[FFML] [yyh][ry][xover] Youtou Shinnoken Chapter 17: Tactics (Part 3)

[Abdiel]

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you."

(Nietzche)


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Youtou Shinnoken
A Yuyu Hakusho/Rurouni Kenshin fic
By Chester Castañeda
chester.castaneda at gmail.com
gabriel_gabdiel at yahoo.com
Original concept by SeventhOne
chadjill at ms3.hinet.net
http://www.fanfiction.net/~abdiel
http://chester-fanfics.livejournal.com/


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Chapter 17: Tactics (Part 3)
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Kaoru flicked the tip of Botan's nose with the finger she used to
silence her. "Pay attention, sister. Listen and listen well: The only
way I can possibly forgive you for your trespasses and out-and-out
flirting with _my_ Kenshin is for you to...." And so Kaoru Kamiya
dispatched her final ultimatum on the cowed shinigami.

Botan couldn't believe her ears. "Huh? Come again? I didn't catch that
last part--Oh, and the first part too." And so Kaoru Kamiya leisurely
repeated what she just said syllable-per-syllable, leaving no room for 
doubt and confusion on Botan's part.

The ferry-girl tilted her head to the side as she clumsily shifted on
her sandaled feet. "Oh, is that all? I'd ask why, but... Eh. Whatever."
The death goddess shrugged, coughed primly, inhaled, then incessantly
chanted, "Iehikiehikiehikiehikiehikiehikiehikiehik...!" over and over
again.

"Now say the name of that other guy; the big, bulky demon that can merge
with other monsters." Not bothering to ask Kaoru how she knew of Iehog,
Botan merely complied to the girl's wishes, renewing her mantra with a
fresh peal of "Iehogiehogiehogiehogiehogiehogiehogiehogiehogiehog--"

"LOUDER! I can't HEAR YOU!" Kaoru commanded, her arms crossed in defiant
audaciousness.

"IEHIKIEHIKIEHIKIEHIKIEHIKIEHIKIHEIKIHEIKIHEIKIHEIKIHEIKIHEIKIHEI!!!"
Botan squeezed her eyes shut, screeched her throat ragged, hacked like a
cat, doubled back, and resumed, "IEHOGIEHOGIEHOGIEHOGOHEIGOHEIGOHEIGO... 
Goheiehog. G-Gohei... Iehog. Kihei... Iehik. Gohei. Kihei. Iehog. Iehik.
GOHEI. KIHEI. Oh my God...!"

Botan's pinkish eyes widened in sublime, uplifting comprehension as her
long-awaited epiphany finally happened. "Those bumbling idiot demons
that Kenshin fought _are_ Hiruma Gohei and Hiruma Kihei! GOHEI AND KIHEI
ARE IEHOG AND IEHIK!!!"


***


"You've meddled in our affairs for the last time, _shinigami_," Iehik
gravely informed the shell-shocked Botan as he used his psychic powers
to simulate some sort of Kanashibari mind-breaking technique upon her
person. "It's about time you made yourself useful and serve your true
purpose for being here; as _bait_." 

Botan's ki turned dark. The air grew cold around her as her immobile
body desperately tried to fill the void within her soul with warmth and
prana from her environment. There were some voids that couldn't be
filled, however; some problems that kept returning after they were
solved; second chances to make a bad decision.

The ferry-girl's head swam. Disheveled blue hair clung to her face,
obscuring her pink eyes and confusing her vision as a hot, unseen wind
tugged at it in every which way. She looked up through the fog in front
of her and squinted at the blurry nothingness. 

"BOTAN!!!" Kenshin screamed, his eyes turning amber as he withdrew his
Youtou Shinnoken from its enchanted sheath and jumped straight towards
Iehik; in his mind's eye, a brief flashback of Udou Jine freezing
Kaoru's lungs and making her slowly suffocate played itself over and
over again inside his psyche.

Even though he wasn't able to utilize the full power of the Battousai
for the sake of a duel with Goro Fujita, he'd damn well do so in order
to protect his loved ones. 'I will not fail. Just like in the past, I'd
die first before I let anyone hurt the ones I love!'

Time seemed to slow to a halt for the swordsman spirit as he lithely
somersaulted behind Iehik, catching the witless youkai completely off-
guard. The wizened old monster didn't even get a chance to look behind
him, much less flinch in terror, as the mighty Demon's Sword descended
upon his exposed cranium, its blade custom-tailored to slice through all
sorts of demons with speedy precision that defied both logic and reason. 

"BIG BROTHER!" the paralyzed Iehog cried out in anguish a moment later,
not quite sure what exactly happened to his precious older sibling, but
panicking all the same once he noticed that something was wrong.

But in the corner of Kenshin's eye, just as the kaleidoscope flash of
afterimages so typical of the swordsman's speediest attacks started to
form, a cloaked figure covered in shadow suddenly appeared and stole the
sword-strike's thunder with a surge of black malevolence. 'Who is that?'
he asked himself.

Kenshin landed on the ground and jumped away as Iehik stood stock-still,
frozen and quivering. Then, without warning, a spray of greenish black
liquid squirted out from a vertical slash that ran from the demon's head
to his crotch. His body slowly peeled apart, like Rumpelstiltskin after
hearing his name told to him, and fell into two neat halves onto the
muddy ground.

Consequently, Iehik's psychic version of Kenshin's Kanashibari technique
ceased to be, and suddenly Botan could breathe again. She collapsed onto
her hands and knees, gasping and coughing, half-relieved and half-
horrified at the curious circumstances surrounding her release, retching
at the awful taste in her mouth. She willed her eyes to fly wide open,
but her body still felt like lead; fright, alarm, and a wide range of
emotions engulfed her as she woke up from her weird--for lack of a
better, descriptive term--nightmare.

"BOTAN! I was so worried, that I was! Are you all right?" the ferry-girl
heard Kenshin call out in the periphery of her clouded mind. Her heart
pounded excitedly in her chest, her pulse racing to a frenzied tumult,
but everything eventually slowed down as she willed herself to relax.
She let out a liberating breath to further calm her worn nerves and
throbbing heart; once she reached her proverbial 'happy place', she
recalled the very last thing she said before waking up from her
aforementioned trance.

"Kenshin! Those bumbling idiot demons are Hiruma Gohei and Hiruma Kihei!
GOHEI AND KIHEI ARE IEHOG AND IEHIK!!!" Botan elucidated quite loudly,
yet her resolve seemingly faltered in mid-speech, as though she were
unsure of what she was saying; hearing those strange words come out of
her own mouth just then made her realize how bizarre and ridiculous her
revelation was.

Iehog reeled at Botan's words, looking at her in enthralled shock while
silently mouthing the words, 'How did you know...?' 

Kenshin's feral eyes widened in surprise as he quirked an eyebrow of
askance and incredulity at the reawakened Reikai Shinigami. "Iehik and
Iehog are the Hiruma brothers? I don't believe it." Intrigued, the
redhead turned towards the blue-haired girl and further queried, "More
importantly, just _how_ did you know who the Hiruma brothers are? I
don't believe I've mentioned them to you."

"Uh, well, funny story... that's, um, kind of _involved_... but I guess
I've somehow, I dunno, 'read' either your mind or those two demons'
minds at a key moment? You know Kamiya Kaoru, right? She's the one who
hit me with a clue-by-four and pointed out Iehog and Iehik's true 
identities! Or at least she did so in my dreams." The blue-haired girl
pouted. "I'm glad she helped me out, but she had quite the attitude,
honestly speaking! I wonder what her problem was." 

Kenshin merely gawked at the spectacle that Botan made of herself, his
confused stare and darting eyes mentally forcing--begging--the somewhat
ditzy angel of death to focus on the topic at hand. "Um, Botan? About
Kaoru and the Hiruma brothers..."

The flabbergasted ferry-girl shrugged and relented to Kenshin's unsaid
inquiry by simply stating, "I ate the fruit of knowledge," as though it 
explained everything that needed to be explained concerning the current
situation. "Again, it's a long story, so don't ask, but the fruit with
the long name is probably the reason why I dreamed about Kaoru-san, the
Hiruma brothers, and all your other past memories... or something.
Either that or I've somehow gained access to death god powers I didn't
know I possessed till now, which is even more unlikely."

Kenshin didn't quite understand a word Botan was blabbering, but he felt
that he _at least_ had a rough gist of an explanation to work with, in
any case. He would've loved to ask the death goddess a few more million
questions regarding her out-of-character knowledge of the alleged 'true' 
identities of his current opponents, but he had more pressing matters
to attend to: For one thing, he felt a surge of jaki no power envelope
Iehik's remains at that very moment.
 
Fortunately or unfortunately, the uneventful death of Iehik... formerly
known as Kihei Hiruma... was not meant to be. Unbidden, the vaguely
human-shaped specter Kenshin espied earlier--approximately ten feet in
height and covered in a dark, frayed, and hooded cloak which revealed
only grey, decayed hands--stepped forward and bathed himself with the
sinful aura of choleric negative energy.

"What was asunder and undone, now be whole, the two make one!" the
wraith-like form's deep, booming voice enunciated as a sheer waterfall
of jaki no power swallowed Iehik's remains up in a black torrent of
miasmic energy. Without delay, the split-in-twain youkai started to
cleanly fuse together, its halves merging like a perfectly cut daikon
radish. The damaged cells of his muscles, skin tissue, tendons, and
bones instantaneously regenerated, and Iehik was reborn once more. Or
reborn a third time, if what Botan revealed was to be believed.

Iehog wanted to celebrate his brother's quick return and recovery, but
seeing that he was paralyzed from the neck down at that moment, he
instead opted to greet, "Big brother! Welcome back! I'm so glad that
you're still alive!" The bearded beast afterwards blinked. "Big
brother? What...?" 

Because there were so many things happening at once, Kenshin barely kept
up with the many twists and turns of the recent events. Yet upon further 
inspection of the cloaked figure, one word escaped his lips: "Onmyouji."

The ghastly apparition spared Kenshin a token glance before hissing,
"You're half-right, spirit; I guess you can call me an 'onmyouji',
though the powers I possess are hardly the result of onmyoudou spiritual
training." Even though the redheaded swordsman couldn't see the supposed
onmyouji's face beneath the ratty cowl, he could tell that there was a
hint of a smirk in his raspy voice.

The Onmyouji moved closer towards Kenshin, reeking of the aura of death,
decay, and the terrible power of jaki possessed by all the Shisejyu
present, only multiplied a hundredfold. "As Randou had so eloquently
surmised when I visited him earlier, I am merely the conduit of the
Chojin's power; I am the one who distributes his overflowing energy to
all his warriors. So, in essence, I am here to merely assist his minions
with their various tasks, and nothing more."

Kenshin's head felt dizzy with the sheer wealth of facts and details
he'd just received, nearly to the point of experiencing information
overload. "You were with Randou earlier? So you're the one who revived
him in the middle of his fight with Yusuke-dono!" The former hitokiri's
bond with the Spirit Detective hinted him of the fact that the tattooed
demon received a second wind in the latter parts of the match, but he
never imagined that a third party was actually involved at the time.

"The very same," the Onmyouji proudly affirmed, his featureless face
seemingly staring into the depths of Kenshin's exposed soul with its
outwardly nonexistent eyes. "Oh my, but your perceptiveness have stayed
sharp even after all these years, Battousai."

Kenshin warily backed away from the Onmyouji and narrowed his eyes into
slits, peering at the stranger in the same piercing manner. "Who are
you? I keep getting the feeling that we've met before."

The Onmyouji barked with shrill laughter. "A little too perceptive, I
see." Afterwards, while converting the evil energy of his master into
demonic power for Iehik to use, the stranger hovered towards the revived
demon's direction, only to pause in slight puzzlement. "What's happened
to you, Iehik? Speak up, minion!"

Curious, Botan moved towards Iehik's still body, examining it for a bit
before exclaiming, "Iehik's not responding, but he's still breathing!"
She closed her eyes for a moment, put her hand on the demon's chest, 
concentrated, then stated, "I-I'm not sure what's going on, but I can't
feel a spirit inside this body. This demon is dead, or at least brain-
dead." 

"That can't be. I resurrected him perfectly..." the Onmyouji protested, 
irritated and perplexed, before he hesitated yet again. After a second
or two of contemplation, he snorted and said in a half-surprised, half-
impressed tone, "Huh. It seems that we've all been duped by those Class-
D demons. The slain youkai that I've revived was nothing more than a
mere shell of himself. I've grossly underestimated their power."

"A mere shell?" Kenshin repeated, before murmuring, "Iehog." The name
was said with nothing more than a whisper, but all three of them turned
towards the last remaining demon brother as a result of it.

"Big brother," Iehog drooled in dazed wonderment, stuck in an epileptic
trance with only the whites of his convulsing eyes showing as what
appeared to be a sentient brain settled on the very top of the beast's
head. The foreign body's nerve endings entered all the nearby pores of
the demon's scalp until it was firmly wedged unto its host's skull. "Is
that you, big brother?"

"Yes, it's me," Iehog answered his own question in a higher-pitched yet
courser voice, as though his words were spoken by a different person
altogether; Iehik, to be exact. The bulky youkai afterwards turned
towards the mantle-wearing interloper. "As you can see, 'Onmyouji', we
have no more need of your services. We can handle things on our own;
tell the Chojin that our mission is as good as done."

"Humph. You arrogant bastards," the Onmyouji retorted, but his
halfhearted insult came with an inappropriate hint of amusement,
strangely enough. "Do as you wish, then." And with just that, the
cloaked figure vanished into a human-shaped silhouette of wispy black
smoke. But before either Kenshin or Botan could react, Iehik spoke
through Iehog again.

"So Battousai, you already know the truth about me and my brother. It's
just as well, since this'll make things much simpler. Yes, your hunch is
correct; our paths have crossed before the Demon's Sword even existed.
We are the very same Hiruma brothers that you've defeated and humiliated
in the distant past." Veins, or what looked like veins, began to spread
and pulsate all over Iehog's body, clearly visible on the chimera's non-
scaled skin. 

"We didn't recognize you when we first met in the Cave of the Demon's
Sword because we really didn't know about our past lives at the time."
Soon the hodgepodge of body parts gradually regained its mobility and
locomotion--the web of 'veins' was probably abnormally large nerves from
the living brain that currently housed Iehik's soul. Even as the 
disembodied demon spoke, he concurrently worked overtime to undo the
damage wrought upon his brother's hefty frame care of Kenshin and his
Youtou Shinnoken.

"Slowly but surely, even as our threads of fate intertwined around each
other yet again, we've pieced together our forgotten history and became
aware of how big an impact you've had in our life, Battousai. Isn't that
right, Miss Death Goddess?" Iehik and Iehog growled the last line of
dialogue together in velvety chorus with just a hint of belligerence.

Botan blinked, stared about her, and then pointed at herself in askance.
"Who, me? What do I have to do with this? I only dreamed about your
stupid memories! Otherwise, I have nothing to do with you and your past
lives."

Iehik-Iehog huffed disdainfully, looking at Botan with half-lidded eyes.
"It was _your_ Spirit World that sealed our fate about a century ago.
What are you, a shinigami trainee? Look it up in your Book and Fate and
see what that damn toddler did to us, novice!" 

Botan frowned petulantly before rummaging through the insides of her
pink kimono and retrieving the Book of Fate. She leafed through the
pages and found the Hiruma brothers' names. "Hmmm. I'll just give a
brief summary of the proceedings. For all his reckless schemes and scams
that affected and even killed a lot of people, Hiruma Kihei has been
sentenced to go to Corporeal Punishments Sector Level 18, Block 4, where
you're frozen in a block of ice and distorted in all sorts of positions
whilst a large, three-headed devil violently chews you apart." 

Botan shivered, and then turned the page. "For all the people that he's
fought, injured, and murdered, Hiruma Gohei was sentenced to go to Level
14, Block 5 of the Corporeal Punishments Sector located in the shallow
banks of the swamp-like middle fork of the River Styx, where he was to
fight other wrathful people for an eternity whilst the slothful and
sullen lie at their feet, gurgling in the water," she said the run-on
sentence in one breath; an impressive feat. 

The ferry-girl paused as she peered into the barely legible footnotes of
the Hiruma Brother's verdict. "But since Hiruma Kihei wanted to con and
swindle his way out of his 'legal' troubles, Koenma got really pissed
and reincarnated the both of you into low-class demons instead by using
the special rule where all Meikai-related verdicts can be done under
Reikai jurisdiction. Huh." She closed the Book of Fate. "Too bad Reikai
conquered Meikai, or else you two wouldn't have been reincarnated as
demons, huh?"

"Yeah. Too bad," Iehik sardonically hissed through clenched teeth as he
shakily rose from the ground, finally finding the strength to stand on
his brother's own two feet. "But that isn't where the story ends. Oh no.
As low-class demons, we've suffered through countless abuses from youkai
of higher class in Makai. We had to seek refuge in Ningenkai, where we
were instead persecuted by Reikai's Elite Spirit Detectives. In reality,
no place in all the three worlds was safe for us to exist."

With a forlorn, faraway look, the chimera growled in a gravelly voice
that was unmistakably Iehog's, "But what was even sadder was the fact
that we had no idea what to do with our lives. It was as if we were
wandering around with no particular purpose to follow. Our lives felt
quite empty, actually."
 
Kenshin was well-aware of the fact that his amalgamated enemies were
merely stalling for time as they said their peace, relating in a lengthy
monologue what could literally be their entire life--or afterlife, as
the case may be--story. Nevertheless, morbid fascination led him to
carry on listening to the extensive diatribe. 'Hiruma Gohei and Hiruma
Kihei... I would've never imagined them to go to these extreme lengths
just to exact their revenge upon me. Never in a million years.'

'It's almost time,' Iehik thought before continuing, "Yes, our existence
was hollow and meandering, up until the point where a powerful being
named Chojin recruited us and several other minor demons to search for
the so-called Demon's Sword. He took particular interest in me and my
brother, especially since, as I've told you earlier, we'd already become
experts on the subject of Youtou Shinnoken lore. In return for our loyal
services, the Chojin generously informed us of our past lives as humans
and the role that the Reikai played to damn our present existence. Well,
here are now, many years later, face to face with our mortal nemesis,
feeling as though we're meeting each other for the first time all over
again."

Botan shivered. There was a dread chill down her spine that didn't quite
coincide with the temperature around them--she felt the touch of frost-
fingered death that would make even a shinigami pause. 'Something big is
about to happen.'

"You've got to hand it to the Chojin to specifically pick _us_ for that 
particular task. The sly devil! I wouldn't even be surprised if he did
it purposely from the very start!" The chimera stretched and flexed his
limbs as a sort of warm-up routine, which prompted Kenshin to fall into
his favored battou-jutsu ready stance. "We may not look like much,
Battousai, but now that we've fully realized our true identities from
past to present, we've finally found our true purpose in life. Do not
underestimate the power of those who have nothing more to lose but
everything to gain. There's no tomorrow for us, and that makes us very
dangerous people!"

Kenshin cautiously circumnavigated around the recovering monster and its
ever-growing corona of indigo flames before affirming, "I get it. You've
been manipulated by the Chojin to find the Demon's Sword because he
knows your past history with me. He expects you to do everything in your
power--and perhaps even beyond that--to exact vengeance upon me and the
Spirit World without the least bit of effort on his part." The former
rurouni harrumphed. "So the Chojin is the kind of person that lets other
people do his dirty work for him? I'm disgusted."

"You really don't understand a thing, do you? For you to assume that our
little confrontation is because of something as simple as petty revenge
leaves _us_ disgusted!" Iehik-Iehog spat as they willed their body to
shamble forward, creating small pits of buckling rock underneath the
soles of their clawed feet. "We know the truth of our existence now!
Revenge is not enough! Defeating you is not enough! Hell, even
corrupting the Demon's Sword until you've lost all remnants of your
human soul won't satisfy us! Your punishment will know no limits,
BATTOUSAI!!!"

And then the fused Hiruma Brothers barreled forward earnestly.

'At last, they've decided to attack. Finally,' Kenshin reflected as he
patiently braced himself for the expected assault from the fully
recovered and passionate chimera monster.

'Let me show you how to access the true powers of the Shisejyu,' Iehik
whispered to Iehog's mind before they lunged at Kenshin with alternating
blows from both Seiryu's scaly dragon arm and Byakko's muscular tiger
paws. Their initial salvo was impressive, turning the surrounding
landscape around Kenshin into heaps and heaps of crumbling dust clods.

'Kenshin's going to be all right. The chill down my spine is just my
back feeling the jitters of 'pins and needles' from being carried by
that oaf Iehog for so long. These losers are no match against Kenshin!
He's going to be all right... That is, please be all right; please kick
their collective butts the same way you did in my dream. Or in your
memory, as the case may be,' Botan beseeched to no one in particular as
she intently watched the ensuing fireworks. 

Kenshin knew beforehand that his opponents would be coming towards him 
recklessly, completely disregarding the fact that he could read moves
through malicious intent alone. As such, he obliged their gamble as he
waited unwearyingly to counter the all-too-familiar wide swings, sharp 
thrusts, and brain-rattling haymakers that Iehog attacked him with
earlier.

Kenshin then arched his body slightly back to the left, countered with a
right-lead left dig to the body, sidestepped to perform his left-right
sword swing, and then finished with another lateral move to execute a
backhanded rising slash to his opponent's blindside. He afterwards
disappeared from view before the monster knew what had happened to him.

Unlike before, when the beastly Iehog let himself get overtaken by the
mindless rage and belligerent feelings of his Frankenstein mishmash of
conflicting Shisejyu body parts, Iehik's brain power and methodical
thinking muffled down those very instincts. Unfortunately, this caused
the compound monster to slow down a bit compared to his unyielding
brutality and physics-defying acrobatics before, his movements somewhat
hampered by hesitation and self-consciousness. Too much intellect and
the body parts' powers faded; too little control and the body parts'
malice took over.

But having a presence of mind during battle certainly had its perks. For
one thing, Iehik's scheme of replicating Iehog's tactics had lulled
Kenshin into a false sense of security, which meant that the swordsman
himself had let his instincts take over, falling into his oh-so-very-
predictable pattern of ending all his counterattacks with one of several 
variations of the Ryu Kan Sen or...

'He's there! Up in the sky! Doing his favorite Ryu Tsui Sen maneuver!
FIRE AT HIM WITH THE FULL FORCE OF THE MEI-KOU-SHO-KAI-HA, IEHOG!'
Iehik commanded and Iehog obeyed, raising his head to the skies and
charging up a youki-filled ball of plasma fire inside his fanged maw.

"Down here."

Iehik-Iehog's head moved oh-so-ponderously towards the source of their
summons as they both felt something--the Demon's Sword, probably--slash
though the tendons of their fiery jaw, making it unhinge and collapse
down to their neck. As a result, gouts of molten Mei-Ko-Shou-Kai-Ha
flame started to painfully spill down their chest, like flaming drool
which went hand-in-hand with the flabbergasted look that they currently
sported.  

Kenshin had just executed a Dragon Rising Flash with such blinding speed
and force that his monstrous opponent couldn't even react to it long
after it had connected. He had completely read and comprehended Iehik's
ruse right in the middle of battle, giving him an edge in the fight that
went beyond mere brute strength, height and reach advantage, and spirit
energy reserves.

It didn't matter how powerful the demonic brothers had become after they
merged, for the redhead had finally begun to access powers far beyond
that of Yusuke's own abundant supply of reiki. His past self's innate
ability to read an enemy's next move, to gauge their limitations, and to
exploit their weaknesses by understanding their psychological makeup was
beyond peer.

But even before Iehik-Iehog felt the burning torture of having their own
special technique backfire upon them, they were already flexing the
remnant's of Byakko's arm, hardening it into a Kaiwan of their own and 
aiming it at Kenshin right after he confirmed to them his exact location
care of his Ryu Sho Sen. "RETSU HOKO!"

A spiritual missile that was more akin to a crushing wave of compressed
air than the explosive impact from a blast furnace burst forth from the
behemoth's outstretched and hypertrophied left arm, devastating
everything in its path into fine powder.

Kenshin's violet eyes widened in astonishment for a split second, then
they narrowed into slits for a fraction of split second, and finally the
swordsman himself became a blur in a millisecond, reacting in kind to
the assault by timing his golf-like Dou Ryu Sen swing just before the
Retsu Hoko hit him. His accurate strike deflected the shot right into
the stupefied youkai's reptilian chest, leaving a hole the size of a
bowling bowl and a spectacular spray of blood and guts. Amazingly, the
lethal blow merely staggered the still-standing monster, as though it
was too confused to fall down.

"Is that the great secret that you've been hiding from me? The fact that
you can now copy the special moves of the deceased Shisejyu that you've
absorbed unto yourselves?" Kenshin asked his piercing, ego-shattering
questions in that typical tone of his that was neither mocking nor
inquiring, but altogether lecturing. What he really meant to say was
this: "You've gone through too much. I'm sorry that it has to end this
way. Even your best isn't good enough to beat me."

'I knew it! I knew I was worried for nothing! Or... maybe I didn't. Wow.
I never realized that Kenshin was _this_ strong and fast, especially not
after seeing him helplessly sprawled on the ground as soon as I woke up!
His opponent before then must have been _really_ good, far better than
these two moronic demons,' Botan reflected giddily, but she could not
help but feel that... No. She dared not indulge her nagging feelings of
dread, opting to continue watching the soon-to-be short-lived match.

Iehik-Iehog panted and gurgled heavily, as though they were drowning in
a sea of their own blood, but afterwards guffawed as their internal and
external bleeding stopped. Every one of their muscles, veins, and
organs voluntarily pulsed and moved on the command of their mind. "Did
you feel that last attack, Iehog? No, not really, big brother; it kind
of tickled, though. He has quite the fast reflexes, huh? Yes, he does.
Well then, let's show him what we can do," the monsters talked to
themselves comically as their loosened jaw moved in an exaggerated,
puppet-like manner.

It happened in a rainbow flash that was more characteristic of a Hiten
Mitsurugi Ryu Technique. In that particular moment, Iehog regained the
same amount of frightening quickness he had displayed as a mindless
monster earlier, but unfortunately wasted it on another predictable
Retsu Hoko maneuver, stabbing his Kaiwan outward as pressurized energy
came forth in droves of ruptured air. Kenshin's mind, as always,
instantly registered the move and devised several countermeasures
against it in record time.

The redhead's eyes stared bewilderedly at what happened next, his gaze
almost as vacant as Genkai's was during the heat of her battle with
Byakko.

Iehik-Iehog did a feint and actually executed a similar-looking but
all-in-all different technique, as evidenced by their snatching and
lifting of Kenshin in midair using a vacuum-tight grip, their large and
muscular fingers choking whatever remnants of life the apparition had.
Then, with a mighty roar, the chimera slammed the diminutive warrior to
the ground with full force. "ZETSU HOKO!"

Kenshin crashed helplessly on the earth, bits of debris and stone
pelting the both of them. The spirit coughed and choked amidst the
settling dust, completely disoriented by the shocking turn of events.

Iehik-Iehog grappled the incapacitated ghost with both hands this time,
their eyes feral and pupil-less as they began executing one of the most
powerful maneuvers of Byakko's Claw... the diamond-smashing "KONGO
SAI!" Kenshin was again unceremoniously flung to the ground. 

Kenshin was pelted with three feet worth of dust and debris, then left
a deep, human-shaped crater on the ground in the wake of his violent
impact. The sharp, fractured rocks dug deep into his corporeal skin,
spilling blood and breaking bones that were not his own. Because of
their bond with the Youtou Shinnoken, it was likely that Yusuke would
suffer the same injuries as he had. Again. 'Oh no. Yusuke-dono isn't
going to like this. Not one bit.'

Afterwards, before Kenshin could react, he was yet again lifted and
slammed on ground; this was Byakko's follow-up move to the Kongo Sai,
the first Kai. The luckless fighter felt several more of Yusuke's
metaphoric bones crack and snap against the intense pressure. Iehik-
Iehog afterwards lifted up the half-unconscious redhead once more as
they stomped their foot on the ground, making it buckle and crack
into a mass of stony spikes. A nasty, maniacal grin briefly appeared
on the chimera's face as he began to execute the final Kai.

The destruction filled the air with many pounds of dirt merging upward
then falling down on Kenshin's injured body, the ground collapsing into
an eroding pit as the aforesaid spikes shattered upon impact. The
ensuing shower of rock shrapnel skewered the former rurouni in every
which may, turning him into a crimson fountain of blood and dirt. In the
back of his mind, Kenshin felt that the Final Kai was _just_ slightly
worse than Genbu's Exploding Palm Trick or even Shishio's Guren Kaina.

"KENSHIN!" Botan cried out only _after_ seeing the compound chimera
reduce their victim into a fleshy bag of hemorrhage, for it had taken
just one second for them to execute their devastating combo. She
summoned her oar and  flew towards the hapless Guardian of the Demon's
Sword, only to be bowled over by a shockwave of purest sin; a disgusting 
sensation of abnormality and unnaturalness. "What the hell was that?!"

Henceforth they came; a thousand tendrils of unbidden darkness. Botan
felt the dreadful, nauseating mass of malevolent energy envelop the
entirety of their surroundings. Or perhaps 'envelop' wasn't the right
word, as the sensation left her feeling altogether hollow and empty. As
she unwillingly focused on the peculiar and repulsive feeling, she soon
discerned the origin of the miasma of jaki.

Amidst the inviting, velvety blackness of oblivion, the frightful alarms
inside Kenshin's mind beckoned him to wake up and face the situation at
hand. 'What's going on?'

The blaze of raw power erupted up from the tips of the menacing youkai's 
fingers; it shrieked out a fiery, all-consuming tempest of chaos and 
destruction. There was a thunderclap of sound, like a tidal wave
breaking, like the lamentation of a banshee gale, like the vociferous
screams of a million victims. "Ah, at last. We've finally synchronized.
We are now one. I am now one. I am..." the beast paused, and then
smiled a demented hyena's toothy grin, "Hiruma." 

'Oro. This jaki I'm feeling... It's incredible, it truly is!' the 
disoriented Kenshin reflected in wonder and disbelief after partially
recovering from the behemoth's overwhelming attack. The purported
'Hiruma' was producing ridiculous amounts of negative energy, steaming
with the rot and smell of sordid malice.

The swordsman struggled to get up from his prone position, feeling a bit
woozy and imbalanced by the aftereffects of blood loss and the nausea of
second-hand jaki poisoning. 'Where is it coming from, though? Iehog
wasn't displaying this much power even after he was fused with Iehik!
What he had then was an increase of his run-of-the-mill youki. Was it
because of 'the jaki magnet' Byakko's body parts or another reason
altogether? Perhaps...'

Kenshin's extensive trance was cut short by hearing Hiruma deride, "Hey,
what's with this weak power of yours, Battousai? Is this truly your
limits? MA-TOU-TOU-RYU-KEN!" The ex-hitokiri spirit managed to escape
the full torrent of freezing rain, but his arm and leg were nonetheless
encapsulated in several layers of thick, hard ice.

"Not only can I make use of the Shisejyu's newer techniques, but I can
also do some of their older ones as well. So please don't go just yet;
the fun has just begun!" the monster boasted as he walked over Iehik's
'recently healed yet still an empty husk' of a former body and absorbed
it unto his current, 'coalesced' one, using the extra mass of flesh and
bone to reconstitute the missing parts of his chest and jaw. "But you 
shouldn't be embarrassed about the fact that I'm stronger than you. Even
the greatest and strongest of humans is no match against the most
mediocre of demons."

Kenshin retorted with a quick battou-jutsu slash to Hiruma's Kaiwan,
severing the hardened arm by cutting right through its weakest point,
which was the very bone and tendons of the ball joint connecting the
limb to the demon's torso. The beast growled in annoyance, but otherwise
appeared impassive about the injury, showing no signs of pain and panic.

"Oh, like _that's_ mature." Hiruma rolled his eyes as he picked up
Byakko's dismembered arm, intending to reattach it to himself. The
grotesque eyesore subsequently felt a light breeze on the top of his
head as Kenshin sheathed his sword. His skull cap unceremoniously fell
off, revealing a fresh spray of ichor and a disgusting view of Iehog's
own miniscule brain. Iehik's brain, on the other hand, hastily scurried
downwards his brother's hairy back for refuge. 

His eyes bulging and his body trembling, Hiruma roared incoherently,
now fully understanding the threat that even an indisposed Demon's Sword
Guardian still posed: Had the unseen strike gone any lower, it would
have cut through both Iehog's and Iehik's respective brains in one fell
swoop. 'That was a bit too dangerous. Even though I'm now a demon, he is
still Battousai the Manslayer. Or, as the Chojin mentioned, Battousai
the Demon-slayer. I better finish him off now. No ifs or buts.'

And so Hiruma started to unleash the ultimate technique of his Shisejyu
arsenal. The whole, devastated area fell silent: it was an unnerving
calm usually felt within the depths of undisturbed crypts or before the 
unremitting wrath of an incoming storm. Then it happened. The demon
exploded with the fury of an army of harpies whose sheer numbers could
blot out the sun and the sky into gloom.

The remaining trees around the veranda blinked out of existence in an
instant; in another moment, the ground itself evaporated into dust as a
shadowy globe of utter black surrounded the chimera. Still the darkness
spread. It filled the temple; it spread beyond. The lengthy staircase
nearby turned into a cascading waterfall for the faux river of roiling
umbra. With a howl of aggravated fervor, the mountain shook, crumbled,
and groaned, unable to tolerate the deathly blackness. Soon, Hiruma
lifted himself and his missing limbs up inside the motionless wormhole
of utter emptiness, slowly mending whatever it was that needed mending.

Botan's face went pale as she saw Kenshin get swallowed by the ominous
ebony sphere. She, along with the two demons that the swordsman was
fighting right at that moment, had seen that technique before. 'So
that's why there was an increase in his jaki no power! He was planning
to use _this_ skill from the very start!'

Then it happened. 

"Kyomei Jisatsu Jin--FU NO SENREI!" Hiruma announced. 

'Legend of Hades Onslaught...?' Kenshin started as he repeated in his
head the elaborate name of Hiruma's borrowed technique.

'The Trial of Negation!' Botan thought in panic. Aloud, she shrieked,
"Kenshin, run! For Enma Daio-sama's sake, RUN!"

The darkness collapsed into the palm of Hiruma's draconic claws, merging
together and then shattering into rivulets of ice particles. It drew in,
it turned back on itself. Like an explosion in reverse, it collapsed
inward. It poured itself into him; it filled him to overflowing and then
did it again, over and over. The air was sharp with the smell of ozone.

And it came: a column of ice, falling from the sky; a monumental ray of
power, savage and grotesque, undulating with all the hues of the ocean.
Hiruma caught it in his palms, and it gathered there; it swelled and
took form, became a sentient weapon of glittering energy.

In the instant before Hiruma let the projectile fly, it looked like a
hideous sea serpent. It was the true form of the blue dragon: Seiryu,
the God of Dragons. It had a body of at least a hundred feet in length,
seemingly made of blue-green water. Its shimmering crimson eyes glinted
in rage. 

With an earsplitting squeal, the leviathan-like beast ascended into the
heavens until it was hovering high above its mesmerized, soon-to-be
victims. Thusly, Kenshin heeded Botan's advice and started to run in
order to lead the monster away from the ferry-girl.

The arctic dragon unerringly homed in on Kenshin's (more like Yusuke's)
ki-signature as it headed straight towards his direction. The mountain's
hard precipice crumbled like brittle chalk against the stone cold
reptilian's impassioned charge. It crashed unto its intended target
moments later. 

Kenshin was still surprisingly nimble on his feet, bearing in mind that
it was currently wrapped in a cast of ice, but he was still not quite
fast enough to completely avoid the corporeal embodiment of the Fu no
Senrei. The leviathan eventually had its way with the hobbling swordsman
spirit as it tossed and turned him within its coiling body like a boat
trapped inside a mile-a-minute maelstrom of tempestuous tidal waves.

The serpentine dragon began to fly in tight circles, its speed growing
ever faster as a shimmering whiteness began to form within its path. The
God of Dragons then quickly descended in the middle of its encirclement,
thundering down onto the luckless Kenshin like an unstoppable avalanche
of ice and snow drawn from the very depths of the Demon World, in the
Land of the Koorime.

"Ryu Kan Sen TSUMUJI!" Kenshin repeated what he did with Yusuke during
their 'tandem' fight with Genbu and Randou, using his Dragon Sword
Swathe to recover his leverage and escape the Fu no Senrei's grip by
quickly increasing the speed and velocity of his own bodily rotation.

"Where'd he go? FIND HIM AND DROWN HIM! I mean, kill him! KILL HIM!"
Hiruma ordered the Fu no Senrei beast, but was then surprised to see
Kenshin suddenly land in front of him. Before the fused monster had any
time to react, the swordsman promptly disappeared just as the God of
Dragons locked in on his ki-signature. As a result, master and pet were
soon about to be reunited together.

"BAKA! Don't let the Fu no Senrei hit Hiruma! If he absorbs that attack,
he'll become possessed by the God of Dragons himself and grow to be ten
times stronger!" Botan warned Kenshin after seeing for herself what the
spirit guardian had planned, flying on her oar to get a closer but safer
look at the fight's proceedings.

Kenshin did another one of his patented half-second spit-takes and
ferociously attacked with an unforeseen Ryu Sho Sen from underneath the
approaching serpent, staving it away from Hiruma's vicinity. He then
followed the strike up with a series of five-hit combos he used on
Makoto Shishio, starting with the Ryu Kan Sen Tsumuji and ending with
the Ryu Kan Sen Arashi. 

"As you can see, if you can hurt the dragon, you can hurt Hiruma as
well, or at least the Seiryu part of him! You can aim all your attacks
at the both of them," Botan advised further, daring to come closer to
the place of combat for Kenshin to hear her words.

Kenshin backpedaled from Hiruma and his sea serpent, observing the both
of them from a certain distance. He soon noticed that the fused beast's
draconic arm had the exact same wounds he gave the leviathan's arm.
'They share the same bond that Yusuke-dono and I have!' he assessed
before telling Botan, "Thank you for your tip, Botan. Now please get
away from here while I defeat Hiruma."

"Irritating bitch, giving away my secrets at such a key moment," Hiruma
growled, then grinned, his long, sharp canines glinting menacingly in
the azure glimmer of Seiryu's serpentine self. "But like I said earlier,
you're here because of one purpose and one purpose only. As bait! RETSU
HOKO! FU NO SENREI!"

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" The force of the Kaiwan's vacuum blow knocked
the unfortunate shinigami off her oar, sending her right into Seiryu's
waiting claws. 

Replicating his rash behavior when Randou almost killed both Keiko and
Botan using a Rei-Gan cheap shot, Kenshin dashed straight for the
falling ferry-girl and the charging Blue Dragon, knocking the former to
a safer platform as he allowed the latter to blast him instead. Of
course, even though the fiery-haired warrior had a knack for the
spontaneous whenever a loved one or an innocent was involved in mortal
peril, he at least had enough semblance of forethought to disconnect his
current bond with Yusuke Urameshi; after all, the spirit detective was
also, more or less, an important person to him as well.

The fading Kenshin took one last look at Botan, sprawled on the ground
with a torn kimono whilst staring at him with watery eyes, and said, "Oh
good. I was able to save you. Please run away now. I--" Those were his
last words before he disappeared altogether, leaving behind the Demon's 
Sword and its scabbard.

As a result of Kenshin's willful separation between temporary host and
magical sword, his own existence started to ebb away, the very fabric of
his corporeal being torn apart by its seams. Obeying nature's laws of 
compensation, the only trace of the Youtou Shinnoken's Guardian was the 
Demon's Sword itself, which promptly gained the ability of sentience and
flight as it made a beeline straight for Seiryu's flaring snout.

Realization and the Fu no Senrei struck the disembodied Kenshin hard as
his sword-only form was made extremely brittle by the bitter coldness of
the leviathan's dry-ice blood. The iron scabbard, another part of the
sword's sentience, did one last ditch effort of stopping the monster's
advance by poking its globular eye, but it too fell victim to the God of
Dragon's incredible powers.

Whatever pain Kenshin had experienced before paled in comparison to what
was coursing through his soul now. The last remnant of his existence--
the very Demon's Sword he was assigned to protect--was slowly torn apart
piece by excruciating piece by the Trial of Negation's tremendous
strength. If he still had lungs, every breath would've had the taste of
sulfur. If he still had a body, very movement would've brought agony to
it, as if he were being stabbed with a jagged tool dipped in acid. His
whole being felt like it had been sliced, cut, and sawed; if he could
bleed, he would have drowned in his own pool of blood.

"KENSHIN!" Botan screamed, her entire body wracked with uncontrollable
sobs. She felt her perfect little world collapse around her, like a
crystal shattered from within by a note of pure, agonizing sound; an
inner scream of anguish. A flame burned inside her chest, and she cried
out in pain as if she were being torn asunder. 

Conversely, Hiruma looked on with bated breath after seeing the last
traces of his longtime mortal enemy disintegrate into nothingness, his
devilish eyes brimming with barely contained glee as he involuntarily
healed all his minor injuries in the meantime. Botan's cries of despair
only increased the beast's growing ecstasy; hearing and seeing such
feelings of nihilism in any of his victims thrilled the demon to no end. 

At first there was dead silence on Hiruma's part as he let the scene of
Kenshin's defeat sink in, the event burned into his twin mind's eye. He
never imagined himself to be _this_ successful in his 'just realized'
campaign to rid the world of the Battousai once and for all. Then, all
of a sudden, he laughed; it was an unbidden ripple of piercing mirth that
sounded like the discordant howl of turbulent spirits; a crazed laugh
that stretched on for much longer than should have been possible without 
needing breath; an ugly sound. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
FINALLY! HE'S DEAD! AT LAST! GODDAMMIT, I FINALLY DID IT! HOLY FUCK!!!"

Botan ignored Hiruma's antics, confused and distracted with the fact
that she was feeling so inordinately gloomy about the situation. Why
was that? Given, she _should_ be sad about the fact that Kenshin was
now gone, but she wasn't just sad, she was completely heartbroken. The
grief she was feeling right now for Kenshin Himura's death/passing on/
whatnot was beyond measure, and she quite didn't know why she was _that_ 
distraught about it in the first place.

She had just met him a few hours ago--granted, all those hours felt like
an eternity to her--so she shouldn't be feeling this dreadful about the
friendly ghost's sudden disappearance. As a shinigami, she was supposed
to be desensitized to the grim reality of death and the perpetual
'passing on' of souls, even though she herself couldn't help but feel
grief when a close friend died, as was the case of Genkai's death.

But Kenshin wasn't a close... anything to Botan. Was this misery of hers
in any way connected with the feeling of inexplicable guilt she felt
earlier, after the fruit of knowledge gave her sneak peeks of her buried
past life's hidden memories? She didn't quite see the connection in
rational terms, though her instincts told her otherwise. 

Still, Hiruma aired similarly confused sentiments about Botan's sadness
over Kenshin's bereavement, saying/reiterating/jeering/demanding in not
so many insulting words, "Why the hell are you feeling so sad about some
pussy swordsman with a gay-ass sword? You just met him, bitch! Don't
tell me you've molested that scrawny ass before all this started! Did
you rape the poor little girl just a few hours ago or something?"

Botan more or less asked herself the same questions, notwithstanding
their vulgarity. Then she remembered how Kenshin met Kaoru, compared it
with their far less eventful meeting, and understood that she already
knew what type of person he really was in the short time she spent with
him. He wasn't just a faceless soul she was used to ferrying to one of
the three forks of the River Styx, he was a real and superb example of
humanity whom she unwittingly shared an 'intimate' moment with by
somehow living through his past memories. That and the fact that he had
just risked his life _twice_ to save hers helped her make up her mind
about him. 

"Never mind logic, Kenshin was the kind of man who deserved to be cried
over, even if you've only met him once... unlike you, anus-face," was
Botan's crude rejoinder to the Hiruma monster's offensive allegations.

"Oh really?" Hiruma drawled, his voice dripping with sweet venom as he
chuckled softly. "Well, I'm in a good mood today, so I'll do you a
favor. How about I send you straight to wherever the hell Battousai is
right now? I don't know where ghosts and the ferry-girls who love them
go when they 'kick the bucket' or whatever, but I guess you're about to
find out anyway."

The creature raised his Kaiwan and aimed it high above the ferry-girl's
sky-blue head, intending to split it in half like a watermelon; one
serving of revenge always deserved another, after all.


***


'Stop this. This is silly. You and I both know that this isn't the end
for you, or else Enma Daio would have never bothered sealing you in a
cave after all these years. He would have 'killed' you instead. But you
can't be 'killed' this easily. You're not fooling anybody.'

Kenshin stirred in his mindless slumber, and then opened his eyes. Alas,
there was nothing for him to see--not because he was engulfed in
darkness, but because he had no eyes to see with. Being self-aware yet 
incorporeal was a disorienting experience for him, making him feel as
though he were standing on a rocking ship traveling over the rolling
sea. As if his whole world were upside-down. He had gone through times
like these before, when he was still sealed inside the Demon's Sword,
alone with his turmoil of thoughts. It was never a pleasant occurrence.

'You're acting weak but you're not. You've been needlessly holding
yourself back. Come now. It's about time you woke _me_ up. You've
unleashed a part of me when you fought Genbu and borrowed quite a bit of
my strength when you fought Saito. What are you afraid of? Look at me.' 

Kenshin recognized the voice in the background of his hazy reality. It
was the demanding whispers of his innermost being, his past self, the
relentless one that'd been itching to get out and fight since the very
beginning of this debacle. In fact, it was very thing that he'd been
suppressing all this time. It was the prodding voice of the Battousai.

'You can't possibly leave things like this. Besides, you're already
dead. You can't die anymore, even if you try. You _can_ disappear into 
nothingness, but I won't let you. Not like this. Just who do think you
are?' 

Nonexistence gave Kenshin a limited choice for retorts, so he instead
gave his inner voice an unsaid, 'What are you going to do about it?'
dare. 

Battousai answered the unspoken challenge the only way he typically
would; through action, not words.


***


"Demons... I hate demons," a svelte, disembodied, and effeminate voice
declared just as Hiruma was about to cut Botan in half. Daring to defy
the convention of villains pausing and listening to distractions during
crucial moments such as this, the chimera opted to slice the girl
anyway, his shock at hearing the familiar tone be damned.

The ferry-girl flinched and attempted to run away from certain death...
or, if not death, then excruciating pain... but the hateful youkai was
too fast for her. Unfortunately for him, though, tradition would not be
denied at that very moment, as evidenced by the sudden appearance of
a hovering Demon's Sword in between the deathly beauty and the deadly
beast.

"This Youtou's true purpose is to kill demons. It's that simple. To hell
with Koenma's law and the supposed consequences they bring. Let me be 
death, the destroyer of worlds," the Demon's Sword spoke gravely.

"...." As Hiruma blankly stared at the floating weapon in front of him
while it sheathed itself and spewed out roundabout gibberish about death
and destruction, he eventually realized just who exactly was speaking 
'behind' the reanimated object. "B-Battousai?" he ventured hesitantly,
reaching out to the Demon's Sword with outstretched claws.

"Exactly." And so Kenshin Himura reappeared at that very moment, winking
into existence the same way he had exited--piece by piece, particle by
particle, ectoplasm by ectoplasm. But the people present noticed
something quite different about him once he fully rematerialized and
took hold of his most precious possession.

Kenshin already looked quite young from the get go, but now he looked 
positively child-like, about ten to twelve years of age instead of his
usual fifteen or sixteen-year-old appearance. His lavender gi had been
replaced by a dark blue one, and he also wore his flaming hair
differently than before, placing it in a topknot instead of his usual
ponytail. But the most pronounced change from the swordsman was his
irises' color; the flashes of furious gold he'd achieved from before
became a permanent fixture on his features, his wolfish glare as
sharp as his sword's edge.

Botan herself gawked at the breathtaking yet peculiar sight, awestruck
beyond words. She had felt Kenshin sever his connection with Yusuke, so
she was more than a bit suspicious with where he was getting all this
energy he was currently exuding. He burned with kenki, a definite hint
of reiatsu, the type of battle aura utilized by warrior shinigami. And
something else that gave the ferry-girl goose bumps. 'Is he making use
of his own battle aura? I didn't realize that he had this much power on
his own. But something else is bothering me about him right now. It's a
weird feeling, like my over-the-top depression just a while ago. What's
with all my mood swings?'

Oddly enough, instead of acting shocked at how short-lived his victory
was, Hiruma was elated upon seeing a younger, more solemn, and more
stoic Kenshin reemerge in his midst. "Ha! But of course you're still
alive! You're one tough son of a bitch! Now give me the pleasure of 
killing you twice! Hell, give me the pleasure of giving you a hundred
deaths! FU NO SENREI! BOUKO HYOUGA!"


***


To be Continued...


Next: Round Three.

Another installment of author footnotes, yo!

Onmyoudou: A Chinese-influenced traditional Japanese esoteric
cosmology, a mixture of natural science and occultism. It is based
on two Chinese theories, Five Elements and Yin and Yang (i.e. the
Japanese 'onmyou'). These theories were introduced into Japan in
the fifth or sixth century, and accepted by many people as a
practical system of divination by the ancient Japanese. These
practices were influenced further by Taoism, Buddhism and
Shintoism, and evolved into present-day onmyoudou approximately in
the late seventh century. Professional practitioners of this art
were called onmyouji. Three guesses on who the onmyouji in the 
story really is. ;)

Also: Yeah, so _that's_ the truth behind Iehog and Iehik. Oh, and
as proof that I didn't pull a George Lucas and suddenly decided to
make the two demons into Gohei and Kihei on the fly, I have one
word for all of you: Alucard. Take a look at their respective
names and figure it out for yourselves. Vlad Tepes, bitches.

Furthermore: the perfectly synchronized Iehik and Iehog ("Hiruma")
is based on the Ruroken anime's version of Gohei Hiruma; you know,
the character that had both the sinister brains and the frightful
brawn to go with it? On that note, let me just say that though
Kihei Hiruma (as Iehik) was fun to write about, I can't help but
feel that his appearance in the Ruroken manga was superfluous at
best; I actually agree with the anime, for once. But that may just
be me. Please note that I also liked Gohei Hiruma better as a
scheming badass motherfucker than as a whiny bitch and hired
goon in the manga.

Finally: As for the current length of this chapter, well, isn't it
better that this came out a tad bit shorter? Well, y'know what
they say--"Brevity is wit." 

I'm apparently not very witty, then. Oh well, this is how short YS
_used_ to be, folks.

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro
Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV and St. Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the
rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and Sony. Don't sue us
please, we are very poor.

Paalam!
Abdiel

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