[FFML] [yyh][ry][xover] Youtou Shinnoken Chapter 31: Tactics (Part 6)

[Abdiel]

Using special binoculars that read ki signatures to spy on the Shinjuku
Hisashi Building (that was blasted to Kingdom Come thanks to a red-and-
white twister) while sitting atop the bare I-beams of another nearby
structure that was under construction, the reed-thin tuxedoed man from
the failed Kabukicho sting operation concluded, "Tsk, tsk. It looks like
the boss is running out of ammunition. It's time for some much-needed
air support."

Actually, the stringy-haired masked man who reduced Kamurocho into ash
care of a "suicide" bombing was no longer clad in a tuxedo. Instead, he
wore the same black-and-red skintight outfit he sported back on the day
that he first died in the hands of his greatest enemy and the object of
his affections. It was his battle gear, so to speak. "Let's start with
something simple. Trace Eyes."

In an instant, flying balls of explosives appeared, bearing a single
orange eye, traditional string fuses, and bat wings in order to help
them travel through long distances as they sought out their target. Like
seeker missiles, they homed in on the girl who sported bobbed hair,
clothing fit for a Host Club or a hotel maitre d', and a metal cane for
a weapon on the thirty-fifth floor of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building.

Like the awakened Daiji and his manifested twin kodachi or the S-Class
Sensui and his spiritual armor, the raven-haired bomb-making expert had
the ability to create items out of thin air using his spiritual energy
to materialize them. He belonged to the subclass of demons known as
Quest-Class or Shihaisha-Kyu (the Governor-Class; not to be confused
with the power level rankings that ranged from E-Level to S-Level) who
could affect the intangible world with their powers.

Then, to the Quest-Class youkai's surprise, tendrils of green appeared
and cut up all fifty of his Trace Eye Bombs, which prompted them to
explode in midair before they could even reach their intended target. A
wave of nostalgia engulfed the man before he jumped away from a snaking,
thorny whip that sliced the I-beam he was sitting on into quarters.

"KARASU!"

>From there, the human-looking demon with jet-black hair was treated with
the spectacle of seeing the red-haired, green-eyed man who killed him
riding on gigantic butterfly wings made of different herbs and plant
life. His narrowed eyes became slits as muffled laughter escaped his
insectoid mask.

"Kurama. Where did you come from?" He smirked. "What took you so long?"

"I didn't expect you to still be alive. I should've known as much...
what with Yomi and Kuronue returning from the dead too. Sort of," Kurama
said as his Fuyoka no Makai Shokubutsu that served as his glider burst
into a wave of dead leaves while he landed on another I-beam adjacent
to the one he tore apart with his razor-sharp Rose Whip.

"So you've moved from working for the Toguro Brothers to working for the
Chojin, huh? You're a lackey to the end." Kurama flew back as explosion
after explosion followed him, from concussive, shuddering ones that
could blast concrete into smithereens to fiery conflagrations that
outright melted steel.

"I've missed you too, Kurama. I've been thinking about you all that time
I spent in hell. I was rooting for Toguro Ani, that renegade Spirit
World Detective, Yomi, and Shigure to finish you off so that we could
end up together in Hell. But now you yourself have returned to me, and I
can't wait to see your beautiful face wrenched in exquisite agony while
I blow you up piece by delicious piece!"

Karasu ranted at length as he greeted his one-time rival and long-lost
obsession with a plain grenade and a Deleterious Bomb that looked like a
pack of green dynamite.

>From a distance, right beside the window on the floor where Natsuki
Shinkai and Feng Xinhai fought, it looked like World War III was
happening at the unfinished building full of fiery detonations, melting
I-beams, metal shrapnel, rebar, pieces of concrete, and other types of
debris.


========================================================================


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/

We'll finally get some answers in regards to who exactly is the group
called Shin Ju


========================================================================

Chapter 31: Tactics (Part 6)

========================================================================


In the middle of Daiji Matsudaira's battle with Feng Xinhai inside the
Shinjuku Hisashi Building on the thirty-sixth floor while Natsuki
Shinkai watched by peeking through a hole in the wall...

Natsuki's jaw dropped at seeing Daiji keep up with her father for so
long with a fluid grace she never saw from him. Granted, all police
officers were required a modicum of physical fitness, but the way the
detective moved made him look like another person altogether.

Then her heart skipped a beat as she saw the face of the person she'd
been hunting for these past couple of years. She held back a shudder as
an unbidden nightmare of tangled flesh and broken dreams intruded her
consciousness.

No. This wasn't the time for her to get distracted by that part of her
that screamed forever. She needed to be focused.

For whatever reason, ever since she got into the building, her right arm
had been tingling and aching. Now that she was face-to-face with the
man who scarred her for life, she could barely move her arm with the
pain that emanated from the muscles, tendons, and connective tissue
wrapped around her forearm's bones.

A memory of her father breaking her right forearm after she disobeyed
him kept flashing in the surface of her consciousness, although in
between flashes, a much more traumatizing and nauseating recollection
that didn't belong to her kept interjecting itself within her psyche.

It was composed of an image of her or someone else's forearm's flesh
cleaved off, its bloody bones exposed for all the world to see.

'Raijuta-sensei...' a voice inside her that had awakened only about a
week or so ago marveled. 'Even though he's of another ethnicity now and
looks sort of different, I'd recognize that arrogance anywhere. His soul
reeks of bitterness, conceit, and ambition. Let me take him on, Tsuki-
chan. It's been a long time coming; a hundred or so years too long, in
fact.'

'Don't call me Tsuki-chan, we're not _that_ close,' admonished Natsuki
as she weighed her options. She wanted to intervene and help her sempai
out, especially in light of how terribly he handled her father's counter
parries, but it looked like the bloodied and pale Xinhai was "ready to
go" too.

'Let me handle this, Yuta-kun. Whatever this Raijuta fellow did to you a
hundred years back is nothing compared to what Fuqin did to me. It's a
thousand times worse, and you know it.'

'That's what I'm worried about. I can confront and battle against my
former master who betrayed me. Can _you_ do the same to your own
father?'

Natsuki gasped as Xinhai got the better of the police officer; the
awkwardly angled stab reaching Daiji and flooring him instantly into a
pool of his own blood.

Just as Feng attempted to cut the detective's head off, his daughter
jumped out of the hole on the ceiling, burst into the scene, and
deflected the Japanese longsword before it harmed one hair on the
copper's head.


===


At the thirty-fifth floor of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building...

Xinhai's eyes lit up after seeing his lovely daughter's bare flesh and
belly button after so many years. Ah, the flawlessness of youth.

"That's how you do a proper Beat Parry Riposte, Xiaji. Oh, by the way!
I'm amazed at how you were able to intercept the Triad's drug money from
some of our dealers and dealt with all of them without taking a single
life. I was truly astounded!"

Natsuki growled as she circled around Xinhai, her feet bounding around
as she searched for possible avenues of attack while locking into the
depths of her mind the handprints and trails of saliva on her eleven-
year-old body. Meanwhile, Yutaro would've fidgeted if he could; he'd
seen the girl fight before. She wasn't acting like herself around this
man.

"You would've done the vagabond version of Battousai proud with what you
did, but have you ever thought about the consequences to your actions?
The people you didn't kill were eventually executed by the Triad anyway.
The money you stole and used to fund your crusade against me is blood
money. Don't think for a second that you can justify your crimes with
random acts of kindness in light of their consequences."

"I don't claim to be a saint or a Buddha. I can't be either one, because
if I have to soil my hands in filth in order to end you, then I will do
so. You want to be as strong as a demon? Then so can I."

Father and daughter crossed weapons, and to Feng's surprise, his beat and
parry were countered with a beat and a parry to rival his as well. He
always knew that his daughter was a swordsmanship prodigy. What took him
decades to perfect and master, she was able to pick up in half the time,
as evidenced by her superior riposte that reached her father's eye
before his follow-up attack touched her.

Alas, like with the much-more skilled Shinomori-possessed Matsudaira,
the overwhelming strength given to Xinhai care of his multiple victims
won the day.

"You dare fight me with a blunt cane that cannot cut or pierce? You've
already lost this battle before you've fought it. Suffer for me, my
daughter," said Feng as his delayed riposte nearly (and literally) tore
her heart out, as evidenced by the trench it produced from where the
girl stood before she sidestepped and stumbled back.

However, her entire suit had been ripped wide open by the Izuna-backed
force of Xinhai's forward thrust, revealing her bra. She covered herself
by reflex before tying that was left of her dress shirt and vest into a
tie top that bound her chest. He probably did it intentionally to mess
with her head or... do something else entirely. She wouldn't put it past
the bastard.

For good or for ill, Xinhai was merely toying with Natsuki this time
around.

He swung his blade, intending to initiate the attack in order to open up
opportunities for him to do his specialty, the counter parries, but
Natsuki was prepared. She chose a different defensive tactic amidst the
sea of stabs and thrusts. She countered the Beat Parry Riposte by
ducking and doing a Passata Sotto or a feline crouch that allowed her to
attack from below.

Xinhai answered back by recovering to his En Garde position in an
instant then doing a shorter distance Reprise as a follow-up attack. He
chuckled after getting distracted by the way Natsuki bounced and parried
his charge, which left their weapons tangled against each other while
their faces were mere inches away form each other.

Feng licked his lips. "Oh, Xiaji. You're so naive. Even now that you're
living on your own, you still know so little about the cruelties of the
real world. I love that about you. Let Father make it all better. How
I've longed for...!"

Natsuki's instinctive yielding parry and pointblank hammering of
Xinhai's testicles with the handle of her cane might had little to no
standard fencing principles to back it up, but it remained effective
nonetheless.

His hardening crotch still aching, Xinhai attempted to pin his daughter
down with his own weight, but he instead had to contend with a fighter
completely unlike anyone he'd fought so far. 'It figures that out of all
the people I've battled, she'd be the one that's hard to figure out.'

In contrast to Aoshi's fluid grace that rendered him as adaptable as
water, Natsuki moved like lightning. He harrumphed, disappointed that he
couldn't have time to appreciate the innocent gorgeousness of his own
daughter in action.

"Stop acting immature, Xiaji, and give your father the respect that he
deserves!" He got a teeth-breaking whack to the jaw in response. He
grinned and cackled. "I want you! You've grown so strong! I want your
body and soul! I want to ravage you till you learn to love me again!"

Before Xinhai's longsword completed its arc, Natsuki had already hit him
three or four times. Instead of emulating the fighting style Kurama
helped train her in... dodge attacks, lie in wait, and attack openings
or possible weak points... the Xinhai daughter preferred doing a close-
quarter in-fight method that kept her battling toe-to-toe with her
father in order to keep him from gaining enough leverage to swing his
unwieldy sword.

Feng Xinhai barely even flinched. "A couple of more hits, and maybe I'll
start feeling it." He walked down the teenager as he locked his jaw and
bore through the dizzying and repeated hits to his punctured head.

"Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it, Father! STOP IT! DON'T TOUCH ME!
GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Her blunted weapon clanged noisily on the ground after Xinhai did a Beat
and a Prise de Fer or weapon-disarming technique against his unhinged
daughter.

As Natsuki bawled and repeated her gurgling, mantra-like pleas to her
slavering father, her fingernails digging into the cuts Daiji made
earlier as she struggled against his sweaty, bloody grip, his moist
breath over her neck and half-exposed chest sending a cold shiver down
her spine, Yutaro dully concluded, 'Dammit. She wasn't ready to face
him. She couldn't even bring herself to use a real sword against her
scumbag of a father!'

"Just like old times, huh?" Xinhai murmured in Mandarin to his weeping,
hyperventilating offspring. "It's been too long since I've had you. Lie
down and keep quiet, and your detective friend won't get hurt. It's
about time for me to make you into a woman again."

Language barriers aside, Yutaro recognized that leer from anywhere. "I
won't let you touch her, you lecherous bastard!" shouted Tsukayama as he
took control of Natsuki's body, poked Xinhai's injured eye, and slipped
from the Chinese man's grip like an oiled snake before rolling on the
ground and grabbing hold of the half-Chinese girl's cane. "There's
nothing I hate more than people who disrespect women!"

"Who...?" Xinhai began before realizing the change in demeanor of his
daughter. Although Natsuki remained a prime physical specimen of youth
and supple femininity, her posture, her speech, and her overall attitude
had become too masculine for his tastes. "Oh, I see. You're her past
self, aren't you? Like the detective, my daughter has gained access to
her Meiji Era self."

"You've done the impossible and made yourself appear even more pathetic
than before, Raijuta," announced Yutaro as he aimed Natsuki's cane on
her old man. He ignored how uncomfortable his lack of male genitals and
the presence of breasts were on a svelte body that didn't belong to him
in the first place. He needed to be strong and concentrate on the task
at hand for Natsuki's sake.

"Give me back my daughter. Let me speak to her. Don't get in my way,
boy." Xinhai winced as he gingerly walked towards the Yutaro-possessed
Natsuki, her manly posture ruining her half-naked glory. His mouth then
quirked as the spirits his daughter scared off earlier with her new
technique had begun congregating around him, his Hei scar glowing red as
his body temperature rose anew.

"You've become an even bigger faker and poser than before, Raijuta. Was
this your idea of improving yourself after Himura Kenshin exposed you as
a fraud? Killing innocent teenagers and doing unspeakable things to your
own flesh and blood? Some swordsman you turned out to be," admonished
Yutaro as he shifted from the basic kendo ready position of Chudan-no-
Kamae or Water Stance to a posture that most suited his defensive kendo
style: Gedan-no-Kamae or Earth Stance.

Xinhai didn't bother answering Yutaro's accusations about his past self.
Instead, he noted in Japanese, "The Earth Stance? Please. I know enough
about kendo to tell you that your type of stance won't work against me."
He shrugged. "Then again, kenjutsu in general is no match against
fencing."

In contrast to the passive Chudan-no-Kamae that aimed the sword's tip at
the opponent's throat or eyes... or Yahiko's favorite stance, the hyper-
aggressive Jodan-no-Kamae or the Fire Stance that raised the sword
high... the anticipative Gedan-no-Kamae was a counterattacking posture
that appeared like a defensive position. It aimed the sword at the
opponent's waist and it was developed to deflect attacks and create
opportunities.

"There you go again. Last time, you said it was _kenjutsu_ that was
superior to kendo. This time around, you're claiming that kenjutsu is
inferior to _fencing_. I myself have fenced before, and while fencing has
certain advantages to kenjutsu, it'd be foolish to discard it altogether.
Go ahead and attack me. Let me show you the strength of the sport you've
looked down on all this time, Raijuta."

"Stop calling me that name. I've long ago surpassed that man." Xinhai
saluted Yutaro by raising his sword upright... something he wasn't able
to do with his emotional, "trigger-happy" daughter... before going back
to his En Garde stance while bouncing on his feet. Meanwhile, the
Coadjutant Master of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu merely stood there, waiting
to deflect whatever attack Feng flung at him. "A defensive kendo style
is the last thing you want to use against me."

Feng probed Yutaro's defenses with a Beat that the boy residing inside a
girl's body anticipated and deflected right away. The One-Eight-Ten
Killer followed up with a strong Beat Parry that made the younger man
flinch and counterattack, expecting a riposte. That was when Xinhai
unleashed his specialty, the Counter Parry, that the boy couldn't
counter with a Doubl'e because his two-handed grip on the metal cane
limited his wrists' flexibility.

"Kendo and kenjutsu are one-dimensional compared to fencing! The
Japanese swordsman only looks for one killing blow at a time, and once
he releases his sword, he's wide open to all sorts of counterattacks!"

"One-dimensional my _butt_! You should speak for yourself!" To Xinhai's
surprise, his riposte was deflected by another riposte... or rather, the
Kendo Counterpart of Fencing's Riposte known as Kaeshi. Had Yutaro been
deploying fencing techniques, his feint to draw out Feng's riposte and
subsequent counterattack with the kaeshi would've been termed a Counter
Time or Contre Temps, which was a feint plus counterattack against a
counterattack.

"Don't underestimate kendo or Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. I'll respond to your
every riposte with a kaeshi. One of the greatest Japanese swordsmen
who ever lived, Sasaki Kojiro, defeated many an opponent with the
ultimate riposte: the Tsubame Gaeshi."

Feng snarled as he attempted to increase the pressure of his offensive
with continuation attacks in the form of Redoublements, Remises, and
Reprises, but the fencing-versed Yutaro didn't fall victim to any of
them the same way the fatigued Daiji did because of the boy's
intimate familiarity with both swordsmanship schools. "So you learned
how to fence, boy?"

"I had learned fencing so that I'd know exactly how to counter it... and
many other western sword styles based on it... using kendo. I've
dedicated my entire life to proving your beliefs about the inferiority
of kendo wrong, Raijuta!"

"Nonsense!" Because Redoublements were new actions made after missed or
parried attacks while Remises and Reprises were outright continuations
of missed or parried attacks, Yutaro countered them by merely telling
which was which, waiting them out, and doing Kote (wrist) counterstrikes
whenever the slower Xinhai did a Recovery (return to his En Garde stance
after attacking) or the boy correctly timed a counterattack against a
Reprise, Remise, Redoublement, Riposte, or even a straightforward
Attack.

"You're using a nodachi to fence. Are you an idiot?" Yutaro pointed out
as he nailed the injured eye he poked at earlier with a sword thrust.
"Fencing barely has any slashing techniques. You're wasting a perfectly
good slicing weapon in favor of using it for a swordsmanship school that
emphasizes stabbing."

"I've already had this conversation, boy." Xinhai mixed his offense up
by stabbing in every which way, his natural penchant at creating air
pressure unnaturally extending the range of his already lengthy sword.
A cold sweat washed over Natsuki's body as Yutaro did his best to
protect his latest incarnation's life.

"You should've listened more carefully the first time, then." To
Xinhai's chagrin, he found out where Natsuki learned her new move.
Instead of a kaeshi, the boy deployed the Kousa Dageki, and Feng had a
harder time defending against that move because, like his Beat Parry, it
blended the two distinct moves of a Tsuki (throat) thrust and a Men
(head) downward strike together.

Yutaro's latest kote-aimed attack via the Cross Strike produced a
sickening crack and a large, swelling bulge over Xinhai's wrist. "That
was for almost cutting my whole arm off and nearly ending my kendo
career, you bastard."

The Kamiya Kasshin Ryu prodigy proceeded to hit the various cuts,
bruises, and lacerations left by Daiji's multiple landed Kaiten Kenbu
Rokuren because Feng couldn't respond with an attack in time thanks to
his aching wrist.

Feng winced and grit his teeth so hard, his gums started to bleed.
However, what Yutaro said in regards to arm amputation gave him an idea.
For the first time since his fight against his daughter and her past
self commenced, the One-Eight-Ten Killer backed away. The Yutaro-
possessed Natsuki followed while keeping a wary distance.

In an instant, Xinhai hid his nodachi from behind, switched his blade
from his injured right hand to his uninjured left hand, shifted his
stance to a firmer posture, and changed his bounding footwork to
methodical shuffling. Alas, Feng's shift from fencing's En Garde
position to the Nikaido Heiho's back-pass technique was easily parried
and riposted with Yutaro's ever-reliable Kousa Dageki.

"I expected you'd do this. Hell, I forced you to do this," said Yutaro
as he ducked under a wide slash and hit his first Kote strike on
Xinhai's left wrist. "Big mistake. Natsuki already fought the _real_
Kanji Killer."

An Inukido thrust hit Feng squarely within the armpit, which made his
body freeze up and allowed Yutaro to land an Ichijin Sou Fuu Satsu on
his enemy's shredded midsection from the Seigan-no-Kamae stance (the
same stance Kenshin used to measure Hannya's striped arms), which was a
variant of the Chudan-no-Kamae.

Although Xinhai was fast enough to counter the Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren with
the full kanji kata of the Nikaido Heiho, Yutaro showed that, like
Battousai, being able to read the opponent's attack before it happened
could neutralize any speed advantage he might have. Besides which, the
boy showed counterstriking skills far more complex than the Hiten
Mitsurugi Ryu's different Ryu Kan Sen variants.

"So much for your claims that fencing is superior to kenjutsu and kendo,
you gigantic hypocrite!" Yutaro mocked as he deployed a technique that
served as Kaoru Kamiya's specialty before learning the Hawatari and
Hadome... Kamiya Kasshin Ryu: Mujinken. Using his Gedan-no-Kamae, he
emptied his mind and let his instincts adapt to whatever his opponent
did while aiming at the technique's weak point, which in this instance
was the nodachi's unwieldy length and utter uselessness in toe-to-toe
in-fights.

The Kote strikes that Yutaro seemingly landed at will against Feng
almost made the burly brawler's grip on his longsword slip. Soon enough,
he wouldn't be able to hold his heavy weapon with either hand. He
gripped his nodachi with both hands, his sallow body covered with sweat
and his wrists' bones making painful creaking sounds as he attempted to
vary his Nikaido Heiho attack by adding feints and sword thrusts in the
mix.

After a slice that tore Natsuki's tie top and made a hairline cut in
between her breasts, Yutaro responded to Xinhai's follow up thrust by
parrying with the metal cane, letting its spine slide through the edge,
smashing the blunt weapon onto Feng's knee to keep him unbalanced, then
when the One-Eight-Ten Killer counterattacked, he crossed his present
self's dainty wrists over his opponent's massive forearm and shouted,
"Defense Technique Ougi: HAWATARI!"

Aware that Xinhai would keep his grip on his nodachi no matter what,
Yutaro yielded to Feng's forward momentum and let the One-Eight-Ten
Killer collide right into a Kousa Dageki to the throat, the combined
impact of two special techniques enough to actually lift the three-
hundred-pound goliath off of his feet for a moment before he crumpled
back to the ground. "Counter Offense Technique Ougi: HADOME!"

Yutaro considered breaking the non-killing oath sworn by all Kamiya
Kasshin Ryu practitioners when a familiar breeze hit his forearm.
"Wha...?"

"TOBI IZUNA!" An invisible crescent wave made its mark from behind
Yutaro, slicing the men's room door into diagonal halves and hitting
a couple of water pipes, which resulted in a spectacular fountain of
water that produced a growing puddle of water.

Yutaro paled as he looked at his right forearm... or Natsuki's right
forearm, whichever the case... before it fell to the floor in a spray
of high-pressure blood that was as strong as the broken water main's
geyser.

He screamed, slipping down on his own sticky blood, before his vision
cleared and he realized that the arm was still attached to his present
self's body, and he'd just imagined what had happened.

Even after a hundred or so years, Yutaro Tsukayama's soul still couldn't
forget the pain it suffered from Raijuta's betrayal. 'What... What's the
matter with me? T-That Tobi Izuna barely even touched me!' The boy
scrambled to Natsuki's feet, her pants wet thanks to the water that
spread and flooded the thirty-fifth floor.

He reverted to his Gedan-no-Kamae even at the face of the smug, cocksure
expression on the coughing and rasping Xinhai, his hands still trembling
around the pistol grip of Natsuki's cane. 'Shit, what am I doing? To
think, I said that Tsuki-chan wasn't ready to face her father. What a
hypocrite _I_ turned out to be.'

"Oh, let me guess. You're still traumatized by the deep wound inflicted
by my past self, aren't you? It's such a shame that..." Xinhai trailed
off as his eyes traveled toward the barely covered portion of his
daughter's chest. "...It's a damn shame that someone with your superb
counterstriking prowess is frozen in fear against Raijuta's simplistic
technique."

"Shut up! Your Shinko Ryu is your weakest technique in your arsenal!
Every move you make with it is telegraphed! It's no wonder that Himura
Kenshin easily beat your...!" Yutaro leaped away and kept his limbs
close to his body as a Matoi Izuna nearly rendered him crippled, the
shark-finned ground wave missing his feet by its short hairs. "Whoa!
WHOA! WHOA!"

"You were saying, you spoiled little brat?" chuckled Xinhai despite the
toll it took on his wounded midsection and in spite of the waves of
pain that emanated from his sprained or broken wrists whenever he
released an Izuna. Meanwhile, a tearful Yutaro attempted to move
forward and make it an in-fight, which would've neutralized all three
moves of the Shinko Ryu and the effectiveness of the nodachi.

However, every vacuum cut gave him nauseating visions of Natsuki missing
fingers, arms, legs, or even her head. Either that or her body would end
up as a bloodied lump of flesh with a head that her father could use as
he pleased.

Who was he kidding? Her body froze because he visualized Xinhai...
_Raijuta_ turning _him_ into a meat stump that could never amount to
anything or meet its alleged potential because he lacked the parts to
feel whole again.

Yutaro's Earth Stance had altogether vanished in favor of him collapsing
towards the nearest wall in a fetal position.

"I remember you now. You were dishonored by your spineless samurai
father who sold Japanese swords to rich foreigners who wanted 'exotic'
weapons in their collection like a gutless yellow toady. You looked up
to me back then. Yet here you are now, cowering in fright."

'Yuta-kun...' Natsuki murmured from within their shared psyche. As for
the balled-up Yutaro, he beseeched amidst the destruction around him,
"Please! STOP IT! STOP IT NOW! Please, please, please. Don't harm this
body. I surrender. Don't make her know what it's like to be a cripple.
She's been through enough. Please spare your daughter's life and limbs."

Xinhai kicked the Yutaro-possessed Natsuki in the stomach and stepped on
her bleeding right hand. "You're in no position to make demands." Feng's
nostrils flared at his daughter's tearful visage. "Get my daughter back
here. I want to teach her a lesson she'll never forget."

It took a minute for Yutaro to figure out the implications behind
Xinhai's threats as he felt Natsuki's body freeze and brace itself for
whatever was in store for it. "Bastard! Have you no shame? Can't you
control your urges? Even until now...!"

"What are you going to do about it? Hmmm? Cringe at me until I keel
over?" Feng grabbed hold of his daughter's chest and laughed as Yutaro
yelped from the strange sensation. "Bend over. I'll start even if you
refuse to leave and bring my Xiaji back to me."

Yutaro had heard enough. He twisted the wrist that he'd been pummeling
earlier to escape Natsuki's lecherous father, then blocked the resulting
Izuna before it could complete its arc and produced an unstoppable,
steel-cutting vacuum wave.

He slid back, his Gedan-no-Kamae unstable, his lungs about to burst as
he gasped at the close shave. Through willpower alone, he kept his
visions of lopped-off body parts at bay as he faced the reincarnation of
his greatest fear: Raijuta Isurugi.

"You can barely even breathe at the mere sight of my Shinko Ryu. Do you
really believe that you're strong enough to 'rescue' my daughter from me
like some sort of honorable samurai?" The only thing that kept Xinhai
from laughing any harder was internal bleeding.

'Dammit, stop shaking,' he commanded Natsuki's body and his own soul,
but neither would listen to him. 'I was a hypocrite for telling Tsuki-
chan that I was prepared to face my former master. We both faced trauma
from the same man, and getting over those nightmares are easier said
than done.'

Xinhai narrowed his eyes. 'He's too tightly wound up. This will be over
quick.' To Yutaro, he derided, "Samurai were already dead back in the
Meiji Era, and they're certainly not about to make a comeback during
today's Heisei Era. Maybe if I do cut off Xiaji's arm, _then_ you'll
leave her alone..."

Even though his Gedan-no-Kamae never straightened itself out, the
wobbly Yutaro stepped forward, his eyes peeled for any and all muscle
twitches from the hulking Triad Mountain Master. "She's right about one
thing; you did something a million times worse than what Raijuta did to
me. Yet she's still here. She's braver than I'll ever be, and this is
the reason why I have to face you down. It's the least I could do for
such a brave young lady."

"Are you done prepping yourself up? MATOI IZUNA! TOBI IZUNA!" Because
his wrists still ailed him, the raspy Xinhai opted to spread his flying
and ground Izuna in every which way as though he were fighting Himura
Battousai at the moment. He afterwards charged after his razor-sharp
air stream in order to cleave through with a frontal, close-range
Izuna.

To Feng's surprise, the panicky boy did well to dodge, avoid, and hamper
the initial volley of unstoppable crescent waves with his anticipatory
Earth Stance. He threw nearby slabs of debris to see where the aerial
waves were coming from and kept his eye on the growing ruts on the
ground.

However, as soon as the tail end of a Tobi Izuna hit his shoulder and
drew blood, his Gedan-no-Kamae crumpled up like a piece of paper.
Xinhai and his accompanying vacuum slashes were upon the boy in an
instant, their edges aimed at his daughter's right forearm.


===


Earlier, while Natsuki Shinkai and Yutaro Tsukayama struggled with their
respective traumas and fought Feng Xinhai with their combined
swordsmanship prowess, Daiji Matsudaira died and his soul went straight
to the Spirit World.

It took him a couple of minutes to arrive at that conclusion, and a
couple of minutes more to come to terms with it as he rode above the
Yomi Road (which Kurama's oldest rival, Yomi, was named after), his
body placed supinely on a large oar while his head rested on the lap of
a blonde, blue-eyed girl wearing a black silken kimono.

"Hello, handsome," she greeted. "Welcome to Reikai."

Because of those few words, Daiji cursed and concluded, "Damn. Xinhai
was right. There is a Spirit World. I'm dead, aren't I?"

"Well, it's either that or you're having an out-of-body experience.
Either way, I'll be ferrying you through the River Styx towards your
ultimate destination regardless." It was around that time that the
detective noticed how... lacy the girl's ornate kimono was.

"Don't you mean the River of Three Crossings?" asked Daiji with an
eyebrow raised.

"Oh, they're part of one great river of the damned actually, although
Charon... that greedy little skeleton bastard... keeps his tributary
for himself. He even charges the Greeks for admission to Hades, as
though it's not enough that they're _dead_, they need to _pay_ before
they can be ferried across!" chattered the blonde.

As Daiji moved to get up, the young lady pushed him back down on her lap
while lightly berating, "Whoops, careful! Don't move so much, or else
you might fall into Yomi and end up like Izanagi's wife, Izanami-no-
Mikoto."

"Who are you?" queried the possibly deceased, possibly wandering spirit
of Detective Matsudaira to the, he guessed, shinigami before him. Were
he in his body, he would've blushed; he noticed that the girl's thighs
weren't covered because her kimono was a bit shorter than its
traditional length.

"Me? I'm... Sayuri... but that's no longer my name. That's my flowery
ferry-girl name with no family name. I've now named myself Shikoku
Uchiko! Nice to meet you!" Sayuri or Uchiko informed.

Instead of asking, "Why?" or, to be more specific, "Why does your name
sound like a fake, Japanese-sounding pile of nonsense that a foreigner
with a map who'd learned Japanese for the first time would come up
with?" Daiji instead said, "Interesting. You've named yourself after a
town and an island, among other things. Look, um... Uchiko... I need to
go back to my body. I have some unfinished business to attend to..."

Even before Daiji finished his sentence, Uchiko Shikoku... also known as
Sayuri... already rolled her eyes and said, "Oh boy. Here we go."

"...What?" inquired Daiji.

"Look, Mister..." she pulled out a booklet from Kami-knew-where and
flipped through a bookmarked page, "...Matsudaira. If you don't want to
end up an earthbound spirit, I suggest you stay put on my soft, creamy
lap and let me ferry you to your final resting place, wherever that may
be!"

Daiji hesitated for a second before continuing. "You don't understand! I
can't be dead! I was on the verge of defeating the man who killed my
wife! I still have..."

"...So much to do. How could this happen to me? I can't let things end
like this," Uchiko finished for him. "I've heard that song and dance
before from many of the souls I've ferried. Housewives. Politicians.
Celebrities. Soldiers. Et cetera. You're just one of many, dude. Of
course, if you need a minute to grieve for yourself, fine, but I'm on a
tight schedule here, and I have no intention of ruining my perfect
ferrying record like _some_ ferry-girls out there!"

Before the detective could further protest, his attire transforming then
and there into the trench coat worn by the Last Okashira of the
Oniwabanshu, he and Sayuri both noticed the swarming, glowing blue
butterflies that began surrounding them. "Huh? What are these? Stray
souls? Shoo butterflies, don't bother me! I've got a soul to ferry!"

To Daiji's surprise, Uchiko summoned a scythe and chain out of thin air
and swung it at the rabble of butterflies in an effort to get rid of
them. "I hate these things! They always end up in your mouth while
you're flying!"

'Where have I seen these before?' Daiji dully asked himself as the cloud
of insects grew and grew, like stars within a galaxy converging into a
corona of light.

>From a handful of luminescent Blue Triangle Butterflies, the insects
multiplied by the thousands, wrapping themselves around Daiji's body
while Sayuri shrieked and swung away with her kusarigama. "Holy
Takamagahara! What the Yomi is going on?"

As soon as they arrived, the butterflies vanished, and so did the soul
Uchiko Shikoku was supposed to ferry back to the Sanzu no Kawa. "Dammit,
I pulled an Ayame and lost the soul I was supposed to ferry!" she
bawled as she sliced up several nearby cumulus clouds in frustration.


===


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

Feng misread Yutaro's shift from the Earth Stance to something else
entirely as panic. The serial killer eventually figured out what had
happened as soon as his opponent gripped her cane left-handed and put
her bruised and swollen right arm behind her back.

"Xiaji...!"

'Xie xie. Thank you for saving my hide and standing up for me, Yuta-kun.
I'll take it from here,' Natsuki Shinkai... also known as Xiaji
Xinhai... told her other self.

'Are you sure? You should've let me face my fears,' he protested before
adding, 'I should be the one to thank you. I endangered your life for a
vendetta that seemed petty when compared to yours.'

'You've done more than enough for me. Remember, you and I are the same
person. Let us face our fears together this time around,' she replied.

Natsuki rushed straight for her father and drove her cane right into the
hole in his chest that Daiji left with his kodachi. She afterwards
pulled her cane back and allowed the Triad leader to crash into the
floor and serve as her meat shield against the remaining Izuna.

Like countless times before when he faced against Kenshin Himura,
Sanosuke Sagara, Yahiko Myojin, Kaoru Kamiya, Botan, and the present
reincarnation of Aoshi Shinomori, Xinhai got up. However, unlike before,
it took him longer to recover his breath or gain control of his motor
functions. He was already worn down. Had Daiji figured out Feng's
fencing techniques beforehand, then vengeance would've been his at that
point.

"Yuta-kun is right. Getting over trauma isn't easy. Sometimes, it's
impossible, and you just have to learn to deal with it every minute of
every day. I don't think I can ever forgive you for what you've done to
me, but I'll be damned if I let you finish off one of the bravest men
I've ever met. A true samurai. A better man than you'll ever be."

"I wasn't really going to finish him off, because that would've killed
you too. We've played cop and robbers long enough, Sweetheart. It's time
for you to go back to..."

"Save it. I've got no intention of becoming your prisoner again. Plus, I
won't let Daiji-sempai or Yuta-kun's efforts go in vain. En Garde."

Xinhai shrugged and sighed at his stubborn offspring. "It's such a shame
you want to die so soon. Even in my present state, you're still no match
against me. You aren't even in full bloom yet. I was looking forward to
see what your true potential was. It's so sad."

Feng slipped into his En Garde posture, completely unafraid of the
vomit-inducing power his daughter had displayed even at his present
weakened state. His complete knowledge of the Tactical Wheel... from the
Simple Attack to the Feint in Tempo... allowed him to keep even Natsuki
guessing despite her natural talent at counterstriking.

Besides which, he had yet another ace up his proverbial sleeves. Her
every fidget and wince made her an open book and allowed Xinhai to react
and control her movements instead of the other way around. Up until
then, she feared him; respected him; followed him.

Even without his powers, she would probably react to him the same way.
He believed that deep down in her heart, she knew that he loved her and
he'd do anything to protect their forbidden attraction with each other.
That was why she never ran away for so many years. That was why she was
the one who sought him out instead of the other way around.

He kept a close eye on any changes of posture on Natsuki's part... his
muscles tensed and prepared to counter Yutaro's kendo with the Shinko
Ryu... when the half-Chinese girl surprised him by setting up a perfect
Counter Time against his counterattack to her feinted Compound Attack.
Didn't Yutaro do the same with him using kaeshi? Did she learn how to
do a Counter Time thanks to her past self?

Nevertheless, as soon as they crossed weapons and were stuck in an
Engagement of sorts, Natsuki's eyes narrowed as she swapped
personalities and techniques with Yutaro, the boy taking advantage of
her body's natural grace and speed to attack from the middle to
pointblank range in order to neutralize the Matoi and Tobi Izuna. It was
just as he predicted.

"That's clever, but have you forgotten that the regular Izuna is a close
range attack?"

Xinhai almost lopped his daughter's ear, shoulder, and arm off as a
long-due lesson for her disobedience when Yutaro switched places with
Natsuki in order to deliver one-handed counter thrusts to the groin,
eye, and throat while displaying how hard it was for kenjutsu to adjust
to the hard-to-see, awkwardly placed strikes of fencing.

"No, we didn't."

In light of his daughter's advancing skills in fencing _and_ kendo,
Xinhai did a Disengagement to uncross his nodachi from Natsuki's cane,
feinted shifting to his En Garde stance, then executed a back-pass
Nikaido Heiho strike. Instead of merely worrying about fencing's
Tactical Wheel, the criminal mastermind opted to bring his kenjutsu
knowledge into the mix as well so that even a talented counterstriking
genius like Natsuki would be at a loss.

Feng shifted to his fencing stance, but at the same time, without even
thinking, so did Yutaro. From there, the One-Eight-Ten Killer did the
Nikaido Heiho's behind-the-back weapon switch from one hand to the
other, but that too was countered by his daughter's Compound Attack...
in other words, an attack with multiple feints... wherein she switched
from fencing to kendo to fencing several times and made her father the
one stuck in a guessing game of sorts.

'I may have spoken too soon. I may be witnessing the development of her
full potential _right now_.' Xinhai laughed as his daughter continued to
pummel him down like a hammer would a nail. 'You have no idea how proud
I am of you, Xiaji. With your powers mixed with the detectives', I'll
definitely become the greatest of the Shin Ju or even take over as the
new Chojin. The sky is the limit with your growing evolution!'

Daiji stirred from behind Natsuki, and she had to change tactics in the
last second as her father feinted a thrust, did an uppercut that allowed
him some breathing space from her constant counterattacks, then created
a multitude of Matoi Izuna anew to control where she'd land and move.
The half-Chinese girl almost had her face sliced off as she grabbed hold
of her right arm, its muscles clenching in trauma from a century back.

"The Yutaro part of you is still traumatized by the Shinko Ryu, isn't
he? Even when he's not present, you can still feel his anguish. That was
why I aimed at your forearm the first time we became one. Daddy had to
break your arm in the middle of making you learn about the birds and the
bees because otherwise, you might have hurt yourself much, much worse.
You said it yourself. You won't be able to get over your traumas
overnight, especially not during this fight."

"No," the reddened Natsuki admitted as she entered within Feng's
striking range and deployed every parrying variant in her arsenal...
from an Opposition Parry to her father's signature Counter Parries...
until she was close enough to arrest his fevered Izuna strikes with
another nose-to-nose Engagement of crossed weapons. "But with Yuta-kun's
help, I won't have to."

Xinhai's jaw cracked after Natsuki shifted stances as well as
personalities and countered with the thrusting-and-slashing Kousa
Dageki. Before the hulking brute could recover, the Yutaro-possessed
half-breed blasted Feng with the breathtaking Suneharai that attacked
his respiratory system by aiming at his lower ribs and windpipe. He also
deployed Yahiko's own version of Kaoru's Mujinken, the Tenchijinken,
which was a wild technique that peppered the opponent with awkward
alternating shots from one blind spot to another.

In desperation, Xinhai combined attacks from all three of his learned
swordsmanship skills... the Nikaido Heiho's full kanji kata, the Shinko
Ryu's Tobi Izuna, and a multitude of feints and thrusts... at his
daughter, but she shifted from one technique to another just as easily,
parrying and riposting against the brushstroke and vacuum strikes
while Yutaro stopped the Compound Attack dead on its tracks with a
kaeshi, an Inukido to the armpits, and a deflective Hawatari-Hadome
that opened Feng up to another shuddering Kousa Dageki.

Whenever Xinhai shifted to fencing, Yutaro countered it with his kendo.
Whenever Feng shifted to Shinko Ryu, Natsuki was there to deftly avoid
the projectiles and make it into a close-quarter in-fight. Whenever the
One-Eight-Ten Killer shifted to Nikaido Heiho, both Yutaro and Natsuki
took turns countering the technique because they both faced a far
deadlier version of it from the real Kanji Killer, Jine Udo.

Instead of Xinhai executing his plan to use Shinko Ryu to defeat Yutaro,
fencing to defeat Natsuki, and Nikaido Heiho to fill in any gaps
every time he shifted from either stance, it was his daughter who was
always a step ahead of him thanks to her natural talent in predicting
her opponent's next move.

Now every time Xinhai attacked with the Shinko Ryu, Natsuki used her
knowledge of fencing footwork to cut the distance between them and
neutralize the long-range swordsmanship school. Her knowledge of the
Tactical Wheel also allowed her to land at will against her father and
his kenjutsu without fear of reprisal or counterattacks. She knew both
the moves of Nikaido Heiho and Shinko Ryu by heart.

In turn, every time Feng shifted to fencing, Yutaro would deploy that
strange Cross Strike of his to stop him from moving to the different
components of fencing's Tactical Wheel. Normally, a Simple Attack could
only be countered by a Parry and Riposte, which were then countered by a
Compound Attack, which was then countered by Counter Attack, which was
then countered by a Counter Time, which was then countered by a Feint in
Tempo, which was then countered by a Simple Attack, which completed the
Tactical Wheel.

Yutaro had the ability to cut the Tactical Wheel short and beat Feng to
the metaphorical punch by fighting pointblank, minimizing parries that
Xinhai could easily counter anyway, simplifying the entire chess match
of techniques into a tug-of-war between attack versus counterattack...
which got rid of in-between steps like the Parry and Riposte and the
Compound Attack... and launching his multipurpose Kousa Dageki and
occasional kaeshi that countered everything thrown at him.

Yutaro's timing and Natsuki's skill in reading feints were impeccable,
which helped them avoid falling victim to advanced, feint-filled
techniques like the Counter Time and the Feint into Time. No longer did
Yutaro have to face his trauma over Raijuta's Shinko Ryu that stayed
with him for over a century or so alone. No longer did Natsuki have to
face a century's worth of suffering alone.

Thanks to their combined techniques of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu and Classical
Fencing, Natsuki and Yutaro couldn't miss and the weakening Xinhai
couldn't hit them. Regardless, the pain in her right forearm that her
father broke when she was a child... which mirrored Yutaro's right
forearm that Raijuta sliced apart a hundred years back... continued to
act up until then, which kept the duo from delivering several crippling
blows that would've finished the fight.

Most alarmingly, even after all the punishment that the fatigued Feng
received from her, he could still move and fight. 'How much more can he
take? What the hell is your father made of?'

'Broken promises and lies,' a watery-eyed Natsuki answered as she
followed up Yutaro's hundredth Kousa Dageki with a teeth-breaking
thrust to Xinhai's mouth before he could respond with an appropriate
counterattack. Instead of falling down one or multiple floors, that last
combination attack from two different swordsmanship schools made the
broken, swollen lump of what used to be her father crumple down the
cracked and pockmarked floor into a tangled heap.

At that exact moment, Xinhai began to laugh despite his swollen cheeks
and aching jaws. "I didn't think it was possible, but you're arguably
even more skilled than the detective. It's too bad that you lacked
power to put me down for good. You simply can't get away with using a
non-killing weapon unless you're as strong and skilled as the Battousai
himself."

Natsuki stood there, frozen. She was at the cusp of achieving her
lifelong dream... being released from her father's influence and inner
demons by finishing off their source and gaining catharsis... yet she
felt at a loss regardless. Was she prepared to take his life? She
couldn't even bring herself to take the lives of the people she stole
the Triad's drug money from in order to fund her little expedition to
Japan.

Two memories flashed in her mind: One was a memory of her mother wiping
the bits of food on her mouth and her scrawny but jovial father
patting her head while colorful fireworks went off from behind her two
parents. The other was characterized by the wetness she felt on her neck
as her father licked her nape and pinned her down with his weight within
a dim, soundproofed bunker of sorts.

Which memory was real? Which was a lie? Which should she believe in?
Either? Both? Neither? She couldn't tell. She didn't want to know.

'Even though the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu forbids killing, I'm willing to
break that rule for Xinhai, Tsuki-chan. The One-Eight-Ten Killer needs
to go down now,' Yutaro pledged.

'No, let me do it. Let me be the one to soil my hands, Yuta-kun,'
Natsuki insisted.

"Were you trying to break me? Silly child. I have no breaking point. You
were able to do this to me because I allowed you to do so." Natsuki's
hesitation proved for naught as her hulking father rose and engulfed
himself in plumes of jaki flame.

"I've been building up as much of my power within me as possible while I
fought you and your boyfriend." Feng sneered. "Also, like with the
detective, it doesn't matter how skillful you are. Even if you're the
best fencer or kendoist in the world, if you get drowned by a tsunami or
buried under rubble by an earthquake, your skills won't matter against
an unstoppable force. You'd still be overwhelmed."

Natsuki cursed to herself in Chinese... the only Taiwanese Hokkien curse
word she knew, to be exact... for wavering in finishing off her parent
when she had the chance. She then wondered if deploying a death blow
sooner would've made any difference as she found out firsthand what it
was that blew the uppermost floors of the Shinjuku Hisashi Building
away.

"I hope this serves as a lesson for you, young lady. I'm the only man
you can ever trust," was Feng's fatherly admonishment to his wayward
daughter.

"N-No. You're a devil who tempts people to go astray in order to steal
their souls for your own benefit," Natsuki stuttered as everything that
wasn't nailed or bolted down on the ground started to move and shake
around them.

Xinhai shrugged. "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."


===


Daiji Matsudaira's soul opened its eyes as the sensation of a thousand
tiny legs crawling all over him ceased. Afterwards, his jaw dropped.

"Long time, no see, Mister Roboto."

Beside an ajar, rickety door that allowed him a perfect view of his
wheezing body a couple of yards away while Feng Xinhai battled it out
against the faster and more cunning Natsuki even further back the
spacious floor stood the bespectacled apparition of his deceased wife,
wearing the same attire she last sported before her untimely demise,
her feet missing like a typical ghost would.

"I-Itsumi...? I don't understand..." Was she serving as his personal
shinigami or guardian angel who'd lead him into the same Spirit World
that the One-Eight-Ten Killer had been rambling about earlier? 'No,
wait. That was that bizarre 'Uchiko' girl's job. What's going on?'

"Although it looks like your friend Natsuki is winning this fight,
Xinhai is actually biding his time and using the suffering of the souls
he has in his possession to build up enough power to do his deadly
tornado move. You have to go back to your body and stop him, Jiji-chan.
We don't have much time," the late Itsumi Matsudaira explained to
her former husband.

Daiji looked down on his feet, and sure enough, a long string that
wasn't present earlier when he was flying around with Sayuri was
connected to his soul's chest, its other end connected to the bleeding
chest of his body.

However, he wasn't quite prepared to go back to the world of the living
just yet... not while his wife was there. He had a million things to say
to her, yet not one word could escape his mouth. Why did she save him?
Why was she there? Why wasn't she in Reikai, enjoying Heaven or
reincarnated into another body? How did she know about Xinhai's powers?
What did those butterflies have to do with her?

The question he dreaded to ask the most was, "Were you turned into
Xinhai's slave after you died?" in light of the fact that her present,
feetless form reminded him of the victims that nourished the criminal
every time he healed himself.

After much deliberation contained within a minute of speechlessness, he
declared, "It-chan, I swear, I'll do everything in my power to..."
His pledge was cut short by Itsumi moving her finger over his lips.

"It's okay. It's not your fault. Thank you for everything you've done
for me before and after I died," she said. "I might not have been the
easiest person to be around, but I am so touched you'd go to such
lengths for me."

Shaking his head as if to clear it, the detective blurted out, "The
copper," while Itsumi's index finger was still pressed over his mouth.

"Excuse me?" came Itsumi's meek query.

"I'm talking about the policeman who caught me burglarizing apartments
when I was a kid. Before I was adopted by the Matsudairas, I mean. Did
you know how he caught me?" continued Daiji.

She blinked and shrugged her shoulders. "Okay. How?"

"The gang that I was with posed as maintenance men and used bump keys...
a key that can open any pin tumbler locks that use master keys... to
steal valuables from nearby unattended apartment complexes. They then
made us 'innocent' kids serve as lookouts and scouts that help scope out
possible targets. For the longest time, the people who get victimized by
our gang thought that they simply forgot to lock up or it was an inside
job by the maintenance crew because there was no evidence of forced
entry. Even the cops were stumped."

It took Itsumi several more seconds before she remembered that Daiji was
finally answering a question she'd always asked him when they were
children: Why he wanted to become a detective in the first place.

"However, a copper's landlord wife was victimized too, and he personally
knew all the maintenance crew by name, so he doubted that they were the
ones responsible for the crime. He eventually figured out our modus
operandi with the help of a locksmith, found out about the bump key
technique to unlock locks without damaging them, laid his trap, and I
was among those in our gang who were first caught by him. After beating
me and the others up, I asked how he caught us. I was so impressed by
his story that I wanted to be like him."

"...My hero, the detective." Itsumi smirked, chuckled, and shook her
head as she stared at Daiji with half-lidded eyes; it was a familiar
expression of hers that was burned right into the detective's broken
heart. Subsequently, she enveloped her arms around him and kissed him on
the lips.

"Jiji-chan... Please. If you love me, let me go. Move on with your life.
Take care of Likka-chan for me, you gigantic dork. Make her cry, and I
swear I'll drag you to Hell," she stated with a sniffle, blinking back
tears that had the detective wondering how it was possible for a ghost
to cry.

Daiji paused before saying, "Tell me you're being sarcastic."

"Not at all. Goodbye, Jiji-chan," she bade her fond farewell to her
husband or ex-husband, since they vowed, "Till death do we part," before
pushing Daiji's soul away with spiritual energy shaped like a rabble of
Blue Triangle Butterflies towards the shattered door and into his
slumbering form.


===


Daiji Matsudaira opened his real eyes as his hands grasped for his
reiki-constructed kodachi blades. They were no where in sight. He
furrowed his brow and concentrated on summoning Aoshi Shinomori back
into the fray. The shinobi was no where to be found... out of mind, out
of sight. 'Oh no.'

Although the fire generated by Feng Xinhai's body wasn't nearly as hot
as when he fought Aoshi's present incarnation, it remained hot enough to
produce a force no normal martial artist or human being could ever
resist. Even demons would cower against his might.

Fortunately, from being on the verge of achieving Class-S powers, Xinhai
was now around Lower B-Level at the moment thanks to the heavy damage
inflicted upon him by the split-personalities of the detective and his
daughter. It didn't matter; nothing could prepare either Natsuki
"Xiaji" Xinhai or Yutaro "Cat Eyes" Tsukayama for what he had in store
for them.

Meanwhile, Daiji crawled on all fours towards the two combatants.
Neither the One-Eight-Ten Killer nor his prodigal daughter had noticed
he had awoken. He still had no idea how he was going to go about
stopping Feng at his current state. His vision blurred several times.
His body felt light as a feather, and so did his head. From time to
time, he mused about whether or not he was still astral projecting his
soul.

Most importantly, Itsumi's farewell continued to shake him to his very
core. If she wanted him to move on, then what was he fighting for now?
What was the point of all this?


===


To Be Continued...

Next: The Shin Ju.

For anyone who has forgotten, Natsuki's story was actually taken
from a proposed cooperative, round-robin story between me and
author Amanda Nable, which contained mature elements, so to speak.
Ergo, when the unfinished story was adapted into Youtou Shinnoken,
I took the ball and ran with it. As such, Feng Xinhai's back story
now contains elements of the Josef Fritzl case. So... yeah.

This chapter has a little cameo from Uchiko Shikoku (the shinigami
Botan mentioned in Chapter 17), which is a name I based off of an
infamous "original" character named Kimona Uchiha who possessed
all sorts of ninja techniques from Naruto and can even do
firebending a la Avatar: The Last Airbender to boot. She's also
based on an unnamed shinigami friend of Botan's in Volume 4
Chapter 28 of the Yuyu Hakusho manga.

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