Ranka sighed as Kei sat slumped in a corner, poking one of her dolls. With his finger. The one on his hand.....yes. THAT one. She combed her marvelous black hair and stared at his well-chiseled back, admiring the deep chisels her own nails had made. She giggled, and plucked a cord of the harp in front of her. Kei flinched, accidentally knocking the doll's head off. Ranka giggled shrilly again, making one of her eyes flop out onto the floor. She grabbed it and pushed it back into her head.
"So, Kei, what's all this about you living f-"
One of the doors burst open, white light flooding in, illuminating each pallid image of a former human soul trapped within a doll, which lay scattered around the dilapidated room. Kei hissed, flinging a hand up to shield his creamy jailbait skin from the sun's rays. Ranka pushed him through the wall.
"Raaweeaean! What are you doing here? Don't you think Miyu will become suspicious if she sees us together? Besides, I thought you were busy with one of those hefty lunch ladies you like so much."
"Hey, possession is a fear deeply rooted in the Japanese psyche."
".....ok. Thanks."
He nodded. Kei came stumbling out of the wall, clutching his ruined nose.
"AAAH!! Mby FACE!!!" He screeched in a high tenor. "AIIEE!!"
Raaweeaean casually slammed him back through the wall with his tail. "Miyu is dead."
Ranka's eyes bulged. She hurriedly pushed them back in and went on more calmly. "How can that be?"
Raaweeaean gave her a dirty look. "Damn you, woman. My tail's all scaly from Ajax, and you want me to answer questions."
Ranka gave him a strange look. He wasn't making any sense. "What's with you?"
He gave what passed for his head a shake. "I...I dunno. I seem to remember not being this stupid..."
"Yes, Berv said you were fine when you left the cafeteria to go see about that child you're posses-er, I mean, obsessed with."
Raaweeaean nodded his head-organ. "Yes....it all goes hazy after I entered the house....someone was there.....I seem to have displac....dis....displa.....lost some head-cells."
Ranka nodded. She would have to take it unto herself to find out what had happened to Raaweeaean. Kei stumbled out of the wall again, and Ranka jerked her head toward him.
"You can stay in him."
Kei stared in horror at the 12-foot Shinma, and what would pass for an evil smile passed across Raaweeaean's facial vicinity.

"Here kitty kitty..." the haunting call flooded the ship, less ominous than before now that the passengers were on deck. Half turned to look at the source of the call, Cait Sith, who stood bent over the side of the ship beckoning into the water with a brick of meatloaf. Water Lipper stirred and her fingernails scraped across the deck as she pulled herself over to him and dug her fingers into his leg.
"AAAUUUGH!"
The rest of the occupants turned to stare at the two, giving them both varying degrees of withering looks. Lemunia turned back to the front, where he was stationed at the front mast, spread up against it casually. Amy stood off to one side giggling to himself quietly, since he was getting panty shots from Lemunia.
Cait Sith was hopping around the deck, dragging Water Lipper across it's splintered surface, leaving behind bits of her snagged flesh, which Spartoi placed inconspicuously into his shirt. "Lemme GO!" He brought his other foot up to smash against her face, making her pass out once again, and leaving him sprawled on the deck wondering how he ended up there. Suddenly, Lemunia perked to attention, making Amy giggle again.
"There it is!" He pointed at the approximately 100-mile stretch of beach in front of them in case anyone had missed it. "We're here!"
"To state the o-blivious," muttered Carlua, fiddling with her bra tips idly. Pazusu casually backhanded her.
"BE NICE," he roared with dignity. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and used it to steady her head while his other pounded into her prone face. "Why can't you be NICER to the little freak?"
Carlua fell over as he released her, depositing still more teeth onto the deck. "Er......sorry, Master."
Amy pouted. "I thought you only played dominatrix games with me..."
Spartoi waggled his chest at Amy, slightly stained from the bits of flesh and hair under his shirt. "HEY BABY! Wanna hang?" That with a suggestive look at Amy's pants.
"Enough!" roared Pazusu once again. "GIA!" Night Gia looked up petulantly from the brick of meatloaf he had been carving with his pitifully puny sword.
"Whaaaaaa...?" he whined expectantly.
Pazusu pointed at the shore helpfully. Night Gia got the idea, and hopped off, leaving the rest to wait impatiently for his return, and go through his stuff.

Knight Gia stumped through the unusual forest petulantly, by himself. He used his, also pitifully small, extrasensory....senses to find the exact location of the gateway between the worlds, which he would use to locate that vampire. He located it in short order, after stepping in and identifying 13 different kinds of excrement.
He stumbled out of the shrubs into a Japanese courtyard, where Miyu herself and some woman who looked remarkably like his own person were confronting a large suit of armor with a completely homosexual-looking blonde man standing close by.
Gia did a double-take. The man was wearing very distinctive earrings, and thought the color and degree of prettiness were off, this was apparently supposed to be Lemures. This theory was partially confirmed as a very high, broken whiny voice called out, "Release Lava!"
Gia noted that this was physically impossible.
"Remules!"
Gia snorted with laughter
"You will release Lava!"
Night Gia was confused. He thought that was what they were here to do with Miyu, not Miyu with Lemunia's dead older brother.
The person in question suddenly reared up, fluffing a bit of fabric around himself to distract from the fact that he was going through an outfit change, and when the flurry died down, he was wearing a mullet, had 2-foot shoulders, and one of his legs seemed to have disappeared. " Hey Miyu!" He yelled through his masquerade mask
Gia did a double take. Something was wrong.
Remules shot up into the air, suddenly slowing to hover impressively. "I AM the Blair Witch project!"
Gia clapped. Everyone's head whipped toward the sound. He swallowed and backed out.
Miyu hopped over to him. Gia wondered why she wasn't walking, or flying. She looked like a stupid bunny that way.
"Eh hev no TIME fur yu!"
Gia nipped off behind a bush, and Miyu with a lisp turned to Remules. "Release Lava!" she informed the Shinma, just in case he hadn't been paying attention the first few times.
Suddenly a large suit came from behind Miyu and wrapped it's arms around her in what it took for a friendly hug.
"I wuf you!"
"WAAAUUUUUG!" Miyu struggled in it's arms, letting out an almost orgasmic wail. Gia found the whole scene incredibly disturbing.
"No, Barney!" Remules hopped onto it's shoulder to reprimand it. "No violence! We won't get put on Cartoon Network! Just...make a long speech or something!" He tottered on his one leg and fell off.
Now Gia was thoroughly confused.
The man in the large suit dropped Miyu, where she unceremoniously thudded to earth before hopping up and confronting Remules with her flame and her lisp.
"Yu eh weel not theel to the darkneth. Yu eh will reduth to asheth."
With that Remules burst obediently into flames. He wailed on for an uncharacteristically long time. "Laaaaaaaaaarvaa!!" he suddenly shouted. Gia looked around expectantly; no one was there. "You were charmed by this giiiiirl!"
'Oh yeah, she's a real charmer' thought Gia.
"Don't you understand......................"
Gia waited expectantly for this new voice to finish.
"..................................Lemures?"
Gia didn't. Apparently, neither did the being with Lemures' name.
"Understand whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuught?" it wailed, with a good bit of his own flesh stuck in his throat, it sounded like.
"This girl's...................................................."
Gia kicked his heel impatiently. Though, there was something about the voice...
".......................................sorrow."
The voice seemed to be having trouble putting it's sentences together. Miyu giggled, then guffawed as the Shinma burnt itself into nothing.
"Noooooo!!" The suit wrapped it's arms around Miyu again. "Vi-o-lence is baaaa-yeed!" It started to squeeze the life out of her to accompany it's point.
Suddenly, something rushed at Gia, knocking him over in a tangle of cloth and limbs. He groped his way around the mass on top of him, until he came to something he could use as a handle to haul this thing off him. It turned out to be Larva.
"Larva!" he deduced. Larva ignored him, rushing over to the Shinma to push it, kindergarten-stlye, and swipe Miyu away to the relative safety of his arms.
"Lava!" Apparently Miyu had noticed also. "My friend..."
She then buried her face in his chest and, it seemed, tried to suckle him. The human in the suit wandered off and got shot.
Gia stepped out of his hiding place in the bush, wiping his hand on his coat where he had touched Larva's....handle.
"Larva!" The thing with Larva's mask looked at him. Something seemed to be wrong. He had seen pictures of Miyu on the internet, and this girl looked like Miyu, only not as cute. And the voice just didn't fit in his mind. There was something fundamentally wrong about it. And Larva. Larva seemed to be ignoring him completely. "Hey, Larva!"
"Laba is my ever-silent companion."
"Your WHAT?"
"Laba!"
Gia made a face. "That's dirty."
The Miyu-like girl pointed to Larva.
"Ohh!! You mean HIM" He pointed too.
Larva now had two sets of fingers pointing at him. He didn't seem to react at all.
Miyu turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. He didn't move. "My friend, did you get stuck in the wall again?"
Larva elaborately raised his clay-like hand stiffly and, reaching mechanically around Miyu's head, poked himself in the eye.
"O....k...."
Miyu opened her eyes obscenely wide. "Shima!"
Gia cast around for her target. "Who, me?"
Miyu blew into her hand, expectorating on it slightly. "Hmm...No make fire." She shook it, and tried again. Nothing happened. She tried inhaling rapidly, but that had little effect past her getting hyperventilated and passing out. She fell off to Larva's right, fluttering gracefully to the ground. They both stared at her a moment
Larva put out his right arm helpfully, his fingers stiff and askew.
Gia gave up. Suddenly, Himiko ran in, slightly different looking than when he last saw her, owing to the fact that, unbeknownst to him, she had snuck off and stolen the clothes from a hooker who had died in the eighties. "Run! Get out of this place! This is not the place you seek! Pony Canyon!"
"What?" Gia stared around him. There seemed to be no canyon in sight.
"No! This is the English version! American! You want Japanese!" She gyrated, and did a little kicky dance. "Dub dub dub dub"
Now Gia understood. He thanked her, giving her one of his gloves for a reward, and returned to the ship in a huff. He walked in on everyone in his bedroom, up to their elbows in his lacy underthings. "Hey!"
Carlua ran out of the room, one of his shirts still in her teeth. Pazusu merely straightened as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Gia snatched up one of his shoes and pounded on Lemunia's head with it.
"This is the English version, dumbass! You don't navigate not unwell!"
Pazusu stuck one of the tampons he found under Gia's bed in his ear to drown out the sounds of what Lemunia was doing in the corner, and returned to the deck to do the navigation himself and perhaps try to wrest the shirt out of Carlua's mouth. He walked up the ladder, closing the door on Gia's disgusted yelp of surprise as he too noticed what Lemunia was doing in the corner.
"That's MY bikini wax!"

Ranka stepped though the dimensions out of the Tori gate, to look for Miyu. She found her, apparently dead, as Raaweeaean had said. Also there was a woman with rather large hole through her neck. She sat up when she saw Ranka coming.
"Would you happen to be Himiko?" Ranka asked, identifying her by the small growth under one of her eyes Larva had ranted about in great detail in one of the girl's room stalls.
"Himiko Se! I mean, Se Himiko, at your service."
"Himiko at your service."
Himiko snorted. "You're clever too. Hey, do you know where that small girl I have to save is?"
"WHAT small girl?"
"Aiko, or...Ajax, or Henry or something."
Ranka began to make a connection between this remarkably stupid woman and Raaweeaean's sudden strange lack of brain activity.
"Um....did you happen to see what killed Miyu?"
"Ugumph?" She swiveled her head to spy Miyu next to her. "What!?! Oh GAWD! It GOT her!"
Ranka thought that she was getting close to getting an answer from the ho. "What did?"
"THAT vampire!"
"Uh...what vampire?"
"The PRITTY one!" Himiko clenched her knees together and squirmed across the ground. "Ohhh baby! Whatta FOX!!! Just like that Kei guy!"
"Kei? What about him?"
Himiko leaned closer. "Hey, you're that BUTCH chick!"
"I beg your pardon!?"
Himiko nodded. "If you insist. Get on it, bitch."
"WHAT?!?" Ranka was beginning to see how Raaweeaean's sanity had been sapped by being near this woman.
"Huh huh HUR HUR HUR HUR HUR HUR HURHUHRURURHRHRHRHRHRH!!!!!!!!!" Himiko's nose was shooting matter at Ranka.
Ranka began to slowly back away. Himiko cut off sharply, staring at Ranka intently.
"HEY BUTCH!" Himiko waited until Ranka had acknowledged her call. "Wanna go see somepin FUCKIN HILARIOUS!!?"
Ranka nodded her head slowly. "Uh...sure." She began to giggle. "I'd like that. Not that I'm short on laughs. After all, I've seen Kei naked."
Himiko halted from where she had been going through the gate. "You done WHAT?"
Ranka made an offhand gesture. "Don't think too much off it. Not that there IS much."
Himiko looked disappointed. "Oh...well! Lookit this!" She stepped through the opening, not getting anywhere in particular, then pointing to the prone Miyu. She looked down, smiling widely. Ranka came to stand next to her. Slowly, Himiko's grin faded. "I can't remember why this was so funny."
Miyu's dead eyes stared at Himiko. She began to sniffle. "This isn't funny." She turned and slapped Ranka, pointing at Miyu. "This isn't funny at all!" Ranka glared, and rubbed her cheek. Himiko brightened. "I remember now!" She grabbed Ranka's chest and hauled her through the gate again. Ranka shrieked protest, but Himiko hung on and drug her by the breast to Aiko's house. She threw her into the porch post, where she made a surprisingly loud thud. Himiko grabbed her by the hair and pointed her toward the awning. "ISN'T IT FUNNY?"
Himiko dissolved into hacking laughter, and Ranka took this opportunity to take Himiko's hand from her panties and flee.

Himiko stared a moment longer before realizing the garlic was gone.
"HEY!!" She cast around. "Where's my GAAAAAAAAARRRLIC?"
"GAAAAAARRGG!!" This came from inside the house. 'Oh uh' Himiko thought stupidly. 'That sounds like that janitor again. I wonder what his problem was?' She opened the door, which for some reason had morphed into a sliding one as opposed to the opening kind as it had last been when she had been there last when....she leaned against the doorframe, clutching her head. Now she remembered why she never thought. She saw the little girl she was supposed to be attempting to save, though by this point she completely had forgotten from what. She stalked into the room, pointing a finger at the little girl, meaning to make her tell. "Now look h-"
She was interrupted as she banged into the steps she had forgotten were at the beginning of every well-stocked Japanese home, and fell face-first onto the floor panels, knocking herself unconscious once again.

The Western Shinma's ship loomed out of the darkness once again, into a world of mist and confusion looking like a scene from the impressionistic period. During which time Spartoi had got the impression that Amy was female. The one detailed point was a gate, much like the one Miyu was lying dead next to, with two lanterns happily adorning the corners, leftovers from the reign of Darkness when the Shinma Martha Stewart had swept through changing the fabric of reality to more of a floral print. The occupants of the ship crowded the stern, Lemunia walking a bit gingerly.
"Is that it?" Spartoi pointed to the gate, the only thing to be seen for hundreds of miles.
Pazusu sighed. "Yes, that's the gate we go through to reach the first layer of the Japanese realm."
"Let's BURN it!" Amy suggested gleefully.
"YEAH!"
"Actually," Pazusu said, "I think we're just supposed to go thr-"
"WOOOOO!!!!" The occupants of the ship launched themselves over the side toward the unsuspecting gate, hitting the ethereal ground fifty feet below them.
"Ow," Spartoi deduced.
"Gwfff offff ffffm ffffrr ffffff ff" said Amy threateningly.
"Ooopsie! Soorry aboot that, babe," Spartoi said, pulling Amy out from under him, for some reason sporting a Canadian accent. After the group had gathered itself, and after Carlua had gotten up once again, since Pazusu had landed on her, they walked towards the gate, stopping a few yards before it.
"Uh...what now?" asked Carlua. Lemunia whimpered.
"A worthy adversary," said Lipper, having peeled herself from the deck earlier. "I shall rise to meet this challenge."
"Heh heh heh, she said 'meat'" Spartoi giggled.
"She said 'rise'," Lemunia turned to look at Spartoi, and they both giggled together.
"Heh heh heh," Pazusu looked at them fondly, "shut up."
Lipper raised her hand elaborately and, with a small, wordless cry, rushed the gate and spit on it. "...well, I'm out."
"I know!" cried Amy, "Let's BUUURRRN it!"
"Woooo!!" Cait Sith ran headlong into the gate in his excitement.
"ALL RIGHT, WHAT IS THIS? WHO HAS BEEN KNOCKING ABOOT WITH MY GATE?" A large shape had loomed into the scene, looking like a bald and slightly misshapen Canadian tree. Cait Sith giggled at it from where he was sitting on the ground. The thing puffed up self-importantly. "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"
"You're a SHRUBBERY!" Spartoi hooted.
"NO! I AM YOUR OSA!"
"Mmmuh?" Carlua was starting to look lost again. "Mommy?"
"NOO! IT MEANS 'LEADER'. I AM YOUR LEADER! YOU CANNOT BE HERE!"
"Hey, speaking of meat..." Spartoi folded himself up on the ground and took a few choice cuts from his shirt and stuck them to the end of his sword.
"My Dragon!" He called, "fire this for your master!"
Carlua leaned over to Lemunia. "What IS he talking to?"
A small lizard poked it's head curiously out of his pocket. He glared down at it.
"Obey me!"
The lizard hissed at him.
"BUUURRN IT!" Amy launched a solid bar of fire at Spartoi, rendering him some bodily harm. The lizard remained untouched. He sat up and glanced at his sword.
"Hey thanks babe!" He growled at Amy and wiggled his eyebrows. Amy sniffed at him. He then gagged and fell over.
"IDIOTS! BEGONE! THIS IS NOT YOUR REALM!"
"Do you always speak in such big words?" asked Gia innocently.
"WHAT ARE YOU-? AHHH!" The Osa flailed slightly, trying to dislodge Carlua, who had wrapped herself around it's trunk. "RELEASE ME!"
Carlua gazed up at it with tear-filled eyes. "Mommy?"
The Osa whipped it's branch out and flicked Carlua off itself. She flew over and collided with Lemunia, who took the opportunity to place his hands on her breasts. She looked up from where she was slumped against Lemunia, and began to cry.
"HEY NOW, NONE OF THAT? C'MON, I'LL APOLOGIZE! AWW GEEZ...I'M SOORR-"
"BUUUUUUUURRRRRNN IT!" Amy howled, and suited his own words, hurling a gigantic ball of flame at the tree guardian, whereas it obediently died.
"Mmm mm..." Spartoi was munching on his Lipper meat. "Anybody got any Grenadine?"
Amy produced some, and with that the group gathered itself and stepped over the body of the Osa, Carlua still sniffling slightly, to go through. Pazusu stopped to peer down. "You know, that really was quite unnecessary."
"BWWAAAAUUGGH!!! MOOOMMMMYY!!!!!" Carlua tried to put a hand to her forehead in anguish, hampered slightly as Lemunia's hands were still on her breasts. She turned to Amy, slightly awkward, and clenched her fist petulantly at him. "YOU BASTARD! YOU KILLED MY MOMMY!" She then noticed that everyone else had gone through, with the exception of Lemunia, who still had his hands on her breasts. She lowered her arm and shuffled sadly through. "Alone again...nobody loves me."
Lemunia snickered