Youtou Shinnoken
A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
Tag team handicap match between the Sanosuke and Daiji (Aoshi) pair and the trio of two Suzakus and Itsuki.
Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and Studio Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.
Chapter 39: The Other Side of Bloodlust (Part 7)
With the Sakurada Street burning with hellfire (actually, it was a combination of gasoline explosions from a monumental pileup of cars that happened thanks to friction and busted fuel tanks), Sanosuke Sagara and Daiji Matsudaira (Aoshi Shinomori's reincarnation) could clearly see their enemies, the cover of darkness from the blackout finally lifted.
His right leg throbbing but his face remaining too neutral to show his pain, Daiji walked (not hobbled) towards the Suzaku twins and pointed at each of them with both his platinum kodachi.
"It's the beginning of the end for you. As soon as Saito Hajime retrieves the Demon Sword, your bid to play god will be over at last."
The clueless Sano kicked Matsudaira on the shin. His affected shin, to be exact. "Hey, Aoshi Lite! We don't know whether or not Saito is on our side! Back when we were fighting Shishio's Faction, that was the case, but what about now? Can we really trust him?"
Daiji sidestepped then stomped on Sagara's foot for revenge while whispering, "They don't know that. Then again, Saito's 'Aku Soku Zan' policy treats Shishio as the ultimate evil. If the Chojin truly is a revived Shishio with his own New Ten Swords, it would make sense that Saito is on our side."
"Oooh. Yeah, good point. They call themselves Jupon Gatana too, don't they? I almost forgot." Sanosuke nodded to himself.
"Ya think ol' wolf face is a solidified ghost like me and Yahiko-chan?" Sagara asked, and Matsudaira couldn't answer simply because he wasn't sure... and that irked him more than anything else.
Perhaps "irked" wasn't the right word. Like his idol, the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, mysteries for him were like itches just waiting to be scratched.
"If you two sissies are done whispering sweet nothings to each other's ears, then I'd like to start by saying, 'Hello,'" said not one Suzaku or the other, but both.
These "Suzakus" had opted to make use of their control over radio waves to telepathically link one another in perfect synchronization. They were even in stronger sync than Kenshin was with Yusuke when the two shared a bond care of the Demon Sword.
Abandoning use of the invisible-to-the-human-eye ultraviolet version of their Lightning Storms of Torment (cancer-inducing for sure, but cancer killed too slowly and one of their opponents was already dead), they switched to firing lightspeed Ankoku-Raiko-Ha while traveling at bullet-train speed by magnetically connecting I-beams together and turning it into their magnetized railings.
Their battle plan was simple enough to follow. As soon as they got close, they gathered electrical energy, emanated microwave radiation, and shot energy-imbued blasts from their Ankoku-Raijin-Ken.
While they were far away, the hurled anything metal at the Spirit World Warriors from the Meiji Era, then fired off their lightspeed Ankoku-Raiko-Ha that shocked and electrocuted the tandem even when missed.
As for Itsuki, he crossed his arms and legs and sat, meditating, one eye remaining open while he watched out for the best time he could summon his teleportation powers against Sano and Daiji.
Here was one such exchange between the pure melee fighter Sano (Aoshi was also a melee fighter, but he had more projectile attacks than Sanosuke did, the twelve-foot zanbatou's longer striking range aside) and the Suzakus:
As usual, Sano charged forward and attacked the nearest Suzaku with his signature zanbatou (except this time, it was composed of ceramic instead of iron), which his street fighter name originated from (i.e., Zanza).
In case the living bug zapper avoided that zanbatou chop, Sagara still had his fists as back up, punching the demon out with the Double Impact (also known as the Futae no Kiwami) that he learned from the fallen monk of the original Juppon Gatana, Anji Yukyuzan.
However, it'd seem that by experience from fighting both combatants, the Suzakus learned their lesson from before and proceeded to double team Sano with impunity while staying away from the detective with the nonmagnetic platinum blades.
As Sanosuke expected, one of the Suzakus avoided the slash and moved close enough to be in fist-fighting range. What he didn't expect was another Suzaku appearing from behind the first one, disintegrating his zanbatou by its molecules with his own Storm of Torment Fist, and converting the dissipating spirit energy into the demonic energy.
Cursing under his breath, Sano ducked under a clumsy, telegraphed Ankoku-Raijin-Ken punch (it was Sano's belief that without his electrical prowess, Suzaku was actually a mediocre fighter with poor punching technique) and countered with his Dual Extreme punch.
However, at the same time, a lightspeed (or approaching lightspeed, since the actual top speed of light... 299,792,458 meters per second or 186,282 miles per second... only happened in a vacuum and "actual" lightspeed had to travel through a medium, like air, which slowed it down) lightning bolt struck Sano, paralyzing him.
As for the Suzaku closest to Sagara, he proved the street fighter wrong about his fighting style being clumsy by turning his missed punch into a backhanded Ankoku-Raijin-Ken strike with enough microwave radiation to boil Sanosuke's blood (or, in his case, his ectoplasm) like with what happened to Matsudaira previously.
"AUGHH!" screamed Sano while having seizures.
What was worse was that the nearest Suzaku proceeded to shoot a stream of Ankoku-Raiko-Ha electricity over the farthest Suzaku and vice-versa, thus creating a closed loop of electricity that electrocuted Zanza as long as neither of the Crimson Sparrows let up on him.
More so than the Suzakus that Kurama and Kuwabara fought, the Suzakus facing Sanosuke and Daiji worked more in tandem.
The turn of events actually surprised Aoshi's Heisei reincarnation. Daiji expected the Suzakus to again attempt to outwit him and Sano by utilizing more scientific principles to further maximize their electrical powers.
In a way, that was exactly what they did, but Matsudaira didn't expect them to leave him out in favor of targeting the "weak link", which was the technology-ignorant "Luddite" Sanosuke.
Regardless, Daiji came to Sagara's rescue, his platinum swords on hand while he intended to break the "circuit" formed by the energy absorption and release (e.g., the Ankoku-Raijin-Ken and the Ankoku-Raiko-Ha) techniques of the Suzakus.
Matsudaira could attempt to kill one or both of them, but an A-Class doing so against two S-Classes was easier said than done.
The detective instead opted to do the Yin-Yang Cross or Gokou Juji that involved slashing his twin blades crosswise unto the electrical stream, acting as a metal insulator of sorts since platinum didn't conduct electricity.
There was one problem with his plan, though: A teal-haired, one-eyed, scarred, effeminate, psychotic, and gangly problem, to be exact.
After Itsuki teleported right in front of Daiji to run interference for the sake of the Suzakus, the policeman shifted from the Gokou Juji to the Onmyou Kousa or Shadow-Light Cross, which involved him hammering the first kodachi strike with a second one, thrusting the first one through.
Detective Matsudaira stopped himself short of completing the Shadow-Light Cross right through Itsuki's neck because just then, a portal opened in front of the Gatekeeper and the Shinomori doppelganger could feel a second portal open from behind him using his swordsman sixth sense.
Had he went through with the Onmyou Kousa, Daiji would've ended up inadvertently stabbing himself in the back, his kodachi teleporting from Itsuki's front to behind him. As expected of one of Xinhai's top henchmen. "So this is how deep the rabbit hole goes, huh?"
"It's pretty deep, Alice," answered Itsuki with his own monotonous voice. "Perhaps I should make like the Queen of Hearts and teleport your head elsewhere."
Matsudaira retracted his hand from the dimensional rift and began varying the speeds of his bobbing and weaving so that he'd slip right through the Gatekeeper's sight like the rolling waves of the riverbank.
Itsuki reacted in kind, producing black holes of varying shapes and sizes that the Aoshi reincarnate had to dance through like an asteroid field in order to get to Sano.
"You don't need to worry about me, Detective!" screamed Sanosuke with grit teeth, which made Daiji wonder if the street fighter was being sarcastic.
Apparently, he wasn't. Sano grinned and began pounding the nearest Suzaku in front of him with multiple Futae no Kiwami strikes. "Y-You were stupid enough to get close to me to electrocute me? Then pay the price!"
The Suzaku nearest Sano was forced to cut the circuit of continuous electrical flow in order to block and parry every one of Sano's Double Impact punches the same way he defended against Yusuke when they fought and he ended up in the receiving end of a Hyaku-Retsu Ken.
Meanwhile, the other Crimson Sparrow helped out with Ankoku-Raiko-Ha bolts that Sanosuke didn't even bother to block or dodge at that point.
That was the way Sagara fought. He soaked up damage as much as possible, then returned the favor ten to twenty times over (or, figuratively speaking, "died" trying), like a tank ramming through a meteor shower.
However, this tank was fast enough to pop a wheelie while he was at it. Nevertheless, with enough blasts, even a tank would fall. Hell, a pebble in its gears would be enough to make it stop working.
"SANO! Don't charge at them like a fool! You're only asking for a second death!" shouted Daiji in a decidedly un-Aoshi-like manner before he attempted to rescue the "suicidal" ghost (a true oxymoron).
Matsudaira then paused after he felt a familiar presence manifest itself in the far distance. Perhaps from Mount Fuji itself.
The savvy, long-range sniper Suzaku shot his electric bolt projectiles through the interconnected minefield of black holes, which hampered the detective's exit since the Ankoku-Raiko-Ha traveled seemingly everywhere at the same time via the wormholes.
Sanosuke's muscles froze up, paralyzed from all the electric shocks his ghostly frame received. A smiling Suzaku balled up his fist to deliver a final Ankoku-Raijin-Ken that would blast a whole into the solidified spirit's sternum while at the same time irradiating him with ultra electromagnetic waves.
"!?"
The problem was that he couldn't ball up his fists.
Perhaps it was carpal tunnel syndrome (yes, even demons suffered from those, especially those with five-digit hands like humans, primates, or raccoons).
Perhaps blocking continuous strikes from the Futae no Kiwami wasn't the wisest of choices. He could've ended up with broken hands... or worse.
This allowed Sano enough recovery time to gain back control of his over-stimulated muscles, ball up his own throbbing fists, and do his double-fisted version of the Dual Extreme fist.
"Behold, Blondie! I'm going to knock those frosted tips of yours out with the purity of unarmed combat! Fuck your electrical powers! SANJO NO KIWAMI!"
Suzaku forced his cramping hands and arm to move with his electrical powers while rebutting, "Says the idiot who's bringing his fists to a stun gun fight! ANKOKU-RAIJIN-KEN!"
"ARGH!" said a blank-eyed Suzaku, his head snapping back by the force of the Sanjo no Kiwami.
"That's one down and one to go! Or maybe two if we count the yoga instructor," remarked Sano.
He managed to make Suzaku reel and go down on one knee (he was still Class-S after all, so a knockout was nearly impossible for a Class-B like Sagara) with the Triple Impact.
However, it came at the cost of Zanza getting blasted with so much electricity that his tattered clothes, karate-gi-like jacket, and pants reverted back to their original leathery form.
"Sano! What happened to your clothes?" asked Daiji.
Instead of the red bandanna and "Karate Champ" clothing he usually wore, Sanosuke ended up sporting a buckle-and-strap-filled black bomber jacket that looked even gaudier than his trench coat, a tight leopard-spotted shirt, and leather pants with elaborate gold trimmings.
'He looks like he came from an S&M club!'
"Oh, this? Isn't it nifty? It's from the Spirit World, I think. Both Yahiko and I got it. I think it changes form depending on my mood or something," answered Sanosuke.
"That isn't a mood ring. That's probably how you're able to summon the zanbatou without having special object-creation powers from spirit energy like Tuxedo Mask and I do," said Matsudaira.
"Tuxedo who...?" asked Sagara.
"Karasu. He can create bombs out of demon ki the same way I can create blades with my spirit ki. The only way you can do the same is using those clothes, I'm guessing," said Daiji.
"I guess the clothes do make the man!" quipped Sanosuke before he lost his footing altogether, his legs rubbery from all the electric shocks that he'd received. A late reaction.
The Aoshi incarnate shoved Sagara to the ground before a crossfire of Ankoku-Raiko-Ha bombarded the two Meiji Era warriors care off a dizzy Suzaku and his healthier and more accurate twin.
"HEY! What's the big idea?"
"Stay on the ground. Let me handle this."
"Fuck you! You stay on the ground!"
To compensate for the damage Sagara caused one of the Suzakus, they flanked Sano and Daiji while tossing their homing lightning bolts at each other, absorbing the energy and returning each blast to each other like they were playing a game of game of energy shot tennis.
Not only did their electrical powers allow them to home in on each other; even if one missed hitting either Sagara or Matsudaira, the other one could safely absorb the energy and shoot it back until they got a hit.
This technique most certainly tested the limits of Daiji's Ryusui no Ugoki.
Nevertheless, instead of heeding Matsudaira's advice, the hotheaded Sano got up and ran through the barrage of electrical arrows with his fists placed on his face as his guard even as his legs wobbled while he moved.
"Don't be reckless! Suzaku has gained control of his powers down to a science, so if you're going to barrel around without thinking, you're going to lose more than just your Spirit World clothing!"
"I know what I'm doing, Aoshi Lite! Their lightning attacks are nothing to me! I had that electric eel where I wanted him while you were prancing around with that long-haired yoga instructor's little black holes!"
"...You know what a yoga instructor is?"
"Hey, I get bored sometimes and I watch daytime television back at Boke's place, okay?" By Boke, Sanosuke meant Kazuma Kuwabara.
"Stop being moronic and listen to reason. Before charging at them, we need to formulate a plan. The Suzakus have too many powers in their arsenal to go at them like cavemen, Sagara Sanosuke."
"We don't have time for plans, Matsudaira Daiji! You're overcomplicating things! Fights aren't complicated! The first one who hurts the other guy wins! Why waltz around with a guy for hours when you can knock him out cold in seconds?"
"Suzaku knows electromagnetism in and out. He can beat you, a B-Level fighter, in any way possible with his S-Level powers. If you fight recklessly, you'll make mistakes. You can't afford to make mistakes when fighting someone like him!"
"Then we should hit them so hard and often that they won't have time to breathe, much less think! Jeez, if you want to pussyfoot around and dance the waltz with Itsuki, then be my guest, Valentino! I'll be over there, actually winning against the Shin Ju!"
Speaking of the "yoga instructor", Itsuki teleported Sano right in front of one Suzaku then teleported the other Suzaku right behind him, thus allowing the two saint beasts to double team the ghost further with their microwave radiation and close-range Ankoku-Raijin-Ken.
'He's soaking up too much damage! That bonehead will really end up as nothing more than ectoplasm and loose spirit energy if this keeps up!' thought the cop, only for him to end up face-to-face with his teal-haired nightmare, the Gatekeeper of the Sensui Seven.
Instead of pressing the issue in rescuing the hyper-aggressive street fighter with a devil-may-care attitude (and letting history repeat itself), Matsudaira opted to attack the one hindrance that kept him from landing a significant blow against the Crimson Sparrows.
"KAITEN KENBU ROKUREN!"
To his chagrin, Daiji ended up having to parry his own blade after Itsuki again made a vortex that kept him safe from the Spiral Sword Dance Six Series while at the same time returning the detective's own attack by making another portal from behind him.
"I noticed that ever since you turned your swords platinum, you weren't able to produce more than two kodachi. Is the strain of synthesizing spirit energy into a nonmagnetic metal too much for your body to handle?" wondered Itsuki aloud.
"..."
Meanwhile, the leather-jacketed Sano went at it with both Suzakus in a slugfest of double-impacting fists and electricity-imbued punches filled with millions of volts of power.
As per his macho nature, Sagara ignored the woozy and weaker Suzaku in favor of bringing the pain to the healthier Crimson Sparrow who disintegrated his zanbatou.
'That idiot...!' thought Detective Matsudaira while his mind raced for a viable tactic to defeat the master of portals, Itsuki. 'He's fighting the Suzaku who could disintegrate his clothes or even his ghostly body! He should've finished off the weaker Suzaku and reduced their chances to double-team him!'
A thought occurred to Daiji. 'What if it's the clothes that are making it possible for the spirits of Myojin Yahiko and Sagara Sanosuke to interact with the world of the living...?'
The policeman version of Aoshi had no time to lose. He ignored the screams of his knees and thighs while charging at Itsuki, which made the latter remark, "You still haven't learned your lesson, Detective?"
However, this time around, Daiji had his blades hidden on his back, which made it look like his arms were handcuffed behind him as he ran.
'Clever. This way, I won't be able to tell if he's attacking from the left or the right,' appraised Itsuki before snorting. 'However, it's all for naught.'
As soon as Matsudaira was within striking range, the Gatekeeper made a person-sized hole for the detective to run into, keeping the demon safe from harm.
To Itsuki's surprise, Daiji charged right into the portal. Then, when half of his body had entered the wormhole, that was when the dimensional youkai felt twin blades bite through his back.
The wily detective had waited until the portal was opened before attacking at angles Itsuki could not see, his vision blocked by his own dimensional rift.
Normally, striking at that close a range with gangly arms that wrapped themselves around Itsuki while circumventing the huge wormhole would've resulted in both Daiji and the demon getting skewered by the twin kodachi.
Thanks to the portal and its ability to distort space and distance, the blades never touched the detective.
"I-Impossible! How...?"
Itsuki gurgled blood and fell after Matsudaira extricated his short swords away from the youkai while smoothly exiting the rift before it closed and chomped away a good portion of his head and midsection.
Sano didn't fare as well as Daiji did, though.
Because he wasn't alive anymore, Sanosuke didn't have his blood boil or evaporate as red mist like what happened to Shishio prior to his own spontaneous combustion.
Instead, like disturbed fireflies, pieces of light... his reiki... began to escape from his body and fly away in little wisps and pinpoints of light.
Sagara still fought with everything he got, though. Even if he lost, he'd damn well take one or both of the Suzakus along with him to Hell, if he had to.
The Suzaku he fought was wise enough to deflect the Futae no Kiwami with the Ankoku-Raijin-Ken instead of blocking it like the other clone did. Offense was the best defense and all that.
Sano licked his chops before he froze up from another Storm of Torment Fist body blow. "That's it! This is the hardcore fight that I've been waiting for! Bring it on, Goldilocks!"
Instead of being discouraged, the intensity of the battle made Sano's blood boil (in a more metaphorical and positive manner instead of a literal, microwave-related context), so much so that his bomber jacket and leather pants ensemble turned back to his white cloth apparel while he got his second wind.
'His own emotions are reenergizing his spirit energy reserves!' realized Daiji before he helped out Sano in his own little way by turning his platinum blades into ceramic once more so that he could throw a multitude of them at the other Suzaku to distract him.
Itsuki was right; turning his short swords platinum sapped too much of his power.
The Suzaku that the Aoshi incarnate attacked produced orbs of plasma that orbited around him and helped him sublimate the solidified barrage of spirit energy ceramic blades immediately into a gaseous state before altogether ionizing them into plasma he could manipulate as well.
Sano gathered enough power to summon a zanbatou from out of nowhere that blindsided the Suzaku he battled. Naturally, this made the demon doppelganger turn the twelve-foot ceramic blade into spirit energy and then electricity, but Sagara would have none of that.
Zanza drilled the Suzaku to the ground then reformed the zanbatou faster than the demon could disintegrate it. From pure force of will, at that.
He almost succeeded in splitting the S-Class Crimson Sparrow in half with a groundbreaking Zanbatou Ate (his version of Anji's Tou Ate) when something struck his spine. The demon then tossed the human aside like a used rag.
"SAGARA SANOSUKE!" screamed Daiji while the neglected and "weak" Suzaku assaulted Sano from behind and lifted him up with his electrifying arm, the street fighter's body lying limp and twitching from the force of the cowardly blow.
The Leader of the Shisejyu glowed with electromagnetic radiation while his superheated plasma orbs revolved around him like his own version of the solar system.
The other Suzaku glowed along with his twin, their auras harmonizing with each other. They then looked at Detective Matsudaira's leg and grinned at each other.
The policeman gulped in realization.
The two demon clones probably figured through x-ray that he broke his right leg during an earlier exchange.
Like lasers, the Ankoku-Raiko-Ha of the Suzakus pinpointed the leg of Matsudaira, traveling too fast for the detective to react, which made him resort to doing the Jissen Kenbu (a one-sword version of the Kaiten Kenbu) to compensate and attack the S-Level demons with either his sword or his martial arts while dodging.
They managed to hit his right leg enough to make him hobble at long last, but they weren't the ones who did the policeman in. Daiji was about to transition from the Jissen Kenbu into the Kaiten Kenbu when something obliterated part of his shoulder.
"YA FUCKING BASTARD COP! FUCK DA POLICE!" screamed the one-eyed Itsuki while cocking and pointing his... gun? In the place of his hand was some sort of high-tech bionic blaster that the copper had never seen before.
Where'd he get that piece of technology? More importantly, why was he speaking like some sort of gangster? "...Itsuki, what happened to you?"
"Are you retarded? Who's Itsuki? I'm not Itsuki! I'm KAZUYA! Remember that name, you creepy, trench-coat-wearing BITCH!" spat "Kazuya" before firing several more rounds from his firearm.
Sano woke up with no feeling from the neck down. His eyes darted around in panic, his neck not allowing his head to move to get a better look at himself.
'I need to get up. Why won't I get up? Move, godammit!' He almost got 'em. Or at least one of 'em. Almost. 'Fuck.'
Was it possible for a ghost to get paralyzed? The thought scared Sagara more than the prospect of dying. Again. What if it was permanent...?
Sagara shook his head to clear it of his thoughts, which made him realize that all was not lost. Why? He was able to shake his head!
He lifted his head in time to see the know-it-all detective get manhandled by three of the Shin Juppon Gatana (technically, two).
He was ashamed to admit it, but he was kind of glad they were kicking his ass. It was petty, but he didn't like the way Aoshi Lite was treating him like a rube, even though the cop himself was just a shadow of the Oniwabanshu Okashira.
Sanosuke began wiggling parts of his body, from his little toe to his twitching fingers.
He also hated to own up to the fact that so far, Detective Matsudaira was right all along. The street fighter was fighting the Suzakus too recklessly. He almost managed to test the copper's theory of ghosts getting a "second death", at that.
His legs still felt like jelly around the time he gathered enough strength to sit upright.
"Why are you calling yourself Kazuya now when you were Itsuki before?" Sano overheard Daiji ask Itsuki while he dodged getting shot at by lightning bolts and (presumably) bullets from the Shin Ju that surrounded him.
"Because I am Kazuya, dumbass! And the guy you were fighting before wasn't the real Itsuki. He's Minoru!"
'What the hell happened to the yoga instructor? Has he gone insane?' thought Sanosuke.
This wasn't the Itsuki he fought back during their mission to quell a mass suicide at Aokigahara. That Gatekeeper was cold, calculating, devious, and quiet.
This guy before them with the prosthetic gun was a psychopath who, for some reason, spoke like a stereotypical yakuza hoodlum (or like Kazuma "Boke" Kuwabara when pissed of).
'Is Itsuki suffering from... what did the talking head on TV call it? Oh, right. Is he a schizo? Or, in Meiji Era terms, nuts? Maybe he's talking about his past life, like Jo-chan, Cat Eyes, and Aoshi Lite are,' mused Sano before he slapped himself on the forehead.
'I don't have time for this! Aoshi Lite's life is in danger!'
Sagara hammered his motionless legs so they'd start moving. He had no idea the "science" behind "Kazuya's" gun, but instead of bullets from a firearm, every shot from the weapon created tiny distortions that warped the space around it and sucked everything that could fit inside it in sight.
Now, Sanosuke was no scientist (understatement of the century right there), but even he knew that anything that could leave sinkholes in the middle of the air was bad news. They even sucked up nearby objects like that vacuum cleaner thingy the Kuwabaras had in their house.
His bomber jacket, striped undershirt, and leather pants were in bad shape, which meant he probably didn't have enough energy left to spare to create a zanbatou (if Daiji's theory of him being able to do so because of his clothes proved correct).
His legs were still fucked up, though, so he couldn't run and help Aoshi Lite out. 'For fuck's sakes! For once in your life, just think of a way to help out!'
A light bulb lit up atop Sano's bushy head. He then proceeded to take off his leather jacket, gripped in real tight, and concentrated on it. Afterwards, just as the detective suspected, the bomber jacket turned into Sano's zanbatou.
A Zanbatou Ate from a seated position didn't have as much sting as a standing, full-body Zanbatou Ate, but the sword-propelled avalanche was enough to get Kazuya's attention, at least.
This allowed the bloody Aoshi incarnate to scourge Itsuki with a Kaiten Kenbu then a Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren, allowing him to slash at the demon nine times instead of just three or six.
"Nice going, Sano! Now you're using your head!" cheered Matsudaira while Sagara gave him a thumb's up sign.
"I learned from the best! Maybe thinking things through before attacking ain't so bad after all!" the street fighter confessed.
However, Daiji's ninth slash was blocked by Kazuya's strange gun after the detective was shot at with a lightning bolt by one of the Suzakus.
Another idea occurred to Sano while all this happened. He turned his ceramic horse-chopping blade into iron during the split-second that both Suzakus' aura glowed with electrical might, their energy creating branches of jagged light and electricity.
The polarity of the aura enabled Sano to charge at them without using his feet. Instead, his twelve-foot iron blade that was attracted to the Crimson Sparrows moved him towards them.
He'd noticed earlier on how metallic things orbited around their shared aura as though it were a magnetic field.
He then just as instantaneously turned his iron zanbatou back into ceramic as soon as he got close enough to the nearest Suzaku... the one he almost finished off earlier... and swung as hard as he could. The coward escaped, but Sano drew blood.
The Suzaku who electrocuted him by punching his spine then attempted to do the same thing twice. However, Sanosuke expected this, thus he tore off his leopard-skinned undershirt and turn it into a second ceramic zanbatou.
He then batted Crimson Sparrow in the air so that he could execute a double "ZANKUU ZANBATOU ATE!" The aerial version of the land-based Zanbatou Ate produced dueling vacuums so powerful that it twisted and bent the S-Level Suzaku clone's body in every which way.
Were Suzaku Class-B instead of Class-S, he would've been torn to pieces like a piece of meat among hungry lions.
Even after suffering eight out of nine slashes from a Kaiten Kenbu and Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren combo, the (presumably) A-Level Kazuya went to town with the policeman, as though the strikes didn't even faze him.
"What the hell was that? Was that the best you could do?" mocked Kazuya before he grabbed hold of Daiji (so that he wouldn't end up doing that elusive movement of his), and pistol-whipped him with his arm gun.
"Guess what? IT. WASN'T. FUCKING. ENOUGH. BITCH!"
Matsudaira's head snapped back several times from the mauling before he kicked some sense into what was presumably a schizophrenic, manic depressive (later to be known in the 21st Century as "bipolar"), or multiple personality disorder (later to be known in the 21st Century as "dissociative disorder") sufferer.
The kenpo roundhouse made Kazuya stop for exactly a second before he resumed shooting his gun at Daiji. His gun that could create miniature portals that acted more like miniature black holes.
Kazuya got more and more accurate too, since the Suzakus electrocuted Daiji long enough for the portal gun to eat a good chunk of his leg off.
The detective's Ryusui no Ugoki's movements had become stuttered. His actions had become more predictable since he kept favoring his right leg, which meant he always pivoted away using his left leg now.
"I want all humans to die. That never changed since the time of Sensui Shinobu. Even now, humanity makes me want to puke. They're so arrogant, they get to have a world named after them! The 'Human World'!" ranted Kazuya.
Daiji's use of the Jissen Kenbu to stall for time while he thought up of a backup plan proved to be his own undoing; the nail to his coffin, even.
He hated to acknowledge it, but Sanosuke Sagara had a point. His hesitation and unwillingness to act until he formulated the right plan proved fatal in a high pressure situation where every second counted.
"Do you have any idea what a paradise this world could become without humans? No destruction of the ozone layer, no depletion of natural resources, no landfills full of waste products... It'd be fucking beautiful!" Kazuya continued.
While Matsudaira delayed coming up with a decision, his enemies figured out the pattern of his attack and slowly but surely chopped down his tree of defenses until there was nothing left of it but a stump on the ground.
He collapsed and writhed in agony after yet another portal gun bullet ate up part of his abdomen, the flying giblets converging into the tiny pinhole that tore up a piece of the fabric of reality.
"The only downside to killing all humans is that they'd end up in the Spirit World, call it the 'New Human World', and turn that paradise into Hell! There'd be two hells, one above and one below, both occupied by humans!"
This wasn't the time to dawdle. Not against an enemy like "Kazuya". Daiji needed to act now, even if he had to do so in a manner more befitting of Sagara than himself, the former Okashira of the Oniwabanshu from a century ago and a Detective-Investigator of the Shinjuku Police.
In a split second, Daiji turned his platinum blades into ceramic so that he could make more of them and threw them en masse at the multiple-personality-suffering Itsuki like Misao used to do her own Kansatsu Tobi Kunai technique.
Kazuya shot at the flying daggers like they were clay pigeons and his firearm were a rifle. However, the few blades that he missed blasting into oblivion, Matsudaira was able to grab hold and turn into platinum kodachi.
Then, instead of doing what was expected of him, which was to execute a variation of the Spiral Sword Dance, the detective did something different.
He stabbed the loosely clothed, teal-haired, and one-eyed youkai on almost every inch of his body, pausing only to deflect an incoming gun blast by parrying the weapon's tip and shoving it away from close range.
Daiji then asked, "Why do you hate humans? Is it because you're a demon?" while Itsuki turned into a fountain of blood and collapsed into a crimson pool of his own making.
It morbidly fascinated the copper how some youkai ended up bleeding the same color of blood as a human would.
Kazuya harrumphed. "No, because I'm human myself, and I know a piece of shit when I see it. I'm also a shit eater that deserves death... or worse."
Sanosuke attempted a combo of Zanbatou Ate and Zankuu Zanbatou Ate, his legs finally steady enough to give his techniques sufficient torque, but the twin Suzakus shrugged off the attacks by hurling projectile metal objects at every telegraphed strike and letting a car, a bus, a turnstile, a traffic light, or a billboard take the brunt of Sano's only (and recently learned) long-range attacks.
"How's it going?" a bloodied Daiji asked Sano, his trench coat filled with either his own blood or Itsuki's.
"Badly. After they figured out how my Zanbatou Ate works, they can pretty much stuff it down at will. S-Levels are scary, man. I'm surprised we were able to survive for this long," said a shirtless, jacketless Sano.
The ghost had only three-quarters and a quarter of his greatswords left.
"It doesn't matter how many ways they can apply their electrical powers. As soon as they're hit and hurt, we can take them down," reassured Matsudaira.
"No, no. We got to outwit them at their own game somehow. We need to think up of a game plan to use their powers against them. We can't just barrel over there like cavemen," said Sano.
"..."
"...What?"
Both Sanosuke and Daiji smiled at each other knowingly before they split up and wordlessly executed each other's plans: Sagara was in charge of barreling over the Suzakus like a caveman while Matsudaira handled all the technical stuff.
The final battle had just begun.
Daiji let Sanosuke sprint towards the Crimson Sparrows (since the street fighter was the one who had the healthiest legs of the two).
Meanwhile, the detective did his tried-and-true technique of turning his kodachi into a metal lightning rod, its handles made of rubberized material while a chain was attached to another short sword stuck to the ground.
While the Suzaku attempted to do the Prism of Two Lightning Storm of Torment, Matsudaira shielded Sano with a wire mesh Faraday Cage (that he immediately turned into spirit energy as soon as it absorbed the dual lightning bolts in order to avoid giving the Suzakus more metal for ammunition).
Most of the time, Daiji merely used his impeccable timing to detect and predict energy blast trajectories so that he could use his platinum blades to shield Sanosuke from almost every Ankoku-Raiko-Ha that came his way.
Not that Sano couldn't take any more abuse. His zanbatou and his Futae no Kiwami techniques allowed him to pretty much mow down any flying metal debris hurled his way and absorb radiation-filled lightning bolts like they were sunshine.
The fact that he barely needed to tough it out made it easier for him to attack with impunity.
While the Suzaku twins were about to escape, Daiji turned his platinum swords into ceramic again and stuck them into the feet of both Crimson Sparrows so that they'd stay put from where they stood.
The blond twins screamed.
"What now, Officer?" drawled Sano before reintegrating his torn zanbatou blades into one horse-chopping sword that could double as a lance.
The Suzakus were frozen, their hands twitching over their punctured feet before they considered simply standing their ground and fighting the Spirit World Warriors then and there.
"The time for making elaborate plans is over. So... attack."
"I thought you'd never ask, Shinomori Aoshi."
Matsudaira paused for the briefest of moments after Sano finally acknowledged him as worthy enough to carry the name of his past self.
The detective then said, "It's Detective Matsudaira to you, punk," before he and a smirking Sanosuke hit high and low, the policeman turning into a whirling dervish with ceramic knives for swords and the street fighter attacking the legs and kneecaps of their S-Level opponents while also hammering the swords on their feet deeper to make sure they couldn't escape.
The free-for-all melee raged like a storm as sweat, blood, tears, and pieces of flesh flew from all directions. The Railgun might or might not have been fired.
Perhaps gamma rays were also used, although Daiji would only know if that was the case down the line a few months or years later, if he'd somehow developed cancer or other cell mutations thanks to this fight.
Regardless, both Suzaku clones glowed like the sun while lightning struck them not once, not twice, but multiple times in succession at the same spot, giving them a continuous streams of energy.
The twins fought their opponents off with superheated plasma and radiation. Their aura kept sublimating Matsudaira's ceramic swords, prompting him to create more and more of the blades.
Daiji collapsed after the Suzakus again pinpointed the closed fracture of his leg, but this only prompted him to spin from the opposite direction from the southpaw side to do the Kaiten Kenbu.
As for Sano, he swung for the fences, landing blow after blow of the Futae no Kiwami and the occasional Sanjo no Kiwami with the intention of turning the S-Level demons' insides into puree.
'What the hell is this? The more this ghost's blood boils, the stronger he gets!' thought the Suzakus in telepathic, radio wave unison.
This went on for a full thirty minutes until everyone halted, hearing a rumbling from the distance.
"What the hell is that?"
"I don't know. Is it from another Shin Ju member we didn't know about?"
"Holy shit, are those flaming...?!"
Daiji grabbed hold of Sanosuke by his signature red bandanna and pulled him away while they ran as far away from the incoming conflagration of power as possible.
The S-Level Suzakus could only look down dumbly before they began shooting lightning bolts at the pitch-black serpentine shapes above them.
One of the Suzakus got disintegrated... or rather, sublimated... by the choleric burst of dark flame. The other Suzaku was about to follow suit when something else swallowed him whole.
It was Itsuki's Reverse Man, the same dimensional being that swallowed Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama into his pocket dimension during Yusuke Urameshi's momentous battle against Shinobu Sensui.
'How nostalgic,' thought the demonic pretty boy, his gun replaced with a new prosthetic arm by his dimensional creatures before his biggest creation, the Uraotoko, spat out the battle-damaged and immolated Suzaku.
As for the "thing" that almost killed the Crimson Sparrow, it homed in on Itsuki's location.
While Sanosuke and Daiji found cover from the flaming barrage, the former was able to espy even from that far a distance Itsuki opening his damaged eye, revealing an eye-shaped void not unlike the portals he usually made.
The Gatekeeper then proceeded to suck whatever it was that killed a Class-S like Suzaku (even if he was a clone) right into his eye portal.
As for Matsudaira, he idly wondered if that teal-haired person with the dimension rift for an eye was the real Itsuki: Not "Kazuya", not "Minoru", but the Itsuki whom the Reikai Tantei led by Urameshi fought once upon a time.
Meanwhile, back in Odaiba, on the construction site where the future world-famous structure known as Tokyo Big Sight was still being developed back in 1993...
Yahiko Myojin attempted to hit Suzaku with his sakabatou, but he ended up having his strike deflected, thus exposing him to the full brunt of the electric demon's Ankoku-Raijin-Ken.
"Dammit, Myojin Yahiko! Be reasonable and use a ceramic blade instead of a steel blade! Using anything metal would never work against Suzaku! Stop being such an asshole! I know you can turn that blade into ceramic, so hop to it!"
Natsuki Shinkai... or rather, her past self, Yutaro "Cat Eyes" Tsukayama... beseeched the Tokyo Samurai Descendant.
"His" pleas fell on deaf ears. Yahiko reasoned, "If Kenshin can defy the magnetic force of Suzaku... hell, if he could defeat people without killing them using a reverse-edged sword... then so will I! Kenshin was never forced to use a real sword, and I won't be forced to use a ceramic blade, Cat Eyes!"
"Kenshin this, Kenshin that... YOU'RE NOT KENSHIN, GODAMMIT! This isn't the time to let your foolish pride dictate your actions! We're two B-Class warriors facing A-Class and S-Class demons! It's suicide to let them play to their strengths!"
Tsukayama attempted to go to his idiot partner's rescue, but he was blocked by the weak link of the Shin Juppon Gatana, Rando. Of course, according to the demon, he wasn't the weak link, but the way he was manhandled by Urameshi earlier showed otherwise.
The problem was that Rando was actually good with his word. It didn't matter that he was overwhelmed by Yusuke, most anyone in either side, whether Shin Ju or Reikai Senshi, would've suffered the same fate. This didn't make the demon any less troublesome in his own right.
Yutaro, using Natsuki's body, attempted to land his signature, jab-like Kousa Dageki, which was a fusion between a thrust and a downward strike with a checkmark-like movement using crossed wrists.
However, Rando easily memorized the pattern and no matter how many times Tsukayama attempted to catch the demon flatfooted with the move, he always missed.
It helped that the pasty-skinned youkai kept his distance and opted to attack from afar with the space-cutting Jigen Tou, at times creating portals to escape to.
What few Cross Strikes Tsukayama did land were stuffed down by Rando's triad of defenses, which was the Iron Body Technique, the Armor of Sand, and the Shield of Sand. It didn't help that most of Yutaro's offensive attacks were setup by the Kousa Dageki.
Also, even though most of his techniques were projectile-based, Rando limited Natsuki's melee attacks with fisticuffs, specifically his Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken, which he also used to block the Kousa Dageki.
And just like that, the defensive capabilities of Natsuki's past self was thwarted by the savvy youkai.
This meant that the mule-headed Myojin was left to fend for himself against two S-Class Suzakus. Using a metal sword, of all things.
Yet another strike from Yahiko was stopped cold by the resonating magnetic fields of the Suzakus converging powerfully enough to keep the blade from even getting near their skin.
For his troubles, Yahiko ended up on the receiving end of millions of volts of electricity from the combined forces of two Ankoku-Raijin-Ken that superheated his ectoplasm and almost reverted his Meiji Era clothing into their original forms, which was a Hawaiian shirt and skintight jeans (like the ones that Yusuke usually wore).
This time around, it was Natsuki herself who begged, "Please, Yahiko-kun! Even Himura Kenshin would have a hard time penetrating the magnetic defenses of two Class-S Suzakus at the same time, even if he uses his ultimate attack!"
Yahiko swung his metal blade to partially absorb the lightning bolts that were shot at him. It wasn't as effective as Matsudaira's lightning-rod technique, but it reduced the volts coursing through his tangible spirit body all the same, the bindings of his sword handle and the sword handle itself acting as insulation.
The Suzaku with an orbiting ring of metal objects proceeded to move forward and unleash all sorts of construction tools on the hapless samurai boy.
"As usual, you humans display annoying resiliency. Like cockroaches, almost. It's such a shame to see such intelligence be wasted on a bunch of short-lived bugs like you."
"I don't want to hear that from you, Cockroach Bangs!" said the steaming and slightly transparent Myojin, who bobbed and weaved through the onslaught of debris while keeping a wary eye for any sudden Railgun blasts in the middle of that chaos.
This lesson in magnetism reminded the teenaged-looking ghost of his fight against one of Enishi Yukishiro's Six Comrades.
It was a strange, motiveless confrontation, seeing that Kenshin had already died by the time Enishi attempted to exact his Jinchu or Earthly Justice against him.
Regardless of their objectives, Yahiko still faced the flamboyant, wily, and lipstick-wearing assassin known as Hyoko Otowa, who used a magnetic sword that swung in the right direction of whomsoever he fought thanks the sword reacting to either the steel blade or the iron fillings he flung towards opponents who didn't have metal weapons.
The "Artful Dodger" managed to avoid all the I-beams flung at him with deftness, grace, and perhaps a bit of luck seeing how fast those projectiles were landing on the construction site.
The samurai kid was soon face-to-face with one of the Suzaku clones. Yahiko swung with a Tsui Gami from the Joudan-no-Kamae position. As per usual, the Crimson Sparrow's magnetic field repelled it.
However, Yahiko utilized that repelling force to take his metal sheath and do a Tsuka no Gedan: Hiza Hijiki at Suzaku's knee. To the surprise of Rando, Natsuki (and Yutaro), and the other Suzaku, Myojin penetrated the demon doppelganger's magnetic field.
'Wait! How...?' began Yutaro while Yahiko repeatedly pummeled Suzaku at close range with his iron scabbard, only to occasionally shift to using his sakabatou every time the reverse-edged sword was deflected.
'Oh, I get it. The scabbard has a different, opposite polarity as the sakabatou, so every time Suzaku changed the polarity of his magnetic field, Yahiko always had a weapon on hand that could stick to him no matter what! The added magnetic force also doubled the power of his blows!' Natsuki explained to her past self.
However, by the fifth time Suzaku changed polarity, he simply grabbed hold of the sheathe and used it to electrocute Yahiko while at the same time making its polarity the same as Myojin's blade.
"This again? You've already used this technique against me earlier, boy. What makes you think it's going to work when I can counter...?"
Yahiko rectified his mistake by making his blade disappear (since it was a construct of his mind anyway) then reappear, thus making it uncharged with electricity while his scabbard remained charged. He then continued to pummel Suzaku with his weapons.
"ENOUGH!" Both scabbard and sword ended up being in psychic control of the Master of Magnetism, such that Yahiko couldn't move them an inch.
Suzaku the boasted, "This technique would've worked were I still A-Level. But now that I'm S-Level, I can do a lot more with metal than simply repel or attract them!"
Suzaku moved the magnetized scabbard in such a way that it twisted Yahiko's arm in an awkward angle. While the ghost boy screamed, the sakabatou got telekinetically snatched from his grip and then thrust right into his abdomen.
"YAHIKO-KUN!" Natsuki screamed in concern, running to help save Yahiko, but she got teleported away by Rando and his stolen Dimension Sword technique.
However, Myojin ended up none the worse for wear because he made both his scabbard and his sword disappear in the nick of time before either did him significant damage.
Meanwhile, Suzaku raised his fist high and did an Ankoku-Raijin-Ken on the ground, creating shockwave pillars that blasted consecutively like a straight line of geysers.
Yahiko reacted by (still) summoning a steel sakabatou and doing an Earth God and Dragon Earth Flash combo to dull the blast and penetrate through the Crimson Sparrow's defenses with an attack that didn't require direct metallic contact.
The teenager was still flung away by the concussive force of the Shisejyu Leader's attack, though.
While both Suzaku and Yahiko reeled from their respective attacks, Shinkai managed to escape Rando's delaying tactics by reentering the portal he made for her before it closed and landing a Kousa Dageki into the demon's eye.
"AUGH! You bitch!" Rando swung blindly at Natsuki, who ducked into his blind spot, which resulted in him accidentally creating a portal.
Thinking fast, Shinkai kicked the demon right into the dimensional rift.
While Myojin's body was juggled by the ultra electromagnetic shockwave, Natsuki crossed her wrists, dodged her comrade's flying body, faced the million-volt energy landslide, and countered with a "Mugen Dai no HYOGO!"
Hers was a counterattack that enabled her to use the powers of her opponents against them. She'd already deployed it once on her father, Feng Xinhai, which cost him his arm.
She attempted to use it on the Suzakus, but they usually reabsorbed the Ankoku-Raiko-Ha that she deflected unto them.
This time around, the force produced by the magnetized avalanche was more concussive than electric, which meant the dizzy Suzaku was left wide open by his own returned magnetically induced earthquake, juggling him in the air like it did Yahiko.
After the spiky-haired boy managed to tumble on his feet and stop his backwards momentum, his sakabatou serving as his anchor, he smiled at Natsuki and said, "I thought I was a goner for sure. Thanks, Natsu...!"
He was silenced with a crisp slap on his face.
He recovered and looked back in time to see Shinkai in tears while she stared at him with dilated, moist eyes. However, vocal dissonance soon occurred because from Natsuki's quivering mouth came forth Yutaro's admonishing, accusatory words.
"What the hell were you thinking? Why are you being pigheaded about this? Don't use a metal sword against a demon who can control metal! Are you suicidal? You could've died back there, Myojin Yahiko! Stop making Tsuki-chan worry about you!"
Natsuki, on her part, stuttered, "I-I wasn't worried about him, you dummy! Stupid Yuta-kun!"
Yahiko gripped his stinging cheek but said nothing more.
"Go fight Rando. Watch out for his whirlwind counter technique when you become too aggressive against him. I'll go after the Suzakus with the Mark of Infinity. After you've beaten that ginger demon's pasty ass, then help me out with a ceramic sword instead of a steel one," ordered Yutaro, who turned Natsuki's back on Yahiko and wiped his girl host's tears away.
Myojin's answer was simple. "No."
Tsukayama whipped Shinkai's head back and grabbed Yahiko by his collar and lifted him up the ground. "Do you have a death wish? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just punch you out cold to protect you from your own recklessness."
"I want to earn the right to wield the sakabatou again."
"What? You're wielding it right now!"
"No. Not this sword. It's only a replica of the real thing. I... I lost the right to wield Kenshin's actual reversed-edge sword after I used it to take another person's life."
Tsukayama's narrowed Shinkai's eyes while the gears of his present self's mind started turning after hearing Myojin's confession. "Y-You killed a man? Was that the reason why you retired from active swordsmanship and simply became a kendo instructor?"
Yahiko nodded, gulping. "I now wield this reverse-edged replica of the same sword as penance for my past actions. Just as Kenshin vowed to never kill and use a sword that couldn't kill, I also promise to win against Suzaku using a sword just like his."
"...That's a stupid promise! Think of the present circumstances, you moron! You haven't changed a bit! This is the same attitude you had when you first developed your Revisal Techniques! It's just an excuse for you to use Hiten Mitsurugi Techniques instead of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu ones!"
Yutaro rebuked Yahiko before he had to block a sakabatou strike that used the inside edged curve of the reverse-edged blade. "What the hell? Are you really going to fight me over this?"
"I-It wasn't me, Cat Eyes! The sword moved on its own!" Myojin swore while pulling the reverse-edged blade away from Shinkai and her past self.
"It was actually me. And I agree with Xinhai's little brat. You have to be really retarded or downright insane to think you can use metal weapons against us," said the Suzaku who had metal flying all over him while controlling the steel in Yahiko's hand.
From a distance, the Suzaku that got hit by an Earth God, Dragon Earth Flash, and his own shockwave he created with his Storm of Torment Fist was quickly recovering from the blows and his concussions, which was to be expected from an S-Level demon.
"Here's a little tip, boy. The only reason Battousai got away with his non-killing vow, using a sword that can't cut flesh when wielded normally, or deploying a metal sword against me is because he was strong enough to do so. You are not. No matter how many times you swing that blade, it would never reach me."
As for Rando, he arrived in yet another portal after figuring out where he went and where Odaiba was. A black eye formed from where Natsuki struck him. Shinkai and Myojin were again surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned by demons more powerful than them by one or two classes.
To Yutaro's vexation and Natsuki's chagrin, Yahiko yet again attacked Suzaku with the sakabatou, with none of his strikes even coming near the demon thanks to his control over metal.
The other (recovering) Crimson Sparrow then formed globules of plasma that floated towards both Shinkai and Myojin. Natsuki, being the better defensive wizard of the two, avoided the spheres, only for her to end up facing Rando yet again.
"VAJRA!" the kabuki youkai screamed after a long spike emerged from his elbows and almost impaled the Yutaro-controlled Natsuki had he not countered with the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu's "INUKIDO!" which was a strike from below that involved hitting the armpit pressure point to disable an opponent.
It did numb Rando's arm, though, but the strike gave the demon the opportunity he was waiting for: Striking Xinhai's daughter down without her countering with her damn cane.
Seeing that he'd lost feeling in one arm, he used his other arm to deliver a "BURN KNUCKLE!" that blindsided Natsuki and set her up for a "GENOCIDE CUTTER!" which was a rising vacuum-slice technique using his feet instead of hands.
As for Yahiko, because he ended up too focused on finding even the smallest gap in Suzaku's electromagnetic field defense (and aside from the barrier, he had to contend with flying debris) using the pinpoint timing and accuracy of his Inga Gami or Karmic God, he got ensnared by the plasma orbs delivered by the other Suzaku.
His movements arrested, Myojin ended up a sitting duck for the metal-manipulating Crimson Sparrow's hail of metal debris.
However, something made Suzaku stop short from turning Yahiko into mincemeat (or, since he was a solidified soul, a pile of dissipating reiki and ectoplasm), which resulted in him scourging instead of grinding the revived Spirit World Warrior into ghostly mulch.
Via their control of radio waves, the electromagnetic Suzaku asked his fellow metal-bending clone, 'You wasted my hyper gravitational orbs, you moron! You should've turned him into an ectoplasmic stain on the ground!'
As prideful as he was, the Crimson Sparrow telepathically apologized to his other self on the same radio frequency. 'I'm sorry. The boy surprised me, that's all.'
'...What? How?'
'It's nothing. I must have redirected too much of my energy to produce that magnetic tempest. I got hit on the jaw just before he got trapped by your hyper grav.'
'B-But he's using a metal sword! That's not supposed to happen!'
'Relax. It's okay. It was a light tap that surprised me more than anything else. It didn't hurt a bit. Besides...'
After a brief pause, the Suzaku with the electron bubble asked, 'Besides what?'
'He might be running out of reiki. When I hit him with the tempest, there was no fuel left in his tank.'
'What do you mean?'
'I couldn't feel even a bit of spirit energy left in him. As in zero. He might be close to dying... or rather, since he's a ghost, close to ceasing to exist.'
'Then let's finish him off so that we can deal with Xinhai's kid. She's more troublesome than the samurai boy is with her Mugen Dai no Hyogo.'
The Suzaku with orbiting metal debris chuckled. 'Are you prepared to face Xinhai's wrath after we kill his precious daughter?'
The Crimson Sparrow inside a globe of electricity guffawed.
'I've heard that if she's killed, then Xinhai's power might become halved, or at least significantly reduced. He's no match against us seven as long as we have the Demon Sword in our possession anyway. No one is. Not even the Chojin.'
While Natsuki pirouetted in order to reduce the impact of the vacuum slashes of the Genocide Cutter (that was strangely reminiscent of her father's Izuna strikes thanks to the fact that he was the reincarnation of the man, Raijuta Isurugi, who used vacuum slices to cut her past self's arm), she landed in time to see Yahiko get manhandled again by the Suzakus.
Her jaw then dropped after Myojin's clothing turned into a Hawaiian shirt and tight jeans, the impact from the metal storm taking its toll on his body.
However, because she was not briefed on the nebulous nature of Spirit World clothing, she could only look on in confusion while her ally turned into what looked like a bleeding tourist.
"What are you looking at, Xinhai? Your opponent is me!" said an indignant Rando, who began an elaborate combo full of flames and whirling punches that he called the "128 SHIKI KONOKIZU!"
Natsuki made the mistake of blocking the first physical blow, which resulted in her getting scorched and burned by the blasts of fire.
After Shinkai fell, she stopped the youkai's forward momentum by hitting his kneecaps with the Tsuka no Gedan: Hiza Hijiki right before he could complete his elaborate flaming dance.
Rando clipped her shoulders with dual Claws of Diva from both his elbows, but she avoided the Blood Wind follow-up by driving a Suneharai or an thrust from below aimed at his abdomen.
The sallow demon attempted to dodge the strike, but the nimble Shinkai was quick enough to readjust her aim in the middle of her missed strike and do a "Reprise" that smashed Rando's nose in.
"The name's Shinkai, not Xinhai," she told him afterwards.
To Be Continued...
Next: Pride versus Prejudice.
There's barely any interaction between Aoshi and Sanosuke in canon (in both anime and manga), which I find a damn shame because they're the perfect odd couple. They could do Manzai Comedy too, with Sanosuke as the boke (comic) and Aoshi as the tsukkomi (straight man).
So long! Farewell!
Abdiel