Youtou Shinnoken
A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
This is the chapter where two fan-favorite characters (from both Yuyu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin) make a return!
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, 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 29: Tactics (Part 4)
Back to the relative present; on March 24, 1993; at the forty-fourth floor of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building...
"How disappointing. There are still hints of that overly emotional widower within you, Shinomori Aoshi. I suggest you bury that Sherlock Holmes wannabe deep inside you if you're hoping to win against me. I've yet to show you my full power, by the way," Feng Xinhai said with a chuckle.
"But I agree with Matsudaira Daiji. You're nothing more than a barnacle that mistook itself for a whale. You've thrown away your soul in order to feed off the strength of others; a parasite through and through," Aoshi Shinomori said.
"I'm just showing you the real me. I've discovered what serial killers like the Zodiac knew the whole time! Aren't you fascinated by what man is capable of if all the consequences of his actions were removed and all his limitations were erased? What would a man become if he were given free reign to do anything he liked?"
Feng pounded his chest with his closed fist. "I am humanity without restraint. Our modern-day fairytales regarding superheroes are reflections of what we think god-like men should be, instead of what man really is if given the chance to transcend his humanity. We won't become heroes; we'll instead become the selfish gods of Greek Mythology who do nothing but serve our own interests."
"What's sad is that you probably don't understand the motivations behind the crimes of the Kanji or Zodiac Killer. You're a parrot who mimics words but don't know what they actually mean," interjected Daiji Matsudaira.
The Chinese serial killer threw his head back and cackled like a villain from an early morning cartoon show.
"A shinobi like Shinomori should be aware of how right I am. If given the chance to do anything he wants, the average man would've done the same things as I or the worst serial killers in existence did. If faced with dire circumstances, he'd kill and eat his own mother to survive. If you hate me for what I am or what I've done, then you might as well hate the rest of humanity."
"So much for the man who merely wanted to bring back the killing aspect of Japanese swordsmanship. Your ideals have become warped. You've turned into a mockery of what you were. I'll prove you wrong by transcending your might without becoming a wicked monster like you," pledged Daiji... or perhaps more accurately, Aoshi... as the memory of the Okashira's second fight against Kenshin Himura allowed him to understand exactly what he was fighting for right then.
'I won't make the same mistake twice. Forgive me, It-chan. In order to avenge your death, I need to become someone else,' Daiji mused before he lost all consciousness. The wild-eyed Chinese Triad leader grinned a fanged smile as the business-suited detective's irises shone ice blue, his face an unmoving mask not unlike Hanya's.
The Hisashi Building creaked and rumbled in expectation of the upcoming storm.
"I accept your challenge, Shinomori Aoshi. Fair warning, though; I only need three techniques in order to defeat your Sword Dance. It doesn't matter how skilled you are. The Kanji Killer himself is more skilled than I am, but I'm still leagues above him in terms of pure power. You don't stand a chance."
About two weeks after Rando and the Shisejyu's assault at Genkai's temple and around a week before Detective Matsudaira's fight against Triad Dragon Head Feng Xinhai...
"Yo, Lieutenant. There's some pissed-off yakuza-looking old man stalking you right now," a petite, hook-nosed compatriot of Officer Goro Fujita informed while thumb-pointing at a carrot-topped, curly haired hooligan waiting cross-armed right beside the policeman's prized Honda Accord Compact.
Goro Fujita's white-gloved hand went straight to his face. "Him again. Damn. How the hell did he find me this time?"
"You need help with this, buddy?" a plump officer asked the antennae-banged policeman while cracking his knuckles. "Don't misunderstand. I know you can take him on. I'll be the one to handle him for his own good. You might just kill him."
"He's just a kid. Don't let that ugly mug fool you. In fact, he's still in high school, from what I can remember from our last meeting," Fujita told his fellow coppers as he took his last stick of Shinsei cigarettes and lit it. "Fuck, I need to go back to headquarters for a spare pack."
"Are you sure? He looks older than you are," the first cop that looked like a baby vulture from afar insisted. "Well, whatever. I'm not sure who it is I'm supposed to take pity on, though; you or the yakuza kid. He doesn't even know you were an ex-SAT, I bet!"
By SAT, Fujita's fellow officer meant Japan's Special Assault Team whose rough western equivalents were America's elite SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams and the United Kingdom's SO19 (Specialist Firearms Command). He was a squad leader for the SAT Tokyo Unit before settling as an Assistant Police Inspector or Lieutenant for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.
"Don't worry about it. I got it covered," Fujita reassured his comrades as he shuffled towards his car in a stooped posture, his hands inside his pockets and his cigarette billowing against the wind like the blower of a steam locomotive. "I won't make any promises that I won't hurt him if he scratches my car, though."
"Go get that yakuza scum, Lieutenant!" cheered the bird-like policeman.
"Huh. Will you look at that? The idiot has the audacity to grin and wave at Lieutenant Fujita." The bigger officer told his smaller compatriot as Goro headed straight towards his car, the curly stranger talking to him as though they were old friends or he was soliciting some sort of hokey product like a door-to-door salesman.
"Hey, he must know the lieutenant's other name. He's calling him 'Saito Hajime' now," the short cop said while nudging the ribs of his more corpulent policeman partner. He clucked his tongue. "Bad idea, dude."
"Poor kid... if he is a kid. Remember what the lieutenant did to the last guy back at headquarters who brought that shit up? It's not really his fault that his parents named him after some Shinsengumi Captain's alias. Besides which, you don't want him to get pissed at you, or else you'll be the one pissing yourself."
"Uh, oh! Look out, here comes one of Lieutenant's patented glares!" Both the beaked cop and the chubby cop leaned forward, their eyes bulging as wide as the alleged teenager's did once he took the full brunt of Fujita's wordless wrath.
"Ha! Ha! He slumped right down to his feet beside the lamppost! All Fujita needed was a good stare down with the hoodlum to scare him off! What a pussy."
The fat man guffawed before scarfing down his burger. Meanwhile, Fujita was already inside his car, revving it up in order to drive back to his Tokyo headquarters to get his pack of Shinsei cigarettes.
"I hope he didn't shit his pants or anything," the birdie policeman giggled while picking out the sesame seeds of his own sandwich with his fingers and plopping them down his smallish mouth.
Kazuma Kuwabara wiped the cold sweat off of his forehead, not at all noticing the two heckling cops just across the street. 'What the hell was that all about? That Saito or Fujita dude just glared at me, and my legs turned to jelly for some reason! Wait, that sounds gay. Um, the way he looked at me made it seem like he grew ten times bigger... no, that sounds gayer. Well, whatever he did, it got me down on my ass! Ah... I give up.'
Regardless, as Fujita had guessed, Kuwabara had been stalking him and his not-at-all-standard-issue Honda patrol car all the while.
Every afternoon, right after Kuwabara's classes at Gai Technology High School (up until the end of the school year around early-to-mid-March), the Spirit Sword master researched everything he could about Goro Fujita... both the historical one and the one who could summon a gigantic wolf made of mist and fear as his familiar of sorts.
He could do that because the kendo club was the only club he enrolled with (and he hadn't been attending that either) in case the Spirit World ever needed his services.
So far, Kuwabara got the man's license plate, his residential address, his work address, his phone number, his pager number, his former work as part of the SAT, where he bought that sword he carried inside the trunk of his car like some sort of homicidal maniac, his favorite food, his favorite hangout, and so forth.
'...Yeah. This sounds quite stalker-like. Why am I doing this again?'
He was actually cross-referencing the present-day Saito's information with the historical Saito's personal details to double-check something that left him quite curious.
Ever since he found out from Genkai and a certain man-slaying artifact guardian named Kenshin Himura (who wasn't at all listed as part of the Four Butchers or Shidai Nikuya in the reference books he'd read so far) that the Goro Fujita he knew was the legendary Hajime Saito reborn, he couldn't help but research more about this living historical figure.
Come to think of it, weren't swordsmen capable of using their ki... i.e., their sword-ki... to freeze their enemies with just a glare?
Perhaps that was how Fujita managed to bring Kuwabara to his knees without lifting a finger (aside from the likelier explanation that the teenage was simply intimidated by the wolf-like man who took on a serpentine dragon and a powered-up version of Seiryu the Shisejyu all by himself when Kazuma and Genkai couldn't).
'Never mind all that. I got to know who that guy is. I still have no idea what's going on with this Chojin business. Koenma wouldn't even let me near that Kenshin guy's Demon Sword until my powers stabilize. Still, a man's got to do what a man's got to do, and I will find out whether or not this guy is friend or foe one way or another.'
Kuwabara took a spiral spring notepad with a small pen stuck on its spine from his back pocket and checked out the information he'd gathered so far.
After writing down, "Has a killer glare," on a list of characteristics Lieutenant Fujita had (right after "He's a violent drunk according to historical rumors and real life,") Kazuma checked out Goro's work address.
"Ah, there we go. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters at Kasumigaseki, Tokyo."
By the time the teenaged boy looked up, Lieutenant Fujita and his Honda were long gone. "That's just swell. Oh well."
He looked at his right hand, clenched it tight, and out emerged an elongated, diamond-shaped sword made of reiki. To the passersby surrounding Kuwabara, all they saw was what looked like an ex-con waving around his fist, the energy blade completely invisible to them.
"Looks like I'll have to depend on the Jigen Tou Express to find Fujita Goro."
Back to the relative present; on March 24, 1993; at the forty-fourth floor of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building...
'By my estimations, both of us are at around Class-A strength at the moment.'
Xinhai's unbuttoned, sleeved, and collared shirt fluttered against the winds produced by his own undulating might, the seals that the Onmyouji left on his body to reduce his power to levels not easily detectable by the spirit energy detectors of Spirit World Detectives warping and cracking against a spiritual flame they could barely contain.
"Let's see what you've got, Last Okashira of the Oniwabanshu!"
Instead of producing only one wave of the ground-based Matoi Izuna per slash, every last fevered swing of Feng Xinhai deployed what appeared to be multiple air stream shark fins zeroing in on the Aoshi-possessed Daiji as though on a feeding frenzy. As expected, the Okashira tiptoed though the unstoppable waves like an incorporeal ghost while closing in on the humongous Chinese man with the gigantic Japanese sword.
As Battousai had demonstrated over a century ago, even though the Shinko Ryu was an unstoppable force, defensive techniques like the Shinsoku and the Ryusui no Ugoki that could avoid even the spray of hot lead could neutralize the classical swordsmanship school; there was no need for an "immovable object" when all the opponent needed to do was dodge and fight on the inside. Even the reincarnated Raijuta was fully aware of this flaw.
Just as the untouchable Daiji closed in, blocked a pointblank Izuna attempt with his lightning-fast kodachi defense, and attempted to do another Jissen Kenbu and Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren combination attack, Xinhai punched him in the throat during that split second the Oniwabanshu Leader needed to shift from defense to offense. As the Okashira's reincarnation reeled from the blow, the One-Eight-Ten Killer grabbed hold of his tie in order to prop him up for immediate decapitation.
Fortunately, Daiji recovered quickly enough to slash his tie and Xinhai's beefy forearm so that he could buy enough time to recoup, retreat, and regroup. However, the serial killer expected as much and lobbed Matoi Izuna waves anew to keep the detective at bay, at times firing off a midair Tobi Izuna to avoid falling into a predictable pattern that the reborn shinobi could exploit.
"I'm fully aware of my swordsmanship school's weaknesses. Then again, your own techniques have lots of exploitable flaws too," said Xinhai as his ground-attacks forced Daiji on the defensive.
"I can time whenever you shift from defense to offense now. The fact that you're using close-range kodachi means that your only window of opportunity for attack is when you're nearby. As long as I can keep you at bay, all you can do is defend yourself. If you do manage to cut the distance between us, you'll still leave yourself wide open by attacking!"
Even the fleet-footed, fluid-moving Aoshi had a hard time maneuvering Daiji's recently hospitalized body over the rut-filled terrain, the floor creaking and crumbling underneath his weight because of all the continuous waves of Matoi Izuna Xinhai unleashed. He could even hear the people a floor below him scrambling towards their desks, thinking that there was an earthquake occurring.
As the stalemate drew on, Xinhai gradually increased the pressure by adding more and more Tobi Izuna slashes along with the Matoi Izuna ones, his projectiles forcing Aoshi to exclusively concentrate on dodging and defending.
The nonstop offense allowed the Chinese Triad Boss to even attack with a close-quarter Izuna from time to time while shrugging off the Okashira's kenpo counterattacks with his tank-like body. "Is that all you can do? Run away? I expected more from you, Shinomori Aoshi!"
"You're doing a much better job at wrecking this floor than catching me off-guard," Aoshi remarked before feeling the ground collapse under him, which forced him to jump. For a second time, a Tobi Izuna hit the detective-turned-ninja because the footwork-based Water Flow Movement didn't work as well in midair. The vacuum slash missed his neck by mere inches as it cleaved through his shoulder and collarbone.
"You were saying?" Xinhai mocked as he himself leapt and delivered an Izuna that Aoshi attempted to block with his twin swords but couldn't, which ended up nicking his kodachi's edges, ripping through his collared shirt, and revealing his kanji-scarred chest.
"You can't even risk attacking me! All you're doing is running! So much for transcending my might! Is this the limits of the Oniwabanshu Okashira's shadowy strength?"
Again, instead of reacting, Aoshi backed off with his Water Flow Movement that seemed a bit more stuttered and less fluid than before thanks to his latest injuries. Xinhai proceeded to go in hot pursuit of the shinobi while taking care not to step on any of the compromised parts of the destabilized floor.
"You're running out of places to hide! I guess I was right all along! My three moves are enough to defeat even the bakufu's elite guard!"
Because Xinhai tempted fate thrice, Aoshi took that moment as his cue to try out a technique he figured would best disable the trigger-happy, projectile-lobbing reincarnation of one of Battousai's weaker foes. He soared over the Matoi Izuna, and true to form, Feng raised his sword over his head to give him enough leverage to fire off a Tobi Izuna.
Aoshi grit his teeth as every nerve in Daiji's body informed him through a symphony of pain to stop, the detective's underdeveloped muscles and vast collection of injuries already at their limits.
Nevertheless, the Okashira managed to aim his second kodachi at Xinhai and hit its handle with the tip of his first kodachi like a pool cue, which sent the blade flying at the Chinese man's exposed forehead.
"Onmyou Hasshi."
Like Kenshin before him, Aoshi noticed that the main strength of the Shinko Ryu also served as its greatest weakness. Even though its one of the few long-range sword styles out there and its vacuum slices were virtually unstoppable once unleashed, it also left its user wide open to long range attacks as well.
Xinhai's pupils shrunk in recognition of the move; although the Dusk to Dawn Strike was executed in a different manner, his mind instantly flashbacked to Battousai's Hiryu Sen that struck him not once, but twice in two different lifetimes.
By pure instinct, Feng swatted the incoming blade with his free hand to deflect it, only to see another blade hidden behind it hit him right between the eyes. He didn't even have a chance to scream as the Aoshi compelled Daiji's smarting body to kick the shortsword deep into the murderer's skull.
The next thing the One-Eight-Ten Killer knew, he'd went down back-first on the floor, his three-hundred-pound frame breaking through the unsteady ground and landing on top of an office desk on the forty-third floor of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building, the handle of Aoshi's kodachi jutting right out of his head.
'Is it over?' Daiji thought as he sunk to his knees and stared at Xinhai's unmoving form through the person-sized hole the killer fell through, oblivious of the screams of panic of the employees and bosses below who'd just witnessed a man plunge right from their ceiling with a blade stuck in his head.
Meanwhile, the detective's other self continued to keep his trembling body's guard up in case something else happened. 'Is it finally over, Mister Okashira? Have you killed him?'
'Normally, it should be.' Aoshi took full and immediate control of Daiji's body as soon as he saw Xinhai's glassy eyes clear and glare straight at him, his open maw clenching back into a toothy, bloody grin as he stood straight up and scrambled for his longsword.
"Now this is the feared Oniwabanshu Okashira I've heard about back in 1878. You don't even seem all that shocked that I survived!" marveled Xinhai as he jumped from the splintered desk that broke his fall, stabbed his nodachi into the ceiling, and grabbed hold of the edge of the opening he made earlier. Soon enough, he'd climbed back into the forty-fourth floor with little to no trouble.
"The Blue Meanie may try to appear emotionless, but every last thing he does... from his obsession to me to his continuous whining about his dead wife... reveals how sensitive he really is. You're cut from a different cloth. Colder than ice." Feng held the kodachi that was stuck within his noggin, pulled it out, and threw it back at the reawakened Oniwabanshu Leader.
As soon as Shinomori caught the thrown kodachi while Daiji seethed within their shared consciousness, Feng Xinhai attacked with what at first appeared to be the Matoi Izuna but was instead revealed to be the stolen Nikaido Heiho techniques, which produced an afterimage of the "Hei" kanji that clashed against the crisscross flashes of the Spiral Sword Dance Six Series.
"Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren," declared Aoshi as he wielded both his weapons backhand and countered the Kanji Killer slashes. He tried to exploit the opening that Xinhai's sudden shift from Shinko Ryu to Nikaido Heiho presented with a counterattack of some sort, but the presence of the ever-familiar Chinese characters froze Daiji's traumatized body into place for a second, the scars on his chest and in his heart burning anew with sorrowful agony.
"I thought you only needed Shinko Ryu's three moves to defeat me," Aoshi pointed out as his undulating movement allowed him to move outside of Feng's striking range. He then hid his blades from behind him in order to keep his opponent from guessing where he'd strike next.
"...And you actually believed me? You're not the only one who knows how to bluff, shinobi," riposted Xinhai as he countered Shinomori's scissor-like, crossed-sword Gokou Juji technique with Jine Udo's unnamed back-pass, hand-switching strike.
"Like I said, it doesn't matter how skilled you are. I'm stronger than you. In fact, I still have an ace up my sleeve, while you're running out of moves I haven't seen."
'What's this man made of? Why wasn't he killed when you stabbed him on the head? Why was he able to survive a bomb blast and walk through fire? Is he some sort of zombie? The undead?' demanded Daiji as Aoshi attempted to escape Xinhai's warpath with his tried-and-true Ryusui no Ugoki.
However, the Okashira was caught by surprise when the serial killer's copied Nikaido Heiho strikes turned into vacuum slashes (in other words, an amalgamation of Nikaido Heiho's brushstroke fluidity and Shinko Ryu's air-cutting prowess) and added a couple of new injuries to the detective's already battered body.
'I spent a limited time in the Spirit World before I was reincarnated as you. I heard of beings who achieved powers beyond that of mortal men by harnessing their spirit energy. Even swordsmen such as myself made use of sword-ki in order to bolster our abilities. The strongest of such people can even defy death, I've discovered. Xinhai Feng may be one of them.'
"The difference between you and me, Shinomori Aoshi, is the fact that I wasn't satisfied with knowing that I was the reincarnation of some weakling wannabe swordsman. I became someone beyond Isurugi Raijuta, beyond the One-Eight-Ten Killer, and beyond even Xinhai Feng. To awaken and realize who I am is not my sole ambition in life. My awakening was only the beginning. I wanted to become more. I wanted to see the limits of what humanity can accomplish, and surpass even that!"
Aoshi's Ryusui no Ugoki continued to keep him from harm's way, but as Xinhai predicted, it also turned him into a sitting duck that couldn't return fire. In a matter of minutes, his business suit was marred with rips, contusions, and slashes from the indefatigable One-Eight-Ten Killer and his eternal supply of flying and floor-ripping crescent air cutters.
Nothing had changed. Not one bit. "My power is eternal. My slaves are giving me all the power in the world to stop you. You were foolish to challenge me, Okashira. By defeating you and turning you into my slave, I will come one step closer into becoming as powerful as the Legendary Overfiend or the Youkiri Battousai."
"...Battousai the Demon-Slayer?" managed Aoshi before he and his reincarnation were swept up by the unstoppable waves of Tobi Izuna and Matoi Izuna.
Tendrils of smoldering black flame started forming around Xinhai's body, his shirt turning into ash as the kanji scar that Jine Udo left on his back burned bright red.
About two weeks after Rando and the Shisejyu's assault at Genkai's temple and a week before Detective Matsudaira's fight against Triad Dragon Head Feng Xinhai; at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters located in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo...
"If some yakuza-looking hooligan who's searching for me comes by, tell him I'm not interested in meeting with him or I'm busy," Lieutenant Fujita said to the policewoman at the reception desk. "If he stirs up any trouble, don't hesitate to arrest him either."
"What? Him again? You should get a restraining order on that kid or something!" complained the lady cop while Goro ignored her as he went straight to his office. "And we can't arrest him! Isn't he a minor? Lieutenant? Lieutenant!"
"What's going on with Fujita-kun?" a bearded officer around the same "age" as Fujita asked the lady at the reception desk as the lieutenant in question slammed the door to his office behind him.
"Is our esteemed lieutenant all right? Is there any liaisons afoot?" was the roundabout way that the scruffy policeman asked the unsaid question of, "Is Mister Ex-SAT cavorting with someone else's wife or something? What's the scoop?"
"The usual, sir. The usual," was the woman cop's passive-aggressive way of saying, "Go dig dirt somewhere else. I'm not your secretary, you know," as she took a sip of her polystyrene (also known as Styrofoam, which was a trademark of the Dow Chemical Company) cup of coffee.
"You know, I heard he quit the SAT after a mere couple of years of service before transferring to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police as a lieutenant. I wonder why," was the bearded copper's way of stating, "I guess the stories regarding the legendary Fujita "Shinsengumi" Goro were just that after all. He couldn't even last that long with the big boys. He's now a big fish inside a small bowl."
Reading the implications behind her superior's statement, the twenty-something policewoman finished her drink and informed, "They say that the lieutenant was one of the finest squad leaders they ever had in the SAT Tokyo Unit. They were also baffled why he left. Some of them say he either got bored of the SAT or maybe found something even more exciting to do."
The bearded policeman guffawed at his subordinate's answer.
"Yes, because I'm sure that the nonstop action we have of issuing tickets and catching cat burglars is much more exciting than the counterterrorism and anti-drug missions of the SAT. Next you'll tell me that nicotine gives Fujita-kun super strength."
However, the receptionist wasn't even listening to her superior's attempts at water cooler chatter. 'I wonder what it was the lieutenant found that's even more exciting that the SAT...?"
Fujita scowled. He'd forgotten that the only pack of smokes he had left at his office were Marlboros he bought from a nearby vending machine because the "inconvenient" convenience store was all out of his favored Shinsei brand.
'Fine. A cigarette is a cigarette. Besides, I don't have any anti-foreigner sentiment; that's the Ishin Shishi's shtick. Maybe next time I'll try out some Camels instead.'
As Fujita took out a lighter in order to acclimate himself with the taste of Marlboro after getting used to Shinsei's flavor all that time he'd spent in the Human World, he took a file out of his metal shelf and leafed through pages upon pages of info that, to the untrained eye, appeared completely blank. The officer let out a puff.
The lieutenant narrowed his sharp, wolfish eyes as he scanned the document. 'I see. One of the Chojin's henchmen had found a way to produce their own stash of jaki without depending on the Chojin to absorb the unused negative energy surrounding the Human World and distributing it among his men. Because of that, the Overfiend was able to divert more of his time, efforts, and attention in reviving even more of the Spirit World's deadliest enemies.'
The previous Reikai intelligence reports that Fujita acquired (more like intercepted) before they reached Koenma Daio's stubbly fingers implied that the relatively recent attack by the Gods of Meikai and the long-term goals of the infamous Black Black Club who sought to bring the Makai and the Ningenkai together were all connected to the Chojin somehow.
More to the point, for the longest time, the deposed ruler of Meikai, Yakumo, was once upon a time believed to be the reincarnated Chojin until the unknown son of Makai's Raizen, Yusuke Urameshi, defeated him with the help of the sealed energies of the Nether World and the immense spiritual powers of his comrades.
Although it was an ignoble end, Yakumo remained one of the catalysts in the formation of the Black Black Club because he was worshipped as a god by the underground society's members, Sakyo included.
However, Fujita remained of two minds in regards to these reports' connection with the expose Koenma Daio uncovered in regards to his father, Hinduism's Great King Yama, Chinese Buddhism's Yanluo, and Japanese Buddhism's Enma Daio.
The trial, conviction, and impeachment of Enma (one of many Enmas, because the title "Enma Daio" served as a bureaucratic post rather than the name of any specific person) came about after Koenma Daio, his son, discovered that Enma had been brainwashing weak demons in order to terrorize the Human World and justify the erection of the barriers separating the Demon World and the Human World from each other.
Fujita frowned. According to Enma's criminal actions, the barriers were never needed in the first place, and they merely symbolized Reikai's attempts at a totalitarian rule that was justified by staged demon attacks. However, Sakyo's purpose in connecting the two... perhaps even three... worlds together would suggest otherwise.
It was ironic how the foiled schemes of Sakyo and Shinobu Sensui were ultimately fulfilled once Enma's corruption came to light. On the other hand, taking down the barriers at a time when the Overfiend... a being prophesied to bring all three worlds together... had already made his presence known might not be in the Spirit World's best interests.
There also remained the question in regards to the Chojin's true identity. Was he the defeated Yakumo? A being borne of pure energy, sin, and malice? Or perhaps he was someone more familiar...?
'There are no coincidences,' Fujita chanted upon remembering two important facts; he and his mortal enemy, the Hitokiri Battousai, had been revived one way or another.
It wasn't a stretch of the imagination to believe that Makoto Shishio himself had been resurrected as well. The would-be despot might have something to do with this Chojin business after all, in light of all these familiar faces popping up all over Nineties Japan.
This might even be the cosmos's way of coping with the reemergence of Shishio; Battousai and everyone connected to him had been brought in that day and age with the explicit purpose of handling the Shishio "virus" (arguably "plague"). They were the designated "antibodies" that Father Time and Mother Nature handpicked to handle the Chojin's rise to power.
After all, had Fujita seen his past Shinsengumi comrades revived instead of the vagabond version of Battousai and his Meiji Era enemies, then he would've concluded that he was instead supposed to fight against the resurrected Ishin Shishi leaders, the so-called Shidai Nikuya, the Ronin Samurais of Choshu's Mori Clan, Satsuma's Shimazu Clan, or the Shinsengumi traitor known as Kamo Serizawa and his separatist Mibu Roshigumi faction.
Yes, the Former Captain of the Third Shinsengumi Unit made a lot of enemies in his lifetime. It was arguably part of the job descriptions for both of his past life's occupations: First as a captain of the shogunate's special police corps, and then as an officer working under the government that was formed by his former mortal enemies.
Without so much as a knock or a "Pardon me," a tear in the fabric of space-time ripped open right in front of the frowning lieutenant, his antennae bangs flapping amidst the winds produced by Kuwabara's dimension-tearing Jigen Tou. "Oh, thank Baby Enma, I ended up inside a room instead of inside a wall. I almost got killed the last time I miscalculated where I was supposed to make my portal..."
"How the hell did you get in?" queried Lieutenant Fujita, fully aware of how stupid and obvious his question was (he already saw how Kuwabara got in), yet he asked it anyway in order to buy himself enough time to take stock of the unexpected turn of events.
"You're not the only one with superpowers here, Mister Reincarnated Historical Figure!" chimed Kuwabara, oblivious of how unnecessary his response was. "Then again, unless you were some sort of magical voodoo zombie, I don't think you originally could summon gigantic wolves made of mist either. A better question would be: How the hell did you end up in the twentieth century?"
"You're trying my patience, Carrot Top." Smoke billowed out of Fujita's mouth and nostrils like a dragon as he slipped his confidential files inside the cabinet and locked it.
Assuming that the physical capabilities of the spiritually attuned teenager in front of him was topnotch, hiding his pilfered information was probably a useless gesture because the orange-haired hooligan could possibly locate them with his spiritual powers. However, Fujita knew that Kuwabara wasn't going to stay in his office for long anyway.
"You're not answering my question, and you're in no position to refuse me," Kuwabara stated while gulping and wiping his sweat; to him, the snarling officer about his height and weight exuded power belonging to the titans of yore.
The lieutenant smirked as he tensed his body and waited for the perfect time to strike. However, to Fujita's befuddlement, the ginger-haired boy dematerialized his weapon and said, "Y'know, you don't look anything like your picture on the history books. Was that photo even really you? Or... are you even Saito Hajime?"
"I get that a lot," came Fujita's droll comeback while he cracked his knuckles and joints one-handed by simply moving his fingers around and letting his thumbs do the work.
He wasn't lying either. As soon as he first adopted the "Goro Fujita" moniker when he was still alive, he'd always been asked all sorts of questions in regards to his past ranging from, "Are you the Saito Hajime?" to "Hey, you don't look like your photo at all! Are you sure you're Saito Hajime?"
"Where's the rest of the Shinsengumi? Where's Hijikata, Souji, and Kondo?" inquired Kuwabara.
Fujita rolled his eyes and groaned. "Gee, I never heard that line before."
"Shut up! That's a perfectly valid question! Just in case you're the real deal, it's only natural for people to ask where your other famous buddies are!" Kuwabara argued.
"So are they outside your office? Are they your officers? Is Kondo the Senior Superintendent, Hijikata the Chief Superintendent, and Souji a Captain just like you? Are you like one of those lame television shows where they put historical figures in modern-day situations?"
"You're trying my patience, Carrot Top." Although Fujita never dropped his guard after Kuwabara put away the Dimension Sword, the lieutenant nevertheless became relaxed enough to sit back down his office chair and try to gauge how much his stalker knew about him.
"Moreover, how sure are you that I am the Saito Hajime of yore? Is a Moslem man who's coincidentally named Muhammad ibn 'Abdullah or an Indian man who's inadvertently named Mahatma Gandhi the 'reincarnation' of his more popular predecessor?"
"Don't think that didn't occur to me two weeks ago, when this whole debacle started." Kuwabara waved his finger at the man who made him fall down on his knees with only a glare.
"Even though Granny Genkai isn't old enough to be alive during your past life, the Guardian of the Demon Sword certainly was! Although there wasn't much written about the Hitokiri Battousai when compared to the Shinsengumi, my Rei-Kan tells me that he was a ghost from the past through and through, and so are you!"
Fujita took a drag of his Marlboro and chuckled out miniature nimbus clouds of burnt tobacco. "So the Battousai himself confirmed it, huh?"
He afterwards scowled at the memory of Kenshin yielding against his newfound supernatural powers. Then again, his spy inside the Spirit World informed him that depending on who wields the Youtou Shinnoken, the Youkiri Battousai might or might not appear.
Kuwabara raised an eyebrow as another thought occurred to him. "Hey, wasn't Saito a drunkard instead of a chain smoker? Don't you know that you died from stomach ulcer, not lung cancer?"
Fujita sneered at the impetuousness of the young man for even suggesting that he didn't know how he'd died, his stomach growling in reaction, although his lungs weren't in the best of shape either (probably; they never bothered him too much). "So am I Saito or am I not? You can't seem to make up your mind, kid."
"Well, whoever you are, I want some answers! Are you on the Spirit World's side or aren't you? Even though you fought and killed Seiryu after he'd gained a power similar to the Kokuryuha, you still attacked the Demon Sword's guardian and left him for dead! Are you a good guy or a bad guy?"
Fujita barked out a laugh upon seeing the young one materialize his barrier-cutting blade and aim it right at his neck. "This sword can cut through long distances. If I move one inch, I might lop your head off. I want answers, man, and I'm not taking any chances in case you've been revived by this Chojin fellow as a zombie out to hunt for one of us good guys."
"Good guys? Were you and your fellow Reikai Tantei necessarily 'good guys' when you hunted down weak demons brainwashed to wreak havoc in Ningenkai by Enma Daio himself? How many of the demons that you and your comrades killed were controlled by the Spirit World at the time? You probably couldn't tell."
Instead of being intimidated by Kuwabara's threats, Fujita made it a point to move his neck a hairbreadth closer towards the teenager's glowing sword, his short hairs singed upon contact of the energy blade's edge.
"You were working for a corrupt afterlife government that was perpetrating a worldwide protection racket, and you have the audacity to ask me if I'm a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy'?"
"H-How did you know about that? That trial was confidential! ACK!" yelped Kuwabara as the lieutenant grabbed him by the arm, pushed him towards the wall near the doorway, and put him in an armlock, the Jigen Tou burning a couple of tufts of his bright orange hair as papers, trinkets, baubles, and a lamp flew all over the place.
"You have an impressive technique. It can cut through dimensions and spaces, you say? It's a damn shame, then, that you still need to swing it around like a regular sword, because all your opponent needs to do is keep your arm from moving to keep himself safe from harm."
"You bastard! What the hell is your deal? How'd you get revived? Are you working with the Chojin or against him?" persisted Kuwabara, his words muffled because of the fact that half of his face was against the wall.
"This time around, it's you who isn't in the position to ask questions," said Fujita.
"Actually, I said you weren't in the position to refuse answering my questions," replied Kuwabara.
After a minute or two of contemplation, the police officer guffawed. "So you did. You have balls, kid. Even after seeing what I'm capable of, you still had the moxie to challenge me. Since I have no questions to ask you, and because you went through all this trouble stalking me, I'll humor you."
Kuwabara grit his teeth as Fujita twisted his arm further in order to move closer to his exposed ear. "We were awakened for a reason. The Chojin has returned, and everyone who was ever connected with Himura Battousai has come back from the dead in one way or another. As for the reason why only Himura's comrades are being revived at present? You don't need to know."
Afterwards, before Kuwabara knew what was happening, Fujita untwisted the teenager's sword-arm and swung the Jigen Tou within its grip on the floor, creating a portal leading to "Kami-sama-knew-where". "Tell this to Battousai. Unless he discovers a way to harness the full power of the Demon Sword as the Youkiri Battousai, then he'll never be a match against me or the Chojin, especially if it turns out that the Overfiend is the man who killed him in the first place."
With that, Lieutenant Goro Fujita pushed the interloping Kazuma Kuwabara right into the Dimension Sword's torn doorway to parts unknown before it repaired itself and disappeared altogether, the transdimensional black hole swallowing the snoopy adolescent whole.
In the evening, around the late seventies to early eighties, within the spacious confines of stately Ikumi Manor at Taito...
"Uncle Matsu! Uncle Matsu!" gurgled an excited young Likka... who looked about three or four years old at the time... as the Ikumi family's butler arrived with someone grabbing hold of his hand while hiding behind his trousers.
"Now, now. Don't be shy. Let's meet the mistresses, shall we?"
From behind the butler emerged a young boy about nine to ten years of age who sported a smaller version of the traditional servant's dress for the affluent household.
"Mistresses, I'd like you to meet a new member of our family. My wife and I have adopted him from a Tokyo orphanage and hired him in your employ as well," Matsudaira, the Ikumi family butler, said.
"Ah. I see. Thank you for informing us, Matsudaira-san." A sundress-adorned Itsumi nodded towards the elderly head butler as he gripped the hand of his wife and exchanged kisses.
Itsumi moved towards the boy whom she guessed was as old as she was, more or less. "And who might you be?"
Like a turtle, the boy shrunk down and stiffened on the spot. A chuckling Matsudaira urged him to speak by gently pushing him towards his new employer of sorts.
"Speak up. I don't bite," Itsumi prompted with a pout and a slight sneer that made the boy sweat.
"I-I'm Daiji. Just... Daiji. Nice to meet you." He accompanied his greeting with a bow.
Instead of bowing, she curtsied at the boy and said, "Hello, I'm Ikumi Itsumi. That's my sister, Likka." She winked, and he blushed. "Welcome to Ikumi Manor, 'Just Daiji'."
Daiji's eyes darted everywhere but the girl. "T-Thank you, Mistress."
"Dai... Ji... Ji... Dai... Ji..." came the singsong chant of a laughing, carefree Likka as she whirled around the sullen newcomer inside her cute weasel costume that doubled as her pajamas.
"Ah, Mistress Likka, you mustn't...!" yelped Daiji as Likka crawled on his back and began tugging at his hair. "Dai... Dai... U-Uncle Jiji!" chirped Likka, mistaking Daiji as an "uncle" like their butler, Matsudaira.
"I'm too young to be a grandpa. Or an uncle," Daiji deadpanned, but it was too late for him to protest.
"Uncle Jiji! Uncle Jiji! Uncle Jiji!" insisted Likka, who many years later would ask Daiji, "Hey, why and when did I start calling you Uncle Jiji?" and he would never offer her an answer.
"Itsumi-sama, please make Likka-sama stop calling me that name," Daiji pleaded while giving the little girl a piggyback ride, his hair turned into a topknot held by his littlest mistress's chubby fingers.
"Oh, I don't know." Itsumi smiled in a way that Daiji wouldn't exactly describe as "kind". "Jiji is a perfectly cool pet name as far as I'm concerned, Jiji-kun. Wait till my parents get a load of you."
Back to the relative present; on March 24, 1993; at the forty-fourth floor of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building...
Although Aoshi Shinomori could still dodge the crescent vacuum waves, because of Feng Xinhai's constant and untiring barrage of Tobi and Matoi Izuna, many of the projectiles were only partially dodged, which meant they were able to partially hit the Okashira regardless. That, coupled with the growing fatigue of Detective Daiji Matsudaira's not-so-athletic body, contributed to their rising amount of wounds and blood loss.
"TORNADO RIPPER!"
The hotness of the reincarnated Raijuta's jaki flames that engulfed his body and the coldness of his Shinko Ryu's techniques soon coalesced into an outright tornado that ripped through several floors above and below them and compromising the entire stability of the structure.
Although the average Japanese person had been educated since childhood of the proper procedures in enduring natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, the appearance of the ashen wind funnel within the building remained a rather unusual sight.
Aoshi attempted to escape the twister using his Water Flow Movement, but he found the winds too powerful to elude their grasp. Rifling through his host's vast knowledge and estimating the wind velocity by sight and feel, the Okashira reckoned that the winds were at least forty miles per hour in order to make it difficult for him to walk, much less do a complicated sword dance of varying speeds.
For his part, like an anchor holding down a gigantic cargo ship, Xinhai stayed in place, admiring the wanton destruction produced by his cyclone. However, the exertion of engulfing his body with high-temperature negative energy and combining it with the ice-cold gale of the Shinko School of Swordsmanship left him drained of his frightening power.
"Your Ryusui no Ugoki is no match against my Tornado Ripper. Like with everything else, a cyclone can suck up even the ever-changing currents of a mighty river. There's no escape," said Feng as he admired his masterpiece from afar. "No one can ever be a match against a Class-S except another Class-S! Remember that!"
The shinobi had no choice but to allow the wind funnel to suck him inside it as he sliced apart any and all flying debris that came his way. Using the pieces of concrete, tables, doors, chairs, metal I-beams, file cabinets, CRT monitors, desks, and other miscellaneous office appliances or building materials to "swim" across the raging hurricane, Aoshi made a beeline towards the Chinese serial killer in order to risk it all on the assumption that his nemesis couldn't produce two tempests at the same time.
A minute later, spinning like a top, Aoshi escaped the grip of the twister and used his added momentum to unleash a "Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren!" from out of nowhere that ripped through the air twice as fast thanks to the Tornado Ripper's aid. He was even able to dodge a full-swing Tobi Izuna because of how fast he turned. Xinhai screamed as Aoshi's rotor-like slashes ripped apart his leg into a fine mist of blood and giblets.
'Let's see him survive that.'
The Chinese man's then smiled a broken grin, his jaw's lower canines protruding out of his mouth like tusks. "Sonic Shockwave," he stated, and by the time the words left his mouth, it was already too late for Aoshi.
The Okashira only managed to deliver a couple of bone-cleaving slashes on his target's body before the "missed" midair vacuum slice clashed against the Tornado Ripper so hard that the resulting blast surpassed the speed of sound and obliterated both the tempest and everything near it.
For an instant, all went silent and still. It took several seconds for Aoshi and his host, Daiji, to realize that they went deaf from the exploding shockwave left by the supersonic Tobi Izuna. It took a few more moments before their ears started to ring and a faint murmur of noise returned.
The way time slowed for them altogether was beyond their ken, although the detective did postulate to his past self their shared, pain-riddled body was perceiving time a lot faster than normal as a coping mechanism of sorts. This compression of time did allow them to brace themselves from the bone-breaking impact of hundreds of tons of debris.
"Ask if the detective is enjoying himself, Okashira! After four years, he has finally gotten what he wanted! A chance at revenge! Is he enjoying the fruits of his labor yet?" screamed Xinhai, his Chinese accent and Daiji's partial deafness somewhat muting his words as he lobbed even more of his Matoi Izuna at the surrounding wreckage.
Smelling the blood from Xinhai's torn calf and the gaping hole on his forehead and clavicle, Aoshi sprung into action from atop a pile of shattered concrete, safety glass, plaster, and bent metal, his spine screeching in eye-watering agony that he ignored the best that he could.
"IZUNA!"
"Gokou Juji!"
Shinomori apologized to Daiji for damaging their body this badly before doing the Yin-Yang Cross against Feng's Izuna. The twin kodachi clattered on the floor while the horizontal part of Daiji's "Hei" scar reopened.
To Aoshi's surprise, Daiji answered Xinhai's taunts. "Even if I have to deal with Enma Daio himself to get justice for what you've done to my wife and child, I will. Even if I have to sacrifice this life and wait for my next life for karma to happen, I will. You're beyond corrupt. If it's my fate to put you down, then so be it. I don't care what happens to me. Even if you're Buddha himself, I will cut you down."
"You're a boring Blue Meanie to the end. Enjoy oblivion," Xinhai replied as he raised his sword to strike his opponent down.
At that moment, the faces of Hanya, Beshimi, Hyotoko, and Shikijo flashed across Aoshi's shared mind's eye with Daiji, which confused the detective yet gave renewed strength to the Oniwabanshu Okashira. 'You and I are more alike then I previously thought, Matsudaira Daiji.'
Aoshi and Daiji's feelings merged as one, the unarmed ninja leader kicking the Triad Dragon Head upside his flaming head, his shoes turning into a gooey, stinking mess because of the slowly but surely growing jaki fire.
Nevertheless, his attack produced a satisfying crunch that sent the serial killer reeling. The possessed detective bit his lip. Hitting Xinhai's flaming body was like hitting coiled snakes set on fire; hard, hot, and painful.
Sometime around the mid-eighties, while Daiji Matsudaira and Itsumi Ikumi were in the living room watching a heavily edited, Japanese-dubbed Hollywood film about yakuza starring Ken Takakura that was aptly named, "The Yakuza"...
"You want to be a what?" asked Itsumi with a raised eyebrow. "Why would you even want to be a traffic cop, Jiji-kun?"
"Not a traffic cop. A policeman. A detective. You know, like the ones found in those yakuza films," was Daiji's best approximation of excitement, which was earnestness. "In particular, the ones who protect the weak."
"You know what? Good for you. Usually, kids who watch yakuza films want to be yakuza," Itsumi told Daiji before appending, "You watch too many films. You should do more housework, like you're paid to do."
"I don't get paid for my work, you know," replied Daiji.
"If you want to be disowned by the Matsudairas and left in the streets to starve while you chase after your dreams to become a cop, then be my guest," countered Itsumi.
Daiji sighed. "Sorry, Mistress."
Itsumi sighed. "You're weird, you know that? Watch 'Princess Sarah' or reruns of 'Dog of Flanders' like a normal kid."
"Uh, don't you mean 'Gundam' or 'Lupin III'?" suggested Daiji before he was smacked with a rolled-up TV Guide.
Then, without thinking, he revealed, "I was actually caught by a cop stealing money for a gang of pickpockets I was a part of to survive back in Shinjuku. He beat me up and sent me to a local orphanage, where Matsudaira-san eventually found me."
"AHA! So you were a thief! You probably have a rap sheet! I always knew you were some sort of juvenile delinquent! I should fire you," needled Itsumi. "Wait, if a cop beat you up and sent you to an orphanage, then why the heck would you want to be a cop in the first place?"
Daiji shrugged with a rare sheepish smile.
"I took such a massive beating that I looked terrible for weeks-on-end. When Matsudaira-san came looking for someone to adopt, he took one look at me out of all the kids out there and chose me for adoption because of how sorry I looked. I really owe that cop a big favor."
"Interesting. Kenpo. That's still not enough to..." The One-Eight-Ten Killer didn't have the opportunity to complete his sentence as Aoshi grabbed hold of his arm, slammed him into the floor with explosive force, and pounded away at his topless burning form, the flames eating the detective's flesh but the blunt force of the blows keeping the killer motionless.
Sweat, fire, blood, and tears literally sprayed across the undulating bodies of the two combatants.
Aoshi had to put the bastard down before he regained enough energy to reignite his jaki fire and perform that unstoppable cyclone. It was the only way, knowing that he was "merely" a reincarnation of a skilled mortal battling against a supernatural force. The detective-turned-ninja continued his assault, his bleeding fists and feet raw from all the strikes he released, his determination superceding the sting of first-to -second-degree burns.
However, the smothering offensive went to a complete halt as soon as Feng grabbed hold of his quarry's neck, lifted him up, turned him sideways, and smashed his back against his knee, which nearly broke him in half. The marks on Daiji's chest seared anew with an unknowable fire while his spine's awkward placement made the rest of his body convulse in anguish.
"...As I was saying, kenpo isn't enough to bring me down. In order to become a 489 within the Triad, I had to be sufficiently versed in kung fu and self-defense against other types of martial arts. Hand-to-hand combat is par for the course for the likes of us Chinese mobsters. Was the detective not able to deduce something as simple as that?" derided Xinhai as he threw the mangled remains of his foe aside.
To the Triad Mountain Master's shock and awe, the limp body of Daiji Matsudaira straightened itself out, landed on his feet, and employed his Water Flow Movement to retrieve his fallen weapons. To Feng's further confusion as he attempted to slice his resilient nemesis up with simultaneous Matoi and Tobi Izuna, the Okashira let the kodachi go as soon as he regained hold them.
"Onmyou Hasshi! Onmyou Kousa!" Aoshi combined the two techniques by allowing Xinhai to block the Dusk to Dawn Strike, grabbing hold of the deflected blades, countering the follow-up strike with the Shadow Light Cross, and hammering the first kodachi right into Feng's chest like a stake through a vampire's heart.
To the shinobi's chagrin, Xinhai didn't only rise up, he also didn't bother taking out the short sword, which left Shinomori with only one kodachi on hand. To add injury to injury, the dual vacuum wave managed to cut through the crisscrossing parts of his kanji scar, reopening them.
"You're starting to get as annoying as the detective, Shinomori Aoshi. None of your attacks can work against me. I don't fear your succession technique at all. I was even able to nearly defeat Battousai using just my shikigami. Meanwhile, you've long ago been beaten by Himura. You've not only been kicked out of the game; you're not even a player anymore. Why even bother?"
"Jissen Kenbu," hissed Aoshi as he relied on everything he had left... his martial arts prowess, his swordsmanship skills, and his remaining blade... to put the unstoppable Xinhai down even though the fact that he was missing a kodachi reduced his possible techniques from seven to three.
Cackling like a wild man, Xinhai indulged Aoshi's attempts at heroics by slicing at every one of the afterimages and walking through the sharp counterstrikes, counterpunches, and counterattacks like they didn't matter at all. "Your hit-and-run tactics mean nothing against a steam roller, Okashira!"
For quite sometime, none of the Izuna, Matoi Izuna, or Tobi Izuna landed on the fluid-moving shinobi, but the undeterred Feng marched on, treating his growing injuries like annoying paper cuts.
Eventually, Shinomori figuratively choked, hesitating in between switching from defense to offense as soon as he saw Xinhai's dark aura flaring anew, his body freezing up in the memory of the Tornado Ripper and the Sonic Shockwave.
He managed to avoid the midair vacuum cut, the ground-based vacuum cut, and the pointblank vacuum cut, but the left hook that clocked him made him stumble to his knees.
Daiji's ice-blue eyes blurred and flickered for a moment before seeing a rainbow of variegated, shimmering butterflies surrounding the chest wound and other various injuries of the seemingly immortal Feng Xinhai. These apparitions were absorbed into the Chinese serial killer's skin and appeared to heal his damaged body.
A minute later, the detective saw countless men and women floating above the unstable ground and around the over-muscled Triad leader, their feet missing and their transparent bodies breaking up into sparkles of light that transformed into the aforementioned glowing insects.
"You can see them, can't you? My slaves. Because of them, I've become God. After all, who is God without his followers?" came Xinhai's gleeful taunt as both Aoshi and Daiji stared at the butterflies, mesmerized by their tragic beauty.
The detective flinched after recognizing some of them from their pictures in his files, particularly poor decapitated Mitsuko Nai, who held her head by its hairs with her free hand while the rest of her dissolved into butterflies. 'Run away, Detective,' her head mouthed.
Thanks to Aoshi's superior constitution, Daiji was able to resist nausea and the urge to lose what little lunch he had for today.
"You know what's really pathetic? The detective, knowing that none of his crime-solving skills can stop a force of nature like me, is now depending on you, Okashira, to do his dirty work for him! Even one of the top warriors of the Bakumatsu all the way up to the Meiji Era is still no match against me! Isn't it sad?"
Aoshi screamed himself hoarse as a wave of emotion from Daiji enveloped him, prompting him to eschew evasive maneuvers in favor of fighting toe-to-toe with the behemoth.
Because of the "laundry pole" length of his blade, Xinhai had a hard time cleaving through Shinomori's frontal assault. However, the Chinese murderer still had the detective where he wanted him, which prompted him to shift to Nikaido Heiho and hold of the bottom (and duller) edge of his nodachi in order to rid himself of the blind spot created from having a longer weapon.
As soon as Feng felt Aoshi's sharp blade strikes slow down and weaken, he braced himself. Sure enough, the Okashira's last ace up his sleeve, the Kaiten Kenbu, was deployed at pointblank range so that he didn't have enough time to swing the unwieldy weapon.
Nevertheless, even though the strike hit the serial killer cleanly from the shoulder to his stabbed chest, a blast of wind hurled Shinomori back at the last minute, rendering his attack too shallow to damage the human juggernaut.
"Blood Wind," Xinhai said as he removed the kodachi in his chest and allowed his and the detective's blood to fuel the crimson tempest that served as his shield against the Spiral Sword Dance, remembering how he reduced one of the users of this stolen technique, Rando, to meat cubes thanks to his shikigami's control of the wind.
"Thank you for not running around anymore and confronting me, Shinomori Aoshi. I was waiting for you to drop your guard."
The remaining uninjured portions of Daiji's "Hei" scar... the two slanted slashes... were reopened thanks to the twin Tobi Izuna produced by Xinhai's nodachi and Aoshi's own kodachi as the detective tumbled across the cratered floor before crashing hard unto a nearby pile of rubble.
To Be Continued...
Next: The awful truth.
Hajime Saito: Sasuke! Prepare me my drink!
Kazuma Kuwabara: Yes, Lord Kuno... Hey, wait a minute! Wrong characters!
R.I.P. Hirotaka Suzuoki (1950-2006). Also, greetings and salutations to veteran voice actor, Shigeru Chiba.
Hindi ako papayag na maghari ang kasamaan sa daigdig!
Abdiel