[FFML] [yyh][ry][rewrite] Youtou Shinnoken Chapter 16: To Protect Loved Ones (Part 4)

[Abdiel]

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

When will Hiruma (actually, Iehog) die already? And what's Kaoru doing
inside Botan's head? Read on to find out more.

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Chapter 16: To Protect Loved Ones (Part 4)
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Absurd amounts of evil energy emanated from Iehog's hulking body as he
tore through Genbu's continuous blitzes of avalanches and earthquakes.
It was an miasma of raw power that froze Botan's breath in her lungs and
left Kenshin in a spellbound trance as he kept getting visions of his
sinful past. The last remaining Hiruma brother seemed less demonic and
more like an unstoppable force of nature that promised to cause one
catastrophe after another if he were ever unleashed into the world.

Botan turned towards her companion earnestly, tugging at his hakama
while he stood steadfast on Puu's head. The aura of sheer dread that
pulsed from Iehog dwarfed the power of anything she'd felt from the
behemoth before, save his stint as the nigh-unstoppable, jaki-addicted
Hiruma, setting her every nerve burning with the primal need to flee for
her very life. "K-Kenshin! Why are Genbu and Iehog killing each other? I
don't understand at all!"

"I don't know why either," Kenshin admitted, then shouted to Genbu,
"What's the meaning of this, Genbu-dono? You don't stand a chance
against Iehog! Besides, he's good as dead anyway. You better let me
handle him. It's not your place to--"

"SHADDAP! This fight isn't about you, samurai. Besides, I can handle
this loser," Genbu assured the bemused Kenshin as he weathered through
the Fu no Senrei typhoon that gradually eroded whatever was left of his
gigantic, rocky constitution.

"Can you? Can you really? Then handle THIS!" Iehog raged as he merged
the nine dragon heads circling around him with his deteriorating body,
literally turning himself into his own version of Ashura, the God of
Destruction he'd metaphorically represented early on in his first 
metamorphosis into a relentless killing machine. 

One attack from his collection of pseudo-arms resulted in Genbu
instantly losing his remaining limbs. "My brother and I lied, robbed,
and cheated our way to get to this moment, and even in the face of
certain defeat, we still continue to fight. With that in mind, do you
think you have what it takes to beat me? Do you have the kind of moxie
and determination that my brother and I have? Do you have the decades-
old resolve and courage to do as we did, and finish me off in a way the 
Battousai never could? Simply put: YOU DON'T!"

Genbu's gigantic half-head smirked his trademark broken grin as he
stared down at Iehog like he would a tantrum-throwing child, despite all
the damage he'd sustained thus far. "Is that all you got? Then it's you
who don't understand. Stop trying to act all tough and shit. Just what
kind of demon are you, thinking that pretty speeches, pointless resolve,
and naive idealism will get you anywhere? If you've only fought as good
as you spoke, then I'd be impressed! As is, you're simply making me
sick! To me, compared to the Battousai's strikes, this is NOTHING!"

"Huh. You're the one to speak. My brother and I turned our karmic
punishment on its head and lived our lives as demons to the fullest with
the single-minded purpose of facing down the Battousai. We've gone way
beyond our status in life, becoming more powerful than in our wildest
dreams because of our determination to ruin the Battousai's life! What
have _you_ done that's so special? Compared to us... to _me_... you're
the one who's nothing at all! Nothing at all! NOTHING AT ALL! NOTHING AT
ALL! NOTHINGATALL! NOTHING! NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING!"
Iehog compellingly argued, punctuating every one of his not-so-sweet
'nothings' with a multi-strike charge from each of his Fu no Senrei
dragonhead tentacles.

Yet another powerful explosion, comparatively larger than the previous
ones, consequently rocked the remnants of Genbu's decimated profile. The
clouds of dust from the blast soon formed into a spiral that shot
upwards into the sky, creating a tornado-like sandstorm that swallowed
everything in its path. All the while, the Shisejyu's half-face had only
one thing to mouth to Iehog: "Sucker."

To Iehog's chagrin, Genbu turned the tables on him by suddenly absorbing
large amounts of the Fu no Senrei's destructive jaki unto himself by
sheer force of will, fueling the nightmarish power with his own
overblown sense of pride... one of the seven deadly sins... while at
the same time taking advantage of the complete disintegration of his
body by summoning his very last combination of attacks... namely, the
Chou-Bakuretsu-Ganshou-Dan: Genbu no Hoko and the Tetsuzan Kou Ougi:
Genbu no Ikari... for good measure.

'Holy shit! How dare he use Byakko's energy absorption tactic against
me! If there's anyone who's going to mimic techniques here, then it's
going to be _me_!' Iehog seethed as he delayed Genbu's total reformation
by tearing apart the nearest humanoid-looking rock as soon as it
appeared.

Dust streaming from his stone armor, the half-formed Genbu jetted into
the orange and azure skies by sliding through higher ground and, once
reaching the apex of his ascent, slapping his automobile-sized palms
together, making them explode into a meteorite-like shower of wreckage
and debris. With a final roar, one of Iehog's dragons died from the
powerful shock of falling boulders that spread destruction everywhere,
knocking the lone Hiruma sibling down. The Shisejyu teetered slightly
with his unbalanced weight as he grinned down at Iehog's prone form.

Iehog lifted himself up with two of his serpent arms, then used three
others to block Genbu's oncoming strikes while the mouths of the last
three glowed with a black halo of coruscating energy. As a result of
Iehog's perfect balance of offense and defense, Genbu's uncompleted body
soon buckled to the ground, riddled with holes and craters, which forced
him to sacrifice the rest of his stumps-for-arms by turning them into a
thousand speeding stalactite spears care of the Bakuretsu-Ganshou-Dan.

Iehog gestured, and his leviathan tentacles pushed the conical rocks
away by a sudden shriek of tempestuous wind, the four pairs of howling
death homing in towards the hapless rock monster. With just one attack,
Genbu's frame disintegrated into dust, his body crumbling in the middle
of screeching Ashura limbs that weathered him down with the combined
forces of the harsh elements and an almost instantaneous and unilateral
application of intense pressure. At that point, the mountainous but
limbless Genbu was about as threatening as a statue: a talking statue,
but a statue nonetheless.

With a show of meaningless pride that went hand-in-hand with Iehog's own
stubbornness, Genbu continued to smirk his grotesque, self-satisfied
grin at the smaller demon. "Tough luck, motherfucker. I can take more
than you can dish out. You better get your priorities straight. Go eat
your crow pie and moral victory now before I shove them down your
throat!"

Iehog harrumphed in disdain as he lifted Genbu's colossal bust at
Kenshin and company, intending to make up for wasted time by making
better use of the annoying Shisejyu's delaying tactics to his advantage.
What the adamant Hiruma brother didn't count on was that the stone golem
never intended to be a mere distraction in the first place. "On second
thought, scratch what I said earlier. No crow-eating for you--I'll be
the one to eat you instead," Genbu abruptly hissed.

"What...?" was what Iehog blurted out before he unwillingly combined
with yet another Shisejyu, but this time he was on the receiving end of
the cannibalistic ritual. From there, after finally digesting--pun
unintended--the current turn of events, Kenshin warily observed Genbu's
behavior, half-expecting him to suddenly amalgamate with Iehog's mind
and attack him with gleeful abandon. Instead, Genbu merely laughed at
the redhead's suspicious look. "You've read my mind, samurai. If only my
body can take as much negative energy power as the Hiruma brothers can,
then maybe I'd be kicking your ass right about now. As is, well..."

Genbu threw his head back and started to cackle. It was an insane,
chirruping guffaw that stretched on for an extended period of time
without any need for oxygen; just like Iehik's mad laughter from before.
Perhaps the Shisejyu had assimilated Iehog far more successfully than he
had anticipated, even to the point of becoming more Iehik-like than he
would have liked. 

In any case, the ground below Genbu subsequently erupted into a ditch-
sized crater as geysers of onrushing negative energy escaped through the
cracks of his rocky skin, his volatile frame quickly turning into his
own personal Vesuvius of sorts. "The bearded fucker inside my body wants
to come out. Too bad there's no way out for either of us at this point."

As Botan balked at Genbu's unintentional euphemism, Kenshin asked,
almost beseeched, "Why, Genbu-dono? Why are you doing this? Why are you
risking life and limb to help me? Be reasonable; don't follow Iehik
and Iehog's example! You don't have to do this. You don't have to kill
Iehog in order for me not to--" but Genbu halted the spirit guardian's
frantic appeals short with a firm rebuke.

"Don't be an idiot. I'm not doing this for you; it's just that, if I let
go of Iehog now, this battle would be pointless," Genbu calmly but
firmly rationalized before cracking up yet again at the nonplussed look
on Kenshin's face--the redhead's expression was indeed priceless. 

"Don't look at me like that. Haven't you figured things out yet? You
humiliated me earlier on by holding back on your power, making me look
like a complete idiot. Well, fuck that. This time around, I got to show
you how good I really am. And here we are. I was able to put down a guy
you didn't have the balls to beat, much less kill. Suck on that, samurai
chump," Genbu justified, which was his own way of admitting, 'You fought
and treated me like a real warrior before. You didn't have to, but you
did. Because of that, I wanted to know if I can live up to your 
expectations and fight like the warrior you thought I was.' At least,
that was how Kenshin interpreted the Shisejyu's words.

Whichever the case, the Stone Shisejyu laughed off his imminent suicide
bombing as he braced himself for the inevitable. "Shit, come to think of
it, this is a really retarded reason for me to die. Haha. But fuck it,
I feel great."

"GENBU-DONO!" Kenshin shouted out, complete with outstretched hand and a
hint of manly tears on his eyelids.

The greatest surprise for Kenshin was that nothing seemed to happen when
Genbu finally fell down on his face and trembled with anticipation;
there was no immediate big bang afterwards, much to his, if not
disappointment, then certainly surprise. The bluish flare surrounding
the Shisejyu's body went out in a second as he froze and hung on the
spot like a large, immovable boulder. There was an almost oppressive
silence, as if everything in the universe had chosen that exact moment
to hold its breath and flinch away in expectation. Kenshin peered at
Genbu, who looked up, sneered, and headbutted the ground, causing his
skull to crackle and pop like the lit fuse of a pack of dynamite. 

"Puu, Kenshin..." Botan whispered warningly, "I think we should be a lot
further away from this--"

That, as far as any of them would be able to recall afterwards, had been
when Armageddon happened. First, there appeared a sudden blast; a blast
so overwhelming, it felt like the unspeakable horrors of Pandora's box
itself had just been unleashed, opening forth the doors to hell and
redefining the concepts of suffering and death anew. The darkness pulled
in, and then reared back. Like a reversed explosion, it collapsed unto
itself. It overflowed and released plumes of azure flame and continued
the repetitive cycle over and over until there was absolutely nothing
left of Genbu's body for him to regenerate from. No rocks, no pebbles,
no miniscule dust particles; nothing but molecules and atoms. Even the
jacked-up-with-jaki Earth Shisejyu could not reform himself after being
atomized.

Luckily, the blast _only_ sent Puu and his passengers flying away in a
swirling cloud of debris; the rest of their surroundings fared much
worse. There was a vague impression of coldness, more coldness than
probably even Yukina had ever felt before, and an expanding cloud of
cold fire that didn't so much freeze the rocks as corrode them upon
contact. Afterwards, the remaining trees and vegetation not within reach
of the first world-shattering Kenshin-Genbu fight instantly turned into
brittle spines as the storm chased at the trio's heels all the way back
to the middle of the temple stairs. 

Kenshin had time to throw his arms in front of his face and roll into a
ball before hitting the stairway like a guided missile. In contrast,
Botan had her eyes shut the whole time, but was still able to soften her
landing by involuntarily summoning her flying oar at the last minute.
Granted, the wooden paddle splintered apart like a matchbox upon impact,
but at least she fared a lot better than the rest of her companions.
Meanwhile, Puu tried to roll with the brunt of the collision, and wound
up skidding halfway down the rest of the steps before he came to a stop
against the foot of the flight of stairs. 

Kenshin slowly pulled himself out of the small trench he'd inadvertently
dug with his back and threw his disheveled hair over his shoulder with a
flick of his wrist, retying it with a tattered piece of his own
clothing. He had certainly felt better, but at least he was still alive.
Sort of.

As per usual to his character, Kenshin checked on Botan and Puu's
condition and welfare as soon as he could feel his legs again--first
the ferry-girl, then the spirit beast. Thankfully, Botan didn't suffer
as much injury as Kenshin did thanks to her ability to fly, but Puu,
despite having the very same aerodynamic skill, was regrettably the one
most affected by the ensuing shockwave of the rumbling detonation, his
tremendous size and awkward shape hindering his flight control somewhat.

The pair of celestial entities had to combine their efforts... with
Kenshin pushing from below and a flying Botan pulling from above... in
order to help Puu up from his awkward fall. Once the spirit beast was
right-side up again, the shinigami began to ameliorate the gigantic bird
with her healing powers, figuring that by rejuvenating Yusuke's other
self, she should be able to help Yusuke himself recover too, even though
her ki-flow was but a mere trickle at that point.

Kenshin looked back the way that they had come, and widened his eyes in
astonishment. The nimbus clouds produced by Iehog's portentous use of
the God of Dragons had parted, literally split right down the middle all
the way from either side of the endless horizon. Botan then yelped after
the Youtou Shinnoken's guardian as he hurriedly limped back to the site
of the blast, but once he reached ground zero, all he could see was the
tragic world of rubble, smoke, and broken dreams surrounding him, his
repulsion growing upon every step.

Any feelings of exultation Kenshin might have felt from Botan and Puu
surviving the explosion immediately died in his chest as the
ramifications of Genbu's sacrifice struck him hard on the face with full
force. He offered a moment of silence to both the Earth Shisejyu and the
relentless human-turned-demon he took with him, as well as to the
devious but ambitious Iehik who died earlier. For good or for ill, they
all managed to live the lives they wanted, doing great justice to their
"second chances" in their own unique ways.


***


From a distance, smoking through a whole pack of regular, unfiltered
cigarettes, Goro Fujita grimly observed the explosive conclusion to
Kenshin's battle from the top of the highest tree he could find. The
chilly mountain breeze swayed his thin, antennae-like hair bangs
dramatically and, occasionally, killed the light of his cigarette as
well--cigarettes that, in his opinion, had become stronger and tasted
more bitter than the cigarettes he used to smoke back in day, which
was the way he liked it. 

'Finally, that redheaded bastard found a way to beat small fry--have
someone else do it for him. It's about time, too. Honestly, the fool
spends far too much time and effort in observing his precious code,
when it's actually his hesitation that does him in more often than not.
He should be more damn decisive. Anyhow, the show's finally over. Time
to go.'

Fujita jumped straight down from his precarious perch, landing on his
feet like some sort of mountain wolf, but then winced and favored his
left side as he straightened up. It had just been a couple of hits...
hits from a hundred, even a thousand, missed strikes... care of
Kenshin's faux Battousai self who _still_ held back despite the
policeman's urgings, but they were painful hits nonetheless. 

His nicks and cuts were _supposed_ to be but mere grazes, but the sheer
force behind these shallow wounds were able to incur hairline fractures
on some of his ribs and make him regurgitate blood from time to time.
The tactic of bludgeoning a man with a sword instead of cutting him up
must have been a relic of the redhead's stint as a wandering rurouni
with a reverse-edged blade.

Fujita's eyes turned into sharp slits as he tried to take his spent
cigarette out of his mouth with his sword hand, but its tendons were
still a bit sore after countering Kenshin's desperation technique, the
Kaiten Battou-jutsu, with the Gatotsu Zeroshiki; for the moment, he
probably would have trouble picking up a mere toothpick. Perhaps
stubbornly keeping his grip on his weapon when his opponent was wise
enough to let go of his wasn't the smartest of moves. 

Fujita had needled Kenshin on and on in regards to how weak and pathetic
he supposedly was compared to his Hitokiri Battousai self of one hundred
and twenty-five years past, or even the weaker rurouni who had flashes
of brilliance now and again when provoked, but that wasn't quite the
whole picture now, was it? Kenshin kept on holding back because he could
_afford_ to hold back and still survive, the overpowered and capricious
moron.

Besides, Fujita had heard that the human Battousai's might was nothing
compared to the peerless power of the otherworldly Youkiri Battousai. Up
to what level of ability had Fujita managed to draw out of Kenshin?
Higher A-Class? Lower S-Class? Perhaps it was Hajime Saito's so-called
'reincarnation' who was lacking of enough skill to make the Battousai
serious enough to let loose his true and current power. 

Nonsense. Of course he could beat him; and, once the Battousai revealed
his full capabilities, Fujita would be able to surpass them himself in a
far more interesting match. Regrettably, as is, Kenshin Himura was less
than a shadow of his former self. What a waste of potential. To obsess
with every detail, nuance, and consequence of killing was an exercise in
futility, the officer believed.

"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you, Battousai,"
Fujita assessed out loud before spitting out the cigarette in his
mouth, crushing it with his heel, and walking away in apparent disgust
and concealed pain.


***


'Chojin-sama is not going to be pleased with these latest developments,'
the ragged-cloaked Onmyouji that gave Rando and the demonic Hiruma
brothers their powers and second--in the case of the siblings, probably
third--chances before they blew it anyway intoned to himself. 

The Overfiend had given him a relatively simple task: help Rando and his
minions corrupt or destroy the Demon Sword and kill anyone that got in
the way. Everyone working for the Chojin knew that the Youtou Shinnoken
was the greatest threat to the establishment of their dark kingdom, and
it only made sense to, if not destroy it, then use it to their
advantage, helping the Chojin make his great push to consolidate the
lands of the Human World, Spirit World, and Demon World together beneath
his fierce, velvet-gloved rule. 




The Great Gunther-Konig of the Nether World, Yakumo, had been stupid
enough to place his faith in the Meikai Crystal and allow his enemies to
run about freely and spoil all his plans. The Chojin had faith only in
himself and the untapped negative power found in mankind's collective
misery and suffering, and he had no intention of wasting that precious
energy trying anything until he could be sure that no annoying little
Spirit Detectives with stupid hair and effeminate features would show
up, get beaten repeatedly, and then gain the unstoppable resolve to
ruin his plans. He knew about Koenma's little errand boys, of course;
lots of soldiers from his undead army knew about them. About half of
them were destroyed by these free agents of chaos, in fact.

'There go our chances at nipping the problem in the bud before things
get really sticky. Those stupid _idiots_! To think, they were so close
in beating those Reikai Tantei and tainting the Demon Sword with demon
blood! Honestly, was provoking the Battousai into killing them so hard?
He wasn't called both a manslayer and a demon-slayer for nothing!' 

Unseen, the Onmyouji moved away from his shadowy hiding place in the
forest, moving especially fast as the powerful presence of Hajime
Saito incidentally passed him nearby. 'They're failures; each and every
one of them! Rando should have known better, being one of the Shinju,
but he has failed as well! What a complete waste of jaki! I ought to
resurrect those failures just to kill them in an even more humiliating
manner!'

'Is that so?' a voice gently rasped inside the Onmyouji's mind, sending
shivers up his nonexistent ethereal spine. 'O-Oh, did you see all that,
Chojin-sama?' he stuttered sheepishly, then cleared his voice and stated
with a bit more conviction, "I am ashamed and apologetic for Rando and
the three Shisejyu's failures. I have no excuses. I'll take the blame
for their losses! Punish me in any way you see fit!'

The Onmyouji's functional bond with the Chojin... just like Kenshin's
bond with Yusuke via the Demon Sword or Yusuke's bond with Puu via
that spirit beast egg Koenma gave him... allowed the Chojin free access
to the Onmyouji's senses as if they were his own, which made the
faceless minion the perfect spy as well as conduit for his overflowing
jaki--the ki representation of the concepts of sin and malice
themselves.

'You've looked better,' the Chojin noted. 'Does your work overwhelm you
so?'

'My fervor to you, master, overwhelms me,' the Onmyouji wheezed, still
recovering from the earlier shock of the Chojin listening in on him at
such short notice. 'This body is but a transitory one, oh great leader
to those who are willing to serve. I shall miss its quirks but a little
when my final change comes upon me.'

The Chojin addressed his Onmyouji servant by his real name--his original
name, before he became more grim-reaper-like than the creepiest of the
Spirit World shinigami--in a svelte tone, crowing in a reassuring
manner, 'Don't be so hasty. Experiments tend to yield unexpected
results from time to time, especially thought experiments such as this.
Theories are bound to turn out wrong and obsolete or proven correct and
timeless as the pursuit of truth and knowledge progresses. The only
thing that would make this defeat pointless is to not heed the lessons
we've learned from it. As is, we've found out quite a lot about our
enemies through this, shall we say, _strategic defeat_.'

The Onmyouji's featureless cloak would have registered nonplussed
bemusement had it had a face attached to it. 'Strategic defeat, my
liege? Incidentally, what _have_ we gotten from this defeat? We barely
scratched the limits of both Urameshi Yusuke and Himura Kenshin's true
powers, the Reikai is proving to be a formidable opponent with the way
it has monitored and anticipated our actions thus far, and a new rival
in the form of the ghost or whatever of Saito Hajime had come back
from the grave to haunt us! If things get any worse for our group, we
might as well be at the mercy of the likes of Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa
Ieyasu, Commodore Perry, and Abraham Lincoln while we're at it! Or,
worst-case scenario, the entire Shinsengumi faction might revive itself
from the ashes of history! Oh, may the gods have mercy on our already
damned souls if that ever happens!'

What the undead Onmyouji seemed to have no way of understanding was that
things needed to be done in a certain order--that heroes could be
confused and manipulated into leaving things alone until you were
_ready_ to crush them. True, it was stupid to try and not succeed, and
that there was no excuse for pointless failure. The Chojin himself had
failed once and swore never again to suffer that humiliation. That
weakness would never again grip him, and he had no patience when he saw
it in others who should know better. Then again, he'd sacrificed pawns
for the sake of the big picture before, since that was basically the
function of the weak, after all. The loss they suffered today was more
of a stepping stone than a detriment, all things considered.

The Chojin, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Great Beast that was
called the Ashen Phoenix, Prince of this World, Father of Lies, the
Living Sin, the Equalizer, and Lord of Darkness could kill Koenma's band
of Spirit Detectives with his own hands if necessary. But to do so would
be to reveal his presence to them, and expose himself to retribution. 

Far better to hide behind his lieutenants and intermediaries until
victory was all but assured, where nobody could get to him as he went
about reshaping the three worlds into his own image. He couldn't be
stopped if they didn't know anything more about him than his name. That
had been Yakumo's great failing; the proud yet shallow Warrior King of
Meikai--the world that used to function as the Reikai of the Makai--had
been so obsessed with causing a scene and casting his shadow across the
Human World's realm _twice over_ that Enma Daio would have needed to be
blind not to know who his enemy was.

The Spirit Detectives had always been on the Chojin's hit list,
especially since the Class-S Sei Kou Ki Master, Shinobu Sensui, joined
their ranks. At the very least, the Overlord had always intended to
reduce the ragtag group of humans, demonic human-sympathizers, and
hybrids of both into Reikai Tantei paste well before he made his little
gambits and funded the Black Black Club, reestablished the Dark
Tournament, and helped in the creation of the Black Chapter tape--the
latter of which had the unexpected benefit of inducing the aforesaid
Sensui's serendipitous descent into madness.

Sensui's fall from grace fascinated the Chojin to no end. The amount of 
delicious damage and chaos that the potentially strongest pure human
who'd ever lived created in his ten-year campaign to ethnically cleanse
the world of all humans was far beyond anything the Overfiend imagined,
much less expected, and for that reason, he wasn't especially upset with
the Reikai's so-called victory today. He'd learned long ago that even
opponents could function as his pawns, and up until the time he unveiled
his trump card or was on the verge of inevitable success, the game was
on. He simply needed to setup as many hidden traps and gambits as
possible to the point that even flukes and probability was on his side.

In chess, a situation in which one player lost a minor piece--i.e., a
bishop or pawn--but captured the opponent's rook was crucial in victory.
The side that won the rook was said to have won the exchange, while the
other player would lose the exchange, since the rook was usually more
valuable. The opposing captures often happened on consecutive moves,
though this wasn't strictly necessary. It was generally detrimental to
lose the exchange, although occasionally, one might find reason to
purposely do so, resulting in an exchange sacrifice.

As far as the Chojin was concerned, he was the one who fared better in
this little "exchange" of sorts, with the price of pawns far less
considerable than the knights, rooks, and bishops he'd routed in the
process, especially considering the scope and frightening growth rate of
his limitless zombie army. If Koenma's best of the best could barely
handle the Chojin's worst, then it was still the latter who was on top.
Without Enma Daio's mercenary and totalitarian tactics, the Koenma-Daio-
ruled Reikai was ripe for the picking; it was like playing chess with a
novice player, even.

'There's no need to panic. Everything is going according to plan,' the
Overfiend reassured the Onmyouji. He would've rather left it at that,
with a trite phrase that did less to comfort than frustrate, but on a
whim, he decided to humor his loyal yet panicky general's fears and
trepidations by offering a glimpse into the methods to his madness. 

'Raizen's descendant has proven his desperation when it comes to
protecting that human girl, becoming so reckless and unthinking that he
could be manipulated in any number of ways. That's the reason why I
suggested for Rando to use his Kugai technique on the boy, and Seiryu
to use the human girl to increase his jaki output. I reckoned something
very interesting might come out of that experiment, and I was right--it
proved that the hanyou has no control over his full power, which means
that there's a possibility for his own strength to overcome him in the
end. Besides which, we've also taken away something important from him
this day; he himself would hardly call this battle a win, not by any
stretch of his imagination.

'The Spirit Wave Master is worthless without her Spirit Wave Light Gem;
she could barely handle the power of B-Class demons, so she's as much of
a non-factor as that C-Class human with the A-Class Technique. As for
the 'Legendary' Battousai, the Hiruma brothers and Genbu had proven him
unwilling, even incapable, of killing, thus making him less of a threat
than I'd anticipated; he could never defeat our growing army with that
sort of attitude. As such, the full assessment of Himura's abilities is
pending for the time being.

'Finally, the dark horse of the ensemble... Saito Hajime, Fujita Goro,
or however else he wants to be called... has his own selfish agenda to
take care of. Regardless of whichever side he chooses in the end, he'll
still be of great use to us. The seeds of doubt and mistrust can be
spread in the middle of these independent factions before they could get
a chance to merge. Remember what happened to Serizawa Kamo's separatist
Shinsengumi unit, the Roshigumi? They caused more harm than good,
forcing the Kondo Isami sect to put them all down, cutting the
Shinsengumi's manpower by half. So think of the Miburo's appearance as
more of an opportunity than a threat. Have I missed anything?'

Embarrassingly enough, the previously sinister Onmyouji that sneered
and stared down at the Battousai was now sycophantically applauding--as
in clapping and hooting in his lonesome--at the Chojin's complete and 
perfect analysis of the situation. The sight of a raggedy-clothed,
hunchbacked, and miserable soul reaper acting as cheerleader sans
pompoms to the Overfiend's schemes was hard to put to words. "As
expected of the Dark Lord, you really had planned everything from the
start! Your steel-trap mind is only rivaled by your own raw power! As
you've promised me more than a century ago, I'll certainly be the first
to--"

'Silence; you're blathering already. Also, stop your clapping, or else
you'll lose some of those fingers,' The Chojin indifferently admonished
his excitable right-hand man once more, but the Onmyouji could imagine,
almost feel through their bond, the ghost of a self-satisfied smirk in 
the corners of the Dark Lord's mouth. Whether that was true or he was
misinterpreting the Chojin's contempt for appreciation was up in the 
the air.

'You know as well as I that I would sacrifice all my fingers for you if
I have to--but you're right, sir. We need to get our priorities
straight.' Curbing his enthusiasm, the Onmyouji genuflected on his
tattered robes and asked, 'What is your current bidding, my liege? The
remaining Shinju are on standby, ready to follow your every command to
the letter.'

'The plan has not changed. Mobilize Udou Jine and Suzaku, give them free
reign to do as they wish, watch out for any signs of betrayal on their
part, and remain in the shadows for the time being. I've heard their
plans--the ones they were willing to show me and the ones they'd kept to 
themselves--and I believe they're the logical choice in exploiting the
assortment of weaknesses that our enemies have presented today.'
Curiously enough, the Chojin's orders sounded more like advice than
"commands to be obeyed to the letter".

'But master, those two are...!' the Onmyouji began, intending to meekly
point out what the mad Jine did to Suzaku's familiar, the annoying
demon bird named Murgle... Murugu... Morgue... whatever her name was. 

'Yes, I know. But their conflicts of interests are to our benefit as
well. If they could manage to pull either of their plans off, we should
soon witness what the Hiruma brothers weren't able to achieve; the
awakening of the true powers of the Demon Sword.' 

The Onmyouji felt the Chojin's frightening presence in his mind's eye
and nearly fainted at the sheer awesomeness of his vision: that of a
lithe, six-foot-high Warlord suited in the full regalia of the cursed
samurai armor, Hanya--worn once upon a time by Oda Nobunaga himself--
and the bloodthirsty swords, the fiery Mugen Jin and the surgically
sharp Kien--re-forged from their temporal, material selves in the pits
of, as Botan would say, Level 17 Block 8 of the Corporeal Punishments
Sector, turning them into transient weapons of genocide.

'Oh, and a few more other things,' the Chojin casually remarked after
recovering from his momentary loss of self-control. 'In regards to your
report that the Spirit World is rallying their own forces, even up to
the point of following our lead and resurrecting warriors from the past
and defying their own laws of life and death, I'll let you handle that
case. Make them suffer from their own folly. With the performance Saito
just shown today, they might even double their efforts. Take advantage
of that fact with impunity.'

'It's already taken care of, my lord,' the Onmyouji assured. 'In light
of the Reikai's apparent unwillingness to murder humans compared to
their gleeful execution of demons, I've asked Gouki to gather our human
recruits Getsuno Kibano, Burashi Musashi, and Fuwan Kazemaru to search
high and low in Mushiyori City for these resurrected souls. I'll just
tell them that they can test their strength and prove their worth to us
by finding people effused with the same spirit signature as shinigami.'

'Good. Also, keep tabs on Xinhai's activities in Kyoto as well. Based
on his impressive performance in gathering jaki so far, he'll sooner or
later have to deal with one of Koenma's would-be lackeys.' The Evil
Overlord smirked. 'Judging from what era these warriors are coming from,
I'm guessing the Reikai had figured out a few things about our
operation. Good for them. Nonetheless, although they may think they're
on to us, they couldn't be further from the truth.'

'Your every wish is my command, my master.' The Onmyouji rose, bowed to 
seemingly no one in particular, and faded into smoke and ash a second
later.


***


Kenshin, Botan, and Puu sat still on the non-wrecked portion of the
temple stairs for a long, long time as they quietly contemplated that
early morn's shocking events, waiting patiently for the dust of Genbu's
kamikaze attack on Iehog to finally settle down. Quite a lot had
happened that day--the hours they spent fighting Rando and three of the
Shisejyu seemed like months, even years, of grueling combat and trauma
that they would remember for a lifetime.

First off, there was the initial part of the Shisejyu invasion, where
Rando and company were able to separate Botan, Yusuke, Keiko, and
Genkai from each other, pairing them off with their designated demon
zombie and manipulating the odds to the youkai's favor by the use of
subterfuge, manipulation, and deceit. Alas, with the appearance of a
mysterious policeman who apparently came straight out of the pages of
Japanese history, Goro Fujita ruined that very plan and helped halve the
demons' forces in one fight, forcing the surviving demons to concentrate
on fighting their selected quarries.

Nevertheless, certain minute, out-of-sight happenings in between those
two major events held far more sway and significance to Botan's eyes,
particularly the ones involving Keiko's coma and near-death experience
in the hands of Seiryu, the cowardly act hidden away from Yusuke's
eyes and revealed to him exactly when it was too late for him to stop
it.

Because the Chojin and his minions had changed the Rules of Engagement
in Spiritual Warfare to suit their own needs--reviving demons that were
long dead to beat the Spirit World at its own game of perpetuating
the cycle of life and death--Botan decided that it was high time she
herself bended the rules as well. Thusly, as Iehik and Iehog took her
hostage, she multitasked and astral projected herself into the Spirit
World, scouring for Keiko's lost soul before Yusuke's sort-of-girlfriend
became a husk of her former self.

The ferry-girl afterwards remembered eating the Fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge in order to coax the amnesiac Keiko... long story... to do the
same. Soon after, she felt her mind react weirdly to the forbidden
fruit. It was strange; it had felt as though the fruit had somehow
broken through a blocked memory in the surface of her psyche, but her
mind wasn't willing to acknowledge its presence, much less access its
dark secrets.

Botan, who was once upon a time a lost ghost just like Keiko, also went
into the misty middle fork of the Sanzu no Kawa and cleansed her sordid
memories clean of all her past mistakes, of all her sins, of all her
pain, and of all the stupid things she had done out of misery, fear,
confusion, and loneliness, drowning it all into oblivion by means of the
delectable, hallucinogenic lotus blossoms of the Elysian Fields. It
wasn't her proudest moment, she knew, but she felt it had to be done at
the time.

Attempting to reach the memory was a little like trying to stare into
the sun itself; her body's automatic reaction was to wince and balk, so
the more she forced yourself to stare, the more her body would react
adversely to the stimuli as a source of pain. Her mind had ultimately
deemed that she simply wasn't supposed to view the hidden memory at the
risk of, she guessed, her mental and emotional health. 

The brief time when she finally did recall her past, it affected her so
badly that her mind automatically blocked it again sans the help of the
Elysian Field's spiritual hallucinogens. She couldn't remember it now,
but she could still recall the feeling of remembering her repressed
trauma; even a shinigami's fearless attitude towards death buckled under
the aura of horror that it generated. 

So many years; so many forgotten memories; the faces of people she had
known, now lost in the past. Places she had been, things she had done,
enemies and friends, familiar faces and unfamiliar ones, colleagues and
loved ones--all gone now. Then again, she was somehow able to view
certain memories that weren't hers; memories of another soul that was
living inside her mind all thanks to the Fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge's mysterious side effects.

'Kamiya Kaoru; who is she, exactly? What's she doing in my head? Was she
a soul whom I helped ferry across the River Styx before?' Botan wondered
as her head became dizzy with the sheer wealth of facts and details it
just evaluated, to the point of literally undergoing information
overload. 

The ferry-girl didn't even bother recalling the last half of Kenshin's
long chain of fights against the ambivalent Goro Fujita and the not-so-
ambivalent Hiruma brothers, lest she risked breaking her mind. 'Wait a
second. If the Forbidden Fruit is supposed to be a cure for
forgetfulness, then the Kaoru in my mind is...!'

Kenshin was the first one to break the ice, interrupting Botan's 
thoughts. "I should've finished them off. I shouldn't have denied my
enemies the courtesy of dying by my sword. As is, it seems like my
unwillingness to kill them has forced them to kill each other for the
sake of my own convenience."

To his spiral-eyed surprise--even though he should have known better by
now--Botan delivered her opinion on the matter in the form of a well-
placed paddle whack upside his head. "Oh, stop moping, you redheaded
baby," the ferry-girl chided before waxing pensive and adding, "Take it
from someone who deals with the deaths of millions on a regular basis;
You can't make yourself responsible for the decisions of others. You can
only be responsible for your own actions and how it affects other
people's lives.

"That is, unless you're one of those schemers that try to manipulate
everyone's lives for his own amusement--there's a special place for
those people. I'd tell you where, but the only place I've really
memorized from the Book of Fate is Level 17 Block 8 of the Corporeal 
Punishments Sector. The rest of the levels, I need a map to get to."

Chuckling a bit at Botan's antics, Kenshin inquired, "And Level 17 Block
8 of the Corporeal Punishments Sector is...?"

"Duh. Fire and brimstone. Um, it's easy to remember because of their
wonderful hot springs there. The fire and death, I don't like so much."

"...I see." Kenshin nodded, then jokingly wrapped his arms around
himself as he 'shivered' at the 'coldness' and 'cheesiness' of Botan's
lame quip.

With a swing of the oar that Kenshin deftly avoided this time around,
Botan protested, "I wasn't joking! Stop acting like I just made a lame
joke, darn it!"

Once their short bout of horseplay was over, Botan and Kenshin were once
again left to their thoughts, the pensive silence beforehand reasserting
itself.

"Do you think it's a joke?" came Kenshin's second icebreaker. 

"Huh? Didn't I say I wasn't joking?" Botan answered warningly.

"No, not that. I meant my vow to not kill any of my enemies, even if
they're demons. Do you think that's a joke? Granted, I can and will
break my vow if worse comes to worst, but it does occur to me how
hypocritical I might look. Yusuke-dono seems to think so," Kenshin
clarified wistfully.

Botan sighed as nostalgic feelings that wasn't her own filled her heart
and mind. She wanted desperately to cut to the chase and ask Kenshin
about the kenjutsu-practicing, pony-tailed girl inside her head, but she
instead hemmed and hawed at the topic at hand, blurting out, "I-It
depends. Why aren't you willing to kill? If you kill them, you'll become
like them? You want to save the villain in order to become a bigger
hero? You're waiting for your opponent's karmic death? Why? Humans I can
understand, but demons, not so much. I get the feeling that you even
_made_ Koenma give you that special stipulation to not kill demons."

Kenshin exhaled, closing his eyes shut. "Take it from someone who has
lived for more than a century and still has a clear memory of both the
distant and recent past. Sometimes, humans can even be worse than the
demons they persecute. Demons have as much a right to live as humans. 
What measure is a non-human, even? No one species is irredeemably evil.
I'm no saint, but I'd rather err on the side of caution than to
indiscriminately kill anyone--human, demon, or otherwise--just because
of some misguided sense of justice."

"I see." Botan mulled over Kenshin's words, feeling a bit uncomfortable
over the melancholy mood that the redheaded spirit's pensiveness
created. "You sound kind of like Sensui, in a sense. You still haven't
answered my question, though. _Why_ don't you kill? If memory serves me 
correctly, 'hitokiri' means 'manslayer', and 'youkiri' means 'demon-
slayer'. If you've killed before, then what is stopping you from killing
now, especially if killing might actually help?"

"I want to atone for all the deaths I've caused, then and now. At first,
I was just supposed to make up for the lives I've taken in my past life
as a Ishin Shishi hitokiri, but in the end, instead of expiating my
sins, I've somehow ended up drowning in them. The weight of a sword that
steals lives, whether it kills humans or demons, will drag you down to
hell. Don't ask me if killing is right or wrong; I have no right to
answer that question. All I know is that, because I've killed, no matter
how many hearts I've healed, my heart can never be healed."

Rolling her kimono sleeves into a bundle on her shoulder, Botan cocked a
clenched fist back, screamed, "Okay, fine! You _really_ want to know
what I think about your pacifism? PACIFIST FIST!" then punched Kenshin
right on his cross-scarred cheek. 

The wide-eyed swordsman's head shook like a bobble-head figure from the
impact of Botan's powerful straight right, his metaphysical brain
rattled by a very tangible force.