[FFML] [fic][yyh][dark] Shonen Chapter 27: Crescendo (Part 1)

[Abdiel]

"I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."

(Brenda Ann Spencer, on why she killed two men and wounded eight
children and a police officer on Monday, January 29, 1979)


________________________________________________________________________


Shonen
A Yuyu Hakusho fic
By Chester Castañeda
chester.castaneda at gmail.com
gabriel_gabdiel at yahoo.com
http://www.fanfiction.net/~abdiel 
http://abdiel.florestica.com/
http://chester-fanfics.livejournal.com/

This part is rated for foul language and depressing stuff. 

________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 27: Crescendo (Part 1)
________________________________________________________________________



Though the youngest Minamino was the first among his fellow reflections
to fall, he still took the erstwhile Aswangs with him, thus making the
war between Kurama and Toguro Ani more or less even. 

Concomitantly, the nineteen-year-old Kurama and the bestial Tikbalang
squared off once again in the dark, shadowy pits of the Irima Cave; the
harsh clangs of the re-grown Tsukeyaki Grass Blade coincided with the
deafening hoof beats of the deviant centaur in a cacophonic orchestra of
sobering urgency.

Kurama took quick inventory of their surroundings: He and his current
adversary were no way near their respective 'manifestations', fighting
in a dark abyss far beyond the reach of the third pillar's light and,
more importantly, of Youko Kurama himself. Ergo, there was nothing that
should interrupt them from their fight; that would give him all the time
he needed to execute his battle plans.

Countless waves of punches erupted from the Tikbalang's twofold raid,
pelting rock and debris over Kurama's direction. Wreckage, rubble and
debris were flung around like so many breadcrumbs, the dirt and rocks of
the tunnel easily giving way to Toguro's incursions. The ground was
quickly grinded to dust, crushed like a block of ice inside a blender
set on puree. 

Conversely, Kurama waved his sword in a myriad of circular patterns that 
superimposed and juxtaposed each other, creating a green-tinged shield
that blocked and absorbed the brunt of the Tikbalang's explosive assault
while still keeping his nemesis at bay. Basically, their respective
attacks cancelled each other out.

But Toguro wasn't quite done with Kurama just yet. Seconds later, the
shape-shifter utilized his superior reach, reloaded, and connected with
a blistering combination to the belly and head featuring a left uppercut
to his enemy's chin, nearly dislocating it. In retaliation, the ever-
persistent Kurama dug a right-handed slash to the neck, a momentum-
driven stab to the side, and a kick to the face of his opponent.

After being thrown ten feet apart by the magnitude of their respective
attacks, the two combatants' eyes locked like steel bars.

When a lion eyed a gazelle, it didn't matter if they knew each other 
on a first name basis or not--there was a mutually recognized
relationship there, a predator-prey sort of thing. While the bulky,
muscle-bound horse-man did somewhat resemble a gazelle, he had a look
more akin to that of a hungry lion. Thing was, so did Kurama; even
without his Youko form, he could still produce quite the convincing
glare. So which one of them was the predator, and which one was the
prey?

Just then, for no rhyme or reason, the Tikbalang suddenly laughed out
loud...much to Kurama's confusion. Soon, the monster was in stitches,
rolling on the earthy ground while it laughed its heart out, even with
the coughing fit it had afterwards. "If that's all you got, then you're
as good as dead. I might as well enjoy myself in the meantime." Thus,
the brute began to mockingly trot around the redhead, increasing its
momentum ever so slightly as it neared before abruptly halting in front
of its quarry and making a roundabout turn just before it was
counterattacked.

This bizarre game of contrary cat-and-mouse continued on for several
more minutes, which forced the usually complacent Kurama to actually
chase the beast in order to engage it in combat. He frowned, puzzled.
What was Toguro planning? It was obvious that he was being driven
somewhere, but why? Where? Usually, Toguro Ani was more than willing to
take damage during a fight, his resiliency being his best asset and all,
but now he was actually bothering to dodge and weave through the
assault. To see him backpedaling and on the defensive was more than a
bit alarming to the kitsune. The boy of reflection risked a quick glance
over Toguro's shoulder, to see if he could see anything unusual behind
him.

The moment his eyes had left his opponent's, a meaty fist impacted his
shoulder and then to his side. He looked back in time to see Toguro
dropping, as if to sweep his legs out from under him. Kurama jumped
clear of the outstretched hoof, which suddenly morphed into a fleshy
buzz-saw, and tagged the demented psychopath with a kick to the back of
his head as he landed. He stepped back a few paces, then attacked again.

The Tikbalang was maddeningly difficult to hit, darting around like a
paradoxical, two-hundred pound bee while wearing that irritating, self-
satisfied smirk on his face. But once Kurama had begun to focus more on
his opponent's tactics rather than his technique, he managed to get a
couple of good sword strikes in. He had received a few hits as well; the 
glancing blows near his left kidney still ached, and he was afraid that
he may soon be experiencing lockjaw because of the repeated hits to his
bruised chin.

"What's more important? Heavy punches or constant punches? Creating
action or effective counterattacks? Body work or head-hunting? Slick
defense or occasional, punishing blows?" the half-horse chimera
rhetorically growled in a voice that could grind stone into powder as
it continued to smoothly evade Kurama's strikes. "In a real fight,
there are no judges, referees, spectators, or sanctioning bodies. It's
a simple matter of life or death. Win, you live; lose, you die. That is
the Law of the Natural Order." 

The two fighters flitted back and forth across the dim clearing, dodging
and exchanging blows, holding back quite a bit of their true power yet
at the same time gradually increasing the speed and strength of their
blows in an attempt to gain the upper hand. In due course, Toguro
dropped to a vigilant standstill, his muscular yet slightly scarred body
heaving in the effort. "You do realize that it's impossible for you to
slip another one of your Shimaneki Sou seeds into my body using your
martial arts as a smokescreen, don't you? If it didn't work on Karasu,
then it certainly won't work on me."

Kurama huffed in reply. "So you _are_ afraid of getting another seed
inside your system. Whatever happened to your bluster earlier? Where is
this 'immunity' over demon plants that you speak of now?" Feeling rather
emboldened by his own claims, the crimson-haired boy took a confident
step forward. "As a matter of fact, with Minamino Shuichi's help, I
_can_ and _will_ beat you. Don't make it seem as if it's the other way
around."

The Tikbalang neighed and whinnied in hilarity once more, which made
the cogs and wheels inside Kurama's head start to turn. "We'll see,"
Toguro smirked as he choked back another peal of mirthful laughter.

With that, no more words were necessary. With the swiftness of punches
and the skillfulness of slashes amidst mutual pain and agony, each
struck their killer blows.


***


There was a flicker of motion on the ridge above the fourteen-year-old
Kurama; purely on instinct, he proceeded to strike.

In tandem with all the other ongoing battles, the Manananggal thrust her 
spindly, clawed arms to the fore, stretching them out like a couple of
striking cobras just as a similar pair of prehensile vine whips launched
out of the third Minamino duplicate's wrists. The latter proved to be
the nimbler of the two as he drew blood and ichor from his former
classmate's overextended limbs.

The zombified girl subsequently reeled, let out a banshee's wail,
flapped her overly large bat wings, and flew out of harm's way as she
encircled her red-haired game like a hungry buzzard. The young man then
rushed forward and struck, his duo of Rose Whips cracking and snapping
against the stalactite Midori had been hovering over just moments
earlier.

Kurama winced; for a split second there, he thought he saw the normal,
shy, bespectacled Midori's face superimpose itself on the Manananggal's
disfigured features. 'She's not really dead, and this is just a dream.
A mere dream. My dream... or perhaps Shigeru-kun's dream. Whatever the
case, I can't risk letting my emotions get the better of me. I'm not
really fighting Midori; I'm fighting Toguro Ani. I need to finish
Toguro's puppet off _now_.'

Perched on the cave's spiked and jagged roof, Toguro Ani's peripatetic
consciousness appreciatively whistled through Midori's fanged maw as a
large piece of stalactite broke free and crumbled to dust from the force
of Kurama's strike. Turning his attentions back to the second youngest
boy of reflection, the Elder Demon nodded to himself; it was always nice
to know what level a fighter was going to be playing at.

The Manananggal wasted no time as she flew straight at Kurama, attacking
with everything she had, intent on killing her quarry as quickly as
possible. There would be no pointless posturing or gloating and no
holding back. Death was meant to be quick.

The whirling slash from the Manananggal would have decapitated Kurama
had the fourteen year old not ducked at the last second. He did not
completely escape, as claws nicked off the tip of an ear. The fight was
finally reaching its fever pitch now, not that either of them wanted to
stop. This had been building up for too long, and it would make things
simpler for either of them to have the other dead. Still, Kurama felt a
twinge of regret after making the realization.

Nevertheless, disregarding his hesitant heart, Kurama was not one to be
trifled with either. As he ducked the slash at his head, he bent into a
tuck and rolled past the atrocity, springing up from behind her and
flogging her winged back. The slash wasn't as deep as it could have
been, what with her sensing the attack and continuing to move forward
from her initial thrust. Still, she could feel her albino skin mat with
her own sticky ichor.

The two squared off again, eyes locking as they circled around one
another, low guttural growls escaping their throats, each acknowledging
the heat of the battle. 

The Manananggal was surprised as Kurama lunged directly at her, charging
right into a position which would make him vulnerable to her greatest
advantage: her speed. But it was a surprise move that made the monster
waver for a split second, and as she went to slash her opponent into
pieces, Kurama ducked under the blow and got inside the Manananggal's
reach. The fiend flew back, the sharp vine whips aimed at her throat
only scratching it instead of ripping it out. Still more blood flowed
from the near fatal wound.

Fighting through the pain, the Manananggal lashed out with a fist that
connected solidly with her foe's chin. Kurama was sent reeling across
the stone room, and onto his back. He stood up, but began teetering, as
though stunned. He staggered, then stopped nearly in the middle of the
floor.

Smelling blood, the Manananggal launched her body up in the air and let
it fall down in a natural arc that headed straight for the stumbling
youth. If she hit cleanly, the fight was over. 

Kurama suddenly seemed to recover his wits and brought his vine-covered
arms up, deflecting what would have been lethal slashes. But that didn't
prevent the Manananggal from landing on her nemesis. The barreling harpy
with the greater momentum sent Kurama to the ground, pinning him on his
back with her own weight.

Having the upper ground and superior position, the Manananggal straddled
Kurama and used her longer reach to wrap her hand around his throat to
keep him in place. Raising her upper body high with her wings, she kept
her throat and face out of his reach. There was no way the third
reflection would kill the Manananggal in one blow now, lacking any vital
areas to strike. Oh, three or four slashes to the chest might kill the
mutated freak, but he was going to manage one at the most before she
sent her claws through his brain. 

Just as the Manananggal raised her hand up for the killing stroke, she
saw Kurama wrap his whips around her torso and hurl her away from him
with one swing. She spun around in midair for a few minutes before she
righted herself with a mighty flap of her wings.

'What the _hell_ are you doing, you dumb, mindless BITCH?!' Toguro Ani
seethed in exasperation. 'Dammit, if you want something done right...!'

Clawed hands swinging and serrated jaws snapping, Toguro Ani made his
winged puppet fly into the fray once more with a warbling battle cry.
The short-haired redhead weaved and dodged the claws and jaws, as agile
and slippery as a snake, and brought his Rose Whips around to strike
back. The thorn-studded lashes cracked against Midori's shoulders and
midsection, causing chips of her calloused, undead flesh and her tar-
like blood to fly off of all over the place.

The teenager hesitated once again in delivering the death blow as yet
another apparition filled his mind's eye; that of Maya, the young girl
that the fourteen-year-old reflection was close friends with--the one
that nearly discovered his true demonic self, which forced him to erase
all her memories of him for her own safety. He was very protective of
Maya, and highly valued her opinion of him; what would she say if she
were to find out that her dearest friend was willing to sacrifice the
life of a young girl, an innocent bystander in the truest sense of the
term, even if it were for the sake of a not-so-selfish aim?

"The best way to handle this situation is to stop denying yourself your
true feelings and do what your heart truly desires. I know, it sounds
like the moral lesson of an after-school special, but the bottom line is
that you can only do what you _want_ to do, no matter how hopeless the
odds or dire the circumstances. Please be true to yourself, Kurama-san,"
the Maya in his mind stated, smiling enigmatically. 

Rolling with the blows, Midori ducked and slid underneath her distracted
opponent's guard. The whirling dervish of winged, blade-like strikes
began somewhere near Kurama's ankles and exploded on contact with his
wide open chest and upper body. Red fluid spurted in the air and the
hapless clone flew backwards in a graceless arc that left him sprawled
on the gravelly ground.

Midori chuckled Toguro's screeching chortle as the upper half of her
body continued to soar above her designated victim. "As intense as that
exchange was, I can't help but think that you're holding back. Could it
be that you're actually letting your illogical feelings for your dead
girlfriend get in the way of killing me? Or rather, killing _her_...
again."

Kurama growled indiscernibly while the Manananggal grinned a chilling,
feral thing that hinted on the edge of madness. "You've made quite a
lot of mistakes all throughout our little 'altercation' because of this
girl; ergo, I think I'm going to keep her around for a little while
longer." With that said, the monster screamed again and dived headlong
towards the prone youth.

Almost in response, Kurama did a soundless kip-up, reared back, and
wordlessly hurled a handful of seeds at the advancing ghoul. Partway
there, the pods burst open and a thick cloud of searing dust filled the
air and engulfed Midori's field of vision. Choking and gagging, the
devilish fiend stumbled back and fell as her legless, hipless body got
entangled by multiple spaghetti knots of Kurama's Rose Whips. 

"Finished?" Kurama asked simply as he advanced on the bound and gagged
creature, tugging his whips back to keep the besieged mutant at bay. His
retort to Toguro's contentions rang loud and clear; he would not hold
back in this fight, not one iota and not at this point. 

The Manananggal bit and scrabbled through her bonds, hissing "Not yet,"
before breaking through the vines by unfurling her razor-sharp wings and 
vanishing into an ashen blur. Kurama's blood subsequently ran cold;
looking down, he saw the shadows beneath him begin to spread and thin as
Midori flitted around like a demented hummingbird. He tried to turn and
escape, but he was suddenly caught flatfooted by brutal, backhanded
strikes across the temple. His knees buckled, his vision blurred.
Another blow slashed deep into his shoulder, and then something like a
cannonball hit him on the chest.

The third reflection was blown off of his feet and hurtled through the
air until he slammed into a nearby boulder. The stone shattered with the
rapid impact, after which his battered body came to rest in the rubble.
He lay there with a throbbing head and a light concussion for quite a
while before groggily looking up just in time to see the three whirling
images of Midori's horrendous visage right in front of him.

Without further ceremony and before her adversary could even react, the
fanged Manananggal charged headlong and whirled on Kurama in an unruly
fashion; she hauled the wretched young boy up by the collar of his
uniform, threw him high up in the air, flew right after him and impaled
the barbed tips of her claws into his falling body.

She spread his wings as they fell backwards, straining against the 
momentum they'd accumulated in their descent. For a moment, it felt like
her wings would snap under the stress, but she flapped them with all her
might, roaring with the effort. She conquered their inertia, and she
went flying just as she let Kurama's limp body flop down on the dirt
and slide through a pool of his own blood.

After a few moments, Toguro made Midori perform a disappointed clucking
noise with the roof of her mouth as she crawled beside Kurama using her 
freakishly long and slender arms. "If you're really _not_ holding back
against me, then you should have finished this girl off when you still
had the chance, kid. The way I see it, you're now trapped between the
devil and the deep blue sea: Damned if you kill her, damned if you
don't. Now isn't that just... scrumptious?" She stuck out her snaking
tongue and started licking the young man's face. "Look at me when I'm
speaking to you, WORM!"

'Should I kill her again? _Can_ I kill her again?' Kurama desperately
thought as the slowly rising Midori held him by his neck at arm's length
and picked him up like a rag doll. 'What if I'm her only chance to
survive this nightmare? What if I abandon her now and carry out my
mission to revive Asuka-san, only to inevitably leave her for dead
because of my apparent presumptuousness? No, I cannot do that; not in
good conscience, at the very least. Still, what am I supposed do now?
Tell me, Inari-sama... Maya-san...'

"You haven't realized it yet? You have to again make this dream into
your own dream, Kurama-san," the Maya specter said. "Impose your will.
Like with what you're doing for Asuka-san, you must also do that for
Midori-san as well. There's no other recourse." And so Maya told her
childhood friend what he had to do. 

Kurama nodded in assent to Maya's reasoning. 'Yes, that's the only way
for this fight to end. You're absolutely right, Maya-san. Failure is not
an option.' A blistering wave of grim resolve and determination burst
forth inside Kurama's heart, even though he still had his doubts; just
_how_ would he be able to make this impossible task possible?

Midori's horrifying face contorted into a sneer as Toguro read Kurama's
mind using Murota's powers. The Manananggal harrumphed. "Even after all
this time, even after all the tricks I've done to you using this girl's
dead body, you still hope to save her. Still haven't learned your
lesson, huh? Well, too bad for you, since I'm the freak of nature who'll
take advantage of that very fact. And with your classmate acting as my
monster-on-a-leash, you're as good as dead."

Kurama's eyes watered; he allowed his teary eyes to close, but he still
could not escape this world of suffocating agony he was currently in. 
Eventually, he felt himself start to burble a familiar death rattle--the
same death rattle he did when the half-bodied vampire first 'killed'
him earlier. 'Dammit, I better act fast...'

"This girl's astral body will die along with yours," the possessed
Manananggal started as she continued to gradually crush the red-haired
boy's windpipe, "but I will survive. And once I've finished off all your
so-called 'reflections'... plus your youko self care of his lame star's
death... and wake up from this damned Dream World, I'll go after your
friends next. Oh, but what a bloody reunion that would be! First, I'll
cut off all of Urameshi's fingers so that he won't be able to do that
Rei-Gan of his, then I'll castrate him in front of his little
girlfriend! Oh, oh, and afterwards, I'll use my own lengthy little
fingers to...!"

'Midori's astral body... of course! Why didn't I see it before?' With an
inaudible mental click, a plan started to form inside Kurama's head as
he opened his eyes and resolutely gazed at the indistinct silhouette
that lay in the distance. 

"...Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to ask my dear friend Kuwabara
about that; still, I better remember to do so before I cut out his
TONGUE! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Sick and weak, they will be helpless! I do
so love it when they're help--" Toguro persisted with his insane
soliloquy before shrieking in mid-sentence as Midori instinctively
loosened her grip on Kurama; vines with inch-long spines suddenly
wrapped themselves around the boy's neck as the remnants of his Rose
Whips covered his body like a botanical suit of spiny armor.

Thick vines tensed and stretched like ropes of muscle beneath the large,
waxy leaves that covered the third reflection's body like protective
plates. Short, stubby thorns and long, needle-like spines bristled
amongst the plates of dark green plants, and parts of his body seemed to
rustle and move of their own accord even as he stood still. Kurama was
now ready for battle.

Toguro grunted in irritation. This was merely an inconvenience; an
insignificant speed bump to his road to victory, he surmised. Clenching
Midori's fists, he groused, "How DARE you disobey dramatic convention!
EAT THIS!" as the Manananggal incessantly spewed highly corrosive acid
at the green-armored doppelganger. Curiously enough, Kurama didn't even
bother to dodge or weave through the furious offensive.

Just then, Toguro Ani felt a very recognizable tingle between Midori's
eyes that told him that something was terribly, horribly amiss. The
Manananggal trained her sights on Kurama just as he casually sauntered
forward and carelessly let the caustic fluid eat through his bionic
outfit. Toguro meditated deeply as he tried to psychically find that
unguarded, slipshod thought that would be the key to its ultimate
triumph--but he somehow couldn't. Not this time.

'I can't believe it! This is impossible--!' Toguro Ani stopped himself,
then derided, 'Then again, apparently it isn't. It's pointless to waste
time arguing against the obvious.' He furrowed his hideous marionette's 
thick eyebrows. 'Still, Kurama is doing it again; I can't read his mind,
his plans, or his next move in spite of Murota's abilities, just like
the time when I first fought him. How... utterly annoying.' The beast's
trembling hands and mouth spoke of something far more than just
'annoying,' however.

The writhing, walking mass of greenery was nearly upon the atrocity,
completely unfazed by her poisonous onslaught as his armor continued to 
regenerate, re-grow, and replace its lost tendrils and creepers. He
then unfurled another pair of Rose Whips from both his wrists with
portentous implications.

"I don't care if you can now hide your thoughts; I'll still win! I know
for a fact that you'd never _dare_ hurt--" A blink-and-you'd-miss-it
Rose Whip strike whistled through the air and unceremoniously cut
through the ghoul's face, nearly splitting it in half. The Manananggal's 
piercing cry then shattered the deadened air as Toguro's own howls of
dissonant anguish tore through the very base of his arrogance with its
primal anguish.

And so the young redhead's chess-like modus operandi finally started.

Operating on pure instinct, the Manananggal flew away from where Kurama
was standing as the boy's whiplashes gouged deep crevasses into the
cavern's facade with a sound that scraped across her back molars like an
electric sander. The resistance from the tortuous, hardened surface of
rock and stone slowed Kurama down long enough for Toguro to catch a
glimpse of the boy's face; he was completely relaxed and methodical
with his actions, a fox seemingly playing with a wounded bird just
before mealtime.

'Dammit! He's not hesitating anymore! So he has decided to kill the girl
after all,' Toguro assessed as he frantically tried to counterattack
with the dismembered harpy's wings, fangs, tongue, acid, and claws. 
Nevertheless, all he could really make the Manananggal do was dodge
slash after deadly slash as her body fell into an odd sort of autopilot
while the he tried to figure some way out of the dreadful situation. 

The red-haired youngster, who had prowled the realm of the Demon World
as an enigmatic kitsune thief in his previous life, was a strange blend
of past and present--he had clear memories of his human self, especially 
those of the middle-school version of himself who was still infatuated
with a certain bun-haired girl; vague memories of his present self, of
his time spent in Meiou High School and the friends he'd gathered there; 
persistent memories of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and their adventures as
the premiere Spirit Detectives of the Spirit World.

However, the way Kurama interpreted those memories and his mode of
thinking were almost entirely that of, ironically enough, Youko
Kurama--cold, precise, and ruthless in a way that went beyond most
people's comprehension. He was relentless; inhumanly cunning with human
intelligence--a force of nature without nature's equanimity. Midori
evaded the whiplashes in every which way and healed her mounting number
of injuries as fast as possible while Toguro Ani tried in vain to find
an opening to Kurama's unyielding assault... but it was no use. The
monster's dual personalities were starting to get tired from all their 
multitasking.

Toguro Ani did a quick count of how many Rose Whips were headed for his
grotesque yet resilient plaything. From merely being two, there were now
several dozen interweaving whips that sliced and slashed through
everything in their path; or perhaps it was just Kurama's speed in
handling the weapons that made them look so numerous. Whatever the case,
if even just _one_ of those thorny, razor-keen whips were to coil itself
around his undead hostage, then it was game over for both of them.

Clothing, skin, muscle, bone; the whips zipped through them all in an
instant as if they were nothing but a cloud of smoke. The thorny vines
entered at Midori's left shoulder and exited out her right lower torso,
leaving her on her back and separating her from her left arm and wing.
She only had just enough time to pick up her severed limbs and messily
piece them together before Kurama came after her again. And again. And
yet again, as though she was being herded somewhere...

The extra breathing space that the Manananggal had afforded by flying
upwards to the cave ceiling rapidly diminished thanks to the rising
range of Kurama's attack that practically drove her straight into the
stone walls. The beast tried to dive and flee, but her opponent easily 
intercepted her escape with a double helix of Rose Whips. She balked in
pain, then landed hard on the severed end of her spinal cord which
shattered on impact and forced her to cry out even as she managed to
recuperate and crawl towards safety.

The demonic creature whipped her head around to unleash another spray of
mordant slime. Kurama leapt over the hissing liquid with such speed that
he seemed to momentarily vanish. The beast stared about wildly in an
attempt to locate her prey. She glanced up an instant too late as Kurama
dropped down from the tunnel's roof like a falling meteor. There was a
brief flash afterwards, almost like a miniature stroke of lightning. 

Kurama landed on the ground and jumped away as the repugnance stood
still, frozen and quivering. Then, without warning, greenish black
liquid squirted out from a vertical slash that ran from the monster's
head to navel. The beast's body slowly peeled apart and fell into two
neat halves--or perhaps quarters, since she was already 'halved' from
the very start--on acid-seared debris. But the third reflection was not
yet quite finished with Midori just yet.

The entangled vines and creepers which acted as Kurama's plant armor
uncoiled themselves from his body and quickly latched onto the chunks
and pieces of the monster's remains. As expected, the Manananggal's
giblets, entrails, and internal organs instantaneously mended themselves
upon contact with each other, but something else happened beyond that;
something strange and vaguely disturbing, to be exact.

She... or perhaps Toguro himself... looked up at Kurama, only to find
cold, jaded eyes staring dispassionately down at her. Midori's pointed
jaw then went agape as she suddenly felt a hundred small vines hungrily
lash themselves on top of her as they pinned her limbs and crawled about
her throat. The malignant miasma of her Manananggal form pulsed briefly
around her, then faded as another swarm of the writhing weeds stretched
out at her and held her tight. Even her gigantic wings buckled under the
throng of flora, and she fell to the ground as she strained against the
oddly inexorable pull of the thorny vegetation. 

Those spines did not feel like hairs any more; the Manananggal could
sense them rasping against her skin, piercing her flesh and greedily
sucking away at her... or rather, at Toguro's... damned soul. With a
shudder, she was dragged backwards into the thick mass of weed as even
more strands grew up around her and pulled her down. 

"The vines feed on lifeblood," the fourteen-year-old boy spoke quietly,
laying on a voice like lead from the heavens; a cold, factual menace.
"The more blood or ichor they smell, the faster they gorge themselves.
They aren't very picky, of course; even an undead corpse's blood like
yours is fair game for them."
 
The atrocity's mouth moved, but no sound escaped. She could only stare
indolently at Kurama as he proceeded to shove some sort of seed into
her open maw. She swallowed, then gagged; she had no time to ponder the
gesture, though, as her skin was already looking ashen... as opposed to
just being pale... while Toguro's awareness struggled to escape their
shared, psychosomatic anguish--Midori's mind was not the place to be as
of that moment. 

"You noticed how they get bigger and thicker in such a short time? I
figure you ought to be enough of a meal for them to really grow and
develop quite nicely." Kurama stepped back as a few overly ambitious
weeds began to wriggle in his direction. "Checkmate, Toguro Ani."

'So Kurama's really going to finish the job and kill his classmate's
astral body without any hope of recovery. And, on top of that, he's even
going to make me suffer this harlot's pain while he's doing it. How...
cruel. If this wasn't going to seriously interfere with my plans, I'd be
halfway impressed,' Toguro appraised as hell erupted inside his head. A
white-hot fire enveloped his mind completely, moving in slow motion like
liquid agony--an excruciating lobotomy that ate through his thoughts,
memories, beliefs, and sense of self. 

"It's not supposed to be like this!" Toguro cried. The pain washed over
him in waves with every beat of the Manananggal's heart as her greasy,
scathing ichor pooled onto the ground around her. The sensation that
connected him to this Dream World now betrayed him, taking him further
away from reality. He had thought he would never be this weak again, but
apparently he thought wrong.

He had willfully accepted his prize after his team won the Ankoku
Bujutsukai fifty years ago: Immortality. It was a curse for many, a 
holy grail for others, yet an unending source of entertainment for him,
up until the point where Kurama ruined all his fun that fateful night
inside the Irima Cave. And now the same person was doing the very same
thing to him yet again.

"You... you... you--How DARE you! You were supposed to be a hesitant,
second-guessing moron who's reluctant to kill his classmate no matter
how hideous and monstrous she became! You're completely ruining the
irony of the situation! You're not following the SCRIPT!" In the back of
his throbbing mind, Toguro Ani supposed he _could_ take solace on the
fact that there was still some irony left with Kurama taking Midori's
life, but that wasn't enough to satisfy him. Not nearly enough. 

"I hate you. I've hated you from the time you fought me in the Cave of
Irima, up to the time I've spent in a persistent vegetative state
together with your damned hallucinogenic tree." Frustration. Anger.
Hatred. Violence. Retribution. Vengeance. All those emotions, Toguro
felt; they besieged him. "I've hated you since then; and, even now,
you've found new and exciting ways to intensify this burning rage inside
me."

When the opportunity for Toguro to take revenge on Kurama arose, he took
it without hesitation, even if it meant teaming up with his enemy's
alter ego. In fact, he hated the boy so much that even if the latter's
current mission involved sacrificing his very existence to save some
girl who was supposed to be reincarnated in his human body, the youkai
would still have none of that; the Elder Toguro would rather ruin
Kurama's plans and torture the gender-confused, prison-bait fox spirit
himself. He hated the boy so much that he'd kill him and revive him
repeatedly just to kill him again and again... just like in his past
nightmares.

Still, even Toguro's many sacrifices had not prepared him for this
battle. It wasn't fair! He was stronger now; ruthless, and extremely
powerful. He didn't have to be helpless. Not again. "This is not yet
over, Kurama; this is not checkmate, I'm merely in check. I still have
my Tikbalang and my Kapre to finish you and the rest of your reflections
off. You can't win. We're not even close to the endgame, you son of
a--"

Kurama's gaze abruptly narrowed and within her mind, the Manananggal
felt her raving and ranting master suddenly freeze in mid-tantrum, like
a mouse pinned by a serpent's predatory stare. "I see you clearly now,
Toguro," he said in an icy voice. "I can see your spirit; your astral
body. You can't hide behind your little monsters any longer."

Toguru started to panic and struggle, but no matter how frenziedly
Midori's halved body thrashed about, he could not free her of the vine's
unshakable, Chinese-finger-trap-like grasp. "Shut UP! A dead man should
not speak so arrogantly! You're going to die in a way so horrible, so
painful, so hideous, so... I don't know what yet, but you are going to
regret you ever existed!"

"Be _still_," Kurama continued in that same cold, grim voice.

Toguro shivered in the Manananggal's head and she could not blame him
for it at all. Neither she nor the demon could deny the underlying
menace lurking behind those soft words. This was no bluff. Something in
Kurama had changed and, somehow, he could now truly sense Toguro's
presence. But perhaps more frightening was the unspoken implication that
Kurama might now be able to do something harmful to Toguro if
sufficiently provoked.

For the briefest of instants, she sensed... The only way Midori could
find to describe it was to picture something profound and powerful
brushing past the edges of her soul. Like watching a mighty storm howl
through the countryside from a snug shelter; she could feel its power,
yet remain safe and unharmed. For Midori, the experience was strangely
awe-inspiring, but not frightening. The same could not be said for
Toguro, who recoiled in abject terror.

...Wait. Since when did Midori become aware of herself?

After making that inopportune realization, the horrible, terrible
memories buried in the surface of her consciousness--fairly recent ones
that explained her current situation--came back to haunt the bisected
girl. She watched, transfixed in shell-shocked repulsion, the virtual
car wreck of her own recollection; she was supposed to be dead, because
Kurama killed her, yet she wasn't dead, because Toguro revived her and
used her body for his dastardly purposes. 

And then there were the dirty memories; the unspeakable ones that filled
the parts of her mind that would forever scream.

For a brief, heartrending instant, Midori wondered if Kurama had truly
intended to kill her, then and now. Wasn't that exactly what Kurama
stated that he was prepared to do? After all, that would be the
simplest and most efficient solution to the problem that was Midori
Ohya.

She could almost hear the rasp in her mind's voice as she reasoned, 'No,
I have to trust him. He was prepared to kill--had killed--but even now,
he didn't do it out of sheer pleasure or just because it was the easy
thing to do. He only killed because he truly believed it was necessary.
I have to trust that the boy of reflection will find another way to stop
me.'

But despite all her resolve, Midori found herself mentally bracing for
the bitter end... just in case. 

"Believe me, this is over. Way over," Kurama said with finality as he
rolled the wriggling Manananggal right at the exact place where he first
dismembered and 'killed' her. "The fight ends here... or I swear it's
only just begun."

With a mixture of fear, desperation, hatred, and anguish, Toguro Ani
snarled, "So be it, then." From there, the demon-turned-human cursorily
prompted his Manananggal pawn to regurgitate a large blob of her own
ichor onto the defenseless young lad's upper torso.

Kurama stared at his chest in bewilderment, then glared at the tangled
beast with a questioning look that Toguro Ani never answered. There was
no rant, no laughter, no explanation... the demon inside the monster
merely nodded once and felt his control over the Manananggal slip away
as an unseen transformation started to take place.

...The last thing the Elder Toguro saw through Midori's eyes was the
lower half of her body merging with its upper half care of the entwined
vines and the special seed that Kurama fed the mutated girl earlier on.
'Humph. I was mistaken. He's not so merciless after all, the sentimental
fool.'


***


The fourth reflection's grass-green eyes turned to see the humongous
figure that had emerged from the shadows and watched in subsequent awe
as the ebony titan rose to its boat-like feet and roared loudly enough
to shake the entire Irima Cave. The young man's battle-ready cheongsam
fluttered against the billowing soot, cinder, and ash that the charcoal
giant expelled from carcinogen-laced lungs; consequently, his long-
sleeved shirt and gold silk vest literally faded in color because of
the swirling smoke of black and gray.

The midnight-skinned Kapre was a Brobdingnagian giant that stood many
meters tall; his golliwog head, just inches from the spiked ends of the
ceiling, lolled about lazily as his substantial girth undulated with its
movement. He had massive arms and tree-trunk-sized legs that almost
looked pudgy in comparison with the rest of his body. He wore a pelt of
a huge animal with dark-brown fur, a shade of which Kurama had never
seen, in a toga style of outfit. The monster's skin was almost black
enough to match the color of the parts of animal hide that were visible 
underneath the fur. Half of his chest was bared, and Kurama could see a
huge pectoral with a number of lightning-shaped scars over it. His
gigantic nostrils flared with a breath that smelt of the smoky aroma of 
tobacco, brimstone, and death, his glowing eyes burning through the
ashen mist like the lit ends of a pair of cigars. 

The beastly mountain of muscle lumbered forward with an almost loping
gait, his every step a thundering storm, until he was in front of his
designated opponent, no more than ten feet away. He looked down at
Kurama, enough contempt shining in those doll's eyes for any four men.
Those glaring red orbs flared at the former Reikai Tantei's direction,
making him shudder for a moment as a sudden memory of Karasu's predatory
eyes bubbled to the surface of his mind. The creature's eyes were like
that, only perhaps worse: There wasn't the faintest hint of compassion 
in them; all they held were hunger and rage.

Confronted once again by the huge man-beast, the ghost-fighting spirit
detective found his mouth begin to dry up as the prospect of clashing
against the brute daunted him. No, that was not quite right. He, as a
combatant, found himself frightened by the prospect of losing to him.
Since his first real fight as a human against the demon who kidnapped
Maya, Yatsude, which lasted all of one blow, to his death matches
against the psychotic Karasu and the veteran Shigure, all the way to his
present fights with friends and enemies alike, this was the only time
Kurama felt as though he might lose to his opponent, and he had not even
thrown a single attack yet.

Quickly, he pushed all his negative thoughts to the back of his mind.
Centuries of pillaging the Makai realm had taught him the need to keep
one's opponent from having the psychological edge, otherwise the contest
would be as good as over. He sardonically smirked; even though he was
ashamed to admit it, his villainous youko self was the man who instilled
in him that lesson. All the same, it only took him a moment to find his
center of balance within his psyche--once there, his entire outlook
changed. With a sort of calmness falling over him, Kurama prepared for
the fight.

"SO, PUNY HUMAN," the Kapre bellowed in a garbled bass timbre, both his
tone and posture belligerent in challenge, "ARE YOU READY TO DIE WITH
THE REST OF YOUR 'BROTHERS'? THE KID IS DEAD, THE BOY IS DYING, AND THE
TEENAGER IS AS GOOD AS DEAD. YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND, ARE _NEXT_!" 

The Kapre smirked as he reached out with a beefy hand to cradle Kurama's
head. The redhead then instinctively lashed out to kick it away. He hit
cleanly, but was barely able to move it more than an inch to the side.
Still, the hand paused in its forward motion.

The black colossus snarled, "THAT TICKLED. HIT HARDER," and burst out in 
uproarious laughter. He afterwards approached deliberately, methodically,
his arms held out wide, almost as though he were a long lost uncle coming
forward to embrace a favored nephew. It was a ridiculous posture that
left him wide open for any one of a number of attacks, but Kurama did not
rush in. 

The Kapre lunged awkwardly at the boy as he dodged rather then accept
the offered opening. A second lunge resulted in the same action on the
young man's part, though he found it difficult to refrain from
exploiting the wide opening with a powerful counterstrike. The titan
began to let his scorn for such evasive tactics be known as he ridiculed
and cursed his foe's seeming fright.

"STAND STILL, BITCH," The monster rumbled. "IT'LL BE OVER QUICK ENOUGH,
AND YOU DON'T WANT TO GET ME ANGRY FOR TONIGHT. I MIGHT NOT BE GENTLE
WITH YOU AND COULD BREAK SOMETHING IMPORTANT THAT MIGHT NEVER HEAL
RIGHT."

He snaked his tongue out and licked his lips in an obvious display for
Kurama's benefit. The redhead kept himself from revealing his disgust;
he could not allow the shadowy ogre the knowledge that his taunting was
getting to him. Frustrating such a big brute could only give him an
advantage. 

Still, it was difficult fighting this sort of fight, especially since
Kurama knew next to nothing about the Kapre. Among all of Toguro's
monsters, this one seemed to be the most autonomous in regards to his
thoughts and feelings, yet was the most enigmatic as well. He was a
complete mystery, a monster in every sense of the word who, unlike the
Aswangs, Tiyanaks, Tikbalang, and Manananggal before him, had an
unsubtle hint of reckless unpredictability in him that made him an
incalculable risk which the mostly pragmatic young man couldn't possibly
take.

Thusly, Kurama tried his very best in evaluating the Kapre's limits and 
capabilities from all his actions, appearance, and disposition before
even trying to retaliate. The shadow beast's gargantuan size, coupled
with Toguro Ani's instantaneous regenerative powers, indicated that he
was not averse to being struck, and his current behavior proved that he
believed himself capable of taking many painful attacks and still end up 
victorious. Perhaps it was even part of his strategy to accept two blows
for one, and given his hefty mass and obvious power, it would not take
more than a single blow to devastate any opponent he might face. 

Come to think of it, this fanciful yet frightening projection might
simply be how Toguro Ani envisioned his younger, bulkier, and more
muscular brother in his mind: an unstoppable and merciless powerhouse
with no regard to his or others' feelings and emotions. No matter how
traitorous Toguro Ototo was to him, Toguro Ani still held his younger
brother's immense power and mercenary attitude in high esteem. If that
were the case, then Kurama would have to bide his time and go for
openings that he could make, rather than ones offered to him by his
gigantic adversary, and hope he could stay out of his reach long enough
to wear him down and defeat him; easier said than done, though.

Kurama dodged two more of the Kapre's attacks, which made the titan's
anger triple as it became obvious that the boy was refusing to fight
back. He allowed the Kapre to probe his defenses with an initial wave of 
tentative strikes. When the young man did not strike back, the ebony
colossus grew bolder, lashing out ever quicker with his huge hands and
the longer reach of his many-metered form. The young man's continued
evasions served to increase the Kapre's level of disdain, which in turn
fed his ego as he increased the tempo of his assault.

And then Kurama attacked. The Kapre's cockiness in fighting someone that
seemed unwilling to fight back had made him sloppy. It was the moment
Kurama had been waiting for; he heartily lashed out with the Juryo Yozan
Ken and slashed the black fiend repeatedly in the opening unconsciously
provided. All the strikes landed solidly, making the monster reel and
hesitate. Perhaps the teenager could have landed another attack, but he
chose to back off rather than see just how fast the Kapre could recover.

It was quicker than he had expected, though nowhere near too fast for
him to deal with. The Kapre backed away, watching the duplicate Minamino 
carefully as he assessed the damage inflicted upon him. Kurama looked
on, seeing if he too could gauge the blows' effect from his reaction.

The Kapre struck the area Kurama had hit with a fist. "YOU SCRATCH LIKE
A KITTEN. PERHAPS IF YOU DO TEN MORE OF THESE, THEN I'LL START FEELING
THEM, BITCH." Kurama felt rather shaken by the haughty declaration and
succeeding cackle; it was almost the exact same spiel that the Tikbalang
gave him when he was still just one boy of reflection; it bothered him
then as it did now. This was not good.
 
Kurama subsequently reassessed his situation and decided to go with the
second part of his strategy; his Plan B, if you will. The Kapre was
undoubtedly big. Supporting his enormous frame could not be easy and
would burn much of his energy; a lot of it, if he could work things out
right. Even though the shadowy aberration was the protuberant projection
of the veteran Toguro Ani, this was still technically his first fight,
so his endurance was in question. All the adolescent needed to do was
retreat just out of his reach and force him to follow, running him
ragged. Time was on his side. The longer the struggle continued, the
greater an advantage he would have. All he needed was patience.

What enjoyment the Kapre felt after Kurama finally launched an attack
was quickly forgotten as the young man returned to his strategy of
avoiding the beast's shambling assault. The Kapre hooted and jeered as
he continued chasing and attacking the evasive redhead for the next five
minutes.

At the five minute mark, Kurama struck again, this time with a weaving
whiplash... care of the Plant Claw which he transformed into a full-
fledged Bara Shibenjin at a moment's notice... that snapped the Kapre's
jaw back. Again he backed off and did a number of ineffective yet
insulting Kagon Retsuzanshi to further frustrate his opponent. He even
allowed the behemoth to attack him repeatedly, drawing him in ever-
increasing circles in order to wind him down further.

After another half-dozen minutes of chase, Kurama detected the Kapre's
foul, ashtray breath begin to heave in ever increasing amounts. The
Kurama replica was surprised the humongous freak of nature had lasted as
long as he had, fully expecting him to have been rolling on the ground,
out of breath a long time ago. The pitch-black leviathan's endurance was
every bit as impressive as his strength, given his huge frame.

Kurama's mind returned to the fight. The Kapre had given up his blatant
open-handed gestures and tightened his stance to that of a well-trained
warrior. It seemed that Kurama's assessment of the dusky sasquatch's
fighting tactics had been correct. It had all been a trap to lure him in
so the beast could squeeze the life out of him. The Reikai Tantei would
have gotten at least two solid blows in, maybe even three if he had been
quick, but once he ended up in that massive grip, it would have been all
over.

Now that the fighting had returned to a more conventional bent, Kurama
began employing a more creative and aggressive strategy, blurring into
motion and catching the Kapre completely unaware as he dashed forward,
seized his enemy by the shoulders, coiled the Rose Whip around their
armpits and did a trademark Urameshi move; he headbutted the enormous
atrocity right between the eyes, jettisoning his body forward using the
momentum gained from the elastic, bungee-like plant cord and knocking
the giant to his knees with one wallop. 

The move in and of itself shouldn't have stunned the gargantuan Kapre,
save for the fact that Kurama had instantly grown a crown of barbed
Okunenju Roots on his head which acted as a pointed helmet of sorts that
protected his skull and substantially increased his attack's force of
impact; as such, the hollow-tipped circlet immediately broke apart on
the Kapre's skull and drew a gallon of the monster's crude-oil blood. 

His eyes blinded with stars and ichor, the Kapre immediately stood up
from his kneeling position, only to see Kurama move forward in another
mad dash straight towards him. And so the two adversaries finally fought
for real.

This version of Kurama who, relatively speaking, had just battled in the
Makai Tournament--the sixteen-year-old one who, among his so-called
brethren, had the freshest memories in regards to battle experience and
life-or-death situations--was poetry in motion, as always; he moved with
cool poise and grace, his every action precise and calculated, seemingly 
inexhaustible. Still, he couldn't help but feel a bit overwhelmed by his 
opponent's constant motion in a relatively large area that was now
completely cramped because of the very same goliath's hulking bulk.

Fully realizing his obvious advantage, the dark-hued monstrosity rapidly 
barreled forth with frightening quickness, like a freight train on full
speed, leading in with his right leg. Taken unawares by the unexpected
change in battle tactics, the red-haired boy took the hit right in the
gut and was knocked down and back several feet, as though he were hit
by a Mack Truck.

Kurama groggily began to do a kip-up, but the Kapre abruptly jumped up,
his head scraping and grinding through the rocky ceiling as he intended 
to land on Kurama's prone body and slam it right into the ground. Roused
by the sense of imminent danger, Kurama rolled over and backed away from
the expected explosion and resulting wreckage, immediately settling back
into his basic stance with his guard up. To see such speed from such an
enormous behemoth was a truly frightening thing to behold.

The Kapre stood up and dusted himself off, confident of his victory.
Meanwhile, Kurama continued to stand calmly as the abomination charged
forward for a second time. At the last moment, he sidestepped and turned
as his opponent hurtled by. While the mammoth was still recovering from
his miss, Kurama crouched low and imperceptibly moved forward before
bringing his right fist up with a startlingly fast uppercut. The
arrogant Kapre saw the feeble assault, chuckled, and condescendingly
held out his chin for Kurama to hit.

Toguro seemed to have forgotten to tell the Kapre that Kurama was an
expert _demonic-plant user_ and just not a mere martial artist. The
sixteen-year-old boy's arm was now sheathed in red lightning as it hit
the genetic travesty directly under the jaw, sending him flying forward
several feet into a cave wall. But it wasn't Kurama's physical power
that made the creature airborne; just as his fist landed on his foe's
face, a volatile blast of rose petals suddenly exploded from the point
of impact with the power of a many-megaton blast. Combining his latent 
spirit energy with the Fuuka Enbujin made for quite the explosive
technique, the boy reckoned. 

Cursing his own overconfidence, the Kapre extricated himself from the
monster-shaped indentation on the wall, completely enraged and ready to
bring forth his true powers into the Dream World. 

Not giving his opponent any time to recover, Kurama crouched down and
dashed forward yet again in one seamless motion, performing another Rose
Petal Waltz Uppercut to the Kapre's chest and forcing him to lose his
balance. Recovering without delay, Kurama instantly chained a blistering 
combination to the ogre's torso care of a pair of sword-long left and
right Plant Claw stabs, pushing his opponent back even further. Ready to
finish his devastating series of attacks, Kurama repeated his crouching
dash once more and positioned himself directly underneath his opponent,
then made his aura flare up all at once as he jumped up onto the beast's 
forehead and used his blazing youki to turn the protruding, remnant bits
of the Okunenju Ueki into a large, pulsating cherry tree that rained a
squall of ichor and Sakura petals all over the place.

The Kapre screamed and gnashed his teeth, sending wave upon wave of 
earthquakes from his resulting tantrum as even more smoke billowed from
his plate-sized nostrils, like smog from broken exhaust pipes. Kurama's
tactic... the same tactic he used against a certain ring-tossing
Shigure... worked like a charm. The charcoal goliath's shooting headache
was indeed beyond unbearable; he was now in severe, unthinkable pain,
yet his unbridled anger kept him in check, his mind remaining focused
and clear. He had all the advantages coming into this fight, and he'd
barely damaged the young whelp at all! This was unacceptable--it was now
time to show his true power. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH!"

Kurama looked on as the Kapre let out an incredible scream of anguish
and rage before going down. Had he won so easily? How could it be? The
creature's sooty skin began rippling, and dents appeared; almost as if
someone was trying to get out. At first, Kurama dared hope that he had
beaten the odds and did what his other reflections weren't or hadn't
been able to accomplish... victoriously survive a fight against any of
Toguro Ani's puppet monsters... but then hope changed into horror as it
became evident that whatever was trying to break free out of the
malignant atrocity was not human by any meaning of the word.

The Kapre roared a guttural, appalling sound. This time, after he fell
on the ground on all fours, writhing in pain while his top-heavy head
with the frightening plant outgrowth crashed onto the dirt floor, he
decided to wait a moment before getting up--after all, the last few
times he immediately stood had been met with disastrous results. Seeing
Kurama begin his somersault, the Kapre rolled to the side and stood up
as the boy landed. The ebony colossus had taken a great deal of damage,
and it was time to even the score.

The Kapre crouched down slightly and stepped back, weaving his colossal
arms over the large tree sticking out of his forehead and breaking it in
two. He used the top part of the tree trunk to swat Kurama up into the
air, then subsequently rammed the bottom, splintered part like a horned
battering ram to impale the redhead right into the ground. Afterwards,
he painfully uprooted the rest of the cherry tree out of his cranium,
growling with the messy, gory effort and making the cave tremble in fear
of him once more. After that was done, he smacked the living daylights
out of the prone Kurama with the makeshift wooden club for a second
time, hitting his opponent cleanly on the spine and sending him flying
away in a parabola that left him sprawled in a tangled heap on the
ground.

Then, without explanation or ceremony, the bloodied Kapre started to
consume the entirety of the broken tree, crushing it into little wooden
chips and leafy muck with this humongous, gyrating maw. Consequently,
unbelievably, impossibly, the already titanic monster's body began to
swell in size, becoming larger and more muscular, until it had the
thickness of a pitch-black whale's hide. The hulking mass of dark girth
and flesh stared at himself, a satisfied, toothy grin etched on his
features. "SO, MORTAL; SEE WHAT YOU HAVE WROUGHT UPON YOURSELF! I WILL
ENJOY TAKING YOU. NOW COME ON IN, WHERE NIGHTMARES ARE THE BEST PART OF
MY DAY!"

Kurama moaned in anguish as he got up and eyed the Kapre warily. Not
only could the black giant emulate Toguro Ototo's sheer power, but also
gained some of Sadao "Gourmet" Makihara's abilities as well. Certainly
it was a vicious little brute, but he had taken its measure and knew he
could best it by careful strategy. The trick seemed to be getting it to
stay down. The earth trembled underneath the midnight-skinned nimrod's
mighty feet as he advanced on Kurama, ready for battle. 

The sixteen-year-old combatant would soon realize how wrong he was.


***


The nineteen-year-old Kurama, the second mirror image and the one most
similar to the true boy of reflection, looked around and saw that he and
his equine opponent had unwittingly moved into another section of the
cave; a wider, roomier tunnel with unending fields of stone in a show of
colors that seemed to exclusively contain two emotions: drab and dreary.
Only black and a mottled brown seemed to offset the endless panorama of
gray.

And then he saw the pit. The enormous hole in the ground was at least a
mile across and incredibly deep. Numerous layers of strata could be seen
as the various lines of rock marking the ages seemed to stretch without
number to the bottom. It seemed as though nothing less than a hand of
one of the gods could have reached down and scooped out the earth and
tossed it aside, though there was no rubble lining either the sides of
the pit or the surface of the land. The natural formation gave the
young red-haired boy an idea.

Kurama assumed a basic fighting stance and wordlessly beckoned to the
Tikbalang. Snorting in derision, the humanoid chimera galloped extremely
fast and punched at the small human standing in front of him. Kurama
prepared to perform a crouching dash to duck underneath the punch, but
was shocked to see that the hybrid's right arm could actually extend in
length and rush at him with deceptive quickness. 

Not given enough time to charge, Kurama brought his arms up defensively,
holding the Tsukeyaki Blade to the forefront and wrapping it with a
thick mass of thorny vines to further dampen the blow. One hit chained
with another, and soon they became one hundred hits in the mere span of
a second. 'The pit... Remember the pit... Don't forget the pit...'
Kurama reminded himself as he rolled with the meaty, solid punches while
deflecting some of them with his spool of plant whips. Although he was
pushed back inch-by-painful-inch care of the intense pummeling, the boy
of reflection dealt with the Tikbalang's massive fists every time.

To Kurama's detriment, the Tikbalang halted his endless flurry, pushed
his beefy arm up just slightly over the young man's guard, and grabbed
him by the throat. Squeezing, the monster broke his prey's collar bones
and dropped him to the ground. Retracting his arm, he angled his head
down and headbutted his victim's prone form.

"You know, our little discussion earlier in regards to humans and human
nature had me thinking," Toguro Ani mused aloud as he articulated his
opinions through his horse monster's flapping maw. "Think about it. Just
think; I've been giving humanity a bad rap from the get go, but that's
just unfair. Completely unfair. After all, they're among nature's most
aberrant, disgusting, and abnormal species on the face of the planet...
I LOVE 'EM! So I've changed my mind; fuck demons, being a human is where
it's at! They're far, far worse than demons could ever hope to become."
He hollered his hooting, screeching, whining, whinnying, neighing cackle
yet again.

Half a breath later, the hapless young adult felt himself get scooped up
by the reverse centaur before being thrown into the air. Leaping forward
with equestrian grace, the Tikbalang followed his quarry's trail and 
violently collided with him in midair using an overpowering body press
that nearly crushed the boy into a fleshy paste. 'Dammit, the pit...
Remember the damn pit... Don't forget the pit!'

"For example... You! Mister Fruity! Mister I-don't-need-to-shampoo-my-
gorgeous-red-hair! Mister Fire Crotch! You and your 'martyr' death
scene are good examples of dumbass human eccentricities!" The Tikbalang
bucked and snorted. "Bah; 'martyr' indeed. Never mind your goody-two-
shoes intentions; it's your _suicide attempt_ that's far more intriguing
to me. Well, I bet you would _never_ have concocted your cockamamie plan
to revive some ancient backwater girl in exchange for your life if you
hadn't been turned human. Face it, turning human has fucked you and your
silver-haired alter ego up, my friend."

As the disoriented Kurama stirred from his near-death experience, the
Tikbalang attempted to ensure his demise by trampling him with a one-
beast stampede, the rumbling hooves blasting through the dirt floor like
miniature explosions as the redhead rolled away for dear life. 'The
pit...!' Kurama desperately clung to the thought as he kept a tight grip
on the now-dilapidated Tsukeyaki Blade, his breath ragged and his body
shaking like a lonely leaf amidst an uncontrollable typhoon.

"There's just something incredibly profound about the concept of taking
your own life, isn't there? Suicide is an inherently interesting topic
to me because it's an inherently intriguing choice--the voluntary
decision to cease to exist. Life is worth losing and all that. Ha! I tell
you, only humans could think up of such fucked up shit. Still, it really
is the best thing a person could ever do with his life; END IT!"

Roaring with insane laughter, the man-horse all of a sudden lowered his
head and charged. Kurama was taken aback for a moment as he scrambled to
his feet, both at the nature of the attack and the terrifying speed that
his opponent gained instantly. He barely had enough time to react by
straightening himself and lashing out with a foot to trip the rushing
Tikbalang.

Only the beast didn't trip. On anyone else, they would certainly have
fallen from the force of the kick Kurama landed on the shin, most likely
breaking the bone in the process. But the huge man simply bore on,
unflinching from the blow. Kurama tried to get out of his reach, despite
being somewhat off-balance from the kick, but was far too slow and ended
up having a meaty fist slammed onto his shoulder, driving him several
feet away to the ground for a moment. Luckily for him, the chimera
seemed unable to stop quickly from the momentum built up from his
impromptu charge, and ran past a couple of meters before recovering
enough to turn. By that time Kurama had returned to his feet in another
ready stance. The Tikbalang chuckled.

"Only humans are willing to murder their own species or even other
species for their own personal gain. No animal on God's green earth save
humans have done such things. They hypocritically claim that they're the
most civilized and refined of all living beings, but have you ever seen
protozoa commit genocide on other protozoa just because they're of a
different color or shape?" 

Kurama rotated his shoulder in its socket a couple of times as Toguro
Ani rambled on and on. It was bruised and sore, and the redhead would
not be able to bring full force to bear from it. No one had ever hit
him that hard in a single blow: only Toguro Ototo might've, had they
fought. All the same, he was going to have to be more cautious than ever
dealing with this dangerous opponent. A careful and deliberate battle
plan was in order. Speaking of which... "Now." 

After crossing his arms and forcing his demonic energy to burst forth,
Kurama struck his vine-wrapped Tsukeyaki Blade into the center of the
crater just in time for the Tikbalang to realize that something was
amiss and charge for a second time; and just like that, the beast fell
for the crafty young man's trap hook, line, and sinker.

Acting like a youki conduit of sorts, the Tsukeyaki Grass Blade's vines
penetrated into the ground, intertwined with all the dormant demon seeds
inside the enormous pit, and made them grow large, thick roots and
creepers that loosened the surrounding soil to the point of erosion. By
subtly planting all sorts of shokubutsu pods around the tunnel's surface
while leading the Tikbalang towards the center of the ditch, Kurama had
baited his enemy into his unforeseeable trap; the unstable pit had now
become his ally.

The combined weight of loose and crushed earth caved in, collapsing into
the focal point of Kurama's strike. The Tikbalang stood flabbergasted as
the ground opened up and swallowed him whole, howling at the last minute
as the force of the falling debris overwhelmed him. 

The destruction filled the air with tons of earth merging upward then
falling down, with nearly a third of the landmass collapsing into an
eroding quicksand thanks to Kurama's desperation move. Much of it fell
directly on top of the man-horse, since that was where the wave of
destruction was aimed. Then, when everything was said and done, there
was silence. For five long minutes, the dust settled. 

Then the calm was disrupted again by a resounding boom as a fist
disintegrated some of the debris. Slowly, painfully, the Tikbalang
dragged himself to the surface. His chest hurt. His back hurt. Muscles
he didn't know existed hurt. He made a mental note to never fight in an
enclosed space ever again.

As the monster's battered form crawled to the surface, he was surprised
to see Kurama standing over him, waiting patiently while leaning on a
hefty chunk of debris beside them. A second later, the redhead steadily
took the remnants of his tangled mess of a grass sword and transformed
it into a plant version of the chain-and-sickle Kusarigama, with the
chain part composed of intertwined Rose Whips, the sickle part composed
of the refurbished Tsukeyaki Blade, and the weight at the end of the
chain composed of a spiked wooden sphere of sorts. Accordingly, the
battle resumed. 

No more words were exchanged between the pair; Kurama because of his
focus, the Tikbalang because of his ever-increasing state of exhaustion.
His breathing was continually growing in its heaviness, coming out in
short, wheezing gasps. And as he slowed down, Kurama continued to find
openings to hit him. The fight progressed to a half hour, an eternity in
such matches. As time wore on, Kurama maintained his endurance while the 
beast continued to slow down and tire out. Each passing minute opened
more and more holes in his defense, and Kurama was eager to take
advantage each time.

Like the steady flow of a stream against a rock that found itself
stranded in the middle of a current, the number of blows added up and
wore the Tikbalang down. Large purple cuts and bruises formed on the
part of his chest that was bared. Lesions had formed on his arms from
the number of times Kurama had sneaked a blow in when he tried to hit
him with one of his own. Even one of his powerful horse legs was
starting to limp and bleed from the number of times Kurama bashed it
with his scythe's spiked ball.

And then Kurama got in his most telling blow yet; a whirling combination
of ball-and-blade strikes that hit directly into the Tikbalang's solar
plexus. As they struck, a huge guff of air escaped the man-horse's lips
and a lump of spit shot out of his mouth, only to be absorbed by the
rubble-strewn pit the moment it hit. He fell to one knee, head held back
as he tried gasping for breath.

Kurama was quick to press the advantage, hitting the Tikbalang with a
full-force stab to the neck just as his head came level with him. Black
blood spewed forth from the wound like a fountain as the reverse
centaur's head agonizingly snapped back even farther than it had just a
moment ago. Truly it was the most impressive physical blow he had landed
yet.

And then he felt large arms close around his torso, pinning his sore arm
next to his body in a massive bear hug. "Got... you," the Tikbalang
gasped out as his pulsing vein's mordant ichor dissolved the blade on
his neck. The rest of the Kusarigama Shokubutsu flopped down beside them
like a limp, dead snake on the ground.


***


To be Continued...

Next: More of the Boys of Reflection versus the Puppet Monsters.

Author's Note: These last few chapters were a definite departure
from the 'fantasy' setting I've established in the Wizard of Oz
act, but I rather like the contrast. It was more on the 'horror'
and 'dark fic' genres, but it seemed to fit quite nicely with the
kind of story Midori had during the latter stages of the Four
Seasons arc. Besides, it's not really all that dark in the sense
that I've already read a true 'dark fic'. Believe me, this
chapter is mild and childish in comparison to _true_ dark fics.

Send all C&C, flames, death threats, etc. to me at either
gabriel_gabdiel at yahoo.com or chester.castaneda at gmail.com;
whichever suits your fancy.

Note that I put in the title _Shonen_ not _Shonen-Ai_. Shonen-Ai 
(male-male relationship) and yaoi are just not my cup of tea. This 
is dedicated to Chimamire Kitsune for giving me the inspiration to 
write this fic... Wherever you are, this is for you.

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro
Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV and St. Pierrot. This fic therefore
also belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV and St.
Pierrot.
 
Heto ang mga bayaning magiting,
Abdiel

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