizuru recovered and got up to give the insane spirit guide a piece of her mind, she became aware that she had woken up and she was now standing in the middle of a condemned building where the Nalanda Shop was supposed to be. "...Okay then. I'm glad that everything worked out in the end."
To her mortification and annoyance, the hateful, nasty, and malevolent feelings she felt through her Rei-Kan earlier were back in full force. Also, at the entrance of the empty lot stood the eager, stubbly visage of an eye-patched man holding a wooden sword and wearing traditional garments more suited to people during Yahiko's time a century ago. "Who the hell are you supposed to be? Yagyu Jubei?"
"Hello, beautiful. I didn't believe Kazemaru when he first told me that you're the sister of that grotesque Kuwabara." The bokken he had on hand flared with malice and contempt, which Shizuru actually saw in the form of smoldering flames thanks to her extrasensory perception. "Don't make any sudden moves and just follow my advice; by doing so, you may get out of this situation alive and in one piece."
Yahiko's thoughts were filled with images and visions of the man that inspired him to resume his samurai lineage's tradition of swordsmanship excellence that continued to that very day and age.
His mind overflowed with memories of Kenshin beating up a host of yakuza in order to free him from his debt, of both Kenshin and Sanosuke urging him on secretly while he knocked a grown man unconscious using only his bamboo sword, of him defeating one of Makoto Shishio's Ten Swords while imitating one of Kenshin's signature techniques, and of him facing down an actual giant because of his faith in the former vagabond.
Granted, his later memories of Kenshin turned out to be bittersweet for him because in the end, Shishio managed to kill the ex-rurouni in their long and epic duel. However, the prospect of seeing the redhead again after what literally had been a hundred years of waiting promised to erase that last bit of melancholy in his heart.
One can only imagine his disappointment when he arrived and saw that the B-Level human inside the Tori Gate of the Meiji Shrine... 'How appropriate,' Yahiko drolly reflected... was just some bald man wearing stagehand clothes that approximated what shinobi wore back in the day and a manji tattoo that, to the man who witnessed the Second World War firsthand, looked like a Nazi swastika.
"Who the hell are you?" was Yahiko's straightforward question as he took off his spirit detector and pocketed it inside his denim pants. He couldn't believe he wasted his time sprinting all over Harajuku just to find some woefully deluded man who thought that all one needed to become a ninja was to wear tight-fitting black pajamas and a ski mask, his high energy output be damned.
The unsubtle ninja with a costume fit for Halloween took one look at the boy wearing a Hawaiian shirt before lifting a plucked eyebrow. "Unless you're a revived spirit sent by the Spirit World, I have no business with you."
"And what if I am? Who are you? Are you friend or foe? Do you work for Koenma Daio or the Chojin?" Yahiko insisted as he cautiously grabbed hold of his sword's handle and waited for an answer.
The hairless ninja exhaled and scratched his cheek in irritation. "Kid, you should go back to school or something. I'm looking for a man wearing a thick, open trench coat and what appears to be a large sword, another guy with a mantle that has a ridiculously long collar, a boy in a blue kimono and white hakama with blue trim, a policeman with a sword, or a tall man with gravity-defying hair who looks like he just got out of a recent karate tournament. You look like none of those people."
It was at that point that Yahiko realized that something was amiss. Just in time, he ducked and leapt away from the concussive wave of scorching reiki that emanated from the palm of the ninja's hand.
"REIKI HO!"
The choleric blast turned the concrete of the holy place into a nice and long oblong crater, which prompted onlookers to make themselves scarce as soon as they "saw" the bizarre phenomenon of a man firing "invisible" waves of energy happen.
The manji-tattooed ninja cracked the knuckles of his steaming right hand. "Nevertheless, not even the most faithful of Buddhist monks know who Koenma Daio is, so I'm betting you're the samurai boy the Chojin wants dead. Nice threads. You look like you've just come home from the beach."
"That's rich, coming from some Neo-Nazi wannabe who confused the theatrical version of ninjas for the real thing," Yahiko rebutted, not noticing that the clothes he wore had now transformed back to his original style of clothing. "Back in my day, ninjutsu meant something. I'm Myojin Yahiko, a Tokyo Samurai. Prepare yourself, you traitor to humanity."
"That's a neat trick you did with your clothes, samurai boy," the Chojin's human minion appraised while outright disregarding Yahiko's ridiculous assertions about his brand of ninjutsu. "I'm Fuwan Kazemaru, a ninjutsu master. I'll make you eat your words and send you back to the realm where you belong, Myojin Yahiko."
At the southern end of the Harajuku Station, in Omotesando, Kenshin, Botan, Kaoru (to a lesser extent), and a whole cast of incidental characters who believed they were in the middle of a publicity stunt were now in a bit of a bind, spiritually speaking.
'The Onmyouji is using a Kanashibari binding spell,' the ex-hitokiri reckoned as he struggled to break free from it.
The shikigami rubbed his hands together in classic villain fashion. "Yes, stay put for the time being. We've finally forced Koenma to slip up, and it just wouldn't be acceptable for us to let this opportunity pass us by."
Kenshin was familiar with the technique; he'd used a version of it on Yusuke twice over during the time they shared an emphatic bond with each other. The term was also used to describe the sleeping disorder known as sleep paralysis or fatal nightmares with hypnagogic hallucinations, otherwise known throughout Asia as gui ya shen, gawee nulim, phii am, khmout sukkhot, dab tsog, ma de, bong de, suk nimnyo, kena tindih, ketindihan, amuku be, amuku pei, bakhtak, khyaak, and bangungot. It was also called "Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome" or SUNDS by the medical community.
The sensation was quite reminiscent of the Nikaido Heiho's Shin no Ippo, and like Jine Udo, Kenshin was capable of doing a less extreme version of the ability, hence his eventual mastery of it when dealing with rambunctious, hard-headed people like Misao Makimachi or Yusuke Urameshi. More importantly, he knew how to break free of the paralyzing enchantment by using his own generous amount of swordsman energy to neutralize it.
However, even as Kenshin roared and released his kenki to its maximum potential in order to counteract the Chojin's secondhand jaki... his complexion returning to normal after looking like a film negative while petrified in place... the Onmyouji's familiar remained passive, merely noting, "Oh. So you still have some fight in you. Not that it matters, though, seeing that you're trapped within my territory. It'll be amusing to see you try and get out of this predicament. Are you going to slice me in half again?"
Kenshin leapt in front of the floating shikigami, twirled so that he'd end up at an awkward corner, and then let loose a potent barrage of kenki-powered strikes that randomly hit every inch of the apparition's rotting flesh and ragged clothing. So thorough was the redhead's shredding strikes that the marionette had no choice but to teleport away from the thunderous onslaught in a puff of black smoke and miasma.
"Just as I suspected; even though that's merely a shikigami, it's still your only way of confronting me and creating this barrier. Once I destroy it, your kekkai will disappear along with it as well," Kenshin deduced before he rebounded on a tree and landed on the street on all fours like a cat.
The Onmyouji shikigami materialized right beside the frozen Botan on the roof of the Harajuku Station building. "As expected of the Legendary Battousai... a man whose career spans generations and is renowned in both the Human World and the Spirit World while feared in the Demon World. My bluff didn't pay off after all." From there, the puppet of the Chojin's conduit took hold of the frozen ferry-girl's shoulders as she inwardly shuddered.
"Nevertheless, the Youkiri Battousai who used only a fraction of his abilities to overpower Hiruma even as the monster was turned into another conduit of the Chojin would've finished off this messenger of mine with just one slash. I have to wonder, why are you so weak now? Is it because you're presently bonded with this shinigami instead of Urameshi Yusuke? That's possible, but then again, Urameshi already used up his energy when you transformed, and you were left to fend for yourself. Or are you suffering from the aftereffects of your recent battles? I'm intrigued by your current mediocrity, Battousai."
"Let go of her or I'll make you regret going up there," Kenshin cautioned as his violet eyes commenced gleaming into a more golden hue. "Don't think that just because you're using a shikigami that I can't hurt you."
Unmoved by mere death threats and scary glares, the Onmyouji chuckled, his laughter reverberating within his pawn's emptiness. "Oops. It seems that I've forgotten myself. It doesn't matter if you're weaker now, because that's something that I can use to my advantage. My job is to keep you here for as long as I can; nothing more, nothing less."
Sanosuke was practically on the same rampage he went through during Kenshin's abrupt exit from Tokyo a hundred years go in order to go to Kyoto and confront Shishio and his faction. Trees shattered into pieces in his wake thanks to the double impact of his mighty fists and the power of Anji Yukyuzan's Futae no Kiwami.
"FUTAE NO KIWAMI! AH!" he screamed repeatedly as he indulged in his wanton destruction of nature; it wasn't a necessary step in executing the technique correctly, and it actually rubbed the throat of his freshly created body of flesh and bone raw, but he still shouted those words to his heart's content regardless.
The people who witnessed the spectacle he was making of himself would've laughed at his brashness, ridiculous outfit, and out-of-context babbling were they not mesmerized by how he kept turning trees into shards of wood and sawdust. The showcase of strength was made even more impressive by the fact that it was spring, so every time Sanosuke punched a cherry tree down, the white blossoms exploded alongside the wood, creating a brazen waltz that was both beautiful and terrible to behold.
Ergo, meeting up with what looked like a Bohemian, muscular, and scarred Jesus in a lotus position sapped all his pent-up passion and expectation into nothingness.
The non-sequitur appearance of the dirty martial artist with jade tresses who looked like the great messiah that Christians all over the world worshipped would've made Sanosuke laugh out loud were he not expecting someone else at the time. As it was, it just pissed him off to no end.
He searched high and low... up to the point of lifting the frozen bearded man up and looking under him... but alas, there was no sign of Kenshin. There was no doubt about it; the B-minus human he was looking for was nothing more than this long-haired, homeless man.
"Son of a bitch! Well, at least I was able to get out of shopping. Man, did that geisha-looking lady have a mouth on her. Kids in today's Japan need to learn some manners..."
At that point, the pseudo-Christ had heard enough. "I wasn't sure when I first saw you in those god-awful clothes, but the repeated use of that fist of yours clinched it for me. You must be Sagara Sanosuke, aren't you?"
"Eh? Well, yeah. I am." Sanosuke shrugged before he turned his back on the strange man and started to leave the decimated park.
"HEY! DON'T JUST TURN YOUR BACK ON ME! What if I were an enemy and I suddenly attacked you from behind? What then?"
"I wouldn't really care. Do what you want. You're not the guy I'm looking for anyway," Sanosuke's retreating form replied. "Besides, the Chojin uses demon zombies to do his bidding, not living humans. You have to admit, human martial artists... even B-Class ones like yourself... aren't as impressive as undead youkai, you know?"
It was at that moment that the muscular warrior who wasn't from Nazareth employed a takedown on the unprepared Sanosuke and pounded the taller yet thinner man repeatedly.
"I. Am. Not. Inferior. To. Zombie. Youkai. I'll. Make. You. Remember. My. Name. Even. If. It's. The. Last. Thing. Your. Pureed. Brain. Will. Ever. Recall," he said, punctuating each and every last word with a punch to all of his opponent's vital areas. Thrice to the groin.
After tenderizing Sanosuke's face to a fine pulp and leaving his skinny body black and blue, the mixed martial artist grabbed hold of the rooster-headed man's newly bought bomber jacket, got up to his feet, and lifted his victim up in the air.
"I am Getsuno Kibano, a master of all the different martial arts from aikido to judo, jujutsu to karate. You've picked the wrong man to insult, Sagara Sanosuke."
Two red orbs glinted within the blackness that covered the Onmyouji familiar's indistinguishable face. As if on cue, the inverted-colored people from down below groaned, moaned, and choked in agony. "Move one more inch, and all the people covered inside my barrier will die horrible, suffocating deaths because of their fears and nightmares."
Kenshin cursed under his breath; the occult priest and his shikigami puppet was using the Kanashibari method to induce SUNDS on all the innocent bystanders. The swordsman ghost tensed and glared helplessly at the worsening situation as even Botan produced choking noises from her throat while paralyzed.
The Onmyouji's shikigami mocked, "Have you ever wondered what it's like for a grim reaper to die? Can these personifications of death even die? I think we're about to find out. I myself am deathly fascinated by the subject... excuse me for the pun."
"You want a pun, you faceless dishrag with arms? Well, how about this? Let these people go, because some of them have jobs that charge by the OAR!" Botan and Kaoru chorused, their respective reiatsu and kenki energies merging to defeat the binding spell, which in turn let them summon the signature shinigami paddle and stuff its wide end right between what was presumably the creature's glowing eyes.
After Kenshin extricated himself from the pratfall he did in reaction to the possessed death goddess's droll witticism... he could've sworn that even the unmoving mob of students, employees, businessmen, and whatnot slightly tilted themselves to the side in embarrassment after hearing that awful joke... he summoned, "Botan! Miss Kaoru! That was amazing!" with an impressed smile.
At the back of the redhead's mind, the memory of Kaoru conquering the One-Sided Heart during his fateful battle against Jine replayed itself within the symbolic iris of his mind's eye. "I'm glad you were able to free yourself from his spell. I was so worried."
Botan flew... or rather, fell... into Kenshin's waiting arms while the Onmyouji's servant burned another one of her oars to ash from behind her.
"Ah, Kenshin! I've never been so scared in all my life! I swear, I could feel the clamminess of that freak show's skin even through my kimono! It was so disgusting!" At that point, the blue-haired girl... well, sky-blue-haired girl... noticed that another blue-haired girl (someone sporting dark-blue-hued tresses, to be exact) continued saying the same thing as she was in unison with her.
"AH! Stop that! How are you doing that? No, YOU! Ah, this isn't funny anymore! I sound like the voice you hear inside the bathroom! STOP IT! STOP IT! WAH!" went Botan and Kaoru's unintentional and toneless acapella choir.
"It looks like you two are now getting along better," Kenshin quipped, which earned him a two-handed toss straight into the sky that made him flip head over heels repeatedly like a giant, red-haired, and cross-scarred pancake.
'How surprising; I didn't expect the shinigami to be strong enough to break my hex, much less toss Battousai around,' the Onmyouji reckoned. Aloud, he threatened, "Don't get any bright ideas, Battousai, or else I will kill the rest of these humans down... there... What...?" Henceforth, the practitioner of esoteric arts got his third shocker for the day.
Botan and Kaoru abandoned their petty squabbles for the time being as they took advantage of their accidental synchronicity to combine their powers and tear down the kekkai and the Kanashibari spell by their seams.
What horrified the undead occultist was the fact that their attempt at freedom worked; the passengers of the train started to breathe in a normal fashion, while the inverted colors of the surroundings also began to return to normal. In the meantime, the magical seal he so carefully crafted faded in and out of existence along with the dome-shaped barrier he placed in the general vicinity of Omotesando.
'Who the hell is this Reikai woman?' the Onmyouji wondered before screeching a banshee-worthy shriek and proclaiming, "You've spoiled my fun long enough, harlot! Become the death you're supposed to represent!"
Subsequently, the shikigami synthesized a destructive energy ball of the purest jaki, which even the preoccupied Botan was able to identify as the same purple haze of vigor that the Ruler of the Nether World, Yakumo, used to create in order to blast Yusuke Urameshi within an inch of his life.
'Could it be that the jaki the Chojin possesses is the same jaki Yakumo absorbed throughout the centuries in order to be as powerful as one of the gods?' Botan couldn't help but reckon as she felt her strength get sapped and her synchronization with Kaoru destroyed by the sheer power of the Onmyouji's negative force.
Nonetheless, just as the occult cosmologist's servant threw the ball with the malicious intent of burning Botan and the rest of the humans in the dark light of the Overfiend's vast supply of corrupt power, a battoujutsu strike from out of nowhere cut the sphere of sin into two exploding halves, the slicing ability of the magnificent attack even reaching the shikigami and shredding its body into pieces.
Amidst the resulting explosion, the ragged poltergeist saw the brilliant gleam of golden eyes and fiery hair as it succumbed to the Chojin's volatile jaki and its apparently low, friction-induced flashpoint.
Back at the entryway to the Meiji Shrine, underneath the large Tori Gate...
After Yahiko had the presence of mind to look at himself and notice his change of clothes, he groaned. 'Oh, great. My magical Hawaiian shirt and jeans can change back to the garments I was wearing before I bought them. What's the point of getting new clothes when they can magically change back to the clothes you wore before? Dammit, and I liked that shirt too...'
"You dare claim that I'm not acting like a true ninja? And how about you? You're just some snot-nosed brat who's also pretending to be a samurai! You have no right to insult me, resurrected soul or no! I don't care if you were born in the Sengoku era; I'll show what ninjutsu is really about!" Kazemaru Fuwan raged as he attempted to keep the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu master at bay with his laser-like palm blasts and turn the battle into a mostly projectile-based fire fight.
In mere minutes, the charging Yahiko and the retreating Kazemaru transformed the peaceful landscape of the Meiji Shrine's entrance into a wasteland of upturned trees, broken floor tiles, and complete devastation. "Seems to me like that you're acting a bit defensive. More importantly, why are you working for the Chojin?"
"Would you believe that it pays well and has enabled me to unlock the secrets of ninjutsu that I would otherwise have no access to?" Kazameru revealed while shoving the memory of Yusuke hoisting him by his own petard... or, in his case, explosive shuriken... aside. As he kept on tossing his projectiles, he scowled at how much energy he had so far spent.
Although the revived Yahiko had none of the acrobatic agility or speed of the Legendary Battousai that the shinobi kept hearing about, he employed the basic defensive tactics of measuring distance, dodging, weaving, feinting, and taking advantage of his environment to kendo clinic perfection. However, the spiky-haired young lad remained a close-combat fighter trapped in the middle of a long-range fight, so the advantage remained in the ninja's corner.
To Yahiko, Fuwan mocked, "What is it about the term 'shadow warrior' were you confused with? A ninja is supposed to strike fear within the hearts of others and not feel it himself. I am the terror that strikes from the shadows or beyond them. As long as I'm able to finish my mission, then I will remain a ninja beyond peer, regardless of what you think."
Yahiko sidestepped another energy beam. "Look, I'm doing more ninja-like things than you are by avoiding your attacks and fighting defensively. Are you absolutely sure you didn't just mistake samurai for ninja and impersonated one for the other?"
"That's enough out of you, half-pint." Kazemaru went to the center of the Tori Gate, stretched his arms as far as they could go, and let loose his energy blasts on both pillars in order to let the structure fall right on top Yahiko. Calmly, the boy backtracked a couple of paces and let the wood fall just inches away from his sandaled feet before he resumed his pursuit of his opponent.
Kazemaru took the opportunity afforded by the falling debris that he turned the edifice into to leap up into the air and let loose a steel barrage of his powered-up fighting stars that blotted the sun from above and formed a metallic blanket of slate-gray death. By instinct, Yahiko made good use of his barehanded shirahadori abilities to pick out the dozens of sharp star-shaped blades and let them drop harmlessly around him.
'Huh. He's also adept at barehanded blade blocking?' Kazemaru observed as he begrudgingly marveled at how effectively Yahiko neutralized the rain of sharp, metal death without once unsheathing his weapon. 'It would've been funnier to see him hitting those shuriken with his sword and watch the look of his surprise on his face, but whatever. He's a dead kid either way; when you have this many explosives, accuracy isn't required anyway.'
The slightly nicked and sore Yahiko was just about to jump away from the scattered pieces of metal when the madly grinning Fuwan put his palms together and sent forth a scorching wave of his reiki into the general vicinity of the shuriken-surrounded boy, which instantly reacted with the volatile material that coated each and every last piece of the ninja's weapons and making them release their energy in an impressive conflagration that leveled most of the entryway.
"Was that 'deceptive' enough for you? Or perhaps you were expecting ninja clones or teleportation? Fucking moron," Kazemaru rebuked the flaming crater where the Tori Gate and the samurai faker used to be before his decades-ingrained instincts told him that something was amiss.
He looked up; at twenty feet in the air, the image of a slightly charred and scratched but otherwise unharmed Yahiko hung in midair, his inherited sakabatou withdrawn as he prepared to strike down Fuwan with a double-handed wallop to the noggin.
Back in Shibuya, inside the empty building where the Nalanda Shop used to be...
"Yes, yes. I'm sure that's fascinating. My brother is ugly, the sky is blue, and water is wet. Unless you have any more groundbreaking insights to share, I'll be on my way," Shizuru Kuwabara reproached as she walked out of the abandoned studio in a huff, not even giving her hairy, eye-patched stalker a second glance. However, she stopped short of her complete departure when the middle-aged man grabbed hold of her wrist and pushed her back. "HEY! Let go of me!"
"I don't think you realize how serious your situation is right now. I even went through the trouble of finding this godforsaken store and tearing it apart from this plane of reality in order to meet up with you, and here you are, giving me lip? That's hardly sporting of you. I think it's about time you learned your place, woman."
Shizuru took out her keychain bottle of mace... not the kind that contained watered-down pepper spray, but a genuine aerosol spray containing the lachrymatory agent of tear gas... sprayed it into the man's exposed eye, poked the very same eye for good measure, and got out into the street, screaming her head off for somebody to help her in order to deter the thug from pursuing her.
"HELP! This crazy man is trying to beat me up with a kendo stick!" Several briefcase-wielding businessmen and punk-attired delinquents came to her aid, prepared to gang up on the out-of-place figure with a ratty samurai costume.
The auburn-haired girl's face then drained itself of color when, in one fell swoop, the blinded eye-patched madman swung his Japanese training sword at the hurtling group of Yankee thugs and salarymen and created a wave of gravity so powerful that it crushed everything before him, including the men that ended up as nothing more than bloodstains full of viscera, popped bones, and other internal organs on the streets after a collective, muffled crunch.
'Fuwan and Getsuno have to convert the jaki rationed to them into reiki; I don't need to do that! With this corrupted sword from an ancient tree where thousands of youkai were banished and sealed, I can do pretty much anything I want!'
'Oh shit, I should have brought the shotgun with me,' Shizuru mused before the maniac turned and hit her with a thrusting sword strike to the abdomen that knocked the wind out of her, broke a couple of her ribs, and sent her flying back into the empty, Nalanda-Shop-less studio with a resounding crash followed by a wet thump to the wall.
Subsequently, the timber-sword-wielding kendo practitioner sprinted towards the shop without missing a beat. Once inside, he whistled a merry little ditty as he commenced beating his conqueror's sister senseless with his blunt instrument.
This time, after witnessing how much of a danger the murderer posed to society, the crowd of onlookers did their best to ignore the girl's muffled shrieks of agony, although some of them did have the courage to at least call the Shibuya Police or go straight to the Shibuya Police Station downtown.
To be Continued...
Next: The secrets of the past.
Who was the true winner of the battle between Makoto Shishio and Kenshin Himura? Who did the new era choose?
Akin ang huling halakhak!
Abdiel