[FFML] [yyh][ry][xover] Youtou Shinnoken Chapter 30: Tactics (Part 5)

[Abdiel]

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Youtou Shinnoken
A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction
By Chester Castañeda
chester.castaneda at gmail.com
gabriel_gabdiel at yahoo.com
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/223441/
Original concept by Chad Yang
chadjill at ms3.hinet.net
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/56473/

Here's some more back-and-forth action between multiple Rurouni Kenshin
characters who've been reincarnated in the "present" time of 1993.
Identities and back stories will soon be revealed.


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Chapter 30: Tactics (Part 5)

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During the afternoon graduation ceremony of Daiji Matsudaira, around the
late eighties, in Daiji and Itsumi Ikumi's high school in Taito...

"Is that what you want me to say? 'I love you'? Please. Don't flatter
yourself," Itsumi said once Daiji professed his love for her after his
graduation, gave the second topmost button of his uniform to her (a
unique Japanese tradition done every graduation day by upperclassmen for
their younger peers), and attempted to kiss her, just like in one of
those cheesy Hollywood movies.

He might've gone too far with the kiss.

Bearing a handprint on his face and a million questions on what went
wrong, Daiji attempted to backtrack and deduce what had happened,
believing the phrase, "Hindsight is twenty-twenty," as truth. However,
he couldn't come up with an answer. His deductive skills were worthless
in matters of the heart.

Was it because he was the child of their servants? Did she consider him
more of a brother than a potential boyfriend? Was the timing not right?
Was she seeing someone else? Should he even snoop around her private
life, especially after she admonished him for doing so that one time?

He balefully concluded that hindsight wasn't _always_ twenty-twenty
after all. Of course, as he made his way back to his parents' house,
which was incidentally the same place where his employers/childhood
friends lived, he gradually and painfully understood the true meaning
of that saying.

Itsumi Ikumi had called Daiji a living mannequin, an alien, a wax
figure, and a robot who didn't know how to love. When they were in
junior high, she even started calling him "Mister Roboto" after the
international Styx hit.

He embarrassed her. He must've. After all, how awkward was it for her
butler's adopted son to buzz around her like some sort of same-age
chaperone? He couldn't believe he only realized this just now. She
must've hated him!

And now he... who was some crime-drama fanatic that was abandoned by his
hostess mother due to his existence "inconveniencing" her and adopted by
a childless couple that worked under the employ of the family whose
daughter he was obsessing about... had the audacity to confess his love
and ask his mistress out on a date?

He should've known better than to believe that a manservant like him
ever had a chance with an "Ojou" like Itsumi, who herself had countless
suitors pining for her and piles of love letters every morning. He
should've read the "Prince and the Pauper" first instead of taking one
look at the title and imagining it as a love story between a prince and
his servant who go against the world with their love.

Moreover, he was already lucky enough to receive the stable life he
currently had, and now he had to ruin it all by believing in an insipid
dream wherein servants could ask their employers out on dates. He
should've known his place. How was he to talk to her now? How
uncomfortable will their "home life" be from now on?

Pretty soon, once he joined the National Police Agency and passed his
tests with flying colors, he should be able to leave the Ikumi Manor
and tread his own path as a detective like he'd always dreamed.

Even though the road ahead of him was tough, and Japanese police go
through a more comprehensive and educational approach that mixed
Confucian principles with samurai fighting traditions, at least he could
go forth the next phase of his life in such a way that would honor the
sacrifices and love that his foster parents offered him, especially in
light of the prejudice they suffered from being foster parents.

It was indeed such a shame that the otherwise happy occasion of him
finally graduating from high school and entering the police academy was
marred by the outright rejection of the one girl he loved.

In a bittersweet twist, Itsuka... the name Daiji called the Ikumi
sisters collectively... soon knew how he felt as a faux orphan during
most of his childhood thanks to the ill-fated flight of their parents
on Japan Airline Flight 350. The tragedy happened around a year after
the boy was first adopted by the Matsudaira couple.

When rumors spread of him being an orphan adopted by a servant... thank
Buddha his bullies never found out about his mother from Kabukicho...
the first ones to come to his defense from after-school bullying were
the Ikumi sisters, especially Itsumi, because they actually became
classmates more than once as they were growing up.

Naturally, his bullies teased the two of them by calling them husband
and wife whenever Itsumi attempted to protect him from them. They
sometimes included Likka in the chant, saying she was Daiji and Itsumi's
"lovechild".

This probably gave Daiji weird ideas regarding his relationship with his
mistress.

Later that afternoon, he came back to the manor to help out his aging
parents and the Ikumi's army of servants with the chores, like he was
tasked to do. However, the first person to greet him at the front door
was none other than Itsumi herself.

She apologized for her blitheness earlier, to which he waved off. He
reassured that everything was fine between the two of them. He asked why
her cheeks were flushed red when she kissed him on the lips before
inviting him to come inside to celebrate his graduation with a small
dinner party arranged by everyone in the house.

It was around that time that she started calling him "Jiji-chan"
instead of "Jiji-kun". Six months later, they were dating. Afterwards,
they were engaged and married about a year later, after their high
school graduation. Daiji then concluded that women were mysteries
that weren't meant to be solved by any man.


===


"No..." Daiji whispered as he saw Feng stab his chest with his kodachi
as though it now served as its new sheath. Meanwhile, the Blood Wind
homed in on his location like a shark would to injured prey in order to
absorb the pool of red underneath him. "T-This isn't supposed to
happen..." He squinted again to check if there was any sign of his wife
among the throng of souls that nourished the Chinese man. He couldn't
find her.

'Xinhai is right. No matter how skilled his opponent is, if he can
outlast them in an endurance contest, he'd be the winner in the end,'
Aoshi told Daiji as they both fidgeted and bled to death. 'As skilled as
I was back in the Bakumatsu no Douran and the Meiji Era, none of it
matters against this man who's as strong, or perhaps even stronger, than
demons from the Demon World itself.'

'Does none of your memories as an Oniwabanshu spy hold any clues on how
to defeat this monster?' Daiji despaired while his consciousness
flickered several times from the blunt-force trauma caused by the
plasma-created miniature hurricane. 'Is there nothing we can do to stop
him? To avenge It-chan's death? Was everything I've done so far for
nothing? The research I did? The clues I've gathered? There has to be a
way!'

"It's around this time that you, the hero of the story, will gain the
upper-hand because I have a loved one of yours held hostage. However,
there's no loved one to be saved here. You had your chance about four
years ago. You already blew it. You can't even save yourself," addressed
Feng Xinhai to the detective lying on the crumbling ground as the red
cyclone grew larger.

"Go to hell, Xinhai," seethed Daiji, but he could do nothing more.

The aura of purple and black jaki fire surrounding Xinhai had become
hot enough to devolatilize the surrounding concrete before turning it
into a red-hot, molten goop along with the liquefied I-beams. Meanwhile,
the rest of the office supplies and appliances were burned into ashes,
while others were outright sublimated via close contact with Feng's
dark flames.

'It's about time. It _took_ me long enough to build up my aura. I was
almost worried that I wasn't able to break the seals that restrained my
power in time,' noted Xinhai as he admired how the black conflagration
surrounding his battle-damaged body healed his every wound faster than
his slaves did.

Crying salty tears mixed with blood and dirt, the red-and-blue-eyed
Daiji bit his lip and waited for the growing twister's impact. 'Even
after I've summoned my past self from a hundred years ago, it still
wasn't enough. That goddamn murderer is always a step ahead of me. Just
when I thought I had the answers, he changes the questions!'

'Maybe not...' Aoshi thought. Or Daiji did. They couldn't tell at the
moment; they were too busy fighting against the raging winds of a
crimson tempest that threatened to take away the entire Shinjuku Hisashi
Building with it.

A little later, after they've cleaved into pieces a desk cabinet that
was hemorrhaging reams of office files and bond paper, a voice that the
detective was sure was the Okashira's inquired, 'What have you
discovered about Xinhai that no one else knows?'

'He's a copycat killer. Nothing he has done before and since are of his
own creation. His modus operandi is always a reflection of someone
else's... What are you doing, Shinomori Aoshi?' was Daiji's double-take
as his past self allowed their shared body to spin around in a twisting
loop.

'I'm going to get us out of here and use what you've learned about
Xinhai Feng against him.'

"I am a shinobi of water. Formless. Shapeless. I can adapt to any change
and conquer any obstacle with my fluidness," said Aoshi aloud with words
that were seemingly amplified by the funnel of whirling dust and debris.

"Didn't you hear what I said earlier? Water is helpless against a storm
and a mere inconvenience against a mountain!" responded Xinhai.

"If you act like the storm, I will become the sea and use your strength
to empower me. If you act like the mountain, I will be the rapids that
can smoothen you out into a valley in due time."

"You don't have enough time on your side to break down this mountain,
Okashira! And a tsunami can never reach the stormy skies!" Appropriately
enough, what little of the jaki flames that remained on Xinhai's body
flared and surged like the waves of the sea under the nimbus canopy of a
storm.

To Daiji, Feng eulogized, "Goodbye, Detective. I look forward to making
you one of my slaves. You'll probably become the strongest of them all,
even. TORNADO RIPPER!"

>From the eye of the snaking storm, a spinning Aoshi emerged, his blade
slicing and cutting through everything in its path like a helicopter
rotor, the G-Force of his own centrifugal motion aiding his flight.
With the speeds he'd attained, he should be able to puree Xinhai into
ground meat with a thousand Kaiten Kenbu a minute.

"You're as arrogant as the Chojin's pet dogs, the Onmyouji and Rando,"
scorned the One-Eight-Ten Killer. "There's nothing as pathetic as a
misplaced sense of confidence and self-importance. You are not my equal.
Very soon, once you become a part of me, even the Guardian of the Demon
Sword won't be a match against me any longer!"


===


Because Japan was a culture that upheld traditional family structures
and blood ties above all else, foster parents tend to blaze an unpopular
trail within the country, so to speak. For the longest time, Daiji never
spoke about his birth mother from Shinjuku's Sleepless Town or the fact
that it was the Ikumi family's beloved servants that adopted him.

He felt like a burakumin or an untouchable who had a skeleton in his
closet he should never, ever expose. Then again, deep down, he didn't
see what was wrong with being adopted or an orphan (he technically
wasn't, but the point was still clear).

He wasn't able to read many Japanese novels or watch any local movies
discussing the topic of adoption, orphanages, foster parents, and so
forth, so he turned towards western fiction like the translated Oliver
Twist as his literary refuge. He hated how depressing the book and the
movie were, though.

Despite Itsumi's claims to the contrary, he'd also watched the animated
classic, "A Dog of Flanders" too (during its first run on television, at
that). The plight of Nello and Patrasche, the heartbreaking ending of
the series, and the song "Yoake no Michi" always brought a tear to his
allegedly "soulless" blue eyes.

He even read a translated version of the original Maria Louise Rame
novel and watched the remake by Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1992, although
he wasn't so keen on changing Patrasche's colors from brown and white
to Scottish Terrier gray.

As he perused book after translated book in his spare time while
occasionally reading crime fiction about the hard-boiled cops of the
early forties and fifties, he stumbled upon the originator of all great
detective fiction: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series. He
was instantly hooked; he loved the sharp intellect of the turn-of-the-
century sleuth, although he did resent the rumor that many murder
mysteries featured the _butler_ as the main culprit.

Years later, it would occur to Daiji that he never quite remembered a
story wherein the butler actually did "it", although they were certainly
a lot of them where a manservant was framed for a crime or used a red
herring to confuse the reader of who the true perpetrator was.

Around the mid-eighties, when he was enrolled in the same high school as
Itsumi (paid for by the Matsudairas, who were well-compensated for their
work by the Ikumis), he stumbled around his first-ever "case".

No, nobody got hurt or killed and no serious felonies were committed. No
lovers' quarrels or crimes of passion happened either. Instead, he was
tasked with the problem of helping out Itsumi's Cooking Club measure
their ingredients for their Cake Sale for the School Festival at the
last minute because the Science Club (whose president Itsumi rejected
after he confessed his love for her) might or might not have done a
prank on them and removed all their measuring cups within their kitchen
save for spoons that might or might not be table spoons.

Itsumi offered to cover for all the expenses of the stolen goods by
buying them or getting them from her house in Taito, but at the time,
the Bunkasai was literally only moments away from happening, and they've
already bought all their ingredients. They need to measure one cup of
flour precisely for their special, one-of-a-kind cake recipe, but they
have no idea to do it.

In desperation, Itsumi tugged Daiji away from the generic Haunted House
attraction of the Literature Club (otherwise known by the school as the
Scoobies because of their association with him), and asked him for
help, probably thinking that he'd go the route of exposing the Science
Club for their dastardly deeds. She certainly wanted to throttle the
Science Club president for this dilemma.

Holding a chart and conversion table bearing the international units of
measurement that covered both the metric system and the pre-metric
system of pounds and ounces (since the Cooking Club was using the
troubling and inexact American way of measuring ingredients in their
recipe), he suggested the following that allowed the club to get their
required number of cakes made within minutes of the actual School
Festival.

Because a cup is approximately half a pint, half a pint of dry
ingredients like flour should be around two hundred fifty to three
hundred grams. He noticed that they had a jug of milk that held about
two hundred seventy-five grams. He noted that an empty pint of milk
jug could be filled halfway, and it would follow the recipe.

Furthermore, there was also an empty bag of sugar available, which could
also be used to get a ballpark figure when measuring their ingredients.
Finally, he proposed another avenue of measurement by pouring roughly
half a pint of milk into a normal drinking glass, marking off how full
the glass was, washing it and drying it out, and presenting it as a
approximation of a cup of flour for the cooking club.

The "Encyclopedia Brown" (yes, he even read those types of detective
books in his spare time) nature of the case made it seem like a minor
incident when compared to his first real criminal case as a new recruit
of the Taito Police. He wasn't even able to put the supposed bad guys of
the stories... the Science Club or their president... to justice.
Nevertheless, it was around that time that he got a peck on the cheek by
Itsumi as thanks for his help.


===


'Guardian of the Demon Sword? The Chojin? _Youkiri_ Battousai? I have to
know what Xinhai knows. I have to know why I was awakened during this
day and age when I'm already living another's life,' mused Aoshi with
words that sounded like nonsense to Daiji before executing his tried-
and-true and powered-up succession technique, "Kaiten Kenbu..."

"Haven't you learned your lesson, Okashira? SONIC SHOCKWAVE!" hollered
Xinhai, only for his eyes to bug out when he realized that Shinomori had
instead aimed his weapon at the nodachi instead of him, which
neutralized the attempted Tobi Izuna before it could create another
devastating sonic boom.

"...ROKUREN!" finished the Oniwabanshu's last leader after snatching
away his other kodachi from Feng's grip and doing the remaining nigh-
simultaneous slashes on the same arm he cleaved through earlier. By
instinct, the tortured One-Eight-Ten Killer unleashed a Blood Wind to
keep Aoshi from capitalizing on his landed strikes, but the ninja merely
used his Water Flow Movement to avoid the cyclone and allow the bigger
Tornado Ripper to swallow the plasma-powered technique whole.

The resulting clash blew through three floors above and below the
forty-fourth floor, resulting in a gaping hole on one side of the
building that provided a great view of the afternoon sky and the
Skyscraper District.

Aoshi managed to stay on the same floor by fluidly moving towards the
other side of the ground and stabbing his swords through the concrete.
Feng Xinhai was nowhere to be found... for the time being, but the
ominous rumblings a couple of floors down below the detective didn't
bode well.

To Daiji's confusion, Aoshi informed, 'The Raijuta I've heard about that
a... rival of mine, Himura Battousai, defeated, wanted to emulate the
swordsmanship of the past because he views Meiji Era kendo as a joke.
His Shinko Ryu, much like his Nikaido Heiho, was also a technique he
_copied_, not developed, so it's not a stretch of the imagination to
think that his modus operandi of gathering the suffering of others was
also copied. His flaming aura and his use of a longsword were also
copied from other people, I bet.'

Daiji did a mental equivalent of a ramble. 'How will all _that_ save us
from _him_? He's unstoppable! He's... like some sort of Norse or Greek
God who has control over the elements! He can toss around hurricanes
and tornadoes like rocks! Up until now, I'm still unsure of whether or
not I'm in the middle of some sort of drug-addled nightmare! How do you
beat a copycat anyway?'

'That's a good question. Here's the answer.' As though on cue, what
little of the ground gave way, and out emerged a flaming and cackling
Xinhai Feng. The serial killer said, "Now that's more like it! I was
waiting for you to step up. Unfortunately, as always, you will be found
wanting...!"

"...Know the original. A copy is _always_ inferior or limited to the
capabilities of its originator. The copycat doubly suffers from the
weaknesses of the person he copies, plus he can never be as good as
the genuine article," Aoshi explained to Daiji while the leaping
Feng's feet landed on the I-beam below him.

"What are you blathering about? Are you really going to attempt to
psyche me out with the fact that I'm a copycat killer? Go ahead,
Shinomori Aoshi. Psychoanalyze me to death," ridiculed Feng as he
prepared to unleash his Tornado Ripper for the third time.

"As you wish." Aoshi plucked out his short swords from the ground, hid
the both of them at his back, ran towards Xinhai as though his hands
were handcuffed behind him, and smoothly disappeared into a sea of his
own doppelgangers. Subsequently, the Okashira's disappearing afterimages
surrounded the pyrokinetic six-footer.

"Ryusei no Ugoki and Jissen Kenbu _again_? Haven't you learned from the
last time that those techniques won't..." Xinhai's upcoming tirade was
cut short as Aoshi sliced his face and body up from angles he couldn't
see, then stabbed him repeatedly from behind. The serial killer cursed
in Chinese. "Shabi! Stand still and fight like a man!"

"You got that 'Hei' scar from the real Kanji Killer because, like a
raging bull, you can only hit things that are right in front of you. You
can't do anything against someone who moves laterally; every time you
turn and follow me, you're wide open."

Thusly, Shinomori did just as he said, moving within the nodachi's
striking range and then using the Ryusei no Ugoki at the last moment to
disappear from Xinhai's field of vision and catch him with sharp kodachi
counterstrikes as he pivoted and turned to follow him.

Xinhai's wild swings at the uncatchable shinobi turned what remained of
the forty-fourth floor's crumbling ground into dust and creaking I-
beams, which led both of the combatants fighting and hopping on falling
debris and wreckage. As usual, Feng's monstrous stamina allowed him to
survive the attacks, but he still had problems returning fire at someone
who refused to fight his fight. "Hun dan! Da bien! Yaro! Motherfucker!"

"That's why Kurogasa was able to scar your back. You're one-dimensional.
Even your Shinko Ryu is flawed and wide open against projectiles. It's
the reason why Daiji has the scar on his chest instead of his back. The
only thing you know to do is charge and fight face-to-face, toe-to-toe.
You have difficulty hitting something that you can't see."

They'd again ended up on the devastated forty-third floor. Around this
time, the office personnel from the different companies renting the
floor had long ago fled towards the fire exits. Xinhai tried to
duplicate his earlier success by attempting a Tornado Ripper, but Aoshi
blocked his attempts every time with a well-timed and stinging Kaiten
Kenbu Rokuren.

None of the Matoi Izuna hit Aoshi like before, while the Tobi Izuna
were rendered null and void thanks to his added lateral movement and
occasional Onmyou Hasshi that he followed through with a Kaiten Kenbu
Rokuren regardless if the technique landed or not. The Chinese man
couldn't even do a normal Izuna because the shinobi kept attacking his
blind spot with kenpo while defending himself with his kodachi defense.

"Sure, you tried fixing this fundamental flaw by stealing various
techniques and strengthening your body to the point of imperviousness
against most any attack. But aside from that, you've remained a one-
note tune: Hack and slash everything in front of you."

Feng grabbed hold of the base of his nodachi again to shorten its
length and allow him to keep up against the revived ninja's lightning-
fast strikes and do Nikaido Heiho techniques. It didn't help.

"But even your Nikaido Heiho is flawed. Not only were you not able to
master the Shin no Ippo; you're using the technique wrong. Kurogasa's
technique resembles that of the surprise attacks of the poisonous snake
and the boa constrictor. You may know the forms, but your over-muscled
body is unsuited for a precision swordsmanship school like Nikaido
Heiho."

Ironically, Aoshi Shinomori countered Feng Xinhai's version of Jine
Udo's technique the same way Xinhai countered Shinomori's Oniwabanshu
Sword Dance: The Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren stopped the full "Hei" kanji
kata cold, while the Goku Juji quashed the nameless back-pass strike.

"You were clever enough to hide yourself from authorities by stealing
the different modus operandi of the most notorious serial killers out
there, but in the end, when you ran out of things to steal from them,
you decided to let others do your dirty work for you. You're
incorrigible. There's isn't an original bone in your body."

"Shut up! I am but a mirror. A mirror that reflects the hypocrisies of
the world," howled Xinhai as he again used the Blood Wind to stop Aoshi
from blocking the "TORNADO RIPPER!" which resulted in a white and red
helix of utter annihilation.

"No. You are a hypocrite. A hypocrite who sees his own hypocrisies in
everyone else." As the tornado blasted away everything in sight,
Aoshi dove right into the eye of the storm and spun around in place
like a propeller or windmill would right in front of the One-Eight-Ten
Killer, his flight powered by Xinhai's own ultimate skill.

Afterwards, after every rotation, he did a Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren. The
faster he spun, the more Spiral Sword Dances he did; he might as well
been the blades of a blender, as far as Xinhai was concerned. Soon, both
he and Xinhai were covered in blood. Undeterred by the horrific turn of
events, the alleged S-Level Shin Ju member unleashed another Blood
Wind and a Tobi Izuna for good measure in order to create a gigantic
Sonic Shockwave powered by both the Blood Wind and the Tornado Ripper.

All floors from the forty-third onwards were blasted into smithereens.
Aoshi had no idea how many more people were still stuck up there as he
ran and took cover from the resulting explosion. However, because of
the recoil of the assault, all three hundred pounds of Xinhai came
crashing all the way down into the thirty-fifth floor.

Aoshi followed close behind the Chinese man by gradually descending
from one storey to the next using the holes Xinhai plummeted through on
each floor and his kodachi as grappling hooks of sorts. He saw the
serial killer atop the roof of a parked car that was crumpled up beyond
recognition.

"You claim to have fought Battousai? You allege that you've bested him?
Perhaps at the beginning, you did. Your might is supernatural. But in
the end, your simpleminded techniques are probably the reason why you
need to turn Daiji and me... _us_... into your 'slaves'. Even with the
way you are now, you still can't beat Battousai, can you?"


===


The Blood Wind proved to be a double-edged blade for the One-Eight-Ten
Killer. Rando reserved it as a last resort for a reason. Xinhai
presumed it was because the demon was only Class-C to Class-B Plus (he
had only reached Class-A just recently). As such, he had to deplete his
blood supply and his energy to execute the technique.

A Class-A Plus to Class-S warrior like the mighty Feng Xinhai should've
been able to deploy the technique with no problem whatsoever! However,
because he'd abused the Blood Wind too many times, he now couldn't
produce the jaki flames that allowed him to create the Tornado Ripper
and the Sonic Shockwave.

Where had all his power gone? It couldn't have all been sucked out by a
second-rate technique from a third-rate, copycat demon! Besides which,
an A-Level beating an S-Level was unheard of! Just a couple of hours
ago, Xinhai was able to beat down the Class-A Battousai and his Class-B
friends with ease using only the shikigami technique he learned from the
Onmyouji. And now some recently awakened warrior from the Meiji Era who
still wasn't versed in spiritual combat managed to use his own power
against him? Preposterous!

Wait. The Onmyouji...!

'That's right, Xinhai. You were getting too big for your britches. You
needed to be taught a lesson,' the helmet-haired dark priest of the
Chojin, the human who was once known as Houji Sadojima, telepathically
mocked.

'You! You were the one who held back my power! Do you really think it's
a wise decision to waste jaki to hold back the power of one of the
Overfiend's greatest suppliers of negative energy? Your master will
punish you for your pettiness,' the nigh-bloodless Feng swore.

'Spare me your threats. You and I both know that I can only limit your
power up to a certain point. I have not increased the potency of my
seals. It's your power that has been compromised.' Xinhai could almost
hear the smugness drip out of every word.

'That's ridiculous. Everything I've done so far went according to plan.
Even the destruction of my shikigami in order to test whether Battousai
had access to his demon-slayer self went without a hitch. Not a single
reserve of jaki was wasted!'

'You didn't even notice, did you? I seem to recall that after your S-
Class shikigami was destroyed by Battousai's Hiryu Sen, you seemed to
have a bit of trouble against a bunch of B-Classes and an injured A-
Class,' drawled the Onmyouji.

'Battousai...? Don't be absurd. He only destroyed my shikigami, which
only uses a fraction of my power. Release my bonds this instant or face
the wrath of your master!' sniped Feng.

'And yet you weren't able to summon your familiar to fight alongside
you. You're arguably weaker than the shikigami you unleashed at the
Onden Shrine. You're having trouble with one A-Level when earlier, you
toyed with two Class-Bs and one Class-A. You had difficulty finishing
off lower tier foes. You couldn't even keep up the aura of flame you've
stolen directly from Chojin-sama, even though it's an essential
component of your special attack. I guess that Hiryu Sen affected you
more than you even realized.'

'Enough!' boomed Xinhai as Houji cut off his mental transmission with a
parting cackle and a question, 'Is Shinomori Aoshi correct? Without your
stolen S-Class powers, are you really that easy to put down, Xinhai
Feng?'

The Chinese man raged, his broken bones, mangled muscles, and torn skin
slowly regenerating through the heat of his own frustration. He didn't
have instantaneous regeneration like the Elder Toguro did, but his
healing powers were impressive enough by themselves.

Rando also screwed him over by making him use a technique that backfired
on him badly, sapping him of precious spiritual energy. He shouldn't
have underestimated the one Class-B he knew that managed to outsmart the
Spirit World's half-demon, S-Level champion, Yusuke Urameshi.

His near domination of Kenshin Himura and his revived comrades was also
ruined by a Flying Dragon Flash that shook the foundations of his
carefully planned schemes.

Understandably, by the time the Aoshi-possessed Daiji arrived to finish
him off and deliver his speech, mocking him in regards to his failure
to bring down a Battousai who hadn't even achieved full power, he
snapped and charged at the shinobi with reckless abandon.


===


Back to the relative present; on March 24, 1993; at the thirty-fifth
floor of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building...

"You're the one to talk! You've never once beaten Battousai when you
were alive! Are you proud that you were twice defeated soundly by
Battousai a hundred years back? WHIPPED DOGS DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO ACT
HIGH AND MIGHTY!"

Aoshi's hundred-year-old battle instincts allowed him to leap away from
the cluster of Tobi Izuna that flew from out of nowhere even though
Daiji's own twitch muscles weren't up to par. He then winced and bore
through the cascading waves of pain from all the injuries he suffered
earlier and from doing acrobatic feats on a recently hospitalized body.

The shinobi assured himself that it was only a matter of time before
this so-called Class-S simpleton went down. His aura of flames were
gone, and the Izuna he threw were somewhat smaller than before. Soon
enough, the Okashira would get his answers and provide his present
self with the closure he'd been clamoring for.

However, instead of dancing around wave upon wave of kamaitachi slashes
while moving laterally, the Last Oniwabanshu Leader found himself on the
defensive as the monstrous Xinhai wielded his Japanese longsword in one
hand, held his free arm behind him in a chicken wing position, and
loosened his footwork. He stood with his feet apart by his shoulder-
width, his front foot pointed straight at Aoshi's direction and his back
foot pointed sideways.

While Shinomori cut through the distance between them through continuous
probing parries and thrusts, Xinhai placed the tip of his blade at the
right of Aoshi's offensive kodachi. As the shinobi attempted to stab
him in the stomach and get around his nodachi, Feng bent his wrist in
order to point his lengthy weapon upward, then smoothly twisted his
wrist on a small, clockwise semicircle with a slight bend of the elbow
and minimal arm movement.

Aoshi had to regroup upon nearly getting disarmed and left wide open to
any number of counterstrikes. This was no Shinko Ryu or Nikaido Heiho
technique. The Okashira once chanced upon that move, specifically during
the time when the Meiji Government sought the help of the French and
their armies in order to win the Boshin War.

It was a technique that was best employed with a rapier, foil, or saber
instead of a katana. Daiji's infatuation with Sherlock Holmes also
helped fill in the rest of the blanks concerning the maneuver, which was
incidentally called a Contre Carte Parry.

"Fencing? While using a nodachi? Preposterous. Is this another technique
you've stolen?" demanded Aoshi as he tried using his Ryusei no Ugoki to
escape the suddenly nimble and flexible movements of the three-hundred-
pound Chinese man who earlier on swung the nodachi around as though it
were some sort of battle axe. To his surprise, Xinhai was now striking
and stabbing as fast as the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu just short of doing the
Shinsoki.

"Stole? Don't be silly. I've been trained in Olympic-level fencing since
childhood. Before Raijuta, before the Kanji Killer, this was my original
style. You want to see a multidimensional side of me? Here you go: My
ace up my other sleeve."

As Aoshi tried to use lateral movement and the Ryusei no Ugoki to again
confuse the Triad Mountain Master from knowing where to strike, the
latter did the same and kept him at bay by making use of the full
length of his longsword through a series of thrusts. The Okashira had
no choice but to parry and regroup, because the presently coiled-up and
nimble Xinhai could strike with a hundred thrusts a minute or counter
with precise, planned strikes at any moment.

The difference between Xinhai's fencing and kenjutsu were like night and
day. While with kenjutsu, he'd often eschew technique in favor of
delivering wide, heavy blows that overwhelmed opponents, the suddenly
conservative One-Eight-Ten Killer was a lot more precise and deliberate
with his fencing moves. Moreover, while his footwork was near
nonexistent with his Nikaido Heiho and Shinko Ryu styles, his charges
were unpredictable in fencing terms.

It quickly devolved into a tug of war between Aoshi delivering a killing
blow to the heavily damaged Xinhai and Xinhai biding his time and
settling with multiple quick and shallow punctures at angles that even
the fluid-moving Aoshi had a hard time defending against. The serial
killer's parries and counter parries were especially devastating
against the Jissen Kenbu and Ryusei no Ugoki because they relied
heavily on bullet-fast parries and slashes to keep the enemy at bay.

'I can't let this go on much longer,' Aoshi decided as he feinted a
Onmyou Kousa that Xinhai countered with a Contre Carte Parry, allowed
the Chinese man to commit to a thrust on an afterimage of his, and then
delivered a Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren during that split-second that Feng
hadn't returned to his En Garde position after missing his shot.
Tragically, it was at that moment that Daiji's body clenched up, the
damage and the punishment it suffered throughout the fight finally
catching up to it.

They both managed to go back to their ready positions at the same time
before they simultaneously went for the kill. Aoshi parried by whirling
around and attacking with his Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren anyway, but because
Japanese swordsmanship was limited to seven or eight cuts plus a thrust,
he couldn't block the strange angle of Xinhai's riposte that thrust his
sword right into the point where the crucifix part of the kanji scar
met.

'Dammit,' Daiji cursed to himself as he slid off Xinhai's blade and fell
to the ground. He tried his best, but it appeared his best wasn't good
enough.

The fight between the One-Eight-Ten Killer and Daiji Matsudaira ended
the same way it did the last time they fought... with the detective
lying on his back with a bleeding kanji scar and a pool of blood
while Feng Xinhai towered over him wounded but triumphant. Meanwhile,
the detective's twin kodachi had altogether disappeared because they
were constructs made from his latent spiritual power.

"Didn't I tell you? You don't have enough time left to crush this
mountain. Your waves will never reach the nimbus clouds of this storm.
It's the winds that control you, not the other way around." Xinhai
stepped on Daiji's fresh new stab wound and twisted his heel around it
just like Jine Udo did to him after they crossed swords. The detective
nearly fainted from the agony.

"Even though Shinomori Aoshi is more than a match against me, it's your
own limitations that brought him defeat, Detective. How did you think
I've mastered Shinko Ryu and Nikaido Heiho? It was because I had
swordsmanship training from the start. You, on the other hand, were a
cop with little to no battle experience save for your past life's
memories. Your fate was sealed from the very beginning."

A single tear that coalesced with his blood fell from Daiji's glassy
eyes. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that Xinhai wielded an arched
nodachi instead of a perfectly straight rapier or foil, the awkward
angle and the curvature of the weapon kept the sword from completely
running him through. Nevertheless, he'd already lost too much blood
regardless, thanks to Feng's prior strikes and that infernal Blood Wind.

"It's a damn shame how you and your spy cohorts were thrown away like
trash by the Tokugawas, Shinomori Aoshi. Fear not; you'll soon have the
honor of dying by my hand and becoming one of my slaves."

'Is this it? Is this the end? Was everything I've done to avenge my
wife and child's deaths for nothing?' he told his counterpart from a
hundred or so years ago, but this time around, his questions were met
with silence. 'A-Aoshi...?'

"Like a freshly picked fruit that I've waited to ripen all this time,
you've matured enough, I believe. It's about time I killed you, took
your power for my own, and faced Battousai for the right to wield the
Demon Sword." Xinhai shifted his stance from fencing to kenjutsu as he
aimed his longsword towards Daiji's neck. The Shinko Ryu produced a
much cleaner cut than fencing strikes did, after all. "IZUNA!"

"Kousa Dageki!" From out of nowhere, a metal walking staff clanged
against Xinhai's nodachi and knocked it back so that it hit the pavement
just a literal hairbreadth away from Daiji's scalp.

"Nihao, Fuqin," greeted Natsuki Shinkai in Mandarin Chinese. To Daiji,
she said, "I'm sorry I'm late, Sempai. You two fought all over the
place."

"N-Natsuki-kun...?" came the detective's weak rasp after turning to see
who his savior was.

"...Xiaji," said the paling and maimed Xinhai with a hint of awe in his
voice. He asked her in his... native tongue, "It's been a long time.
How were you? I was waiting for you to come back all this time ever
since you ended up here in Shinjuku."

Natsuki winced and gulped upon hearing confirmation from the One-Eight-
Ten Killer that she'd been pursuing all this time that he knew she was
there from the start. She then cleared her throat and spoke in plain
Japanese, "I won't let you kill Daiji-sempai, Xinhai Feng...!"

The half-Chinese, half-Japanese girl went silent and froze as the large
man stabbed his nodachi to the ground and grabbed hold of her in a tight
embrace. She fidgeted and struggled, thinking that Xinhai was out to
give her a fatal bear hug that'd crush the life out of her, but she
ceased her movements yet again as, to her shock, the great Triad
Mountain Master sobbed in Chinese, "I missed you so much, my daughter."

It took a while for the lightheaded Daiji to figure out what had been
said by these two Taiwanese immigrants, but he soon understood the
meaning behind some of the words.

"Xiaji" was the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation of the kanji for
"Natsuki". In turn, "Xinhai" was how the Chinese pronounced the kanji
for "Shinkai". Incidentally, "Fuqin" was Mandarin for "Father".

'Xinhai Feng. Xinhai Xiaji. Shinkai Natsuki. They're father and
daughter!' Daiji thought before he went unconscious.


===


Earlier, a week before Matsudaira's battle with Xinhai inside the
Shinjuku Hisashi Building...

Daiji Matsudaira was making great strides in recuperating from the
nightclub bombing within the same hospital where Natsuki Shinkai stayed
after battling the elusive Kanji Killer. During all that time, Likka
Ikumi, the detective's sister-in-law, and Shuichi "Kurama" Minamino
helped the half-Chinese girl spy on the activities of the recovering
detective for the entire week.

Whenever Detective-Specialist Aiko Tsunemoto or Inspector Masaya
Taniguchi took their visits of the detective so that he could help
them piece together evidence against the One-Eight-Ten Killer using the
events surrounding the failed sting operation, Kurama would eavesdrop
by bugging the room with the same ground-elder "wiretap" weeds he used
on the Shinjuku Police Station. He also had his Parrot Grass on hand to
relay the information as a loudspeaker of sorts.

As per usual, Detective Matsudaira remained meticulous when it came to
doing investigations; no stone was left unturned. He asked for the name
"Xinhai Feng" to be investigated, and sure enough, newspaper clippings,
composite sketches, and wanted posters regarding the infamous Shinjuku
Chinese mobster were produced by Detective Tsunemoto. As Feng Xinhai,
the One-Eight-Ten Killer was infamous in the underground world as a
drug smuggler and human trafficker.

The bedridden Daiji produced an entire case file of possible places
where this Feng Xinhai could be located within three days' time by only
knowing his name and his modus operandi as the mastermind behind the
Earth Club cases. From time to time, Likka would visit her brother-in-
law to "borrow" certain files, photocopy them, put them back in Daiji's
room, and send the copies to Natsuki so that the half-Chinese girl could
monitor the case's progress or figure things out for herself.

During rehab, Minamino told Natsuki what he knew about the Spirit World
and the Demon World as well as an abbreviated version of his adventures
with Yusuke Urameshi, Kazuma Kuwabara, and Hiei as Spirit World
Detectives. Natsuki remained skeptical but open-minded, especially since
she had yet to come up with a logical explanation concerning the
centuries-old youko's ability to manipulate plants at will. Curiously,
even the redhead had no idea what the Kanji Killer meant when he
mentioned the "Shin Ju" and the "Dai Shin Kan".

Most importantly, Kurama helped her deal with her problem regarding her
other "personality", Yutaro Tsukayama, which was something the half-
demon was intimately familiar with. After she had taken a bite out of
Botan's supposed "Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge" that made her aware
of her past self a century ago, that boy hand been bugging her all that
time. The immature brat inside her brain drove her stark-raving mad,
especially whenever he decided to pop up at inopportune moments like
when she was in the shower or getting dressed.

'I'm you, so it's okay for me to see you naked!' he'd always justify.
If it didn't hurt to hit herself when he was messing around with her
head, she would've already. She didn't have to deal with her five-year-
old self emerging in her consciousness at inconvenient moments, so that
should go double for her past self from a _century_ ago!

She and Kurama also trained with each other from time to time to help
speed up her recovery. She'd been meaning to ask Botan or Kaoru (she
didn't know which personality was which) to teach her more about the
Kamiya Kasshin School that her past self apparently mastered, but the
shinigami was busy as of late, so she hadn't had a chance to practice
the kenjutsu moves that her other self knew by heart.

Then, without warning or telling his boss or sister-in-law of his plans,
Daiji Matsudaira checked himself out of the hospital and sped off on a
taxicab straight to his apartment. Fortunately, Likka had pilfered
enough information for Natsuki to figure out where the detective was
headed. So, with Kurama beside her, they retraced Daiji's steps and
ended up at the Shinjuku Hisashi Building within the Skyscraper
District.


===


Back to the relative present; on March 24, 1993; at the thirty-fifth
floor of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building...

"Oh, how you've grown. How long has it been since I last saw you? You
always knew I was here, didn't you? That's why we lived so close
together in the same district, no less. Why did you choose now of all
times to visit? I've been waiting for you all this time," murmured the
tearful Chinese man in Mandarin as he stroked the short, bobbed hair of
his half-breed daughter.

Natsuki fought back the memories of her happier times with her father,
where he would hold her like that without any ill intentions or malice,
with the help of their darker, more sordid moments that revealed to her
the true nature of the man before her. "GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS AWAY FROM
ME!"

The Xinhai daughter headbutted her father's nose and slipped away from
his grasp. Even before the battle started, her clothes were already
stained with her father's blood from his embrace thanks to the
innumerable Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren he'd received from the Aoshi-possessed
Daiji earlier.

"What's the matter? Why are you being so cold? I'm only showing you some
affection," Feng asked after straightening his nose out. "Can't a father
hug his daughter after not seeing her for years-on-end? Weren't you the
one who sought _me_ out, Xiaji?"

"You've shown me too much affection already, you monster," came the jaw-
clenched, guttural retort of Natsuki, her metal cane shaking along with
her body as her eyes reddened with withheld tears. "You have the
_audacity_ to hold me and call me your daughter after everything that
you've done to me?"

Meanwhile, from behind them, the knocked-out Daiji moaned and groaned.
Even while unconscious, he felt like his chest was on fire. A chill
breeze then entered the building through the series of holes Xinhai
fell through earlier, howling a sad hymn for the dead.

"I don't know what you mean." Xinhai shrugged, his arms still wide open
and his eyes blinking in seeming puzzlement. "You have to be more
specific. I've shown you nothing but love from your birth till now. I
may have even loved you more than your mother, if that's possible, and I
loved her a lot."

As Natsuki seethed, the pain on her right forearm got so bad that she
was forced to use the metal cane for its intended purpose of serving as
a crutch for her teetering body. "Don't make me say it. You _know_ what
you did to me. Stop playing mind games. You should be ashamed of
yourself, Father!"

"Hmmm? What should I be ashamed of? More to the point, what are _you_
so ashamed of?" Xinhai circled around the shuddering Natsuki while
eyeing her svelte form, succulent lips, and buttery smooth skin. "Oh,
how you've grown. I can't take my eyes off of you. Your... cat-like eyes
continue to mesmerize me. You're not a child anymore. You're almost a
woman..."

"YOU MADE MY LIFE A LIVING HELL! You locked me away and did whatever you
pleased to me! How could you do that to me? Why would you do such things
to a mere child?" screamed the trembling, red-eyed Natsuki while her
past self scrambled to keep her sanity together before her hulking brute
of a father took advantage of the situation.

Even though Yutaro didn't understand a word of Mandarin (in fairness, he
_was_ fluent in German), most anyone who could see and hear could sum up
what was happening. 'Calm down, Tsuki-chan. Please. You're falling
right into Raijuta's trap. Don't let him make you fight at his pace.'

"Darling, I only protected you from the harsh realities of the world. I
was born around the time the KMT and the Mainland were at war with each
other; there were witch hunts for communists everywhere." Xinhai feinted
an attack and counter parried his daughter. He then smirked as Natsuki
correctly nullified his Contre Carte Parry with a Doubl'e or Double,
which was a circular movement that turned in the same direction as the
One-Eight-Ten Killer's blade.

"YES! That's the way to counter a counter parry! Your fencing has
improved tenfold since I last saw you! You couldn't even touch me
before! It just goes to show that I took good care of you, didn't I? I
taught you everything you know about fencing. The only time I really
hurt you was with your arm, but I only did that so you won't end up
hurting yourself. Don't you see? Everything I've done, I did it because
I love you, Xiaji."

"LIAR!" With that, Natsuki initiated the attack, which Yutaro thought
was a bad idea in light of the fact that both their swordsmanship
schools were of the counterstriking variety. Throughout all those
fevered strikes, Feng didn't move an inch, passively deflecting and
parrying each and every fevered strike with his longsword.

"You don't really want to hurt me or kill me. How can you do so with a
simple metal cane? It'll take more than that to stop me," Xinhai
reasoned in between the near-perfect Beat Parry Riposte attempt of his
daughter that took full advantage of her cane's pistol grip.
Unfortunately, it wasn't perfect "enough", so he was still able to do a
disengage feint when her blunt weapon went slightly out of line.

"We were so happy back when we were a family! Mother. You. Me. Why did
you ruin it? What changed? What great reason do you have to let
everything turn into... _this_? Were your loins more important than me
or our family's happiness?"

Natsuki remained the more agile of the two combatants, her metal staff
clanging heavily against the nodachi while forcing her father to vary
his defense and use all nine fencing parries to keep her from
penetrating his guard. She then used the opportunity to do a
counterclockwise Contre Sixte Parry that Xinhai also neutralized
using the Doubl'e. They remained at an impasse.

>From within Natsuki's mind, Yutaro's consciousness stirred. He wasn't
sure if his enraged female counterpart was seeing the same things he
did, but at the moment, souls of dearly departed office workers,
managers, maintenance crewmembers, businessmen, secretaries, and so
forth began circling the bloodied and torn Xinhai while his duel with
his daughter reached a fever pitch.

"I love you. I never stopped loving you, especially after your mother
was taken away by the KMT and accused of being a communist spy! You were
the only family I had! Perhaps I loved you too much. Is that a crime?
You eventually loved me back. You stopped struggling. Didn't you say
that you wanted to marry Daddy when you grew up?"

"AAAH! YOU SICKO! I'M YOUR DAUGHTER, NOT YOUR WIFE!" shrieked the hoarse
Natsuki as she mixed up her combination strikes with a compound attack
full of beats and feints that forced her father to move and try to vary
his number of parries from the basic, inside-high parry of Prime to the
rare, behind-the-back parry of Neuvieme that he utilized earlier against
Aoshi whenever the shinobi moved past him towards his blind spot.

'TSUKI-CHAN! WATCH OUT!' shouted Yutaro at the back of Natsuki's mind as
he saw Xinhai attempt to take advantage of an opening she made because
of her blind rage and uncharacteristic offensiveness. But before Feng
could do his riposte after his parry, Natsuki had already moved in with
her counter parry, which prompted him to respond instead with a Doubl'e.
However, it was during the Doubl'e that the half-Chinese girl deployed a
second, "Kousa Dageki!"

To both Yutaro and Xinhai's complete and utter shock, the crossed-wrist
Cross Strike that was a mix between a thrust to the neck and a simple
downward slash to the head or shoulder (or, in kendo terms, a Tsuki-
aimed thrust and a Men strike) penetrated through the One-Eight-Ten
Killer's guard and hit him right on the esophagus. The man who shrugged
off a sword stab to his head and chest now doubled over in agony and
vomited on the floor, his nasal and oral or orifices dripping with a
combination of blood, semi-digested food, and stomach acid.

'You worry too much, Yuta-kun. Daiji-sempai had already made my father
vulnerable to attack. His efforts were not in vain. Xinhai Feng had
already spent his supernatural powers fighting whoever it was from the
Meiji Era that possessed sempai's body. Like with the criminal cases
we've tackled in the past, I'm going to help sempai finish what he
started, regardless of how dishonorable it is to fight an injured man.
I don't give a damn. Not with _him_,' she told her male self.

To the bowing and coughing Xinhai, Natsuki said, "You are not my father.
I am not your daughter. Not anymore." With a firmer, steadier voice and
a straight but rigid gait, she added, "You're a coward. I don't want to
see you again. You're less than a man. You've hurt and killed enough
people for too long with your delusions of grandeur and evil ambitions.
I'll make sure that you won't hurt another soul again."

"Those are brave words, but I'm afraid you won't be able to keep your
promise, Xiaji." From there, the master fencer showed his former
student how to do a perfect Beat Parry Riposte. With speed that belied
his great mass, Feng surprised his daughter with a probing strike that
turned out to be a "beat" or a sharp controlled blow to the blade to
check how she'd react, which was to counterattack with the Cross Strike.

While Feng's fencing style wasn't as simpleminded as his hyper-
aggressive kenjutsu, he fenced quite forcefully nonetheless, which was
why he opted to master counter parries because most of his opponents had
a tendency to clam up into a defensive, counterstrike-heavy style when
facing him.

He afterwards blended together his beat and parry so smoothly that the
three-step combo appeared like it was done in only two movements even
though they were two distinct moves. He bent his hand slightly upward at
the wrist so that his nodachi would point at a thirty-degree angle. He
then quickly twisted his wrist while keeping the angle the same, which
made the point of his longsword twirl around until a full-force parry
was made against Natsuki's newest bread-and-butter move, the Kousa
Dageki.

The strongest portion of Xinhai's blade (i.e., the forte of a fencing
saber), which was the one nearest the grip and the dullest part of the
sword, hit the weakest portion of Natsuki's tonfa-or-guai-like cane,
which was its tip (i.e., the foible of a fencing saber), which produced
a solid parry that left the girl imbalanced for a second and unable to
do a counter parry to keep her father from deploying his riposte.

The tip of Feng's lengthy blade tore through Natsuki's midriff by its
tip, which turned her vested, two-piece outfit into a half-top. The
thing that revolted her the most about the exchange was the fact that
her father could've used the opportunity to gut her like a fish but
didn't because she presented little to no threat to him even at his
present state.


===


Earlier, in the middle of Matsudaira's battle against Xinhai inside the
Shinjuku Hisashi Building...

Running through forty-four flights of stairs was no laughing matter.
The milling congregation of concerned building residents exited the
premises in a huff because of the ominous rumbles and explosions
presumably caused by the momentous, literally "groundbreaking" battle
between Detective-Investigator Matsudaira and Triad Dragon Head Xinhai.

Kurama and Natsuki had a lot of ground to cover.

Kurama had suspicions that, like Natsuki, Xinhai and Daiji were part of
the throng of people, ghosts, and reincarnated souls who had lived and
met Kenshin Himura during his final days among the living in the Meiji
Era. The redhead believed that it was no coincidence why the Demon Sword
guardian's friends and foes had somehow all awakened in the Showa and
Heisei Eras. There was a possibility that the detective and the Triad
leader were spiritually gifted beings.

Natsuki's associate began using his "biological weapon" as a grappling
hook of sorts to help them avoid the sea of humanity that congested on
the fire exit stairs and skip ahead five flights at a time.

Granted, the sixteen-year-old girl had to cling tight to the seeming
swashbuckler while jumping from one railing to the next such that one
wrong move would instantly mean a messy death, but beggars couldn't be
choosers. They had to get to the detective in time because, according to
the redhead, Daiji might have bit off more than he could chew.

Also, by dumb luck or divine intervention, right before they reached
the forty-fourth floor (which, for some reason, lacked an actual door
inside the premises, since the number forty-four was considered "bad
luck" by East Asian standards and the floor itself was reserved as a
mechanical floor of the building), it crumbled and collapsed unto itself
until what was once the forty-fourth floor turned into a skylight. They
both hung on for dear life on the Rose Whip until the storm had passed.

By the time they arrived at the _forty-third_ floor, all they could find
were rubble and a large crater at the center of the floor; neither Daiji
nor Xinhai were anywhere in sight.

It was at that moment that Kurama "sensed" the presence of someone
dangerous watching them nearby, so he handed Natsuki a white fluffy
dandelion seed, told her that he would come back for her, and pushed her
to the hole while the seed's feathery pappus became big enough to
parachute her to down wherever the multiple holes on the floors led.

She landed on the thirty-sixth floor... the floor just above where
Xinhai ended up after blasting most of the topmost portions of the
Hisashi Building into low orbit... in order to get a drop on the One-
Eight-Ten Killer.

Then, as she peeked into the hole, she saw Feng and Daiji engaged in
mortal combat: Fencing versus a two-sword style she couldn't identify.


===


To Be Continued...

Next: Father versus daughter.

The "Don't flatter yourself" paraphrase was taken from the 1994
movie "Reality Bites". Also, the "changing the questions"
paraphrase was taken from a quote from wrestling legend Rowdy
Roddy Piper. He's awesome _and_ quotable.

Fun fact: The ending "signature" for the "Tactics" chapters was
taken from the Tagalog dub of the second Yuyu Hakusho movie, and
it's a cheesy line which means, "I won't let evil reign supreme in
the world!" which was _so_ not what Yusuke said in the original
climax of the film.

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro
Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and St. Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is
the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, 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.

Hindi ko papayag na maghari ang kasamaan sa daigdig!
Abdiel