[FFML] [yyh][rk][xover] Youtou Shinnoken Chapter 40: The Other Side of Bloodlust (Part 8)

[Abdiel]

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Youtou Shinnoken
A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction Story
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/

Tag team handicap match between the Yahiko and Natsuki (Yutaro) pair and
the trio of two Suzakus and Rando.


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Chapter 40: The Other Side of Bloodlust (Part 8)

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"The name's _Shinkai_, not Xinhai," corrected the present reincarnation
of Yutaro Tsukayama, Natsuki Shinkai (_not_ Xiashu Xinhai, daughter of
Chinese Mobster Feng Xinhai).

"It makes no difference to me," said Rando, who bled blackish red ichor
from his smashed nose. "Your father was right. You really are nothing
more than a nuisance who doesn't have the guts to take a life, just like
your stubborn friend who insists on using a blunt metal sword to defeat
an S-Class Master of Electromagnetism."

He wiped the liquid flowing from his nostrils and sneered at the girl
before him. "Do you really think a bleeding nose is enough to stop me? I
doubt it's enough to subdue even humans."

"Normally, any normal human would be reeling in pain from having their
nose smashed. Believe me, I know from experience. However, as expected
of a demon, you have a high threshold for pain," observed Natsuki. "That
may work against you, though."

"Pray tell, _how_?" asked the pasty-skinned kabuki demon with a spider-
like tattoo on his face, who then started hopping on one foot, ready to
spring into action at a moment's notice.

"Give anyone the illusion of safety from danger, and they might end up
becoming careless. Like a boxer who becomes punch drunk because he feels
complacent when going against someone with padded boxing gloves or a
driver who becomes more reckless behind the wheel thanks to his seatbelt
and airbag."

Rando grunted after realizing that despite his Iron Body Technique, Suna
no Tate (Shield of Sand) and Suna no Yoroi (Armor of Sand), the girl
_still_ penetrated his defenses.

"Then let's try _this_ instead."

For a change, instead of letting Natsuki charge with Yutaro's Kousa
Dageki or Cross Strike, the youkai opted to move in for the kill, his
Claws of Diva or sharp retractable spikes from his elbows drawn out.

In reaction to this development, Shinkai waited for Rando to attack,
intending to parry then riposte with a kaeshi.

However, she ended up striking at thin air, or to be more specific,
Rando's afterimage, so she overextended herself and could barely do a
reprise to counter his counter. 'Was that the...?'

Natsuki hadn't seen Kenshin Himura in action yet, but Yutaro's memory of
the Battousai filled in the blanks for her. 'Yes, that looks like the
Godspeed, doesn't it?'

Shinkai asked her past self, 'Did Rando copy Kenshin's...?'

'I'm not sure. Maybe. Then again, sudden bursts of speed isn't something
exclusive to the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu,' pointed out Yutaro while his
Kousa Dageki kept missing the elusive, unpredictable demon.

Natsuki got nicked, tagged, and lacerated by the elbow spikes, which
made her shift stances from kendo to fencing to counteract Rando's
sudden speed burst. Her defense kept the demon from gobbling her up with
his dragon claws.

While she brought into play her fencing techniques to keep up with
Rando's Shinsoku, she shifted back to Yutaro's Kamiya Kasshin Ryu to
attack with the following techniques:

The Suneharai (thrusts focused on the midsection, hitting the liver, the
intestines, or underneath the ribs), the Inukido (the disabling armpit
thrust whenever those spikes came too close for comfort), or the Ichijin
Sou Fuu Satsu (Seigan Stance kaeshi designed to break the wrists, arms,
or ribs of the opponent).

However, the youkai who'd stolen more than a hundred skills from
different martial artists had more tricks up his (nonexistent) sleeves.

"POWER DUNK!" Rando said in English before he rose up with a flying
elbow that Shinkai barely blocked in time with her pistol-grip cane.

She then suffered her own concussion after the youkai slammed an
energized fist unto her skull like how a basketball player would perform
a slam dunk.

Natsuki shook off the damage the best she could and bounded on her feet,
readying her Mugen Dai no Hyogo succession technique or even the cross-
armed Hadome in order to either block or return the Power Dunk at
Rando.

However, this proved impossible because the demon went into another gear
with his speed.

She almost got knocked out by a Head Press or a technique that involved
Rando jumping high and stomping on her head.

If there was such a thing as Chou Shinsoku or Super Godspeed... a speed
faster than Kenshin's "normal" Godspeed... then Rando had somehow
"achieved" it, his occasional afterimages turning into an army of
sallow-skinned, red-haired phantoms.

Shinkai cursed under her breath after wasting her efforts timing a
counter on a Rando that turned out to be a doppelganger.

Rando went to town with the counterstrike expert who didn't know whether
he was coming or going. He even performed a Shakunetsu Hadou Ken and a
Nenshou Shoryu Ken... flaming variants of the Surge Wave Fist and Rising
Dragon Uppercut... even though the former was a deflectable projectile
and the latter was quite punishable when missed.

Why? It was because his speedier reaction time and "shadow clones"
allowed him to confuse Natsuki on where to deflect or parry his attacks.

Despite this, none of his attacks hit Shinkai clean. She either got
seared by a Flaming Uppercut or clipped by the slicing waves of the
Genocide Cutter.

Rando ground his teeth and clenched his fists.

Natsuki shifted tactics again. Instead of using her cat-crouching
Passata Sotto and bounding footwork to get her into striking range and
attack with kendo strikes, she went into full fencing mode, deploying
feints and her Tactical Wheel that left Rando baffled for a change.

Whenever the redhead parried her counters, she did a Counter Parry or a
circular deflection that left the demon wide open for any number of
counters.

After the youkai attempted to do the same to her, she did a Double that
moved in the same circular motion as the Counter Parry in order for her
to penetrate his defenses regardless.

She also did Remises on top of her Reprises. A reprise was a new action
after an attack had missed or was parried. A remise, on the other hand,
continued the original missed attack without withdrawing the arm.

She had a quick Recovery as well, which showcased how fast she could go
from a lunge to the "En Guarde" position.

She even had the option to Feint into Time, which was a feinted or fake
counterattack she could exploit to counter an opponent's Counter Time or
a feint followed by an attack (which was essentially what Rando did when
he reached Chou Shinsoku speeds).

She suckered him in with a Beat Parry Riposte too, which was a tactic
that checked her range (the Beat serving as her range finder) and made
him flinch or overreact to her actions.

If he attacked, she'd do an automatic Parry and Riposte. If not, she
wasn't left wide open to counters, so she could use that feinting,
range-finding technique at will to get Rando within striking range.

She followed the (Beat) Parry and Riposte, Counterattack, and Feint into
Time (feinting a counterattack in response to a feint-filled Counter
Time used to draw out a counter from her in the first place) pattern of
the Tactical Wheel, meaning she set up all sorts of traps that punished
Rando's aggressiveness.

If her Parries and Ripostes missed or got parried themselves, she could
always use the Remise, Reprise, or Counterattack to cover for her
mistake. She even shifted back to kendo to mix things up.

The kabuki youkai cursed under his breath, his pale skin turning black
and blue from all the punishment it got from the complex mind games the
half-Taiwanese girl used against him.

She was never overaggressive with her attacks, preferring to lie in wait
and do ambushes before moving out of the way, which nullified Rando's
chances of using the Hiryu Shoten Ha against her.

'I hate this kind of opponent,' Rando realized after missing a Head
Press and getting punished for it with a thrust to the gut (Suneharai)
for his trouble after landing.


===


Yahiko remained on the run in another area of the construction site, his
Meiji Era clothing replaced with more modern duds (a Hawaiian "Aloha"
shirt and jeans) that made him look like he was on vacation.

A Vacation from Hell.

"What's the matter? What happened to your sword? And you call yourself a
swordsman!" mocked the floating Suzaku with a magnetic bubble before he
shot Ankoku-Raiko-Ha lightning bolts and electromagnetic pulses at the
moving target.

From the ground, the ultra electromagnetic Suzaku with metal chunks
whirling around him as though he were a macroscopic version of an atom
hurled debris big and small at the retreating Tokyo Samurai Descendant.

This ranged from the standard I-beams that were all over the Tokyo Big
Sight construction site to shrapnel that he could shoot at the speed of
bullets (or beyond that).

Myojin got shot so many times with electricity that the static around
him had somehow made his spiky hair even spikier than ever before, if
that was possible.

Yet he kept moving, summoning his sakabatou replica from time to time to
attack either the Suzaku from above or below by blasting himself high in
the air with a Ten Gami then attacking with either the Ryu Tsui Sen, a
Ryu Sho Sen, a Ryu Tsui Sho Sen, an aerial Tsui Gami, or another Dou
Gami to escape their wrath.

None of those techniques worked, save for the occasional light tap or
strike whenever the Suzakus got careless and (perhaps) overexerted
themselves in shooting the ghost kid with metal and plasma (so maybe
their magnetic fields were temporarily weakened enough to allow
Yahiko's steel sakabatou to penetrate through).

Most importantly, Yahiko had slowed down. His reiki was almost totally
depleted.

However, whenever the Suzakus were about to move in for the kill, an
occasional deflected fireball or energy blast would go their way.
Apparently, Rando was having more than a little trouble with the
offspring of Feng Xinhai.

Even though the kabuki demon should know better, he'd begun shooting
projectiles at Natsuki Shinkai, who merely utilized her Mark of Infinity
ougi to redirect each and every shot at the Crimson Sparrows' direction.

'Suzaku, go help Rando out in finishing Xinhai's daughter off. I'll
handle this samurai wannabe,' decided the Crimson Sparrow with the
energy sphere after Yahiko resorted to guerilla tactics and a game of
hide and seek (his power level ebbed and wavered at that point, so he
became hard to spot from his energy signature alone).

'What? No. The plan was to finish this kid off _then_ triple team the
Xinhai brat,' pointed out the Suzaku with floating metal objects.
'Besides, Shinkai Natsuki has her Mugen Dai no Hyogo counterattack. My
energy blasts won't affect her.'

'Then use your magnetism and control over metal to do her in. She has a
harder time countering a swarm of small metal objects whizzing by at the
size and speed of bullets than a huge bolt of lightning,' answered the
Suzaku clone. 'We don't need to worry about Myojin Yahiko. He's as good
as dead. I can handle him.'

'Fine. We'll do this quick so that we can finally help our 'brother'
that has the Demon Sword fight off that strange wolfish policeman who
attacked him from out of nowhere,' confirmed the Suzaku with metal
debris rings before he left his clone to fend for himself.


===


Natsuki was about to knock Rando out (who had presently resorted to
using his Kaiwan or Iron Arm and his Super Godspeed to keep up with
her fencing mind games) when the metal-wielding, electromagnetic Suzaku
showed up.

'Looks like Yahiko-kun is being underestimated,' said Natsuki to Yutaro.

Her past self answered, 'Can you blame them? The idiot is using a steel
sword when they have mastery over magnetism!'

Although he thought that, Tsukayama braced himself for the battle ahead
regardless, which made Shinkai giggle inwardly. No matter how much he
complained, he'd still help Yahiko out with the latter's crazy plans.

'Let's get this over with quick so that I can tell Myojin Yahiko 'I told
you so!' after beating all three of these demons up.'

'Whatever you say. Although it would be nice if we really can beat all
of them alone...'

'What do you mean 'alone'? I'm with you, Tsuki-chan, so you're never
alone.'

"I don't need your help, Suzaku!" shouted Rando, who was every bit as
stubborn as Yahiko. "I have everything under control. Go back and finish
the swordsman wannabe. Get back to me when you're done."

Suzaku blasted a beam of the Ankoku-Raiko-Ha at Rando in full force.
"Your fireballs and projectiles are being shot at our direction. Is that
your idea of _in control_? If you can't finish the girl off, then _I_
will. Stop getting in our way."

'They're fighting amongst themselves,' thought Natsuki with a smirk.
'This might work.'

'Wait! Something's wrong...' warned Yutaro.

Instead of being electrocuted by the lightning bolt, Rando absorbed the
energy unto himself while using his Ibuki technique to convert the
electricity (dengeki) into demonic energy (youki).

"...I've reconsidered. Feel free to interfere, Suzaku. Perhaps you might
actually be of use to me during this battle after all." And with that,
the spider youkai disappeared altogether.

'Did he teleport...?' thought Yutaro before barely executing a belated
Cross Strike at Rando's face after the demon appeared right before him.

The redhead blocked using the Claw of Diva, vanished _again_ when
Tsukayama attempted to counter with a Counter Parry and Riposte or
Remise, and stabbed Shinkai in the back.

"This is the quickest technique I've stolen from humans. I believe it's
called the Reduced Earth. It's even faster than the Godspeed and Super
Godspeed, so it takes a lot of youki to do," said Rando while licking
his lips.

Natsuki retreated into the wreckage-filled quarry while both Rando and
Suzaku pursued her with a swarm of metal and... _knives_ made out of
her own spilt blood.

"BLOODY RAIN!" declared the arachnid youkai, shooting the red scalpels
into the sky and letting them fall in the general vicinity of the
escaping Shinkai.

As soon as he'd get his hands on her, he'd use the Blood Wind on her
gaping wound and suck out all the life and blood out of her.

"You can go now. Unless, of course, you want to serve as my battery
recharger while I finish off Xinhai's daughter," rasped Rando.

Suzaku harrumphed. "You're in no shape to say that to me. Your arms are
swelling, you're bruised all over, and you're breathing from your mouth.
All this from a little teenage girl you simply cannot beat."

"Really? If you're such a hotshot, I'd like to see you do a better job!"
dared the kabuki demon.

"Fine. I will."

The mass of metal scrap grew and orbited the magnetic Suzaku's body as
though they were being sucked into a localized twister of the Crimson
Sparrow's own making.

Thusly, while the Master of Electromagnetism floated, everything before
him crumbled and turned into dust. Whatever that was metal merely became
part of the whirling dervish that surrounded him.

"You're fast enough to dodge all this with your Reduced Earth, right?
Lure the girl out and push her into this magnetic tempest. And voila.
I've done in mere seconds what you couldn't do after close to a half
hour."

'Goddamn. What a showoff.' Rando grit his teeth at Suzaku's arrogance.
"Why should I follow your lead? Like I said, if you can do better, then
do it alone!"

The Shisejyu Leader shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Natsuki soon emerged from her hiding spot, looking about as sallow as
Rando did after losing a lot of blood. Suzaku smirked.

As the winds from the electric demon's debris-filled magnetic storm
tousled her hair, Natsuki said to Yutaro, 'It was nice knowing you,
past self. Do you think we're going to be reborn as a guy or a girl in
our next life?'

'You're giving up too early, Tsuki-chan. I don't want to hear that from
you. I was able to learn kendo with only one arm left. If I can do that,
then you can also get through this too. I know so, because you're me.'

'Yuta-kun...'

And so Natsuki entered the maelstrom, jumping from I-beam to I-beam,
truck to truck, bulldozer to bulldozer, steamroller to steamroller, all
the while ignoring the nicks, scratches, and scourging she suffered from
going through whirling shrapnel.

She intended to somehow take out Suzaku with her in case this proved to
be her final fight. She wasn't even able to get closure from her father
yet. Or know what happened to her mother.

Dammit.

The self-assured grin on Suzaku's face slowly turned into a scowl; the
mere human he was sure he'd dice into giblets rode the ultra
electromagnetic tornado he made like it was a wave.

He twisted and turned the tempest, but Shinkai continued to advance.
'How is she doing this? What's going on?'

He almost fired an Ankoku-Raiko-Ha, but stopped himself short. If Natsuki
were to deflect the beam, he'd could always simply reabsorb the
electricity unto himself, but it came at the cost of him losing his
concentration and control over this metal maelstrom.

"RANDO! Make yourself useful and finish that girl off, if you're so sure
you can handle it!"

Rando chuckled at Suzaku, yet still obliged, running into the eye of the
iron storm, fascinated at how Shinkai was able to survive thus far.

With his Jigen Tou, Kaiwan, and Claws of Diva drawn, he engaged the girl
in mortal combat while taking care not to get hit by any stray sharp
objects whizzing all around them.

She greeted her nemesis with a Sho Fuu Jin, which was a combo using a
feinted thrust in between the eyes before transforming into a Head or
"Men" Strike that hit his noggin twice in a row.


===


'Dammit. How do I beat Suzaku's magnetism?' was what Yahiko thought
after he crawled out of last of the rocks he hid under before they too
were obliterated by the blitzkrieg of Lightning Storm of Torment that
Suzaku blasted all over the rock quarry.

"Ah, so you've finally come out. I'm tired of wasting my energy on you.
Let's settle this once and for all," said the Crimson Sparrow while
sniping the Son of Tokyo Samurai from high above and recharging himself
with occasional lightning strikes to make sure he didn't run out of
"juice".

The nimbus clouds then formed large enough to result in rain. Rain that
made it easier for the electricity to travel across the now-wet ground
even without shooting as accurately as possible because the water and
mud served as an excellent medium for conduction.

There might've been billions of volts of electricity down there. Any
ordinary human would've died then and there. Yahiko convulsed,
electrocuted by the continuous stream of electrical energy.

However, Myojin remained standing. He charged, steam rising from his
ghostly pores, his ectoplasm boiling and evaporating, his body close to
sublimation, but he still moved forward.

There was barely a wisp of reiki left in his body. He was dying beyond
dead. Yet he still existed. He fought on.

'I guess the dead are harder to _kill_ than the living,' came Suzaku's
footnote musing before he magnetized half a piece of I-beam and aimed
it at Myojin.

"It's a pity. You should've stayed in Heaven. Your ancestors and your
family will lose you all because you fought foolishly and didn't pick
your battles carefully."

The Railgun shot blasted a crater that evaporated water and sublimated
construction materials into silhouettes, but the Hawaiian-shirted ghost
escaped not by floating into the ether, but by summoning his sakabatou
at the last minute and doing a God in Heaven technique that jettisoned
him up towards Suzaku and his electric bubble.

'His girlfriend is right. He does have a death wish,' thought Suzaku
before he had a brilliant idea.

Instead of waiting for Yahiko to reach him, Suzaku snatched the boy up
using the steel sword to hasten his ascent. Then, when he was within
range, the demon planed to turn the blade itself into a Railgun bullet,
thus killing two birds with one stone.

"I don't have time for this. I have to save Natsuki," Suzaku heard the
cheeky swordsman say. "The other Suzaku left to double-team her with
Rando, correct?"

The Shisejyu replied, "You should be more concerned about yourself, to
be honest."

Suzaku prepared his thumb while Yahiko got dragged through the sky by
his own sakabatou replica. Afterwards, once within range, the S-Level
Crimson Sparrow thumb-flicked the blade, expecting it to shoot at mach
three while disintegrating (or even atomizing) every last trace of this
mule-headed Myojin kid.

However, Suzaku's expectations were ruined. Shattered, actually.
Something unexpected happened. Yahiko continued his ascent, then
delivered a Dragon Hammer Flash for the ages.

"Wha...?"

Instead of the ultra electromagnetic barrier stopping the sword's
forward momentum cold, the blunt blade dropped unimpeded unto the
Crimson Sparrow's head, and the demon heard an audible crack afterwards
followed by a splitting headache.

"!?"

In panic and by reflex, Suzaku attempted to punch Yahiko with an
Ankoku-Raijin-Ken. However, all that happened was him snapping the
solidified ghost's head back.

No electricity came forth his fist.

What was going on? What happened to his powers? Had he wasted too much
of his youki toying with the spirit?

Yahiko roared after his sakabatou buried itself on Suzaku's face for a
second time and drove the demon all the way to the ground, assisted by
gravity, the ghost's "casual" clothes turning back into his "samurai"
uniform.

Unfortunately for the Crimson Sparrow, Earth's magnetic field offered
him no similar assistance after he crashed many feet from the air to the
ground with a huge geyser of shattered rock and mud from the recent
rain.

Dully, the youkai realized that after all this time, Yahiko's reiki
levels remained low. In fact, he couldn't detect them any more. It was
as if he wasn't there at all. Not even his ghost.

The demon then deciphered the mantra that the human spirit recited to
himself over and over while he drilled him deep into what could've been
his grave.

"Empty your soul. Empty your mind. Become nothing. Become emptiness."


===


"MOUKO TAKABISHA!" Rando hollered after he delivered a (literal) surge
of confidence (and youki) at Natsuki from up close so that she'd have a
harder time deflecting the blast without getting hurt herself.

Therefore, she opted to dodge.

She couldn't get away though, because the Class-A, Suzaku-supercharged
version of Rando had apparently enough demonic power to summon the
Jigen Tou while running at speeds that even she could not see.

She had no choice. There was metal _everything_ flying everywhere around
them, and any one of them could them could take her limbs or head off. Or
even perforate her slim body.

She was at her limit anyway. Even partial blows she blocked from Rando,
when they piled up, took their toll on her. She bled in various places
of her body, her clothes in shreds and tatters.

All she could do was sidestep, parry, and defend herself, making her
counters more infrequent because she couldn't even see Rando anymore. At
least with his Chou Shinsoku, she could see his afterimages.

She had one ace left up her torn sleeve, though. She had one last all-
or-nothing counter to spare against her resilient foe.

She "tripped" then kept herself from falling by going into her Passata
Sotto crouch, stuck in a narrow spot between the flying metal wreckage
and an invisible, undetectable Rando.

She couldn't see him but she could feel his bloodlust building. That,
and the fact that he had nowhere else to go allowed her to do the
Shibata Ryu's own Men: Midareuchi technique shared between the Kamiya
Dojo in Asakusa and the Joetsukan Dojo in Yokohama.

It was composed of a "Men" strike to the top of the head, "Sayu-Men" and
"Yoko-Men" strikes to the left and right side of the head, right and
left "Kote" strikes to the wrists, a "Do" to the torso, and a "Tsuki"
thrust to the neck.

The combo had double the impact thanks to Rando's forward momentum when
the counter happened.

For a split second, Rando remained standing, and Shinkai almost gave in
to despair, her one last trap not paying dividends for her.

The unstoppable demon batted her cane aside and attempted to deliver his
own scorching 100 Shiki-Oniyaki that would've pushed her right into the
path of the flesh-rending whirlwind.

However, Rando's kneecap that Natsuki hit with the Hiza Hijiki buckled
and bended at an awkward angle from all the Shukuchi sprints he had been
doing. His arms also faced self-destruction thanks to the Ichijin Sou
Fuu Satsu and the Inukido.

Finally, his body went through cyanosis or lack of oxygen due to the
Suneharai's liver and intestinal blows, his face turning blue. He
tumbled back before a stray I-beam hit him upside the head and had him
swept up into the magnetic tempest.

Gritting her teeth and biting her lip to bear through the pain emanating
all over her body, Shinkai soon reached the eye of the electromagnetic
storm.

A scowling Suzaku awaited her, who for some reason kept repeating the
words, "Impossible," and "He was using a metal sword... How?"

Natsuki's eyes lit up. Against all odds, Yahiko had somehow triumphed.
She didn't know how or why, but he did.

Nevertheless, her celebration proved short-lived once the Crimson
Sparrow finally took notice of her. "Maybe if I used you as a hostage,
I'd have enough leverage to defeat that ghost!"

Yutaro had barely enough time to do a Hadome cross-armed block after
Suzaku charged with double black iron sand swords with about the same
cutting power as chainsaws, Natsuki's thin wrists and cane trapping
the demon's own forearms and holding the magnetized weaponry at bay.

"At this close a range, you cannot do the Mark of Infinity, can you?
Besides, it only works on ki and plasma instead of magnetism, doesn't
it?" accused Suzaku while his swarm of iron particles shaped like
swords collided with each other and produced sparks that singed
Shinkai's mane.

"Let's find out." Driven to a corner, Natsuki did a Hawatari... an
aikido-like move where one pulled back to take advantage of an
opponent's forward momentum to keep him off-balanced... then hit
_Suzaku_ instead of his swords with Yutaro's ultimate technique.

"AAAAURRRGH!"

Losing his focus thanks to the impact of the backlash strike, Suzaku's
storm of flying iron chunks and wreckage reversed direction and stuck
themselves unto him like magnetized metal should.

The Mugen Dai no Hyogo actually had enough reflective power to _reverse_
the polarity of the Crimson Sparrow's magnetic field and turn him into a
magnetic void instead of the eye of a magnetic maelstrom.

As for Shinkai, she ducked and crawled in time before the iron tornado
collapsed unto itself and turned Suzaku into a singularity, the quarry
they fought on transforming into a sandpit that swallowed and sucked
most everything in its path.

Natsuki was barely able to reach the top of the cliff overlooking the
mine before it turned into a canyon that buried an electric demon alive
(presumably).


===


A couple of minutes later...

Shinkai ran towards the other side of the quarry to look for Yahiko and
perhaps assist him in beating up the remaining Suzaku.

By the time she found him along with the Crimson Sparrow fighting in
another part of the construction site, she couldn't believe what she
saw.

An S-Level being manhandled by a B-Level.

"ANKOKU-RAIJIN-KEN!" raged a beat-up and swelling Suzaku, his face a
crimson mask, his fist imbued with electrical might. However, he got
countered by a well-placed counterstrike Tsui Gami.

"You're not living your life correctly, Suzaku!" shouted Myojin.

'Is he finally using a ceramic sword like we told him to?' wondered
Yutaro before Natsuki pointed out, 'Why is Suzaku's energy dissipating
every time he gets near Yahiko-kun? Is he out of energy?'

"...ANKOKU-RAIKO-HA! ANKOKU-RAIKO-HA! ANKOKU-RAIKO-HA!"

No matter how many times the Phoenix King shot Myojin with the Dark
Lightning Wave, it dematerialized as soon as it reached the Tokyo
Samurai Descendant's striking range.

Like light to a black hole.

She wasn't sure judging from the distance she watched the fight unfold,
but if she had to hazard a guess, Yahiko was probably _still_ using a
steel blade. That was because he didn't need a ceramic one if...

"He can neutralize the supernatural energy of anything he touches,"
concluded a muffled voice from underneath Shinkai's feet.

Feng's offspring then shrieked after a hand burst forth the ground,
grabbed hold of her ankle, and hoisted her up.

One of the last surviving Shisejyu... or at least his clone... burst
forth from the earth, holding Natsuki upside down.

"SUZAKU! Let me go, you bastard!" she protested.

"I wonder. Can you deflect my lightning from this position?" the
bleeding, battered Suzaku with missing chunks of flesh asked his prey
before pointing his free arm's two fingers up towards the sky,
summoning lightning and paralyzing her with the millions of volts of
electricity he absorbed.

This caught Yahiko's attention. "NATSUKI! CAT EYES!" he screamed,
distracted by the sight of the reincarnation of his best friend getting
electrocuted by the clone of his present opponent, who proceeded to hurl
a steamroller at him.

While Myojin could neutralize plasma and various forms of spirit energy,
the forward momentum of a moving vehicle was a different story. He did
a Dou Gami in the nick of time, but his body felt the impact of the
vehicular projectile nonetheless.

"Ah. So you can't neutralize _solid_ mass. Then you should try this on
for size," proposed the Suzaku electrocuting Natsuki before he gathered
the leftover metal from his "grave" earlier, moved them above Yahiko,
and let them fall with the assistance of gravity instead of magnetism.

As for the Crimson Sparrow facing Yahiko, he collected what remained of
the wrecked steamroller that crashed into the teenaged-looking ghost,
formed it into a ball, and prepared to shoot it with his Railgun.

The woozy, spiky-haired, and flickering ghost dodged the falling debris,
shrapnel, cranes, and whole metal debris from above, running towards the
Shisejyu Leader before him.

While Natsuki's blood boiled and came out as red steam from her pores,
her Suzaku also gathered a wad of metal to turn into a bullet he could
fire with his own Railgun.

In case his fellow clone missed or otherwise had his shot neutralized,
_he_ would finish the job.

When Yahiko ended up directly underneath a whole scrap yard full of
junk, that was when the nearest Suzaku fired off his Railgun, pinning
the teenager between a metaphorical rock and a hard place.

Shinkai's electrocuting Suzaku shot out his load as well, but somehow,
Natsuki managed to do a pull-up despite the electricity coursing through
her veins and countered with a Mugen Dai no Hyogo from an awkward angle.

This deflected the blow and broke her captor's wrist and arm, thus
releasing her from his grip.

The orange beam from Natsuki's Suzaku disintegrated the wreckage above
Yahiko, allowing him to neutralize the other orange beam headed for him
at mach three without worrying about getting crushed to death from
above.

The Railgun shot before Myojin disappeared like it never existed.

Yahiko's steamroller-hurling Suzaku scrambled to gather another huge
chunk of steel for his Railgun, only for him to taste the samurai kid's
own steel in the form of a concussive Inga Gami, an explosive Dou Gami,
a Dou Ryu Sen, and an upward-swinging Banzen Gami.

The series of attacks flung Suzaku towards the starless sky, right into
the path of the missed Railgun shot that Shinkai deflected. Unable to
summon a force field, he got the full brunt of the blast.

Both Yahiko and Natsuki collapsed from exhaustion at the same time,
only for them to immediately sit up in attention once the Suzaku with a
broken arm floated above them and gathered tons and tons of metal all
around him.

"I understand now. The girl can deflect energy and the boy can negate
it. You two are more dangerous than I thought. But neither of you can do
anything against tons of falling construction material, can't you?"

However, once the injured Suzaku attempted to finish the two exhausted
warriors off, twin flaming black serpents emerged from behind him,
sublimating his gathered floating scrap yard while he himself screeched,
"NO! Not that...!" while burning alive.

"W-What the hell are those?" asked Yahiko, standing on spaghetti legs,
his sakabatou on the ready in case he had to neutralize one more special
technique.

"I've never seen anything like them before," admitted Natsuki. "Maybe
there's one more Shin Ju we haven't met?"

"I don't know." Yahiko shrugged. "It looks like those dragons were made
to home in on the Suzakus, not us. It killed one of them before he
crushed us with his scrap metal. Maybe whoever made those things is on
our side?"

"Those are the Dragons of the Darkness Flame," said a scuffed-up Rando
while he carried on his shoulder what was left of the Suzaku that Myojin
defeated.

"Rando...!" chorused Natsuki and Yahiko before they exchanged stares and
kept their guard up.

"Are those dragons from Urameshi Yusuke?" wondered the solidified ghost
in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.

"No, they're not. They're from someone else I haven't met. I've only
heard of the technique from the other Shin Ju. This is the first time
I've seen it myself."

"I-It's from _Hiei_, you fools! Mukuro's current right-hand man!"
stuttered the smoking remains of the Crimson Sparrow doppelganger.

"Ah. So I was right. I've _heard_ of the Koorime's Forbidden Child, but
I never met him," reiterated Rando.

"Rando, quit your yammering! W-We need to get away from that dragon! I
have to replenish the energy of the Demon-Sword-wielding Suzaku so that
the Suzaku Seven will live on! So let go, you filthy A-Level...!"
demanded Suzaku.

With a scowl, the spider demon squeezed the stump that used to be a
Suzaku clone until he burst like a pus-filled blister. The spider demon
then  cannibalized his fellow youkai, absorbing what was left of his
strength and healing the damage Xinhai's daughter inflicted upon him.

While both Myojin and Shinkai retched at the display, the kabuki monster
went into an iron-horse stance and used his Ibuki technique to turn
Suzaku's electrical energy into negative energy.

"And some S-Level you turned out to be. You were bested by two B-Levels.
And me, an A-Level."

Before the remaining Black Dragon Spirit Wave headed towards him, Rando
chanted, "I am not the weak link..."

Huge amounts of jaki emanated from the pasty-skinned demon's body, which
prompted both Shinkai and Myojin to hold each other shoulder-to-shoulder
and hobble away.

A gigantic, dense sphere of pure depression then hovered above them.

The entirety of Odaiba shook from the impenetrable vortex above the
decimated construction site that bathed Rando in the eerie blue-green
light of youki and jaki that also dueled with the remaining Dragon of
the Darkness Flame for control.

Yahiko and Natsuki would later find out that, like the Mouko Takabisha,
which was activated by feelings of self-confidence and optimistic spirit
energy, the technique Rando used was powered by low self-esteem,
sadness, and depression.

It was as if the pasty demon's very self-doubt and pessimism made the
heavy ball of ki all the more powerful and unstoppable. A suicidal man's
self-sacrificing kamikaze, almost.

"SHISHI HOKU DAN!"


===


From atop the spire of Tokyo Tower, the diminutive fire demon known as
Jaganshi Hiei, born from the ice maiden (Koorime) tribe, had his Evil
Eye (Jagan) wide open after firing off six Jaou Ensatsu: Kokuryuha all
over Minato Ward.

His serpentine fire dragons traveled from the Sakurada Street directly
down below Tokyo Tower to the bright lights of Roppongi to a
construction site all the way in Odaiba.

It helped that his third, surgically implanted eye could gauge and aim
at even far-off distances. He still had about two or three dragons left
in him, all things considered.

The raven-locked youkai with a white streak on his burr-like hairdo
harrumphed. He completed his favor to Kurama as promised. He, after all,
still owed the redhead for his special gift to Mukuro on her birthday.

'Shin Ju, huh? I wonder who the hell they are,' was the last thought the
spent Hiei had on his mind before his Jagan detected a huge mass of
energy headed towards him.

It was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He grabbed the
handle of his sheathed sword and tensed his sword arm in case he had to
shoot more of his Black Dragon Spirit Waves.

Even after noticing all those warning signs, the jaw-shattering uppercut
from the leaping juggernaut in front of him still hit him with the
impact of a Human World locomotive.

Or perhaps even a Demon World train, like the ones ridden by him and his
one-eyed mistress.

The last thing Hiei saw before falling off the world-famous Human World
structure... Japan's equivalent of the Eiffel Tower in Paris... was a
scarred, ripped creature with a demented smile and tacky shades.


===


Keiko Yukimura (or at least her astral projection) rode towards Mount
Fuji on the gigantic blue bird named Puu that served as the monstrous
representation of her boyfriend, Yusuke Urameshi.

If there were Freudian symbolism at work in that situation, it certainly
went over her head.

Puu squawked and cringed beneath Keiko.

Her eyes widened. Puu's belly dripped blood all over the place, but the
avian creature did his best to glide towards Urameshi all the same.

"P-Puu-chan! You're hurt!" she exclaimed, before realizing what that
meant. Yusuke and Puu shared an emphatic bond wherein whatever one felt,
the other would also feel the same thing, whether it was a surge of
emotion or a burst of pain.

"Hang in there, you can do it," she told Puu, hoping the same could be
said of Yusuke.

She gasped after the bird demon landed on the clearing. Blood spilled
everywhere. Someone else's blood. On the boulders, on the trees, and on
the ground.

She hid behind the nearest rocks she could find while Puu followed suit,
his large feathery frame sticking out like a gigantic purple thumb; he
might as well not have bothered hiding.

Such antics would've amused Keiko were Puu not spilling gallons of blood
like a leaking blood bank. She peered from behind the rock and squinted
at the silhouettes from the distance after she heard a Chinese-accented
voice speak in Japanese.

"When I lost my arm when fighting my daughter, I had already spent my
power battling Himura Kenshin and friends with my shikigami. When
Detective Matsudaira took me to the brink, I almost killed him, and I
wasn't even using my full power back then. Now I have my full
capabilities in display. You don't stand a chance, Urameshi Yusuke,"
boasted a muscular Chinese man with dyed blond hair and a dapper
business suit.

"Oh my god," Yukimura whispered, falling on her knees. She couldn't
believe what she saw. Unbidden, her jaw dropped at the train wreck that
occurred before her, her gaze affixed at the grisly sight. She couldn't
look away.

"What were you saying earlier? I'm not the man who'll serve as a
challenge to the likes of you, _mazoku_? Hanyou? Half-breed mongrel?" a
battered but triumphant Feng Xinhai mocked Yusuke.

He and his "Stand"... the flaming, negative-energy-powered shikigami
twin who also possessed a longsword like he did... both skewered the
hapless Yusuke Urameshi with their nodachi.

Yusuke attempted to cuss the illegal immigrant out, but instead puked
out and splattered blood over himself. He opted to flip the bird at
the muscular Triad Boss instead. With both of his middle fingers raised.

"How adorable. As expected of a juvenile delinquent with Seventies-Era
gelled 'Regent' hair. Let's do something about that feistiness of yours,
shall we?"

Yusuke took a sharp intake of air after both Feng and his familiar
twisted their blades and turned, widening the wound that gutted him like
a speculum or huge scissors would, his blood and guts spilling
everywhere.

Keiko's face went blue.

"What you are is an accident of birth. What I am, I am through my own
efforts. There have been thousands of mazoku and there will be thousands
more. There is only one Xinhai Feng!" boasted the One-Eight-Ten Killer.

Instead of Yusuke answering back, it was the squawks of a convulsing Puu
that caught the attention of the Fake Kanji Killer and his flaming
shikigami clone full of miasma.

At the same time, Yukimura screeched, "YUSUKE, NO!" which somehow
pierced right through the pained haze in Urameshi's mind.

"K-Keiko...?" he rasped, his blurry eyes staring at the darkness,
searching for the origin of the familiar voice. "Keiko! You idiot! What
the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm in ghost form right now! He can't harm me!" came Yukimura's
defensive protest.

To the surprise of both the shikigami and Feng, Yusuke's aura pulsated
bright blue while he extricated himself from the twin longswords stuck
inside him.

The teenager then blasted the tandem with both hands, his right pointer
finger blasting Xinhai with a Rei-Gan and his other closed fist
delivering a barrage of Shot Gun blasts against the dark familiar.

"Huh. You're as much of a Blue Meanie as Detective Matsudaira, aren't
you?" The barrel-bodied One-Eight-Ten Killer weathered the full brunt of
the storm that was the Spirit Gun as though he were the Younger Toguro
using his hard muscles to survive even rounds from a cannon.

"Is that all you've got, _pi jing_ (ass fairy)?" asked the (literally)
smoking-hot Feng, questioning the masculinity of his opponent in
Mandarin.

"No. Of course not. If you want more, I'll be happy to oblige," answered
Yusuke. "I'll beat you up so bad, you'll be choking on your balls and
shitting out your brain!"

The shikigami did a good job at recovering as well, its wounds turning
gaseous and scattering away like a puff of black smoke and miasma before
reforming into its more fiery plasma-like state composed of purple
flames with sharp tongues and dancing tendrils.

Feng's darker, fierier twin attempted to attack Yusuke from behind while
its master flanked on the opposite site, sandwiching him with another
double nodachi skewer, but then the similarly bleeding Puu swooped in
for the save, shrieking like a harpy and pecking at the familiar's huge,
jaki-composed frame.

Urameshi shrugged grinned after his other self, Puu, intercepted the
annoying specter that Feng used to double-team him. "Whatever works.
Attaboy, Puu."

Puu squawked (happily?) in response.

The teen then focused his attention on the barreling Xinhai, avoiding
his multiple Matoi and Tobi Izuna (vacuum slices or "kamaitachi" that
traveled on the land and in the air) by bobbing and weaving then
delivering an energy-imbued uppercut into the huge man's lantern jaw.

"REI-KOU-DAN!"

Like a vulture gobbling rotting meat, Puu grabbed the Xinhai shikigami
by the leg and attempted to tear it apart even while its jaki seared
through his beak, feathers, and skin, which in turn manifested
themselves unto Yusuke's body in the form of blisters and burn marks.

As for Urameshi, he transferred his spirit energy from all over his body
and concentrated them into his forearms. This allowed him to block the
up-close Nikaido Heiho Ryu blade swings with his bare hands, fists,
knuckles, and upper limbs.

The attacks were based on the iconography of the Japanese characters for
the number one (a horizontal slash), eight (twin diagonal slashes
forming a steeple) and ten (a crucifix slash), hence Xinhai's codename,
the "One-Eight-Ten" Killer.

"RENSHYA!" This time around, Yusuke blasted Feng repeatedly with Rei-Gan
volleys one after another, like he did when he went against Yomi in the
Demon World Unification Tournament.

"IZUNA! IZUNA! IZUNAIZUNAIZUNA!" roared Feng, who deployed the air-
cutting pointblank Izuna vacuum slice with his jaki-energized nodachi
repeatedly to cut through each and every shot of reiki.

Keiko continued hiding behind the rock that Puu bled on, wincing and
covering her eyes from the brightness of Yusuke's... laser beams or
whatever.

Was it just her, or did her boyfriend's special attacks seem brighter
than they were when she fought that scary muscular guy that looked like
the Japanese Terminator or Arnold Schwarzenegger?

She then noticed that she made a handprint on the ground with Puu's own
blood. And the only reason why Team Urameshi's mascot bled was because
Team Urameshi's leader was also bleeding. Their bond was their greatest
strength and weakness.

Yukimura gulped, hoping that this wasn't going to be a repeat of the
disaster at Genkai's temple, wherein Kenshin's wound held Yusuke back
because they were about as in-sync with each other as Puu was to
Urameshi thanks to the effects of the Youtou Shinnoken.

'Yusuke, please don't go overboard. Do as Genkai-baasan said. Hold
back as much as you can. I don't care how this fight ends, as long as
you keep yourself safe,' said Keiko with clasped hands.

"CHOU REI-GAN!"

Unbeknownst to Xinhai, while Urameshi kept firing his consecutive
Renshya at him with his right hand, he'd been collecting energy from his
left pointer finger as well.

A sudden silence. Then the screaming thunder, lightning, fire, and
earthquakes happened. The chain of events was just short of famine,
pestilence, bleeding rivers, and death of firstborn children in order
to become the Plagues of Egypt.

The whipping, howling, and unforgiving winds crashed into the clouds and
the heat wave reached across Mount Fuji no matter where Keiko turned,
which made the girl squeal in surprise.

The shikigami of the One-Eight-Ten Killer howled as well, either in pain
or in mourning before it too vanished in a puff of smoke.

In turn, the smoke... or rather, the mushroom cloud... generated from
the enormous blast scarred the otherwise pristine mountainside of
Japan's highest peak.

Xinhai emerged from the haze, burned and bruised but otherwise unscathed
and unwounded in any major way. His aura flared then formed into his
shikigami, which united with him in order to protect him from the blast.
They then separated and faced their respective opponents.

"Oh, COME ON! Even Toguro reacted when I blasted him with the Chou Rei-
Gan!" Yusuke stomped on the ground in frustration before charging up his
spiritual laser once again, only to withdraw his index finger after Feng
attempted to chop it off.

"You dare compare yourself to the _atom bomb_, you teenaged dolt? Is
that your idea of a living _nuke_? Don't make me laugh!" said Xinhai,
who charged and attacked Urameshi with impunity using his stolen Nikaido
Heiho Ryu tactics, not giving the teen any breathing room or opportunity
to do his myriad of projectile attacks.

Then, once Yusuke again began parrying the longsword with his reiki-
shielded forearms, the savvy Feng shifted from kenjutsu to fencing and
did a Counter Parry that broke through the teenager's blocks and allowed
him to thrust his sword all the way in.

Or it would've had Urameshi not transferred his ki to his foot while
jumping back to avoid being impaled by the longsword like a chicken on a
rotisserie.

Keiko covered her eyes with her hands, only to will herself to uncover
them and look at everything without flinching. This was the least she
could do since she dove headfirst into one of Yusuke's death matches
willfully.

As for Puu, he fared better than his human counterpart, flying into the
heavens as soon as Xinhai's shadow clone reappeared and attacking it
with swan dives, sharp talons, and pelican pecks, as though he were
fishing in the ocean for trout.

After all, Yusuke's spirit beast didn't want to be an emphatic burden to
his caretaker.

An uppercut full of spirit energy clipped Feng's jaw and grazed his
cheek from up close. Now it was his turn to cover up and attempt to
establish his distance from Yusuke, his sword too long to be of help at
arm's length and during toe-to-toe fighting.

He knew if any of those punches landed, they would shake him to his
very core, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. 'He's an
idiot, but his fighting instinct is superb. He probably doesn't even
realize what a brilliant strategy he's employing,' the One-Eight-Ten
Killer thought.

A headbutt and the full "Hei" character kata later (which involved
swinging the sword quickly and combining the one, eight, and ten
characters together to form the kanji for Hei), and Xinhai escaped from
in-fighting.

The mob boss then shifted back and forth between Japanese swordsmanship
and fencing to keep Yusuke guessing on how to block.

Feng's signature Beat Parry Riposte and Counter Parries allowed him to
break Urameshi's guard and land either his close-range Nikaido Heiho Ryu
brushstroke moves, his long-range Shinko Ryu vacuum slash moves, or his
mid-range fencing moves even while he endured rib-breaking liver blows
and teeth-shattering uppercuts.

In particular, Xinhai's version of the Tactical Wheel... which was
composed of the Simple Attack, Compound Attack (combination attacks with
feints included), Counter Time (feints specifically used as bait to draw
out a counterattack that could itself be countered), and back again to
the Simple Attack (in case the drawn-out counterattack was a feint by
the opponent)... neutralized Yusuke's usually frenetic pace.

Urameshi realized that fighting this hulking brute was like fighting
the multiple personalities of Sensui.

One minute, Feng played keep-away with his long-range Izuna, the next
minute, he fought toe-to-toe with hyper-aggressive swarming one-eight-
ten or Hei strikes, then the minute after that, he bounded off his feet
with an ultra-tactical fencing style using a Japanese longsword.

Urameshi didn't even have the chance to breathe before he himself went
on the defensive against the endless thrusts, parries, counter parries,
and vacuum waves from Xinhai's nodachi.

"YUSUKE! That Chinese guy is bluffing! There's no way he isn't affected
by your Rei-Gan and punches! His legs are still wobbling! You hurt him!
He's using delaying tactics!" called out Keiko a minute later.

'Son of a bitch, she's right!' thought Yusuke, who espied the quivering
of Xinhai's knocking knees. His full-on offense with the Nikaido Heiho
Ryu aside, his other two sword styles allowed him to recover and keep
himself out of harm's way. Like the weasel that he was.

He fell for Xinhai's "bluff" (or perhaps "feint", since he certainly had
plenty of those) hook, line, and sinker. Before he knew it, he'd stopped
bothering with his patented Rei-Hadou-Ken projectile moves he learned
from Genkai herself, his mounting frustration making his attack pattern
incredibly simple, close-range, and easy to counter.

He wasn't completely fooled, though. Even though he retracted the finger
he was using to charge up his Spirit Gun that Xinhai almost cut off at
the last minute, it still continued collecting spirit energy all this
while.

Once Yusuke widened the gap between him and Feng, he pointed his index
finger at the ox-strong beast and fired off a second "CHOU REI-GAN!" at
a moment's notice since it was already fully charged by that time.

"TA MADE...! (YOUR MOTHER...!)" cursed Xinhai, the energy blast whizzing
towards him like an incoming comet before he grinned, stuck his tongue
out, and said, "Just kidding. I expected that too."

Like how Jin deflected Yusuke's Rei-Gan with his "forearm whirlwinds",
Feng made his own twister, calling it the "TORNADO RIPPER!" but this
time around, he made the hot air rise by utilizing the heat from the
huge ball of energy itself while producing his own dense cold air with
his vacuum slices.

Instead of concentrating his energy into his forearms, Urameshi released
his reiki evenly across his body while a hint of youki also coalesced
with it to boost up his power. This allowed him to anchor himself onto
the ground while the resulting tornado blew everything else away.

Even Keiko's ghost had to hold onto something thanks to the strength of
the hurricane, and she was intangible at the moment.

Taking advantage of the intensity of his own battle aura to keep him
grounded, Yusuke trudged forward before leaping right into the eye of
the storm, where he faced weaker air resistance while he dove straight
into the origin of the typhoon, which was Xinhai himself.

This was also part of the One-Eight-Ten Killer's plan. Had Yusuke known
what Natsuki Shinkai and Daiji Matsudaira already knew about the Tornado
Ripper, he would've changed tactics and not confronted the hurricane
head on.

"SONIC SHOCKWAVE!" Feng brought his nodachi down and produced the
biggest, fastest Tobi (Aerial) Izuna he could muster into the empty,
hollow space of the cyclone where Yusuke floated.

The teen avoided the vacuum slice itself with no problem, but the
resulting sonic boom of built-up air resistance amplified by the blast
of wind tore his shirt off of him.

It might not have been as fast as Suzaku's Railgun (which traveled at
mach three instead of a mere mach one), but the destructive power of
breaking the sound barrier was the whole point of the technique, not
mere speed.

Keiko couldn't even hear herself when she screamed for her beloved's
name before she herself floated away to parts unknown thanks to the
sheer force of the shockwaves produced by the Tobi Izuna that traveled
faster than the speed of sound while turning the tornado inside-out and
making it explode.

As expected of a Class-S. And Xinhai didn't even need to split himself
into seven clones to do it, too.

When Urameshi fell, so too did Puu, his muscles getting spasms and
freezing up while their shared bond acted up. Unfortunately for the
gigantic bird monster, Xinhai's shikigami capitalized on this
opportunity, delivering as many stabs as it could on the beast after it
flipped him over on his back and let him fall.

Through sheer force of will, Yusuke tumbled then landed on his feet like
a cat even after suffering through the concussive force of a shockwave-
filled twister blast thanks to his blanket of spirit energy that
absorbed part of the impact.

While Urameshi stood his ground, Puu went right-side up and flapped his
wings hard in order to lift himself off while shaking off his ethereal
attacker.

He then landed beside his counterpart, bleeding but still conscious like
the teen. A burst of adrenalin kept both of them standing regardless.
Hurt, but defiant.

As for the shikigami, it teleported behind its master before bursting
into purple and crimson flame, the hot miasma superheating the
surrounding air and allowing the Triad Mountain Master to produce one or
several tornadoes with his ice-cold Izuna.

"I've heard so much about you from Suzaku, Rando, and many others in the
Shin Ju, but so far, to be quite honest, I'm less than impressed.
Perhaps I expected too much from a half-demon, Class-S brat?"

Instead of becoming frustrated by his lack of success against Feng,
Yusuke merely asked, "How does your jaki-gathering job work? You make
people suffer, then out comes negative energy or something?"

'He's still thinking about how to save his girlfriend from her coma,
huh?' thought Xinhai before the grisly, grotesque visage of what looked
like a zombie or a ghoul begging for forgiveness haunted him at the back
of his mind.

He shook his head to clear it, ignoring the twinge in his chest, like a
knife stabbed into his heart before it was given a little twist for good
measure. 'Speaking of his girlfriend, where is Yukimura Keiko...?'

He spotted the ghost floating back down to Mount Fuji after being swept
away by his Tornado Ripper, homing in on the aura of her beloved like a
lighthouse shining at a port in a storm.

The Taiwanese mobster then answered Yusuke, "You of all people should be
aware of why jaki is so powerful. It's emotion. Humanity has learned to
harness all sorts of energies, but they remain clueless of the energies
flowing within their own bodies, giving them life."

Urameshi flinched after Xinhai raised his nodachi upwards, as if
preparing to do his combination Tornado Ripper and Sonic Shockwave
again.

"Negative energy is everywhere, but negative energy you yourself have
produced is the most potent energy relative to you. Murderers feed off
the fear and helplessness of their own victims, just as predators
sustain themselves with prey."

"It's not about how powerful your victim is that makes him or her the
perfect place to plant your seed of evil. In fact, the more innocent and
pure your target is, the more complete the corruption and the more
potent the resulting jaki."

Feng licked his lips. "Like turning a wholesome young innocent into a
prostitute, a child into a mass murderer, or a hero into a villain. It's
the fall from grace that gives the jaki its extra spice."

The mobster chuckled after he saw Yusuke's face twist and morph into a
scowl. So predictable.

"My apologies. I've made you upset. I haven't mastered the Japanese
tongue yet, despite my past self's fluency with the language. Something
must've been lost in translation. Maybe I should use simpler words. Or
better yet, maybe I should just _show_ you what I mean."

With quickness that belied his mass, Feng sprinted straight for the
falling (or rather, floating) Keiko while his shikigami intercepted both
Puu and Yusuke with flying Izuna slashes and a supercell (a deep,
persistent vortex of air shooting upwards without a full-fledged
tornado's funnel cloud).

"EEEEK!"

By reflex, Yukimura gasped after Xinhai stabbed his long, hard steel
blade into her abdomen, only to realize that she was a ghost (or, to be
more specific, an astral projection of herself), so she could barely
interact with the physical, living world around her.

"Tough luck, Mister. You can't touch...!" She was about to float away
when she felt a sharp pain in her stomach. Dark aura she hadn't seen
since she was almost killed by Seiryu traveled all over her transparent
form, spreading across her body like a virus.

"W-What is this? Let me go! Get away from me!" she kicked and screamed
while writhing in pain. Meanwhile, many miles away, her heart in her
comatose body started palpitating in panic.

"You're supposed to leave a mark or a wound on your victim that's so
strong, it would appear even in their astral form. That's how you make
your connection with them. Like branding your cattle. It's like a curse of
some sort. The seed of evil."

"STOP IT! LET HER GO, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" shouted Yusuke, who struggled
against the supercell whirling around the nodachi of Xinhai's shikigami.

Feng continued. "Instead of depending on the Chojin for my ration of
jaki, I'm helping produce jaki for him. Even a weakling like Seiryu
could bring the Wolf of Mibu to the brink by victimizing your
girlfriend and using her suffering to his advantage."

Then Keiko felt cold. Really cold. The coldest she'd ever felt. The
coldest in recent memory, at least, since her ghost form could only
vaguely feel things. "What's going on? Yusuke! I'm scared!"

"Even Himura ended up with such a mark on his cheek. The hatred of those
whose lives he destroyed remained in his spirit form even after a
hundred years later, hence his cross-shaped scar. Yukimura Keiko's pain,
on the other hand, is manifested by the frostbite given to her by
Seiryu," explained Xinhai.


===


To Be Continued...

Next: The Monster versus the Mazoku.

Naturally, since there's a "Railgun" (with clones) in the story, then
there should also be references to a certain power-neutralizing
protagonist and his vector-manipulating arch-nemesis.

Also, the badass Feng Xinhai dialog about him being "one of a kind" was
paraphrased from a famous Ludwig Van Beethoven quote.

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi,
Shueisha, Fuji TV, and Studio 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.

So long! Farewell!
Abdiel
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