[FFML] [fic][rk][cont] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 21: The Tiger Scramble

[Chester Castañeda]

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Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Continuation Fan Fiction
By Chester Castañeda
chester.castaneda at gmail.com
http://www.fanfiction.net/~abdiel

As usual, Amakusa will be quoting the bible and Christian prayers a
whole lot. He'll also be quoting William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.
He's a... well-read kind of guy.


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Chapter 21: The Tiger Scramble

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'Wait, what in blazes am _I_ doing? I'm leading the offense too much and
letting them counterattack me!' Amakusa realized, deciding then and
there to change tactics by backing off from the pair, searching for
possible avenues of escape.

While the duo argued and made up, Shogo got to a running start and
leaped over the heads of both Minoe and Yahiko to escape their
counterstrike trap. Afterwards, he saw a whole constellation of stars
explode before his eyes after giving Gan's skull-crushing bat an
inadvertent kiss in midair.

The Savior of the Secret Christians fell back on earth with a wood-
splintering thud, which left behind a person-shaped crater of sorts as
he lay on his back, a spray of sweat, blood, spittle, and sawdust
scattering across the ballroom floor.

"Gotcha!" Gan himself landed on his feet with shuddering twin foot
stomps while following through his jumping and swatting movement. "Your
fancy twirling and flipping can't do shit against me, Kumamoto!"

"Gan! Way to go! You saved my ass again! I owe you big time!" Yahiko
cheered before turning towards the awestruck Minoe and holding the eye-
patched man's free hand. "I owe you both. Let's bring down Amakusa once
and for all to avenge the deaths of the police and your fellow
Togakudan!"

Minoe's lone exposed eye lingered over Yahiko's face for a second too
long. "M-Monchiron," he stuttered as he adjusted his wig and avoided eye
contact.

"...."

Yahiko could've sworn he saw hints of wetness from the side of his
fellow Sanbaka's face.

And so the Three Stooges ran towards the reclining Amakusa, with Gan
ready to turn the Christian into a red stain on the ground while Yahiko
and Minoe trailed by either side of him. To the Galloping Gan's
consternation, the second impact of his iron bat hit nothing but
floorboards and the ground underneath. Shogo had already scuttled away
and stood up on shaky legs, his head pulsing like a second heartbeat.

"Shit! Yoshi-boy, don't just stand there! LOOK OUT!"

Yahiko spaced out in the middle of the chase, his eyes losing focus as
the nine simultaneous strikes he suffered twice over from both Soujiro
and Amakusa replayed itself in his mind, his wounds screaming at him to
stop moving and collapse.

A second later (thankfully not a second too late), the boy woke up, and
he barely had enough time to parry the thrust Amakusa threw at him,
which gave him the idea to sheath the Christian's blade with his own
iron saya by sliding the sakabatou over the katana's blunted side to
guide the scabbard's path.

'If Minoe doesn't want you to die, then I'll have to defang you like the
snake that you are so that the cops can arrest you without fearing
anything!' Yahiko decided once the sheath covered three-fourths of
Amakusa's weapon.

"W-What in the...?"

"Tsui Gami!"

At the same time, Gan was already barreling towards the trio of Amakusa,
Yahiko, and Minoe after he plucked his kanabo out of the hole in the
ground he had made.

Before the sixteen year old could break the sword in half by hammering
the exposed part of the blade and using the sheathed part as leverage to
snap it off, Amakusa dug his fingers deep into one of Yahiko's freshest
wounds until blood spurted out anew.

"YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!"

In turn, every orifice of the boy shrieked, seemingly at the mercy of
Shogo's desperation move. The rebel then thought on his feet, sheathed
his sword all the way into Yahiko's scabbard, turned to face the
charging Gan, and drew his sword to deliver a battoujutsu strike that
hit the hooligan dead center on his sternum.

"GUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

"Yahiko-chi! Gan-chi!" Minoe arrived in the nick of time to partially
deflect the blade's trajectory while Gan himself repositioned his bat to
keep the blade from slashing his midsection too deeply.

"GAN! Amakusa, you bastard...!" Yahiko halted in mid-speech; the only
sign of the rebel he saw was the strands of flowing red hair fluttering
away from his line of sight. 'Holy shit, it's the Ryu Kan Sen! Duck!'
his mind shouted at him.

Yahiko compelled his sweaty, bloody body to bow and move away before he
got scalped, beheaded, slashed in half, or suffered any number of
gruesome fates. He then looked behind him, saw Amakusa's blade mere
inches above him, and plopped down on all fours. 'What happened?'

The Tokyoite had his answer as soon as his vision cleared and his eyes
focused on the two combatants before him: Minoe and Amakusa. For his
part, the shorter, eye-patched, and wig-wearing Togakudan grabbed hold
of the shining blade with his bare hand and thrust the tip of his
short sword near Shogo's throat. Meanwhile, Amakusa held an iron grip
at Munenori's wrist and kept the blade from plunging down his jugular.

"I'm sorry about this," said Minoe.

"Why do you insist on saving him?" Shogo queried, uttering his question
with nary a stutter. Minutes passed, but he said nothing more as he let
his inquiry hang in the air.

"H-He has nothing to do with any of this," Minoe insisted, his one eye
glimmering with moisture, his body tense, and his limbs trembling. "Let
him go. Let him be. I beg of you."

Yahiko recalled his own experience of battling Kenshin for the first
time during his genpuku; he realized that he probably looked like Minoe
did right then.

"FUCK THIS SHIT!" a bleeding, hobbling, yet still rampaging Gan roared
before interposing himself between the deadlocked pair, the blunt end of
his iron bat producing a plume of expanding dust, shards of wood, rocks,
plaster, and debris that shot out from the epicenter of the thug's
strike to multiple directions. The force of the impact flung Amakusa,
Yahiko, Minoe, and several of the Togakudan bodies across the room all
at once.

Yahiko scrambled up to his feet while a fully flexed Gan brushed the
bits of dirt and debris off of his bulging biceps. 'Wow. Am I seeing
things, or are those muscles bulging a bit harder than before? Isn't he
injured? Also, did he have a bomb attached to that tetsubo of his? I
never realized how strong he is! I only thought he's some sort of
bumbling buffoon.'

To Gan, Yahiko said, "This is the third time you saved my ass! Don't get
too cocky though, you big...!"

The older man chopped the top of the teenager's head with his frying-
pan-for-a-hand. Consequently, the boy's eyes rolled to the top of his
sockets until only their whites were visible, his head bouncing around
every which way.

"DAMN! What's the big idea, you oversized land whale? Whose side are you
on? You're worse than Minoe!"

"You had Kumamoto beat several times in your fight, but you couldn't
finish him off." Gan's mouth and brow ridges sunk so low, his face
looked like melting wax.

Meanwhile, Amakusa and Minoe eyed each other as they rose up from their
respective knockdowns. They contemplated their next move while also
keeping Yahiko and Gan in the corner of their eyes.

"Y-Yeah? So what? You were the one who charged like a bull earlier! And,
if you'd recall, you were also the guy who followed me to this mansion
from the get go, not the other way around!" Yahiko replied, aghast at
Gan's accusations, his intended apology for hurting him by inadvertently
assisting Amakusa in doing a battoujutsu strike dying in his throat.
'Stupid Gan. What's his problem?'

"You were wearing non-decorative bandages the day I met you," Gan noted,
and Yahiko gulped and stood stock-still. "I didn't say anything earlier
when you kept running out of breath as we jogged all the way to the
ballroom because you were so intent on helping out those trapped
policemen, but the situation is getting way out of hand. You're in over
your head, Yoshi-boy. Kumamoto got you good with that flashy technique
of his. You're in no shape to fight him, aren't you?"

'He's at his limits? I was afraid the Kuzu Ryu Sen wasn't able to hit
him completely, but my fears were for nothing.' Amakusa narrowed his
eyes. 'So how was he able to still fight back, then? His moves are quite
sharp for someone who's injured.'

"I've had three weeks to heal! I'm fine! We're wasting time," Yahiko
waved Gan off and pushed him aside (or attempted to, because the thug
wouldn't budge an inch) when he felt the brute grab hold of the
sakabatou and its sheath, the studded club clanking hard on the floor.
"Let go off my sword, Gan!"

Yahiko swung his leg towards Gan's crotch, only to yowl in pain as the
monstrous muscleman trapped the boy's shin between two hardened thighs
and squeezed it sore before it even reached any testicles. "You're not
going anywhere. There's no sense in you having a relapse or something.
Let me handle this. I got you covered, kiddo."

Amakusa took this strange incident as his cue to attack, with Minoe
following close behind, when Gan relinquished his hold of Yahiko,
sheathed the sakabatou, and threw the weapon right at Shogo's head.

By reflex, Amakusa turned his head to the side to keep away from the
rotating projectile and utilized lateral movement to avoid letting Gan
catch him unawares.

>From behind Shogo, Minoe caught the blunt sword and halted his short
sprint. The undersized, disheveled spy stared at the weapon and then at
Gan, shrugging his shoulders and tilting his head in askance.

"Don't try any funny stuff on me, Kumamoto. I'll get to you soon," Gan
declared as he picked up his kanabo and wagged his finger at Amakusa.
"As for you, Patches, you're as annoying as Yoshi-boy. I don't think
you've got the balls to fight, much less finish off, your idol. You're a
liability too, so cool off and take Yoshi-boy with you!"

"B-Balls? E-Eh...?" a blushing Minoe stammered before Gan picked up the
dawdling Yahiko by the collar and threw him at the eye-patched spy
without so much as a warning.

"Huh?" Yahiko mumbled when he first realized his airborne state. He then
screeched, "What the HELL?", which was the same sentiment Minoe shared
as evidenced by his bugged-out right eye, loosened jaw, and upraised
arms that dropped the two swords he held.

In any case, the teenaged boy was lucky that Akahori's secret agent had
the presence of mind to let go of the weapons _before_ they collided
against each other.

'Soft. Why is it so soft here? What's that scent? It's intoxicating. It
smells like flowers with a hint of... rust? No, blood,' thought Yahiko.

A high-pitched scream woke him up from his dreams of pillow fluffiness
and bloody perfume.

'Uh oh.'

Minoe had opened his eyes in time to see a drooling Yahiko's face shoved
right into the open flap of his kimono. From there, the Tokyo Samurai
Descendant discovered how sharp the daintier man's fingernails were.

"Ow! Okay! I'm sorry, Minoe! But it was Gan who threw me at you,
dammit!"

"Gan-chi, that was embarrassing! Don't ever do that to me again!" the
eye-patched girly man bawled as he crawled away from underneath the
Tokyoite and kicked him in the head for good measure. "IYAAA! I'll never
get married now!" He buried his face in his bandaged hands.

"What? No! Dammit, Minoe! Stop acting like a... w-weirdo! I mean, sorry.
I mean, uh... What am I apologizing for? This is all Gan's fault!" the
scratched-up Yahiko rationalized, his mouth shaped like an upside-down
wedge of lemon and his scrunched features sporting an unhealthy hint of
blue.

Gan spoke again. "I'll be the one to fight that rebel for you, Yoshi-
boy. After all, I owe you a lot for bailing me out from that cockfight
dilemma we had earlier. This is my thanks, from one stranger to another.
Have a happy life together, Yoshi-boy. Patches."

"DON'T SAY THINGS THAT PEOPLE MIGHT MISUNDERSTAND!" chorused Minoe and
Yahiko.

'I don't even want to know,' a frowning Amakusa reckoned as he used the
inane reprieve to rest and catch his breath, his cheeks flushed as he
looked away.

"Is this what this is all about? That's all fine and dandy, but I want
_cash_ payment for your debt, you bum!" Yahiko's remark compelled
everyone within earshot to lose their balance and fall prostrate to the
ground in typical pratfall fashion.

After clearing his throat, Yahiko clarified, "I don't want you to fight
my fights, Gan. My obligation to put Amakusa to rest is much more
serious than yours anyway. There's no point in throwing your life away
for a money debt. Minoe, give me my sword."

After hearing no response, Yahiko repeated himself and turned to face
the smaller man. "This is my fight, Minoe."

"Gan-chi's right. You're not in the condition to fight right now.
Amakusa-chi would've finished you off if I hadn't been there." Minoe
took both the wakizashi and sakabatou on the floor and put them on his
cloth belt. Yahiko tried swiping at his inherited weapon, but with one
simple pinch of his wounds, he cringed and backed off.

"Help me clear the battlefield, please," Minoe said to Yahiko. The
Togakudan's eye had a faraway look as it went through the motions of
dragging the mortal remains of the spies to a more unobtrusive area of
the ballroom. After looking back and forth between Gan and Minoe, the
boy decided to follow suit; he had no choice at this point.

Just then, a recovered Shogo made a mad dash towards the stairs, but
found his path blocked by the Gabby Gan's thrown iron mace as it hit the
space mere inches away from his feet and turned the floor into an
ankle-high trench.

Amakusa said, "I guess you're finally done with your melodramatic
speech. It took you long enough."

As Gan ran towards Amakusa, the insurgent saw the phantom of another
ghost from his past superimpose himself on the bullish brute's
silhouette.

Earlier, Shogo imagined Gan to be the spirit and image of his mother's
murderer, the samurai known as Nakahara. However, in light of the
bandanna-wearing thug's antics, he reminded him more of the late
Genemon, a follower of his that trained dogs to do his bidding. They had
the same straightforward personality, at the very least.

"Oh, that's right. I haven't introduced myself to you, Kumamoto! I am
the Great Gan. I am also known as the Soba King, the White Tiger, and
the White Peril of Okinawa. But as for you, you may call me Daddy, for
you are my bitch."

Amakusa sized up his brawny opponent with one look and began the fight
with tentative thrusts of his sword. "You're an interesting fellow,
Mister Gan. But please, don't force me to do something that you'll
surely regret."


===


One hour and forty minutes after midnight, within the Shinshu Mansion's
ballroom...

The goose flesh on the Hot and Bothered Gan's skin protruded like a
dermatological disease as his heart pounded against his rib cage,
demanding release. His breaths also came in pants and gasps.

Nonetheless, his toothy, face-wide smile remained. It was now or never;
there was only one thing he could do. He only wished he knew what the
hell it was.

A thrust opened a cut over Gan's shoulder, which woke him up. Presumably
feeling braver, Amakusa hurtled himself at the ruffian, twirled around,
and executed a whirling slash that the thug barely avoided by ducking.

Gan bluffed, "You've got to do better than this, Kumamoto. What's with
those lame stabs? Anything less than the Shinsengumi's Hiratsuki is a
disappointment." The boisterous brawler moved forward in order to fight
toe-to-toe with the rebel, figuring that the length of the rebel's sword
would be a detriment in a "trench battle" of sorts.

Why was he doing this again? Oh, right. Obligation. "Giri", in other
words. It was such an old-fashioned term for someone who didn't even
consider himself an old-fashioned guy. However, the spiky-haired boy who
cramped his style the day before when he tried to score a free meal
still helped bail him out of several debts regardless. He owed him.
Literally.

Amakusa slashed away at Gan, not minding the lack of leverage that made
his slices shallower. The rebel even doubled up on his stabs that
connected right into the thug's thighs, shoulders, and feet.

Even though Gan couldn't exactly swing his bat with full force at such a
close range either, he threw his own share of bombs using his fists and
elbows while he lunged and clawed at his opponent's hands and forearms
in order to break them.

"Why are you sticking your nose into other people's business? At least
answer me that before something bad happens to you. The boy didn't even
want you to fight me alone. Don't you realize what you've gotten
yourself into?" asked Amakusa.

Gan wasn't born yesterday. He knew that he didn't need to do all this.
Fuck "giri". Then again...

"Yoshi-boy is an okay guy. He would've put up a better fight against you
were he not already injured when he came here. Even if he sucks at
fighting, I'll be willing to fight for him. You know why? He made a lazy
bum like me believe in something as annoying as fulfilling obligation.
He made me remember how to be a responsible man," said Gan.

Gan covered up well against the Nikaido Heiho combinations, deflecting
the horizontal, diagonal, and cross strikes with his blunt weapon thanks
to his familiarity with the calligraphic style, but the ensuing
"Battousai" moves were another matter altogether.

"Stop trying to act 'cool', Gan! Because you're not!" berated the
ungrateful whelp that the Magnanimous Gan just saved while Patches kept
a hold of his weird, toy katana with a reversed edge.

'Serves him right. I hope Patches never gives him back his stupid
sword,' the Dashing Gan reflected.

With that said, the Courageous Gan's counterattack began right then and
there, with him swiping his tetsubo in every which way with his right
hand while landing a shuddering left hook straight into Kumamoto's ribs
with a crunchy squelch.

'I've discovered your weak spot, haven't I?' Gan licked off the blood on
his fist to make sure that it wasn't his own. Judging from the lack of a
stinging sensation on his bandaged knuckles, it probably was Amakusa's.
He clipped the rebel on the temple with the bat, which at last made him
back off.

For the rest of the bout, Kumamoto favored his midsection while he got
backed into a corner, his left elbow wedged permanently beside it like a
shield of sorts as he switched stances between Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu and
Nikaido Heiho. The Hardcore Gan smelled blood, so he thusly pressed on
his attack with uppercuts and smothering kanabo swings from all angles.

"I bear you no ill will. I bear no one in this mansion save for Akahori
ill will. You cannot beat me, though. Please realize your folly before
it's too late. This is your final warning." Amakusa afterwards
disappeared and reappeared into a multitude of transparent afterimages.

>From there, the Befuddled Gan became a crimson fountain. What was the
technique Amakusa used on him called? Dragon Nest Dodge? Flashing Dragon
Flash? Nested Egg Farts? Whatever it was, the technique tore his body
apart. Cut him down to size, as the saying went. He stayed up on his
feet and moved forward anyway.

He could take the punishment, especially when he remained at such close
proximity to his target in order to limit the effectiveness of Amakusa's
sword strikes. "Come on, Kumamoto. Next time, make it hurt."

Amakusa (or rather, the Amakusas) obliged the Bold Gan's request by
splitting into multiple afterimages and delivering a couple of body
stabs, a swarm of combination slashes to all his vital points, a looping
strike that could've left him jawless had he not dodged in time, a
rising upward cut that would've vivisected him and exposed his innards
had he not hid behind his metallic bat to buffer the blow in time, and a
double thrust that sent him staggering.

Blood entered the ruffian's eye from a cut above his forehead, so his
aim and depth-of-field perception became off. He blinked away the blood,
cursing his luck. 'If it isn't one thing, then it's another.'

In an attempt to acquire some breathing room in the middle of that
horrendous exchange, the Dedicated Gan swung his bat from below his
waist and right up at Kumamoto's jaw, the insurgent's head visibly
reeling from the shot.

However, the Secret Christian was able to walk right through the attack
regardless and continue his charge. What was this man made of? Was all
this pain worth repaying Gan's debt of honor to a stranger?

A creaky voice in the Gregarious Gan's head whispered in his ear, 'Come
on, Sonny-boy! You're walking at him in straight lines, so he can pretty
much do whatever he wants! Use more feints or you'll end up like one of
those practice straw dummies that can't fight back, that you will!'

Ergo, because Gan was Gan, he elected to do the exact opposite of what
the old man in his mind recommended, moving forward and swinging both
his blunt weapon and his balled-up fist with reckless abandon, like a
real man would. From behind them, Patches shrieked as Amakusa struck at
will, slashing away to the left... No, to the right. Wait! That was a
feint. Goddamn cheater was using a feint before he did!

The crater where Kumamoto stood a second ago released plumes of dust
reminiscent of the smoke from a dying campfire. Moreover, Gan's forearm
dripped with a hot, red fluid from the nasty cut he got for his
troubles.

"Stop prancing around and fight like a man!" Fuck, where'd Amakusa go?
The Magnificent Gan swung his studded bat for dear life as soon as the
red-haired bastard appeared in his line of sight; the swings would've
knocked the Christian revolutionary out cold had they hit.

Fuckity fuck. He hated assholes like him. Kumamoto talked the talk, but
when it came to fight time, the rebel's testicles shrunk to the size of
peas as he played patty-cake with his opponents. "If you have the guts
to call yourself a force of nature, then the least you could do is stop
running away!"

"Gan, he's too fast! Stop walking into his strikes!" some know-it-all
stated the obvious.

"Gan-chi! You're going to bleed to death at this rate!" some wig-haired
girly boy chimed in. Whose side were they on? Were they really cheering
for that cowardly religious nut who wouldn't stand still? Well, fuck
them both sweetly in the ass.

Amakusa had a weak belly thanks to all his earlier encounters, right?
The surviving Togakudan told them as much. Why couldn't the Great Gan
punch Kumamoto's midsection more than once, then? 'It's because he keeps
running away. He's no fighter, but a dancer. A poser. A pretender. A
false savior. A major disappointment.'

"Stop scurrying around like a headless chicken and fight me for real!"
Gan's foot got stabbed for his remark, but he managed to fishhook the
hole in Amakusa's hand and headbutt the religious fanatic. 'Wait. Why
does he have a hole in his hand?'

'You're a disappointment. Leave my midst,' a titan that rose from the
depths of Gan's consciousness and towered to the heavens rebuked. 'You
have lost the right to bear my name.'

Something struck the Disorientated Gan from behind his neck, which made
him lurch over and bleed all over the floor he couldn't feel his hands
and the shining steel blade kept on coming and coming splatters of
blood covering the brown stains that had been the dried blood of the
other people Amakusa probably killed oh shit oh Buddha where were the
strikes coming from oh fuck oh fucking shit was that his finger flying
off or was it his toe...?

"Minoe! Damn you, you pirate wannabe! Give me back my sword, or I swear
you'll be wearing two eye patches once I'm done with you!"

"NO! You'll get killed too, Yahiko-chi!"

'...Killed _too_? So I'm already dead?' To think that they'd continue to
say such selfish things without caring about other people's feelings.
The nerve of some people! At any rate, Gan then heard a whoosh followed
by the muted clunk of a sheathed blade.

'Ah, who am I kidding? It's obvious who the real disappointment here is.
What the hell gave me the idea that I even stood a chance against Mister
Force of Nature? He's completely out of my league. This guy was born
with a sword in his hand, from the looks of it!'

'Sonny-boy! Remember to use feints! Your fighting style will have you
swinging and attacking regardless, so you might as well use fake attacks
to fool your opponents into making mistakes de gozaru! Make them
hesitate! Let them fight at your pace! If you can add that to your
fairly straightforward repertoire, you'll have full control of the
match, that you will!' Nobuhiro-something-or-another prattled inside
Gan's mind.

Just as soon as the Gory Gan espied Minoe moving in to block a couple of
Amakusa's whirling strikes, he struck his studded metal stick into the
floor and dug a splintered and uneven ditch mere inches away from the
spy. "Stay out of this, Patches."

"Gan-chi, please! Enough is enough!" Patches begged.

The Blushing Gan's heart skipped a beat upon seeing Minoe's gleaming
eyes... well, _eye_... but he ignored the feeling the best he could. How
could someone with a wig and one eye look so cute? 'No, no. Don't be
stupid. That's a guy.'

Because he was sick and tired of hearing the voices of old men, girly
boys, and amateur wannabe fighters buzzing in and out his head, he
changed the proverbial dial, station, or whatever the nineteenth-century
equivalent of "channel" was to something more suited to his tastes.
'What would Weasel-chan say?'

'Ah, Aoshi-sama, how I long for your... What? What am I doing here? Gan?
Is that you? Ew! Why are you thinking about _me_ at a time like this?
Don't you dare fantasize about me, you gigantic, slimy, stinky, and
perverted brute! Who knows what sick, twisted things your mind will do
to your mental image of me? I better be dressed while you're imagining
me, or I swear I'll make a skin coat out of you!'

'Weasel-chan is right! I've been fighting Kumamoto's fight. I'm letting
him dictate the terms of the battle like some sort of dumbass. Who the
hell does _he_ think he is anyway? A god that descended to earth? Shit,
this is the person whom people expected to save the world because some
vaguely defined predictions written by a dead guy said so, which he may
or may not have turned out to be self-fulfilling prophecies!'

The bandanna-wearing thug neutralized a rampaging Dou Ryu Sen headed
straight towards him with his thundering Happa technique. 'I have to
start using feints! Otherwise, I'm dead meat! Or better yet, let's
create a distraction!' the Cunning Gan concluded before undoing his obi,
slipping out of his pants, and wiggling his hairy butt at Kumamoto while
farting.

"...." was the consensus reaction of everyone present and conscious to
the hooligan's antics (save for Gan himself, of course).

"EEEEEEEEEEEEK!" Patches turned away and covered his exposed eye.

To Gan's credit, his actions really did stop the paling, blue-faced
Amakusa in his tracks. It even froze Yoshi-boy and Patches too, he
noticed. The trio afterwards retched and backed away from the Ingenious
Gan. The distraction didn't last long, however.

"Ryu Tsui Sen Zan."

"AH! Let me put on my pants first! Stop thrusting that sword at me!
Leave my butt alone! I DON'T SWING THAT WAY!" the Compromised Gan
shouted with tears in his eyes at the cheating bastard he had for an
adversary who attacked enemies before they were ready.

"Dammit, Gan. Don't make me cheer for Amakusa!"

"Gan-chi, you pervert!"

In the middle of the sticky drizzle filled with stabs, sweat, blood
droplets, and mutilating near-hits that dyed his bandanna and fundoshi
red, the Half-Naked Gan grabbed hold of Amakusa's blade and pulled him
to the side, the sword turning into a bowl of scalding water in his
imagination.

He looked at his searing fingers; they were all there. He sighed in
relief as he smashed his tetsubo right onto Kumamoto's target-like
chest. Another stab pushed Gan away, followed by slashes resembling the
kanji for "eight" that gave him fish gills on the side of his ribs.

"Unlike your other so-called allies, are you prepared to kill me? Or are
you just another fool rushing into places where even angels fear to
tread?" Kumamoto asked, "unsheathing" his sword from Gan's grip,
whirling, and disappearing from the ruffian's midst.

The sting from having a blade slide through his fingers until bone was
exposed reminded Gan of punching scalding sand heated with a gigantic
deep fryer atop an open bonfire.

'Wait a minute.'

The Grinning Gan answered Amakusa back by smashing the Christian's feet
with a stomp and pouncing onto the tottering religious radical via a
thudding shot to the liver that he'd been aiming for all throughout the
fight. The thug himself remembered having the same discolored cracked
toes and the black blots inside them when he was younger.

'He's just like me, that bastard.'

The Aggressive Gan landed his right hand before the rebel's upward slash
reached its zenith, his fist producing a muffled crack over Amakusa's
nose. When compared to punching a boulder or a brick, human cartilage
were as soft as crackers.

While Amakusa choked in his own spit and blood, the Garrulous Gan took
advantage of the situation and swung his bat in the opposite direction,
hitting the other side of his opponent's midsection and forcing more
blood and other unidentified bodily fluids to gush forth the luckless
Kumamoto's mouth. A close stab at the ruffian's testicles had him back
away, though.

Amakusa moved forward, only to retreat and fight his way out with
Nikaido Heiho combinations in order to avoid the bat swing and uppercut
to his body and head. The last strike... another Dragon Wrap Flash...
was able to land, but the smile on Gan's face remained despite the
spilled blood.

The Great Gan once fought the colossus from the depths of his nightmares
with a broken arm in a bid to earn the right to bear his name. He lost,
of course, but in light of what the uppity, hypocritical Kumamoto had
been saying and doing all this time, he'd figured that the both of them
weren't so different after all.

"I figured you out, Kumamoto. I may not look all that smart to you or
anyone else, but even an imbecile like me can understand what you're all
about."

"Whatever, dude! Put your pants back on!" called out Yoshi-boy, which
totally ruined the mood of the moment.


===


One hour and fifty minutes past midnight, inside the Shinshushin Manor's
body-strewn ballroom...

Gan remained on his feet. What was his reason for fighting? Strike after
strike, wallop after wallop, bludgeon after bludgeon; he didn't let up
for a second.

"You've figured me out? If you did, then you wouldn't be fighting me."

Something about Yahiko Myojin's burly companion bothered Amakusa, and he
wasn't referring to the yakuza-like muscleman's lack of pants or his
nonsensical claims of "figuring" him out like some sort of puzzle.
Judging by how the boy and the spy halted in the middle of their
attempted rescue of this "Gan" fellow, they probably noticed it too.

"I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I am a force of nature.
You cannot beat typhoons and you cannot defeat earthquakes; you can only
survive them."

Amakusa retaliated right after Gan put his trousers back on again. 'Is
this idiot even taking this fight seriously?' The rebel rose to the
ceiling and delivered a Ryu Tsui Sen right atop the buffoon's head.

"You're making that speech again? I admit that's a cool one-liner, bro.
How does this sound, though? If lightning were to hit me, you'd have to
take lightning to the hospital!"

Gan shrugged off the strike even as it opened a slit on his reddened
(formerly white) bandanna. Amakusa wasn't imagining things; it was as
though his strength had been severely sapped by the battles he'd gone
through recently, his blade's sharpness had been dulled by the sheer
amount of flesh it cut, or the small fry he'd been trying to cut into
cubes so that he could move on to a bigger catch was made of iron.

"You act all high-and-mighty. You think you're some sort of god that
will lead your people to salvation. People like you sicken me; you have
everything fed to you with a silver spoon. You were born special. You
don't have to _earn_ anything in order to be called great; it's your
destiny to be great."

Shogo hit a pectoral, but produced nothing more than a slight nick of a
wound although Gan didn't bother dodging. 'No, not iron. Rubber. This
muscle-head's body is as hard to cut as vulcanized rubber. Can it be
that he's employing the same technique as...?'

The Christian rebel snarled, but instead he sucked on air and panted
after receiving more hard shots to the body. Wait, why was he panting?

In between breaths, Amakusa answered back, "Peace of mind makes the body
healthy, but jealousy is like a cancer. Remember this: Some men are born
great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
You are none of these three."

"You're good at making pretty speeches. Are you using your own words?
Can you back them up?" Yet again, the insufferable grin of this irksome
stranger remained. "You're calling me jealous? Maybe I am. Or maybe I
_was_, but not anymore. From where I come from, I had to fight for the
right to have a name. You were automatically presumed to be great."

Predictably, the devil-may-care Gan charged, swinging both fists and his
metal bat, unmindful of the swelling of his shallow cuts and the flow of
his deeper wounds. Amakusa abused the well-worn Ryu Sou Sen... the most
effective technique in Shogo's arsenal best utilized against a swarm of
enemies or a particularly durable foe... to the point that the ruffian
could by then catch most of the vital-point-seeking slashes with his
massive arms and elbows as well as his extra thick tetsubo, receiving
minimal damage.

"I've heard your story. I heard it even before I came here to help
Yoshi-boy out. You were supposed to be some sort of savior, right? The
Son of God who'll rescue your people from an abusive government and a
nation who doesn't give a damn about them and whatnot? The usual heroic
stuff."

Amakusa took advantage of Gan's preoccupation with secondhand rumors by
winding up his strike and delivering a Ryu Kan Sen blow to the black. He
blanked out for a second and the next thing he knew, he was facing the
floor. He felt up the inside of this throbbing mouth and spit a grainy
object out; it was a split molar.

Shogo twisted his neck towards his talkative quarry and did his best to
regain balance, his knees shaken and his head buzzing. A gash on the
lower part of Gan's bulky neck signified to Amakusa that he hit his
attack somewhat. "You don't know a thing about me. A little learning is
a dangerous thing. A fool's attempt at knowledge only exposes his
ignorance."

"I know enough. For you to be as fucked up as you are now, the people
around you must've been feeding you all sorts of bullshit in regards to
you being a god made flesh. Their expectations must've been sky high,
weren't they? You hadn't even wiped off mommy's breast milk from your
mouth yet, and they'd already expected you to move mountains and shit
out gold!"

"Are you done talking?" A pointblank Hiryu Sen flew into Gan's jaw as a
fist smashed into Amakusa's eye socket at the same time.

Gan ate up the multiple head-and-body strikes Shogo unleashed in order
to deliver another nigh-beheading uppercut and a smash of the bat to the
zealot's thigh. "Not really. Thing is, you'll be listening regardless.
I'll make you listen."

A sweat-and-blood-drenched Amakusa attempted to counterattack with yet
another Ryu Kan Sen, but his legs collapsed from underneath him while
Gan went back to work punching, kicking, and hammering away at his
twice-stabbed abdomen. Soon, his back was against the wall, and he saw
nothing but bandaged fists and studded blunt objects hitting him over
and over, occupying what little breathing room he had.

"No wonder you have a big enough ego to think you're a force of nature
or the Savior of Japanese Christianity! You've gotten to the point where
you think you're better than everyone else! However, that's actually the
saddest part of your story."

Amakusa saw red, exploding with a Dou Ryu Sen that ripped the floor and
Gan apart. He followed it up with countless slashes, strikes, parries,
and ripostes that didn't have any specific names but wore down the
implacable thug nonetheless. At the back of his mind, he saw a vision of
his deceased father say, 'Shogo, you must become stronger. Like God
himself!' amidst a whole army of sword-and-spear-wielding, petrified
samurai.

"How old were you when you first learned those fancy moves of yours? Did
you even have a childhood to speak of? Did your parents seriously
expect you, a little kid, to turn into an unstoppable god of divine
justice during a point in your life when you haven't even accomplished a
damn thing yet?"

"SILENCE! THAT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" Shogo wheezed, his lungs
deflating like popped balloons inside his body after he exhaled from the
effort of leaping up and performing a Ryu Kan Sen Arashi that drove back
the behemoth before him even as his brain thudded inside his skull with
another blunt shot to the head.

Afterwards, he remembered his mother's last words to him before she
died. 'Shogo, you are a child who will someday become the leader of men.
Discard your feelings and become the guiding light that Shimabara
needs.' All that time, Gan never stopped ripping his bat or fist into
every part of Amakusa's black-and-blue torso.

"In many ways, you too had to fight to earn the right to your name. Your
greatest enemy was the Amakusa Shogo... Oh, wait, sorry... the 'Second
Coming of Amakusa Shiro' that your people thought you were. You failed
to live up to your hype, didn't you? Even though you supposedly killed a
thousand soldiers and policemen, countless other Kakure Kirishitan died
in your watch. What a damn shame."

For Amakusa, the already dank atmosphere of the room full of freshly
killed corpses seemingly transformed into swamp gas before his eyes as
they watered in either grief or lack of oxygen. He drowned in air like a
fish out of water, gasping for something he could hardly breathe. He
recalled the cavalcade of soldiers marching towards him, their rifles at
the ready as they surrounded him. His moment of truth.

"SHOGO-SAMA!" Minoe winked into existence in the midst of Gan and
Amakusa, his reverse-edged short sword at the ready, but a simple
backhand from the bandanna-wearing thug put a stop to his efforts at
intervening and sent him crashing into the western-style double doors
leading into the dining room.

"Sorry, Patches. This needs to happen."

Shogo's worn, half-closed eyes traveled towards Yahiko, who stood there
while clutching his half-sheathed, reverse-bladed weapon, inching
forward one step forward and two steps back as though he were dancing to
a nonexistent drumbeat only he heard. 'So he got his toy sword back
already.'

"Did you really think that you can carry the hopes and dreams of your
people on your back without you getting crushed by their incredible
weight? It must've been tough trying to live under the shadow of an
unrealistic ideal that only existed in the deluded minds of your loved
ones and followers!"

Amakusa's strained grunts were drowned out in the cacophony of pounded
flesh, the clang of iron and steel, and his awareness fading from white
to black. He moved as though submerged underwater, his bleeding lungs
filled with shards of glass, and his heart poisoned with carbon dioxide.
Each breath felt like a garrote-assisted suicide.

"It's time for your wakeup call, Kumamoto! Life doesn't work that way!
You're no Son of God! You're just a Son of Man; a human being that's
flawed and incapable of bearing the sins of the world by yourself."

'Sayo. Mother. Father. Uncle. Pray for me in Heaven. Body of Christ,
save me...'

As Amakusa expected, the banal, simpleminded Gan stampeded like a raging
bull once more, which served his purposes quite nicely. At the same
time, he felt movement in the corner of his eyes; either Yahiko or Minoe
had recovered from their shellshock. He didn't care which.

'The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is
my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.'

His flurry of slashes whistled into the air and sliced the cleft of
Gan's chin; the only part of the muscular gangster within his striking
range. He missed. He misjudged the distance. He overextended himself to
compensate, which worsened his situation.

"That's the Elusive Tiger Feint, bitch!" came Gan's triumphant avowal as
he swung his mighty metal bat with every last bit of strength left in
his muscled body, the blow producing several muffled cracks from within
the vulnerable Shogo that led him to expel bubbling blood, saliva,
mucus, and vomit from his oral and nasal orifices a second time.

Nevertheless, Amakusa stayed up on his feet. He didn't stop fighting for
one second. Even as his legs betrayed him like Judas Iscariot did to
Jesus Christ and his strength left him as though he were the Samson who
had his hair cut off by Delilah, he kept on swinging his lengthy blade
to the bitter end.


===


Two hours past midnight, inside the Shinshushin Mansion's body-strewn
ballroom...

Shogo Amakusa wouldn't go down. Why did he keep on fighting? Was he
really that deluded or brainwashed into thinking he was the savior of
his people? Slash after slash, cut after cut, slice after slice; he
stood his ground as though the sky would fall if he didn't.

"Give up your god delusion right now. It's about time you stopped living
your life according to the expectations of others!" Gan's own words
struck a chord inside him; he wondered if he'd been lecturing Amakusa or
himself all this time.

Inwardly, Gan gasped for dear life, his nostrils and lungs working
overtime to wake his lightheaded self up as the world shuddered and lost
its color before him.

Several times, his irises unfocused and rolled up to the top of his head
until only his sclera became visible. How many years of his life did he
lose in this one fight? That was presuming, of course, that he'd live to
see another sunrise after it.

'No. I'm almost there. Kumamoto is the one running on fumes now.' Gan
stopped for a moment to think. 'Wait, what does that mean, 'running on
fumes'? A tired horse powered by his own farts? I think of the strangest
things sometimes.'

Unable to jump any longer... his wings clipped and his strength
sapped... the blue-faced Shogo wailed a hoarse battle cry as he again
scraped the edge of his sword on the floor so that it'd serve as his
leverage of sorts in order to pull off unsheathing techniques without
using a scabbard.

Amakusa landed his strike, but he had to enter the Indomitable Gan's
attacking range in order to do so. Lacking a saya to cover up his
vulnerabilities, the Hidden Christian fell victim to the hooligan's
sickening combinations and thudding straight right hands that felt like
bricks.

The charismatic Kakure Kirishitan leader managed to execute back-to-back
Ryu Kan Sen Tsumuji and Ryu Kan Sen Kogarashi that left a pair of nasty
lacerations on Gan's back before succumbing to the pressure and
punishment of the thug's cracking right uppercuts and battering tetsubo
swings that forced the zealot to take a knee and curl up into a
protective ball.

He flopped down to the ground a moment later, his scarlet face scuffed
up and swelling beyond recognition. It was over. The Glorious Gan had
won the war of attrition. He dropped on all fours, his fresh sheen of
sweat making his injuries sting and sizzle like a Sunnyside up egg on a
frying pan.

"Holy shit, Gan. Holy shit." Yahiko's hands went over his head, the
sharp tufts of his hair jutting over his clenched fists, the strap for
his inherited straw hat chafing him somewhat because he was too busy
being flabbergasted to adjust it. "Are you okay? Also, just who the hell
are you supposed to be? A former Shinsengumi member? A bodyguard for
hire? A hitman? How'd you manage to beat Amakusa?"

"I'm fine, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm just another bum who happens
to know a thing or two about manliness and brawling. I'm a man of many
talents." Gan chuckled as he closed Yahiko's agape mouth from the
chin up with his finger. He winced after his chuckling worsened his
collection of cuts, lacerations, and bruises from Amakusa.

The Tokyo Samurai Descendant harrumphed. "Your feigned humility pisses
me off. Cut that out."

"Guess what, Yoshi-boy? I've beaten a force of nature. Maybe I should
take on a volcanic eruption or a hurricane next," the spent Gan said to
the shell-shocked Yahiko while eyeing the person-sized hole Minoe left
after he punched the spy's clock from today to next week.

It was Yahiko's turn to slump down on the ground along with his brawny
food bandit companion whom he'd met the other day, his brain trying its
best to digest the surprisingly powerful hooligan's words. 'The meat-
bun-munching son of a bitch actually did it. What do you know?'

Yahiko moved his head in time to see Minoe standing over both him and
Gan, the spy's short sword held with a reverse grip. Thanks to the
lighting of the room, the front part of the turnip-banged, eye-patch-
wearing man-child's body that faced the other two Sanbaka was covered
in shadow. "Minoe."

"Sorry about hitting you earlier, Patches. Don't worry, I didn't kill
your precious Kumamoto. I hope that counts for something and I also hope
you're not too mad at me for kicking his ass. He deserved it," Gan said
without looking at the Togakudan secret agent's face.

For the longest time, Minoe and Yahiko stared... glared... looked... at
each other, both their right hands tightly gripping the handles of their
respective weapons, when all of a sudden, Munenori pointed with his free
hand and squeaked, "S-S-Shogo-sama... is a-alive?"

"Well, yeah. Didn't I just tell you, Patches? I only beat him within an
inch... of... his... Holy fucking piss on a shit. Don't you know when to
quit, Kumamoto?" Just opposite Minoe and right in front Gan stood the
trembling yet defiant Shogo Amakusa.

The Christian insurgent snapped his eyes open so rapidly, it appeared as
if his eyelids were ripped off.

"You can take on natural disasters now? No. You're mistaken. You've only
survived so far. Let me show you what I'm truly capable of," Shogo
declared before taking a glass orb that appeared like, for all intents
and purposes, a snow globe from underneath his robes, tossed it up, and
sliced it cleanly in half with his sword.

"With this Gadamer Gem, I shall ascend to a higher plane of existence
and fulfill the expectations of my people. Repent and reflect on your
own powerlessness. Rai Ryu Sen."

Because he was exhausted beyond belief, Amakusa was forced to use his
ultimate attack, the Rai Ryu Sen. While Battousai was more battoujutsu-
oriented and Seijuro Hiko the Thirteenth abused the Kuzu Ryu Sen to no
end, the Dragon Lightning Flash served as Shogo's signature move, which
was a technique he invented by combining the basic principles of Nikaido
Heiho and Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu together. Hyoue Nishida himself favored
the Ryu Kan Sen for some reason.

"What the fuck is a Gadamer?" Gan wondered aloud before witnessing an
overwhelming blanket of white envelop everything in sight. His dilated
pupils' enlarged aperture absorbed unto it every last light source
within the room as reflected by Shogo's shining blade, which activated
his eyes' light-sensitive cells and resulted in a flash of sorts that
incapacitated him for about five seconds.

'Rai Ryu Sen...?' Unlike Gan, Yahiko shut his eyes in time to avoid
taking the full brunt of the stunning Dragon Lightning Flash. An
unmoving, wavy afterimage of Amakusa brandishing a glowing sword that
was seemingly made of light persisted in his vision, as though it were
burned right into his retinas. From behind the Tokyoite, Minoe covered
his exposed eye and retreated to the corner.

Afterwards, something curious happened to the Myojin boy. His skin
became warmer while rivulets of sweat dripped across his drenched and
aching body even though for the better part of the last twenty minutes,
Gan was the one exerting the most effort in bringing down Shogo. He
opened his eyes, only to reel at what he saw.

An infinite hallway with flying clothes, a gigantic domino set that had
already fallen save for the last piece, crossbows without arrows
disappearing into one point, a single large spear, a silhouette of a man
not doing the fandango, and tiles that alternated in different shades of
purple and blue.

Upon closer inspection, Yahiko realized that the floating clothes were
not clothes at all but a jumping horse with gigantic hooves, and the
spear was actually held by a samurai, and the crossbows were wielded by
archers who all looked like pieces of attire from afar. Yahiko smiled,
laughed, and cried. Gan did the same once his own vision cleared, but in
reverse order so that he'd retain his uniqueness.

The horse spoke, and both Gan and Yahiko realized it wasn't a horse at
all, but a man with a shining sword. Amakusa the Shogo. Shogo the
Amakusa. White Amakusa. Shiro Shogo Amakusa. Tokisada Amakusa Shiro
Shogo Muto. Whoever he was, he soon spoke of words that made less sense
to Gan and Yahiko than his name.

"Who has ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the
wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has
established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his
son's name, if you can't tell?"

"Spare me the speech. Haven't you learned your lesson yet, Kumamoto?"
asked Gan.

"Despite what you've claimed, I will meet and exceed the expectations of
my people. Unlike you, I won't become a disappointment," answered
Amakusa.

Gan spat at the ground. "You rat bastard."

>From thereon end, things started to get really strange.

The Holy Mighty One's feet rose from the ground as his bloodstained
garments were bathed with immaculate brightness. He metamorphosed before
the Three Stooges, his clothes transforming into a dazzling white that
all the world's bleach couldn't provide and glowing tendrils of plasma
that effused his katana with electricity and fire. Even the holes in his
feet and hands burned bright with streaks of flame.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus who, being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and
was made in the likeness of men."

A halo of luminosity surrounded the Sacred Immortal's head while his
hair floated in every which way as though he were underwater. Meanwhile,
the center of his crucifix scar featured an ornate heart that produced
two different colored rays of radiance; because his blood and sweat
poured out of his chest like a forgiving spring of trust for his people,
they were represented by shafts of red light from his right side and
beams of white from his left side.

"The perfect and gifted should not be punished for their perfection or
their giftedness. I am not ashamed of being great. It is God who arms me
with strength and makes my way perfect. Therefore, I shall be perfect as
the heavenly Father is perfect."

On the left of the Exalted One was the Blessed Virgin Lady Magdalia, a
woman of about twenty years of age with chestnut brown hair and hazel
eyes (his precious sister, his queen, his source of perpetual strength,
the sweetness of hope) dressed in lilac and peach, a single line of
blood dripping from her serene smile. On the right side of the Anointed
One was the martyr and saint known as Shozo Lorenzo, an apostle of
Amakusa who epitomized supreme loyalty and devotion, the heroic Soldier
of Christ and the unyielding defender of the faith.

"Hey, Yoshi-boy?" Gan ventured.

"Yeah?" Yahiko replied.

"I'm not the only one seeing all this crazy shit, right?" Gan specified.

"I'm afraid so," Yahiko confirmed. 'That aura of light surrounding
Amakusa... Is that the full manifestation of his kenki? I can't believe
what I'm seeing.'

"All right. Let's get this over with." Ignoring the moans, groans, and
lamentations of his muscles, tendons, joints, skin, and bones, the Great
Gan held aloft the hunk of metal he claimed to be his weapon and said,
"I don't know what magic trick you did to look like a walking Bon
Festival, but stop it. Act like a normal person. You're not god. You're
not a natural disaster... so to speak. A 'god' doesn't get his ass
kicked by some asshole with a metal bat. Go back to sleep."

"And I beheld Satan as he fell from Heaven like lightning."

The infinite hallway shattered like glass after the Amakusa the Most
Holy disappeared and reappeared from behind Gan in one third of a
second.

"Ryu Sou Sen Garami."

Gan gurgled while the breeze produced by the rebel's seeming
teleportation ruffled the hair and clothes of Yahiko and Minoe.

"G-Gan?" Yahiko queried, a hard-to-swallow feeling of dread stuck in his
esophagus, choking him with fear. "Are you all right?"

Minoe went as pallid as Rin Akahori usually was as he fell to his knees
with a soft thud. "No... Please, no."

"Don't worry Patches! Yoshi-boy! I won't die even if you kill me!" Gan
turned towards Yahiko and Minoe, a smile frozen on his face.

Gan guffawed, which made his fingers fall off one by one. He laughed
even harder, which made his arms and parts of his thick body follow
suit. He bellowed the heartiest cackle he could muster, which reduced
him to falling chunks of bloody meat cubes.

It took a second for everyone in the room, including Gan's killer, to
comprehend what had transpired. A second later, tears fell; the Sanbaka
was no more, so henceforth came howling and gnashing of teeth.

"GAN!"


===


Next: Guilt and regrets.

I'm taking several artistic liberties when it comes to "recycling"
filler arc villains in this continuation fanfic, which is readily
apparent by the way Amakusa's anime origin was slightly retconned
for the purposes of this story's continuity.

Gan paraphrases the great Colin Mochrie from "Whose Line Is It
Anyway?" fame with the narrative quip of "There was only one thing
I could do." Meanwhile, the "If lightning were to hit me..." quote
was taken from renowned boxing historian Bert Sugar's assessment
of Margarito after the first Miguel Cotto versus Antonio Margarito
fight.

Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others)
are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen
Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallop, Studio Deen, and
ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted
material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me
please, I'm very poor.

Taas noo kahit kanino,
Abdiel