#he was a huge samurai fan growing up actually

[bikerboyfriend]

i love this preset

[struck-by-the-rain]

was inspired by a few other ppl on here to drop some of the kind of cringy tropey lore I made up about these 2,,, mostly how they met n stuff and how I personally see emm.... im v normal about them I prommy

maintagging this perhaps but it's under the read more so if u dgaf u can just look at the silly picture

ok sooo

they meet completely by accident because This Space Kicker In Particular (who I'm calling SK) gets a try again in space soccer and crash lands outside the karate family residence. he's fine though, probably because he's subject to cartoon physics or something (might rewrite this bit of the lore bc it's kinda goofy but it's the first thing I thought of).

v predictably they start out playing soccer together, like they take a ball to the park or whatever n just having a kick around. but they move on to hanging out in a non-soccer context pretty quickly. i imagine sk's really curious to see what earth is like (it's probably his first time there), like he's filled w whimsy and joy just to go to the cafe n stuff :) joe is meeting him behind seniors back!

sk isn't joes only friend - hes friends w yuka n the wandering samurai n a few others, but i don't know if he's actually close with them? partially because he's busy training, partially because he's quite a reserved person, n to me at least I think he struggles a lot with self-doubt/feeling inadequate for anyone around him (partially as a result of the way he was raised). not to get Angsty on main but I think he ascribes wayyy too much of his self worth on his training... I think he has a tendency to try and isolate himself from others, both physically and emotionally

sk is the opposite (tropey ik lmao) - he's v outgoing, silly n carefree almost to the point where he gets on people's nerves sometimes (he's cowboy sk's "annoying little brother" to me). I don't think he fully gets/realises exactly why joe is v reserved but I think he manages to grow close w him in spite of that... idk how to word it. but I think he's such a ray of sunshine he's able to break through whatever exterior joe has put up for himself (ik how cheesy that sounds but yeah)

ive made a post about this before but joe is v v v affection starved (because Basement) and does a terrible job at hiding it to the point where he just melts over the smallest things. sk meanwhile is suuuuuper physically affectionate so yeah

I haven't worked out exactly when this happens but I think they just kinda fall for each other over time, it takes a while for both of them to realise its mutual tho....

joe alsooo gets flustered veryyyy easily (source: karate man 2 ds superb screen). sk probs picks up on this right away lmao

im thinking sk is out here dropping the most obvious hints... but joe refuses to believe that sk would see him in that way. idk he probs does the wildest mental gymnastics assuming that sk is just being nice or it's like,,, a social norm up on his planet lmfao.

but yeah he eventually works it out too in the end... probably partially because he begins to learn to be a bit more confident in himself over time. i think they get to a point where they both v much know it's mutual but r too awkward to do anything about it/don't wanna mess up their close friendship/are too worried about the logistics/implications of living on other planets n senior. so they don't like acc Say anything or whatever for a while. but it's obvious n only gets worse over time lmfao. see the pic above the cut

blehhh silly thought but I hc sk to be besties with 6switcher who I think gets fed up of his shittt... like hes just like "Oh My God Please Just Tell Him. Like Please".

in my mind palace they end up going to the battle of the bands (joes a huge fan of the rockers but he's never been able to see them live before). and ummm after the concert they end up sitting outside live house ogu watching the stars together,,,, and u kno,,,, they kith.... woaw,,,,, but yeah I think because botb is the 1 time in game they "meet" (if u can even call it that) I thought it would be cute if it's where they end up getting together as a couple :)

hmmm like inconsequential shit unrelated to the main story but they find remix 9 cat as a stray kitten at some point during all of this n joe takes it in... i think I could do a follow up post about what happens next in the lore after botb because this is already mega long but they eventually end up living together on sk's planet and the cat comes w them :)

oh adding this on acc after I posted it, but I think when joe meets sk it's like,,, the first time in his life where he hasn't felt lonely...

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Lingering Snowblood: The Saga of Oyuki

Alright class, who’s ready for a fun bonus post? Waaay back in the start of this journey, we talked a little about Okiku potentially being inspired by a figure it the story that is likely an inspiration for Kin & Momo. Lone Wolf & Cub, it’s one of the most famous series of classic samurai movies. What Hawk & Chick are based on for any Bob’s Burgers fans and the TV adaptation had the actor Oda’s said their names come from in the lead role. 

In that franchise, there’s a woman named Oyuki who pops up a few times. Dancer background, unassuming lady who’s absolutely deadly when pressed, tattoo used a lot like the mask, and has a calling card of taking topknots from her fallen foes. Sounds a lot like Kiku, yeah? And if you didn’t know, “yuki” means snow so we do have that shared motif. Feels like in both cases, and the ones we’ll get to, the archetype is leaning a bit on the mythological Yuki-Onna. I was wrong though, that was just the tip of the iceberg. 

So...this character transcends franchises. Wano has made me really interested in jidaigeki, I’ve actually grown quite fond of them and have a buddy who’s into old Westerns so we love talking how they play off of each other. As an aside, any RPG game masters out there...go binge an old Western TV show like Tales of Wells Fargo and you will find a gold mine of session ideas! Turns out Oyuki has a pretty cool history, and yeah it includes Kill Bill. 

The funny thing is...if we’re talking Eiichiro Oda’s influences, it actually calls into question what was really pushing him to dust off Snowblood. See, she is a figure in jidaigeki, but a little before his time. That’s not a huge deal, Smokey and the Bandit came out over a decade before I was born and I still thought it was a cool Sunday afternoon movie that’s stuck with me from that single viewing fifteen years ago. Kill Bill was directly inspired by Lady Snowblood, coming straight from Quentin Tarantino himself. Oda loves Hollywood and American movies, so which one really piqued his interest for Okiku?

Because y’all...the deeper we go the more obvious this was part of the inspo for Okiku. Wano’s just a big kid giddy to show his young readers all the shit he thought was cool growing up.

Yeah, I bet you know this woman’s entire deal looking at this. Proper lady right up until that short sword comes out of the parasol...though she’ll probably whoop a wave of mooks with the umbrella alone. At the end it’s her standing in the middle of a dozen dead bodies without a drop of blood on that pretty kimono. The dancer or acrobat background is really common, vengeful motivation driving her as well as lowborn origins. Gotta have some reason she’s not content to start a family and all, right?

So this 1973 movie based on a 1972 manga’s it right? Lone Wolf was a little later and Oyuki there was mostly just a one-shot appearance that they reused for a movie. Well...see, we can go deeper. 

Finding stuff like this is what makes digging so worth it. See, if we’re talking beloved Okiku...the Kill Bill/Lady Snowblood inspo is missing the mark on one big thing. Kiku’s not cold-blooded or vengeful. Let’s go back to the late 60s though, the same era that gave us a pretty feminist wave of Japanese media like Attack no.1. This was a TV drama that ran for a season, Red Swallow Oyuki. Starring the lovely Junko Miyazono who’d go on to have a nice run of movies playing the same type of kickass lady. One of those by the way was Hannya no Ohyaku. Fun bonus tie. This aired in 1968, so likely influencing Lady Snowblood, and you can find the first two episodes on Toei’s official Youtube page. With subs! It’s awesome, imagine Samurai Champloo if Fuu was the badass in charge...so Bakura Town.

Where I really think this initial iteration of Oyuki shines through in Kiku is the personality. This version, she’s really cutely naive. Raised in isolation and trained to pass on her father’s sword style, but he balked at the end. Sent Oyuki away to “become an ordinary woman.” Only use the sword to protect yourself. But of course, when push comes to shove she’ll use it to protect the innocent. Yes, it does end up feeling a lot like Himura Kenshin which is it’s own obvious part of Kiku’s DNA. 

I also love this idea of Oyuki sorta taking on a life of her own. It’s very Kabuki, it was a cool character concept so why not lift and repurpose. Not quite the same, but reminds me of the thing about the name Kikunojo. How it has a history as a stage name for many famous Onnagata. But seriously...watch one episode of Red Swallow and tell me that isn’t what a story with Kiku in the lead role would feel like.

[elpercotreviews]

My Anime 9/10′s

With probably no spoilers cuz I don’t wanna talk too long about them zzz.

1. Fullmetal Alchemist

YALL ALREADY KNOW THIS A 9/10. The only real reason this show is not a 10/10 is because it’s just a story that I’d never rewatch. There’s like 70 episodes, which is way too long for my short attention span, especially since I’ve seen it already. But yeah, by all accounts, this story is a masterpiece and is one of the only “shounen” anime’s that I genuinely enjoyed. No random sexualization. No dumb filler. All the characters have an actual purpose and role in the plot and everyone has their own morals and ideals that interact to make the story interesting. I couldn’t bring myself to really hate anyone, even the villains, because everyone was pretty well written. Also super satisfying ending that ties up everything properly without leaving me confused or upset. If you only watch a few anime in your life, Fullmetal Alchemist is pretty much a MUST WATCH to see a beautiful example of a modern classic anime as an artform. Also I should say that I really don’t like Hunter x Hunter (AN EXTREMELY CONTROVERSIAL OPINION BTW) but I love Fullmetal Alchemist so take from that what you will.

2. Parasyte: The Maxim

Same kinda shit where you already know this a 9/10 for me. It’s just a very satisfying anime that doesn’t have random sexualization or random filler or anything like that. Ending is also very good and ties up the story in a way that doesn’t leave more questions but also allows the characters to have a “life” outside of the scope of the story. I think Parasyte, because of its more horror and psychological-esque vibes, counts as a seinen and not a shounen, so for more mature audiences. I also really liked how the story was successfully adapted to modern times since the manga is from the 80′s. I have actually rewatched this anime, but what stops me from giving it a 10/10 is a few things that I found kinda “stereotypical” that I don’t wanna discuss further too much cuz it’s spoilers. I still obviously really like this anime and highly recommend it.

3. Zankyou no Terror

TBH, this anime is pretty hard for me to properly describe in a lot of words as to why I like it. The art was really pretty as well as the music, which was just straight up amazing. The cinematography of this anime is excellent as well, and a lot of scenes have that sense of being acted out by real people, as opposed to feeling completely drawn/animated. I was a teenager when this anime came out and I think a lot of the themes presented in the show really related to me. The show does kinda have some leftover questions when it ends that prevents me from rating it a 10/10, but I have such a soft spot for this anime. It’s from the same creator as Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop, and although those two animes are also very good, they did not impact me as much as this anime did. Recommended for people looking for idk something that gives off Inception vibes?? In the sense that it’s much more about its themes and its message more so than the believability of the events that occur.

4. Magic Kaito 1412

THIS IS JUST A PERSONAL PREFERENCE BTW LOLOL I DON’T KNOW ANYBODY WHO’D PUT THIS AS A 9/10 ANIME. I JUST REALLY LIKED IT OKAY. It’s made by the same person who does Detective Conan but I like this a lot more because it’s a much shorter series and slightly more mature (more for teens than just straight up kids). I really liked the main guy, I think he’s funny and charismatic. He’s a pervert at times but Imma forgive that cuz of the 90′s. Idk it’s just a really fun anime that I don’t have to take seriously and can just watch and enjoy.

5. Mob Psycho 100 (season 1 AND 2)

Imma put season two as slightly better than season one. So season one would be like a 9 and season two is like a 9.25 for me. Super super funny anime and I like it SO much more than One Punch Man. I liked that there was a good balance of serious moments, but you can definitely still count this anime as a comedy. I’m typically not the type to watch “comedy” but this anime genuinely had me laughing out loud, while also crying and freaking out right alongside the main character. The main guy is super great because he’s just this shy and sweet middle schooler, and it’s really interesting watching him balance trynna have a normal life while also using his powers for good and such. Apparently the anime was decently faithful to the manga and there’s apparently enough material for a third season so I’d be pretty stoked for a season 3, but season 2 ended on a pretty good spot and was satisfying. TBH, if I had the time, I’d probably rewatch both seasons and bump it up to a 10/10.

6. Vinland Saga

This anime is just the first season of what I hopes to be a whole series that will be stay beautifully and faithfully adapted from the manga. As someone who read very far into the manga (but quit like years ago simply because I hate slow updates lol), I actually didn’t enjoy watching the anime at first. I was impatient and kept waiting for when like the “major” events would happen. So I watched like three episodes and quit. But when I had some free time, I decided to get stuck in and commit to watching the whole series and I was so pleasantly surprised with just how good it was. I was impatient but I needed to realize that there is no “filler” or like “wasted time” in the entire anime. I hadn’t read the manga in years, so so many things were only vaguely familiar but I think this helped me stay surprised and excited throughout the anime. I’m looking forward to the rest of the manga being adapted because it’s just a good Viking saga lolol. Major themes of stuff like growing up, violence vs. peace, what it means to be a good person, etc. Lots of blood and LOTS of violence like a LOT they are VIKINGS CMON but tbh not really any gore which I liked cuz gore makes me ughhhh. A very good watch and only a taste of an excellent story.

7. Demon Slayer

It’s just Demon Slayer duhhh. Of course this a 9/10 for me. I don’t wanna write much just cuz the show is so popular. Just read a REAL review of this anime somewhere else lmaoooo. Also yes I did watch the movie in theaters and yes I liked it a lot as well mmkay. I’m mad hype for season two. My S/O doesn’t like Demon Slayer as much as me, but also has Hunter x Hunter as their all time favorite anime. Do with that information what you will lolol.

8. Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2

Same shit as Demon Slayer. Just go read someone else’s review about why it’s so good lol. Also, unlike Mob Psycho 100, I can’t include all of the seasons in this, because I have very various opinions about how good/bad the other seasons were. But this season 3 part 2, was just plain and simply amazing. While I might not like each season equally, as a whole Attack on Titan is also a modern masterpiece of storytelling. Read the manga if you can.

9. Great Pretender

I love this anime so much. Such a good and fun wild ride. The whole show is ridiculous but in a fun way. I’m a HUGE fan of heist films, so of course I absolutely enjoyed a heist anime. I’ve watched this show in sub AND dub, due to the fact that everyone is “technically” speaking English the entire time. If you’re a purist, just watch in sub OR dub cuz I did get confused here and there, especially when I would go back to compare language discrepancies.  Because basically I did this super high maintenance thing where I switched back to Japanese whenever the main character had flashbacks, since he’s ya know, Japanese. The dub also has this confusing thing where the first five minutes or so are still in Japanese, but switches to English when a little cue card on the screen goes “For the Viewers sake, everything from now on will be translated to Japanese.” It’s cuz in the sub, the inverse obviously happens where the characters are initially speaking broken English to each other, but for convenience sake, everything from that point on will be in Japanese. It’s confusing at first but I liked it cuz it just proved the whole international vibe of the show. It’s funny either sub or dub when they joke about how bad the main guy speaks English, cuz in the dub he’s speaking perfect English, while the sub has him not speaking English at all. But anyway, great anime that WOULD have gotten a 10/10 if not for the last episode. Like without spoiling ... WTF WAS THAT LMAOOOO. The anime as a whole is super wacky and zany but at least I could try to think it’s real life, but that last episode was just so unbelievable and bizarre and pulled my suspension of disbelief into the STRATOSPHERE that I just had to convince myself that this show takes place in some improbable alternate reality where something like what happened in the last episode is at least 5 percent possible CUZ HOW DID ANY OF THAT WORK LMAOOO??? Once again, great show, one of my absolute favorites, BUT THAT ENDING THOUGH WTF.

10. BNA

Good super underrated anime that I don’t hear people talk about at all. If Beastars is anime Zootopia, then BNA is Disney Beastars lmaooo does that make sense? It’s a lot more fun and zany than Beastars and I liked it way more. Made by the same people who made Kill la Kill. I really like that more classic, animated “cheap” art style that the anime has, and I also really liked the plot of the story. Not a 10/10 cuz the show does leave a few unanswered questions at the end of it, but this show was such a fun and interesting ride. When I finished the last episode, I was left with a big smile on my face because I just genuinely enjoyed this anime. Recommended if you wanna watch something a little unique and more on the silly and wack side. Talks about some serious stuff, but luckily the show never takes itself TOO seriously, and remains overall lighthearted for a fun action/sci-fi show.

[kryptsune]

Tell us more about the mythology of Yokaitale, or perhaps even what specific versions of Wonderland inspired Wonderfell (like did you take anything from the 2 American McGee games at all?)

🌼 Wonderfell is a fun one. I take inspiration from way too many adaptations to list here but yes you are correct I am a huge fan of McGee’s interpretation so that does creep in. If you noticed Chesh has a hoop earring. That is definitely inspired by that version. I don’t take too much from the Disney version since... I know this is controversial but I don’t think it’s the best adaptation. It gets the usual Disney family-friendly treatment. Which is fine I still love it but if you know me I like things a little more... mature. 

I was also inspired by games like Alicemare, IB, Yume Nikki. It doesn’t make sense now in the context of the fic but it will. Wonderland has always suspended the real and the surreal and I definitely play with that concept a lot. Things are not always as they seem. 

I always felt like Undertale initially was an Alice in Wonderland variation from falling down a hole into a magic world, to a cast of colorful crazy characters, to having to sacrifice or grow in some way along the journey. It’s why I made Wonderfell because I have always seen Sans as a Cheshire archetype and not just because of the grin. It’s more like his abilities. The Cheshire cat can disappear and re-appear at will. It’s not a direct one to one but his teleportation abilities are very similar. Pap has always embodied the Mad Hatter for me especially with his fascination with puzzles instead of riddles. 

I also really wanted a more fun and colorful take on UF stuff. I am really tired of Boss always being angry or Red always being abusive... or I don’t know that characterization that made me make my own version (Underworld AU) in the first place. Or god... them being just a shit post. I know it’s nice to have those every once in a while but I always felt the missed opportunity to actually make them something other than cardboard cutouts. In my opinion, I feel like a lot of my boys have taken on a life all their own. It’s why I am using them in my original work.

Yokaifell? Well, it kind of stems from some of my favorite anime of all time, Kamisama Hajitemashita being one of them. There is just something really cool about yokai lore because I always make the joke that if you go to Japan anything can and will kill you. There are so many yokai to work off of too so that's where the inspiration comes from.

{READ MORE FOR LENGTH PURPOSES}

Mythology wise my Yokaifell lore post goes into quite a bit but the things that I have not mentioned in that is how the world works outside of the main story. 

As I continue to develop Souly Damned I have been wanted to add more and more of the things that have influenced my storytelling so they kind of cross over in ideas. The realm of yokai in this instance is a separate realm (I do know they are spirits but just bear with me). You can think of it as another dimension separate from our own but still accessible. It is possible for mortal souls to enter the spirit realm but souls are kind of the key here. 

Normally humans just walk through the gates and never end up in the realm because they don’t believe in the realm or its inhabitants. Those that can see have the realm's magic buried within them and the more they worship/believe the more that influence grows. In the majority of my work, I ascribe to the idea that the eyes are the windows into the soul so the more magic you have the more vibrant your eye color. 

Since Yokaifell is set in modern-day most humans have normal eye colors. Basically, magic = key in this lore. Now you may be wondering why my Frisk, little out of her element bean that she is, is able to run through the gate. She starts off as a normal unsuspecting human who is lost in the forest whom Ryou accidentally lures. Usually, he does that on purpose to mess with humans but in this case, he is just playing his koto and relaxing. Since the town that Frisk moves to is more in the mountains the people there are very in tune with the old ways. They even warn her not to go into the forest because of it. She just doesn’t listen since she doesn’t believe in magic or superstition. 

 The yokai in my lore can only be seen by those with magic in their soul unless they drop the veil. Obviously being a foreigner she has 0 idea what Ryou is trying to tell her when she first encounters him. That is until he imparts just a sliver of magic on her soul so that she can actually understand the language. But... uh... whoopsie. Humans with magic are rare and that makes them incredibly yummy to the yokai around the area. This creates a chain event where she ends up in the spirit realm and because of Ryou’s mistake she is able to pass through the gate like one of them would. The oni chasing them ends up smashing the gate they came through and there you are... she is stuck which you can already gather is dangerous. 

Ryou and Kuro are two yokai you don’t really want to mess with because their past history is seeped in blood. They both despise mortals for some unknown reason. One that is revealed further down in the spoiler section. How they went from practically killing mortal and yokai to laxer is also kind of a question mark. Kuro is able to quell his rage by serving the kami (in this case Asgore) while Ryou... uh... ok he doesn’t really handle it all that great. He is just a very salty boy. 

Like my lore for Souly Damned lower level of yokai can not just jump to the mortal realm whenever they want. There is a hierarchy established and fortunately, Ryou and Kuro are pretty high up there so they can interact to some degree. I have that outlined further in the lore post.

 I will say that in order to explain this I have to toss up a spoiler warning for anyone that does not want to see it. {THERE BE  SPOILERS AHEAD}

So... spoiler time but Ryou and his brother Kuro used to be humans at some point. This was centuries ago but they both died when a rival village tried to eradicate their own. Kuro being the proud warrior went off to fight, leaving his little brother to watch over the rest. Unfortunately Ryou never actually sees his brother again and yeah... it’s sad to say but he dies on the battlefield. Ever since he was a child he wanted to be a warrior. He dies fullfilling that dream.

Ryou though being younger tries to fend off the attackers but he is eventually mortally wounded and left for dead. He bleeds out as the snow starts to fall again which is why his design not only incorporates red but also the snowfall aspect, especially his human guise. 

In that time there was more magic and yokai roamed freely. The souls were far stronger and because of both Ryou and Kuro’s deeply held emotion that affects their souls eventually calling out to the Kami... they are then reborn as yokai in the process. Ryou as the mischevious Kitsune and Kuro as a gashadokuro samurai. So it’s established that humans can become yokai but it's rare as the centuries progress. It takes an incredibly strong soul coupled with some kind of deep emotion which could be anything from rage to love. 

[mythgirlimagines]

For today’s Tuesday, prepare to get heatstroke from the sheer hotness of Myth, the Former Ultimate Firefighter!

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BACKSTORY AND TALENT

Due to being bedridden with scoliosis in her younger years, Myth didn’t really do much apart from reading. Until one day, a brave firefighter saved Myth’s life from a dangerous house fire that still left burns on Myth’s left eye and arm. From that day forward, after her scoliosis surgery, she has dedicated her life to training hard to become like the firefighter that saved her life that fateful day. By her teen years, she managed to rise through the rankings and become a professional firefighter for her town. Her rapid rising through the ranks despite her age, gender and height gave her a free spot to Hope’s Peak as the Ultimate Firefighter. In her adult years, she is currently chaperoning this year’s Ultimates and Jr. Ultimates on a trip to Kibo-Con Ultimate!

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RELATIONSHIPS

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Film Critic

Wyre has been best friends ever since she moved in next door to Myth and entertained her with some high-ranking movies. However, due to the time-consuming training Myth went through from her time as a firefighter trainee, they’ve been seeing each other less and less. And now, Wyre can’t help but swoon over the utter hunk that her childhood friend had become now.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Sailor

Scar, or as she calls herself, ”The Spirit of the Seven Seas”, gets along surprisingly well with ”The Spirit of the Quenched Flames”, as Scar puts it. This is probably due to their shared experience with tense situations, whether surrounded with raging water or raging flames. If either of them had a nightmare about certain traumatic incidents from the past, they’ll talk about the nightmare and reassure each other.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Fantasy Novelist

Fusion became famous for writing “The Saga of Spritefolk”, a literary series famous for its lovable menagerie of characters and extensive lore and worldbuilding. Myth happens to be a huge fan of said series, and Myth was on cloud nine when she got an autograph from the novelist. The two also bond over their shared interest in mythology.

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Cheerleader

Fusion II is well-known for leading a 50-person oendan group, complete with taiko drums and complex acrobatics. The oendan is known for praising the hometeam, and throwing shade towards the competition. Fusion II herself is actually more laid-back then what her talent suggests, although she is just as snarky as her cheers would suggest. Fusion II would never admit this, for she has a reputation to keep up, but she thinks Myth would be a fine addition to her group.

Just Anon, Ultimate Pediatric Nurse

Janon is worshipped throughout the medical world as a prodigy in the medical field. Due to Janon’s natural intellect letting him breeze through tests without any actual effort, Janon has a terrible work ethic and a lazy and apathetic attitude. Janon also happens to be Myth’s favorite teasing target, for his not-so-secret soft spot for children, his failed attempts at being edgy despite his innocuous talent and adorable appearance, and his massive crush on a certain dense barista. This has lead Janon to utterly despise Myth.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Ballroom Dancer

Being raised in a high-class family well-known for their bombastic and over-the-top dance parties, Sparkle is known to be able to charm anyone on the dance floor, whether male or female. And yet even she can’t help but get yearn to get swept off her feet by this strong yet dorky firefighter. Sparkle is currently trying to teach the firefighter the ways of her bloodline, but The Spectacular Sparkle gets way too flustered over Myth’s strong arms, and winds up botching the dance, much to Myth‘s confusion.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Lucky Student and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Librarian

Very little is known about this cursed duo, for they hardly do anything apart from spouting unnerving comments and remaining evasive about their past. At least Myth kind of got along with Wet Sock, due to their shared interest in reading, but Wet Sock is even more hostile towards Myth due to their growing feelings for the firefighter, usually threatening her with knives. Egg seems to be the only Former Ultimate to not have feelings for Myth, but due to the regular cursed comments and cursed actions made by the Former Lucky Student, people are too afraid to ask.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Barista

Myth regularly visits Curious for her daily cup of joe at their cafe, “Simply Splendid”. Myth can get along easily with Curious due to their tranquil, empathetic attitude and excellent service and ambience of the coffee shop that they work at. Myth couldn’t help but poke fun at Curious for their sheer density when it comes to Janon’s feelings towards them. Talk about calling the kettle black!

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Matchmaker

Despite Nerd’s knowledge on romantic relationships, to the point that he made the most reliable matchmaking website in the modern world by himself, it is very clear that Nerd’s never been in a relationship himself. But even the blind and deaf can see that Nerd is crushing bad on the dense firefighter, despite Nerd’s angry protests to the contrary. Too bad Myth has a density only matched by Curious. But the other Anons are deadset on getting both the tsundere matchmaker and the oblivious firefighter to realize their feelings for each other.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Occultist

Because of Eldritch’s paranoid attitude and his evasiveness of the public eye, very little is known about Eldritch or how he got into the occult. Myth can’t help but find it odd that such a jittery scaredy-cat has one of the more horrific talents. Much to Myth’s confusion, Eldritch seems to be convinced that Myth is an evil spirit and regularly tries to remedy that by tossing salt at Myth.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Viral Sensation

Dream, or as her fans call her “Sunny D”, is the creator of the “Vowolleyball“ web series, which centers around the antics Dream and her volleyball team. Her hyperactive and positive attitude has earned her a special spot in the heart of her fanbase. Dream gave Myth a shout-out in one of her videos centering around her time at the Kibo-Con, which gave way to a flood of thumbs-up and fangirling comments from the firefighter’s own fanbase.

Iris Anon, Jr. Ultimate Babysitter

Iris’s optimistic, hyperactive, and childish personality has made her a big hit with the little kids of her neighborhood. Her babysitting business earned a lot of money as a result of her popularity with children.  But sometimes, even the babysitter needs a babysitter of their own. And that exactly what Myth’s relationship with Iris is like. Myth and Iris have a bit of a mother-daughter relationship and Iris regularly winds up going to Myth in case she needs advice, her boo-boos patched up, or if she just needs a hug from a pair of strong arms.

Purple Anon, Ultimate Samurai

Myth can’t help but be surprised that samurai not only still exist, but one is attending Hope’s Peak right now. Myth can’t help but want to protect the crowned heiress of the Murasaki bloodline, upon noticing how timid said heiress is when outside of a combat scenario. Purple’s elaborate and old-fashioned vocabulary as a result of her upbringing, just confuses Myth, so she often requires Fusion to translate Purple’s speech into modern slang.

So basically, this AU is a harem series about an adorable and buff, if dense firefighter, and her four/five waifus/husbandos/whatever the NB term for a waifu is.

————————————————-——

APPEARANCE

Firefighter!Myth has shoulder-length undyed hair and burn scars on her left eye and arm. She wears an orange and black firefighter’s uniform that is undone at the waist, hanging at the back of her legs. Under her uniform, she wears a black tank top and a scarf that resembles a film reel (that she got as a token of friendship from Wyre). She also wears black boots with a white stripe running though the center and white soles. The arm bands on her muscular arms match the color scheme of her uniform, being orange with black stripes. 

——————————————————

PERSONALITY

Because of Firefighter!Myth’s line of work, Firefighter!Myth is courageous and bold, always jumping into danger in order to save lives. That, along with her androgynous appearance, has earned her comparisons to a dashing prince. This has given her a passionate fan base amongst her neighborhood. Despite the confident and cool-headed personality of Firefighter!Myth, she isn’t as socially-skilled as one would expect. Because of her isolated and bed-ridden background, Firefighter!Myth is more socially-awkward and naive compared to Romantic!Myth, particularly when it comes to people with romantic intentions. When it comes to dating or noticing when people are attracted to her, she is completely and utterly clueless, much to the ire of Librarian!Wet Sock and Matchmaker!Nerd. She isn’t stupid though, for she still retains a love for literature and film from her younger years. Although hopefully, her time at the Kibo-Con would help her wise up to romantic intentions, but only time will tell.

——————————————————

I’ve took some inspiration from Fusion II’s talentswap, and added some backstory to the relationships section. I’ve partially based this Myth off of a Nozoeli fanfiction called “Best Star She’d Ever Had”, link to the fic here: (https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095454)

What do you think of this buff, yet dense Myth? Let me know what you think of this Talentswap!

-Fusion Anon

—

I think I speak for everyone who knows me when I say buff me is inherently cursed, that said I love this

[aforrestofstuff]

What do you think the OPM characters' guilty pleasures would be? I feel like Tatsu loves soap operas and Atomic Samurai secretly loves a really popular boy band, like SMAP

Thanks for your request, anon! Sorry this took me so long to get to, you were buried in my inbox lol. But I hope this was worth the wait because oh boy this required all 3 of my brain cells.

Tornado of Terror: As you said, soap operas. She also loves candy apples in canon. But...she also is a HUGE fan of those really cheesy Cosmopolitan magazines that have all of the personality quizzes and the “which hot male celeb would date you” scenarios. She doesn’t fall for it one bit. In fact, she hate reads those fuckers in the same way that people pay to go see bad movies. It’s fun.

Silverfang: Yoga and following along to some cheesy-ass 80s workout videos. I’ve said he likes yoga in a previous headcanon, but he also likes to exercise along to some obnoxious 80s pop while some dude in a leotard instructs him on what to do from a TV screen. He wears sweatbands and legwarmers, too. The whole shebang. He only does it when he’s alone, though. Sometimes he’ll try to teach yoga to his disciples as a way to help them decompress after a long training session, but his workout tapes are his best-kept secret.

Atomic Samurai: I don’t know what a SMAP is, but he’s definitely got some questionable music choices going on considering he’s... well, the way that he is. I’d say he likes to listen to old country, like Marty Robbins and Glen Campbell. It’s really funny because you’ve got this intimidating man from Japan (or a fictional universe basically set in Japan) with a badass katana and shit but inside that empty head of his, there’s just a faint “out in the west Texas town of El Paso....”

Child Emperor: Picking at scabs. He’s often on his knees fixing shit in his lab, and he probably gets burned all the damn time from playing around with lasers so he’s undoubtedly always has a wound healing somewhere. Whenever he’s working on something, he’ll just absentmindedly pick at his scabs. It’s a bad habit and he knows it, but nothing beats the feeling of peeling off an entire patch of that shit. So satisfying.

Metal Knight: Buying books. He doesn’t even read them. He just buys bigass novels with smart-sounding names to fill up his library because he thinks it’ll make his dick grow another three inches or some shit. One of the few things he likes in this world (besides homicide) is the smell of a new book. If he’s feeling particularly pissy, he’ll go into his library and just ssssssnnnnnnnnnniififfffffffffff. He spends an outrageous amount of money on it. If he has anyone over (which is unlikely, but hypothetically speaking) and they mention his library by asking something like “have you read all of these?” It’ll be one of the few times in his life that he’ll feel shame.

King: Reading and writing fanfiction based on his favorite video game/anime series. Nobody knows he does this except his small following online, of course. And even more so, nobody online knows he’s an ultra-popular S-Class hero who’s friends with the most powerful man on earth. He’s actually a pretty decent writer, he just doesn’t take himself too seriously so the plotline to his stories tend to get a little haywire and overly self-indulgent. Let him have his fun. He just wants to be a Sailor Scout.

Zombieman: Singing. He actually used to be a good singer (he sounded like a discount Steve Perry back in the day), but constant smoking really fucked up his voice. He might as well have lungs the size of grapes because he can’t carry a note for more than 2 seconds without wheezing like an accordion with asthma. He’s never sang in front of anyone before because he thinks it’s silly thing that isn’t worth showing off. Play anything from The Eagles though, and he’ll have a hard time resisting.

Drive Knight: He likes to open up panels in his arms and legs to play with the wires (basically a robot’s version of nerve endings, I’m assuming) just so he can feel something. It’s kind of sad because he doesn’t experience pain or the cold or being tickled... (I know what y’all are thinking and you’d better STOP). So he sometimes takes it upon himself to dick around with his insides and dip his toe into what it feels like to be human, even if it’s just for a little bit. He’s super secretive about it (he’s just secretive about everything, really) because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he desires something outside of being a weapon of mass destruction justice.

Pig God: His whole schtick is basically indulging in a guilty pleasure — pigging out on delicious food with no regard whatsoever for one’s overall health. Other than that, however, he does like to collect body pillows. There, I said it. All he fucking does is eat and he’s too much of a big boi to be going out 24/7, so he’s gotta be on the internet/watching anime/playing video games/reading manga during all of that downtime between his stints of doing hero work. His bed is fucking ginormous to handle all of that big boy-ness and on it, he has his body pillow nest. He rests on a throne made for kings. A true icon.

Superalloy Darkshine: Also working out along to some cheesy 80s exercise videos. His hero outfit was inspired from what those ravishing instructors would wear on the television. Well, it was supposed to be a full leotard but it ripped every time he flexed just a tiny bit so the speedo is the only thing that’s left. He’s gotta hella rhythm and keeps up with the music using little to no effort. Although, he can’t go too hard because he’s also a big boi and he’ll literally shake the entire building if he gets too turnt up. Dance muscle boy, dance.

Watchdog Man: Eating too many dog treats lol. Sometimes while he’s stationed on his little podium thing, visitors will leave him little offerings like dog treats and other miscellaneous food items/toys. He never takes them or eats them in front of people, but he often brings everything home with him after a long day just to gobble that shit up. He’s gained a little weight since he started doing it but you can’t even notice it because his suit is hella bulky. Some of it is due in part to stress-eating because being a dog and dude at the same time is hectic, but it’s honest work.

Flashy Flash: Racing shit. Whenever he’s on his travels during, say, assassination missions or hero work, he gets hella bored really quickly. So, to help with this, he’ll often race birds or planes flying in the sky on his way to his destination to see who’s quicker (it’s always him). Sometimes he’ll even play catch with himself by throwing a pine cone or something and running to the place he guesses it’ll land before it even touches the ground. He just does a ton of weird speedster shit whenever he’s bored and he’ll deny it if anyone asks.

Genos: Purposefully putting a little bit too much oil on his joints after each upgrade so he’ll be as slick as a salamander. It’s a really funny feeling to be able to move your limbs with little to no resistance without having to worry about popping or breaking anything. It just makes him feel so agile despite being like, a hunk of actual metal. If he wasn’t so uptight, he would loosen the screws in his fingers to he can bend them almost all the way back (he’s actually thought about it a few times), but both Dr. Kuseno and his 3 remaining braincells attested to that. He just likes to tinker around with his body and see what weird shit he can do. It’s a bad habit because it’s led to a few things being broken on multiple occasions.

Metal Bat: Zenko’s shitty pop music. Whenever he drops her off at school or piano practice, he’ll immediately go home and blast that shit on full volume (because he’s practically deaf from always jumping out of falling buildings and continuously blasting music in his earbuds) while doing chores and the like. He’s one of those people that HAVE to have something going on in the background as they’re getting shit done. He’d rather be caught dead than listening to the OPM equivalent of Taylor Swift because he knows Zenko would never let him live it down.

Tanktop Master: Wearing suits around the house when he’s not even going anywhere. He’s got to wear his tanktop 24/7 whenever he’s in public to keep up The Image (which he has no problem with, he genuinely loves the tanktop ideology) but he also needs to feel fancy every once and a while. So, if he happens to have the time while in between appearances, he’ll prance around in a suit tailored just for him. Because he’s so fucking huge that he had to pay someone a large sum to custom make an outfit that actually fits. He is 7-motherfucking-feet tall. 7.

Puri-Puri Prisoner: Making Valentine’s Day cards all times of the year. Listen, it gets boring as hell in prison. Sometimes the guards will let all of the inmates have a little glitter and glue to keep themselves busy because no harm can come of a little arts and crafts, right? He likes to make cards on the daily just to let all of his lovers know how much he appreciates them. If they express even the slightest amount of disdain for his creations, he’ll spent the next week crying in the darkest corner of his cell block. He also likes origami. Origami is huge in prison because it’s hella time-consuming and guaranteed to calm a busy mind. His favorite things to make are little unicorns.

Amai Mask: Bath bombs. There have been several mishaps in which he’s used a poorly-made bath bomb and came out of the tub looking like Shrek but he’s grown and lot since then, okay? After a long day or a particularly stressful concert, he’ll sink into some hot water and drop a ball of lavender-scented goodness in there. It’s become a bit of an addiction because he’s got multiple cabinets dedicated solely to his collection, but at least he always smells divine.

Iaian: Shakespearean dramas. Kama got him hooked on theater shit and he’s since ripped through all of the most well-known plays. He thinks in iambic pentameter. It wasn’t always noticeable since he’s a quiet, well-reserved guy but his fellow disciples and Kami have recently noticed that he’s developed a bit of a dramatic flair. Even worse, he’s started calling himself a knight whenever he puts on his armor. Everyone prays it’s just a phase but seeing as how stubborn Iaian is, that seeks highly unlikely. Kami is dying inside because he can’t handle another drama nerd.

Okamaitachi: Soap operas, like Tatsumaki. Kama is the most dramatic out of all of the disciples so it’s only natural that she’d like the most dramatic genre of any show out there. She doesn’t exactly watch them religiously though. She’s the type of viewer to drop off the face of the earth for three seasons and come back without knowing what the fuck is going on (because the disciples have limited access to cable due to Kami’s dumbassery and ignorance to anything technology-related), but still cry during the finale anyway because oh no these people are so hot and one of them is deaaaaaad and the other one is that person’s long-lost sister....

Bushidrill: Taking alcohol from Atomic Samurai’s stash every so often. Bushidrill knows what the good shit is and he could buy it himself if he wanted to, but why would he when there’s a perfectly good alcoholic to steal from living right down the hall? He only takes in small doses because, believe it or not—he’s smart, but Kami isn’t gonna notice regardless of whether or not Bushi takes 1 or 5 bottles at a time because the old shit couldn’t spot a purple raccoon if it was 3 feet in front of him. There have been times where Bushi has opened bottles of Kami’s alcohol right in front of him just to play God and he always, without missing a beat, says “Oh, we have the same taste. How neat.”

Fubuki: I’ve said this before in a previous headcanon, but she has a mild obsession with Victorian aesthetic. She’s got a small collection of semi-authentic ballgowns that cost upwards of a-fuckton-of-money each, but anything’s worth it to be able to play dress-up with Lily. Fubuki’s favorite thing is making Lily feel beautiful because everyone has been an insecure teenager at one point and she knows how it feels to not be comfortable in one’s own skin. This isn’t exactly a guilty pleasure because she’s not guilty about it, but it’s almost gotten to a point where an intervention is needed. She’s got so many damn dresses and sooooo much fine china....

Saitama: Retail therapy, lol. Saitama is only good at budgeting because he has no choice given how fucking poor he is, but give this boy even a little bit of leeway and he’ll buy the ugliest clothes (to which he thinks look poppin’) and the best meats without even batting an eye. His entire manga collection is the product of him having little to no self control the moment he realizes he’s got a bit of money to spend on himself. This is also the only time he’ll experiment with cooking because now he can actually afford to fuck up, literally.

Mumen Rider: Sweets! I’ve said this in a previous hc but he has a major sweet tooth. You can substitute salt for sugar in any given recipe and he’ll see it as a major improvement because he just goes absolutely buckwild for anything sweet. His pancreas is suffering, but he believes nothing feels better than curling up under the covers on a rainy day with a heaping helping of milk chocolate. The only thing that makes him feel better after getting beat to shit is a kiss on the cheek and box of his favorite cookies (and some bananas, lol).

Sonic: Like Flash, he also likes racing things. But, in addition to that, his guilty pleasure is doing his own hair in elaborate hairstyles (when it was longer). He’s pretty much homeless so he’s got a lot of time to himself in between murders. This is when you can find him sitting in the woods somewhere braiding flowers into his hair and tying it off with a moss ribbon. He’d never admit he does this because he’s a big macho man and he’d probably cry.

Garou: Spicy chips. I’ve said this before in a previous hc, but he absolutely inhales his food without even tasting it half the time so it’s not even like he gets to enjoy the flavor that much. He just likes the burn because he’s a shithead. He also doesn’t fear death or a torn-up asshole, so he’ll eat an entire family-sized bag of the OPM-universe equivalent to Takis without even batting an eye. He’s been beat to shit so many times that the agony that comes with downing so much spice is lost on him. He doesn’t even need water. It’s insane. Someone stop this madman at once.

[gabriel-gabdiel]

Youtou Shinnoken: Demon Sword Chapter 58: Living Sin (Part 10)

The B-Class Toguro fights the S-Class Yusuke Urameshi before unleashing a power beyond the one he had before he died.

Tenro, the reincarnation of Makoto Shishio, finally makes an appearance and wreaks havoc against all the Reikai Senshi before facing off against the man who killed him originally: Kenshin Himura.

The original source of this idea comes from Chad Yang. I continued his story idea found here.

The rest of the chapters of my Yuyu Hakusho and Rurouni Kenshin crossover fan fiction are available here and here. Enjoy.

First | Previous | Next (Youtou Shinnoken) | Next (Demon Sword)

About a hundred years or so ago...

In 1878, after fighting Kenshin "Battousai" Himura to a draw, Makoto Shishio died in a literal blaze of glory (through his own spontaneous combustion when his overheating body broke its limits) and went to Hell.

When he got there, he ended up right before the imposing, gigantic figure of Enma Daio, who asked him, "What are you doing here, mortal? Go back to the Gates of Judgment in order to be judged."

Shishio then replied, "Get out of my throne. I'm the new King of Hell."

***

Youtou Shinnoken: Demon Sword

A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda

Original Concept by Chad Yang

Tenro has finally arrived in Okushiri. How will the Reikai Senshi answer his challenge, especially after learning the truth about him?

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and Studio Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallop, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted materials that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.

***

Chapter 58: Living Sin (Part 10)

***

Back at the Okushiri Military Base...

A shouting, crying Yahiko kneeled in front of Botan's unmoving body, seeing the huge hole in Botan's person.

A hole in the shinigami who somehow was also his kendo master from a former life, Kaoru Kamiya  (he didn't quite understand it).

Had he failed again? Like before, when Enishi Yukishiro...?

No. He would not let Kaoru down again. Not after what the Kenshingumi had been through right after Kenshin Himura died and...!

"Bloody Rain," said Yumi Komagata, who again made it rain blood mixed with what seemed like scalpels.

Right above the dark clouds filled with the scarlet squall were Houji Sadojima's shikigami (familiars) that looked like grim reapers in and of themselves due to their ragged clothes, faceless voids covered by hoods for heads, and long scythes.

And beyond them was Gatekeeper Itsuki, who had a mini-gun at the ready in order to test the limits of a solidified ghost body before it became incorporeal once more. Knowing that gunpowder had no spirit energy for Yahiko to neutralize.

"DOU GAMI! (GOD ON EARTH!)" Yahiko's earth-shattering technique blasted away the razor-sharp precipitation and Itsuki's suppressive fire into oblivion, allowing him to dissipate the slicing rain bullets around him and the soul-crushing pressure of the borrowed aura of the Onmyouji (Occult Priest).

"Insolent welp...!" Houji said the thing.

"TEN GAMI! (GOD IN HEAVEN!)" Myojin shouted as he did a much more powerful version of the God on Earth that shot him up high into the heavens. Even the nimbus clouds parted from the strength of his slash.

This rocked and shook the military base like an earthquake while the Tokyo Samurai Descendant himself approached the Onmyouji like the resulting tsunami of such an earthquake.

"INGA GAMI! (KARMIC GOD!)"

It was this technique that suddenly turned the poisonous miasma of the Overfiend into something else. Something filled with positive energy and life-giving, nourishing soul power.

Sanosuke Sagara then noticed how the crimson, purple, and black miasma of jaki surrounding them changed in color, texture, and volume. Flickering back and forth from a cool blue wave to a scarlet mess.

He then checked on Botan, only to gasp in surprise despite being a ghost that didn't need to breathe or have sudden oxygen intakes.

The hole in her chest caused by one of Itsuki's black holes had begun healing. The jaki surrounding them, as Sano suspected, was slowly being purified into reiki, which in turn the ferry-girl used to heal herself.

Not only herself, actually. She shared the wealth by beaming the spirit energy she absorbed unto Kazuma Kuwabara and Sanosuke too. Replenishing their depleted spiritual power and increasing their health at the same time.

A full restore for all her allies, if you would.

'What's going on here? Is this Yahiko's doing? Or hers?'

It was actually both.

Yahiko neutralized the overpowering potency of the Chojin's jaki just short of making it altogether disappear. Botan then purified the weakened negative energy into reiki she used to heal herself and the others while also powering them up, as though she filled the role of the Onmyouji for the Reikai Senshi (Spirit World Warriors).

Meanwhile, Kuwabara and Botan exchanged knowing glances.

They'd gone through this incident before. To be more specific, they witnessed Yusuke do the same thing Yahiko (and Kaoru) attempted to do firsthand.

It was when Urameshi got a hold of the Meikai Crystal and attempted to use it against the last Meikai God standing, Yakumo. The negative energy almost consumed him before his sheer willpower (and at the time hidden demonic lineage) turned the jaki into reiki instead.

Yahiko had decided it was easier to weaken the Chojin's overwhelming negative energy so that Kaoru could turn it into positive (spirit) energy instead of attempting to neutralize or seal it all at once.

The tag team of Yahiko and Kaoru allowed them to replicate what Yusuke himself did alone.

Break it down to its core components first, bit by bit.

The samurai boy then said, "BANZEN GAMI. (PERFECT GOD.)"

***

"Great fighters refuse to lose, but you refuse to win just to get back that feeling and exhilaration of conquering something greater than you. So what do you do now that you're in a world where nothing is greater than you?"

Those were Younger Toguro's words even as Yusuke Urameshi effortlessly tanked through and walked down his offense while blasting him to nigh-oblivion with the Renshya Rei-Gan (Rapid-Fire Spirit Gun).

'What the hell was that supposed to mean?!' Yusuke thought.

Was Toguro Ototo right? Had Urameshi become too powerful? Was he holding back his power level in order to drag out fights he would've easily won otherwise, thus endangering the lives of those he protected?

Ha. As if.

Those words truly did sound deep. They'd sound even deeper and more meaningful if said by a guy who wasn't getting his ass kicked care of him.

If that were true, he would've already hunted down and killed the Chojin himself. He wasn't even the most powerful being in Makai (Demon World), let alone all three worlds. He was a level below the likes of Mukuro and Yomi as well as his deceased ancestor/father figure Raizen.

Not to mention Raizen's old comrades having power levels so high they could band together and conquer both the Human and Spirit Worlds if they so chose.

No, instead of it being a case of Yusuke growing too ridiculously powerful, it was instead a matter of Toguro remaining stagnant and weak by comparison.

The martial artist who belonged to the "baby boomer" generation might've been powerful for a demon not trapped in Makai and blocked off by the Spirit World Barrier. However, he was a pissant compared to the likes of the monsters Urameshi eventually faced in the Demon World Unification Tournament.

On top of all that, Yusuke didn't want to hear that nonsense from the King of Holding Back. The Emperor of Power Percentages.

"Rando's Kugai (World of Suffering) is a low-level technique used by monks to empathically feel the pain and suffering of those around them. The fact that you're still suffering from its effects isn't because of its curse but because of how you reacted to it."

Yusuke frowned. Indeed, for quite sometime since his fight with Rando, every punch he threw at his opponents he also felt. For once, he found out what it was like to get punched by himself.

However, it also served as his training. The more he felt his own punches, the more resistant he became of his own power, thus raising his threshold of pain and his ability to take a punch. He could dish it out and take it.

He wasn't sure he could say the same about Toguro.

His ripcord muscles strained to their utmost, the Younger Toguro ended up having his muscle fibers ripped apart, cracked, and shattered like pottery. The anabolic state he used to grow his muscles to absurd sizes ended up completely wasted because he couldn't handle A-Level to S-Level bursts of power.

Yusuke nevertheless conceded one point to Toguro: The teenager did miss staking his life and limb to defeat an enemy, using all his strength to defend his friends and family.

He hadn't really done so lately. Not really. The last time he had a satisfying match was against Yomi.

Ever since then, his enemies mainly resorted to trickery reminiscent of Kido Asato freezing him with his shadow powers or Hiei kidnapping Keiko Yukimura to defeat him.

All of the Chojin's Shin Ju ended up as weaklings compared to Urameshi. Each and every one of them. To go against them with his full powers would be a waste of effort.

Like lighting a candle with a flamethrower or cutting grass with a chainsaw. Complete overkill.

Then again, wasn't this also the reason why Toguro, even though he was only B-Level, tended to hide his power level or only use a percentage of his power?

Huh. They were more alike than he thought.

***

Botan smiled in spite of herself. Or rather, her lips curved upward on their own and then said things not of her own volition due to her astral body's second inhabitant: Kaoru Kamiya.

"There it is. The Perfect God. That's Yahiko's answer to mastering the Mujinken."

A hundred years or so ago, Kaoru originally taught Yahiko the Tenchijinken (forethought-based techniques involving the prediction of an opponent's moves) and taught Yutaro Tsukayama the Mujinken (reflex-based techniques that reacted to whatever the opponent did in the heat of the moment) to fill in their respective weaknesses.

The two were actually more suited for each other's techniques, since Yahiko fought more off-the-cuff while Yutaro fought more methodically.

She intentionally sealed away the techniques that played to the two's strengths so that they could overcome their weaknesses with the opposite techniques, believing that someday they'd figure out how to do each other's ultimate attacks down the line anyway.

While the Inga Gami showed Yahiko's version of methodical fighting (with him focusing on every counterstrike to unleash the best counters without any wasted movement or energy), it was the instinctual Banzen Gami that showed his fullest potential.

Yahiko was more of a natural with the Perfect God than the Karmic God. It was the opposite for the more thoughtful Yutaro (who now went by the name and identity of Natsuki Shinkai/Xinhai).

"INSECT!" sneered Houji, his wide eyes glowing red, his voice booming like thunder as he produced what seemed like an endless stream of shikigami. Only for Myojin to seemingly cut and disintegrate them with a couple of reflexive waves of his sakabatou.

He wasn't even looking at the reapers as every reflexive slice of his blunt sword blew them apart and sent them to oblivion, his gaze aimed solely at Sadojima

The miasma of black jaki turned into white and blue shining reiki as Myojin neutralized it and Kaoru converted it into pure reiki. Once he reached Houji, their respective weapons clashed, the entire area split between the morning light colors from behind Yahiko and the pitch-black darkness from behind Sadojima.

It was like the clash of day and night, with the point of impact serving as their dusk or dawn. Twilight or daybreak.

To Houji's alarm, his scythe then started to crack and break. 'What the HELL is with this stupid brat!? I thought our only real threats are the Youkiri Battousai and Urameshi Yusuke! Chojin-sama, HELP!'

***

Instead of going down from the barrage of Rei-Gan shots, Toguro merely said, "Stop wasting energy," as though Yusuke left the light or electric fan turned on or something.

To Yusuke's surprise (or perhaps disappointment), the B-Class Toguro reacted to the Spirit Gun bombardment the exact same way as he did during the Ankoku Bujutsukai (Dark Martial Arts Tournament): By attempting to charge at the growing spirit energy bullets to stop them with his bare hands and feet as well as his purely anabolic, hugely muscular body.

And just like that, it was over. With Toguro face down on the ground, his body shattered and torn from its exploded musculature. A tall, lean husk of its former self.

Another one bit the dust. Like the rest of Yusuke's revived enemies that came back stronger because of the Chojin but not quite strong enough to take him on.

To Yusuke's mild surprise, Toguro was still "alive".  Or this revived zombie version of himself made by the Chojin's own personal Dr. Frankenstein was still moving.

The muscleman mercenary then said, "I'm merely at B-Level and I was able to push you this far? Your fighting senses have dulled, Urameshi Yusuke."

"Oh really? Well, I've discovered that at this point, no one could beat me but myself. You're welcome to prove me wrong, though," said Yusuke.

Again, Urameshi pulled something right out of Toguro's playbook. They both looked down on people who weren't on their level.

Toguro looked up at the night sky, which rekindled his memories. The Shichousei (Death Omen Star, also known as the Lifespan Star, Jumyoboshi, Alcor, or 80 Ursae Majoris) wasn't present near the Big Dipper.

"I can't see the Shichousei in the heavens."

"W-What are you talking about, Toguro? Have you gone cuckoo?"

Legend had it that when two warriors fought to the death under the Star of Death and it shone upon one of them, that person would die.

Was the star missing because he was already dead? Or because this wasn't much of a death match?

Fine. He'd turn this match into a death match then.

On the other hand, other Japanese myths and legends alleged that when a person couldn't see the Lifespan Star, he'd pass away within a year. That was appropriate since Toguro himself was not alive anymore.

Thusly, every broken bone from his body reset and healed, but instead of going back to normal, they formed sharp calcified bone spurs that protruded right out of his craggy, callused body like horns or thorns.

"...I knew it! You still had another form after 100%, you son of a bitch! CHOU REI-GAN! (MEGA SPIRIT GUN!)"

As Toguro got a power boost from the way his body decided to recover from his injuries, he punched back the Chou Rei-Gan Yusuke fired at his changing form before punching the teenager as well with his bone spur claws on his fist right at the moment of impact, quadrupling its effect.

He just jumped from Class-B to Class-A in a mere second.

"Ooof!" The world-stopping punch emptied the air from Yusuke's lungs.

"My former 100% has actually become less than a percentage point of my power, but for the sake of giving you a point of reference, I'll base my power increases on what was 100% of my power."

He grew about as big as his 100% of 100% form, perhaps even a little bigger, but this time around the demonized behemoth's black hair turned as grey as steel along with the rest of his vascular body that was covered with huge bony protrusions.

"So you can call this form of mine as me at 500% of my power."

"Whatever! HYAKU RETSU-KEN! (HUNDRED RENDING FISTS!)"

Appropriately enough, the attack Yusuke then used in response to Toguro's transformation was one he saw on television from his favorite anime show as a child of the 1980s, "Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star)".

The Shichousei or Death Omen Star was, after all, also referenced by the same program.

Honestly, it was just Urameshi going ham on an opponent by randomly striking his heavy-handed punches at every opening available to him, with him naming the "technique" after the fact.

***

The devastation of the Okushiri Military base extended outward, with the pairs of Kazuma and Yumi as well as Sanosuke and Itsuki traveling eastward in a trail of devastation that followed Yahiko's own blaze of glory.

The green comet that was the Tokyo Samurai Descendant clashed and burned through the spherical cloud of miasma protecting Sadojima, like a shooting star entering the atmosphere.

The two pairs of enemies fought tooth and nail for proper positioning. The Reikai Senshi pushed the Chojin's forces back to protect Myojin from their interference.

Sanosuke punched through everything Itsuki threw at him from his hyperdimensional portals and busted portal gun. Sano also dodged the dense scattershot black holes and threw pavement debris at the Gatekeeper for good measure.  

Meanwhile, Kazuma fought from afar using his blade that can literally cut through anything and anywhere in order to slash apart every attempt of the wind vampire Yumi to blast tornadoes and energy-absorbing jaki at him.

Finally, Myojin himself struck the Chojin's (and at this point, it was the Chojin controlling the Onmyouji) scythe hard, the blade covered in miasma and dark energy.

The tides of battle then turned.

Using the jaki Kaoru purified into reiki, Yahiko's green aura became denser and denser, creating a white shining void at the center of his body that sucked the darkness of the Chojin away. Acting like a reverse black hole or even white hole that absorbed all of the Overfiend's darkness into his pure light.

'This is it, Botan,' thought Kaoru "telepathically". 'This is the power of Mu (Void). The power of emptiness.'

'Emptiness...?' repeated the ferry-girl.

'Yes. A true martial artist is able to fight with instinct, freeing his mind of all thought and distractions, leading to a Zen State. Yahiko manifested this Zen State into his unique skill: Neutralizing spiritual energy.'

A second later, all energy from everyone dissipated, and from there Houji's scythe shattered like glass as both he and Yahiko plummeted into the docks of the Okushiri Pier.  

The samurai spirit fell into Ryu Tsui Sen (Dragon Hammer Flash) stance and slammed Sadojima into one of the metal crates of the pier below them with an emphatic crash.  

"You stupid kid! I'll show you! ETERNAL...! Wait, what?! My powers are gone!"

Yumi Komagata attempted to do the Hi-Ougi (Hidden Art) of Vampire Martial Arts—a move stronger than the energy-sapping Blood Wind—but nothing of the sort manifested before her. Her aura, the energy she gathered from sucking many a soldier's blood, had disappeared.

The same happened to Itsuki, who couldn't summon his Reverse-Man or escape into his pocket dimension any longer.

Yahiko's reiki had also went out, which normally was dangerous for a ghost but he somehow reached homeostasis with the way he cancelled out the Chojin's jaki.

His dense green aura had now completely neutralized the powers of everyone near him instead of merely mitigating their flow, including the now unconscious Onmyouji.

Like how no light could escape the event horizon of a black hole, not one shadow of the Chojin's dark energy could exist amidst the blinding green light of Yahiko's converging spiritual aura.

However, as a consequence, even Yahiko's allies lost their powers as well, as though he was acting as the reverse version of the Onmyouji. Instead of boosting the powers of those in his vicinity, he nullified them.

Regardless, Sanosuke and Kuwabara immediately took advantage of the loss of powers from Itsuki and Yumi with their physical strength, with the former beating Itsuki to a pulp and Kuwabara breaking the umbrella and fan of Komagata bareheaded before tackling and pinning her down.

"Give it up, lady. You lost," said Kuwabara. "You can't cheat your way out of this one by resurrecting your goons every time we defeat them. Your precious Onmyouji's down for the count."

Yahiko "heaved" a sigh of relief despite being a solidified ghost who didn't need to breathe. "It's finally over."

Botan giggled in glee. "We did it! You did it! The number one pupil of Kamiya Kasshin! I'm so proud of you, Yahiko!" The last few parts of that statement was Kaoru talking.  

Sano looked at his own bloody fists and winced. 'We've won, but why do I feel like it's not yet over? Like there's still something afoot.'

Even though the blood from his right fist wasn't his own but Itsuki's, it burned and ached something fierce. Like he broke his hand or something. 'What's going on? I have a bad feeling about this.'

Sanosuke's bad feeling then turned into reality.

***

At Class-A, Yusuke Urameshi's Hyaku Retsu-Ken would've turned the B-Plus Toguro into mince meat. Or roadkill.

At Class-S, his Hyaku Retsu-Ken would've turned mountains like Mt. Kannon, Mt. Kamui, and even Mt. Fuji into molehills, plains, or even outright trenches and canyons as deep as the United States of America's Grand Canyon.

Like he was a pint-sized Paul Bunyan.

The teenager harrumphed. "Really? 500%? Like I'm fighting 5 Toguros at the same time? So what? That's still nothing compared to the demons I've faced since defeating you, Toguro...!"

The bone-breaking punches cracked the shell of Toguro's chitinous muscle armor bit by bit. However, in turn, Toguro let his fists fly as well but in a more methodical manner.

Targeting his punches at Yusuke's openings rather than punching randomly. Using his martial arts experience to take down the stronger foe.  

His bony yet muscular fists pounded on Yusuke's smaller body, cracking bones here and there.

Yusuke's fists ached from every punch he did on the rock-solid body of Toguro, the multitude of Spirit Cuffs holding his power back also getting pushed to their limit. The restraining cuffs and seals he placed upon himself were at their near breaking point from him merely flexing his immense power.

Thank goodness the likes of Yomi, Mukuro, Enki, and the rest of Raizen's friends (as well as Raizen himself when he was alive) put him in his place early on regarding what real power looked like, or else he'd be full of himself right about now.

The Toguro with chitinous bone spurs and keratinous horns all over his muscle-bound body ended up breaking each and every one of his thick, calcified bones from the impact of Yusuke's attacks.

Toguro's bones rattled as micro-tears appeared all over his muscles and tendons. Despite this, he pushed forward. Like his older brother, he healed quickly, which alerted Urameshi that he still had something in his sleeve.

"All right. Then how about this? TAKO NAGURI!"

The Octopus Assault—Yusuke's version of the Kuzu Ryu Sen (Nine-Dragon Flash) that hit 8 times instead of 9 times in an instant—hammered the horned gray body of the zombified and demonized Toguro before he could get the chance to stab, gore, or spear Yusuke with his many protruding bone spurs.

Urameshi once heard that it took either 23,034 slaps to cook a chicken. Either that, or a slap traveling at 1,665.65 meters per second.

He wasn't sure about the math, but he cooked Toguro's goose at a rate of 8-16 punches a second with every punch traveling at 1,000-2,000 meters per second, so it would've took about 20 minutes of non-stop Tako Naguri to get to around 20,000 punches or 2,500 super-powered Tako Naguri.

Or he would've cooked/burned 20,000 whole chickens with his speedy punches at around the same time it took to cook a chicken in the oven.

However, it was at the second minute that Urameshi broke his hand. He hit a hard shell reminiscent of Usui's shield.

From the pile of minced meat, torn muscle cords, and viscera emerged yet another Toguro form.

What stood before him wasn't the spurred behemoth Toguro but instead a fully armored Toguro, with every inch of his body covered in craggy white bone.

As though his shattered bones healed wrong and ended up calcifying right on top of his pulsating muscles. He broke the calcified armor in sections by flexing his limbs in order to give his new outer shell moving joints.

It also made him look like a white lobster man, thought Yusuke in chagrin.

"This is 1,000% of my power. 100 times the power of my 100% self."

***

At the Okushiri Pier, around 9:47 PM...

The mangled remains of a man landed right in front of Reikai's finest from out of the shadows of the dark harbor.

The Reikai Senshi (and their accompanying shinigami) then felt goose bumps form at the napes of their necks—even the ghostly ones that didn't even have tangible skin, blood, or hair to make such a sensation possible.

Even Itsuki, whom Sano beat from pillar to post with bare-knuckle fisticuffs, looked none the worse for wear compared to the person before them.

He was bathed in blood and his torn clothes were dyed crimson because of it. He looked like he'd been ravaged by a pack of wolves.

The only thing recognizable about him was that he was male.  Probably.

Sanosuke was the first one to try and poke at the figure to see who it was. If he had a ten-foot pole, he'd prod the man with it. As it was, thanks to Yahiko manifesting his full neutralization powers, Sano couldn't even summon one zanbatou right now.

The street fighter then stumbled back, which made Kazuma ask, "What's wrong? Who is it? Is that one of the Chojin's Shin Ju or whatever?"

Botan gulped, hoping against hope that the man before them was the injured body of one of the New Ten Swords instead of one of the Spirit World Warriors.

Before Sano could answer, someone else answered for him.

"That's what remains of Hajime Saito. The former captain of the Shinsengumi's Third Unit."

"...What? Who said that?" demanded Yahiko.

The Reikai Tantei, the shinigami, and the Kenshingumi then turned in time to see the silhouette of a pony-tailed person from the distance.

There stood a human(?) of about S-Level power with sleeked-back hair, a lengthy ponytail, and a half-undone kimono that showed off his rippling swimmer's muscles on his long build.

As realization dawned on them one by one, their mouths went agape, practically unhinged from their upper jaw.

The blood drained from Kuwabara's face while the three spiritual beings' faces (Botan/Kaoru, Sano, and Yahiko) looked more transparent than usual.

The ghosts all looked like they'd seen a ghost (ironically enough), forgetting they were ghosts themselves. Gasping for air they couldn't breathe anymore.

Even Kuwabara, who was alive, looked like he'd seen a ghost himself or even turned into one.

The man, who himself was a bloody mess with stabs wounds and cuts at every inch of his body, held something in his arms.

It was his trophy. His prize after a hard day's battle.

It was the head of his enemy. It was the head of Hajime Saito.

Botan screamed. Or rather, Kaoru did.

The Kamiya Kasshin Master couldn't believe that Kenshin's greatest rival who was so famous he became a Japanese historical figure later on had been defeated.

On the other hand, Botan—through centuries of being a death goddess—had seen worse things before, so she was desensitized enough to not scream. Her own feeling of dread was around the same level as Kaoru's, though.

The pony-tailed assassin then took one look at the Kenshingumi sans Kenshin, the Reikai Tantei sidekick, and their shinigami babysitter then sighed.

"Oh, no one but weaklings left? Pathetic. Imagine, after such a delicious meal, I'm left with leftovers and expired food."

The new arrival then placed Saito's head beside the rest of his body. Almost reverently. "Rest in peace, Saito Hajime. You were truly a worthy rival. I acknowledge you."

"You killed Officer Fujita! You BASTARD!" screamed Kuwabara, a knife-sized Rei-Ken ablaze with reiki and righteous indignation in his grip.

Kazuma would've produced a full-length Jigen Tou with the rage he felt, but Yahiko's neutralizing presence kept his powers in check.

"Wait. Boke (Fool), he's...!" Sano trailed off, moving in front of Kuwabara to block him from doing anything hasty. 'If anyone's going to do something hasty, it was going to be me!' thought Sagara.

"Who are you?" said Yahiko as he pointed his sakabatou at the stranger.

"I'm Youkiri Tenro (Tenro the Demon-Slayer). Remember that name before I send you back to Heaven."

***

Yusuke quickly checked his Spirit Detector. Toguro was now at A-Level with his Bone Armor form. Around the same power level as the most powerful members of the Reikai Tokubetsu Bouetai (Spirit World Special Forces).

This turn of events definitely piqued his interest. Somewhat. Maybe this time, he'd get the battle he so craved from this new version of Toguro since being defeated by Yomi in the Makai Tournament.

However, the extra layer of bone armor made it harder for Yusuke to break apart Toguro's muscle armor with mere punches, no matter what velocity he reached.

As though Toguro now had double the armor.

Also, in turn, the Class-A Toguro Ototo pummeled and stabbed Yusuke with earth-shattering strikes from his bony fists, horns, and claws as well as shattered pieces of his bone armor that kept calcifying and regrowing over and over. Layer by layer. Like samurai armor or shingles on the roof.

Stubbornly, the bloody and bruised Yusuke kept on punching the armored demon to push him away and give himself breathing room.

The bony yet muscle-bound contradiction of a monster that looked ridiculously gigantic yet unencumbered by his musculature having an extra layer of armor on top of it, turning him into a veritable tank with the speed of a Mack truck. He even hit like a truck.

However, as his wounds healed in Toguro Ani fashion, Urameshi realized that he had long ago surpassed the version of him that could get killed by being hit by a car. Or a truck. Or a tank. Or perhaps even a nuclear warhead. Maybe.

"Rei-Kou-Dan (Spirit Light Wave Bullet)."

One of his Spirit Cuffs broke as he put his hip into his punches and imbued his fists with actual spiritual power. They were already harder than steel because of the spirit energy contained within his body. When he emanated reiki from inside and outside himself, his punches also become explosive.

One reiki-imbued punch was all it took for him to crack the bone armor of Toguro at 1,000%. However, he wasn't done.

Perhaps he might have gone overboard, but he decided to punch Toguro 20,000 times in 3 minutes rather than 20 minutes. But it sure felt like 20 minutes.

Furthermore, these weren't just physical punches. His fists were set on fire with spiritual energy this time around. He shot out 20,000 Rei-Kou-Dan blasts, to be more precise.

Every supersonic punch had the impact of a blockbuster bomb, with it breaking the sound barrier and sending extra shockwaves to Toguro and all. Perhaps he'd become even more explosive than multiple blockbusters.

Perhaps Yusuke had turned into a teenaged nuke or warhead himself.

However, out of the mangled mess of bone armor emerged yet another Toguro. The armor that should've served as his coffin ended up becoming his cocoon for his newest metamorphosis. Which, to Yusuke's surprise, made him breathe a sigh in relief.

Yes! He could still push himself even further!

Was this excited feeling the same one that Toguro felt when, just a few years prior, Yusuke was able to withstand the might of 80% of his power when he killed Genkai in cold blood?

Regardless, a bronze-skinned, taller, and four-armed Toguro emerged from all that mush and burnt flesh he'd become earlier, impossibly towering even higher over Yusuke than before. His current ginormous form made his former seven-foot form look normal-sized in comparison.

His muscles were like taut steel cords now, like those used in heavy-duty tires and conveyer belts. Perhaps even harder. They were definitely harder than the pieces of thick calcified bone armor that they crushed like egg shells with a simple collective body flex.

"This is 100,000% of my power. This is what fighting 1,000 clones of my 100% self looks like."

Yusuke thought for a second what Toguro meant by that, only for him to test the theory out with an additional 20,000 Rei-Kou-Dan blasts in a minute. 20,000 palm blocks later and Urameshi now had a better idea of what his nemesis meant, followed by 20,000 counterpunches in between those blocks.

All in a minute's time.

'100,000% Toguro? He didn't even bother going to 10,000%? Jeez!' Urameshi thought as he got hit with a two-armed lariat that dragged his body across the landscape and river like a trailer home in a tornado.

This was it. This was the A-Plus version of Toguro.

Yusuke couldn't even hide the grin from his face even as this newest form of Toguro beat him to the punch every time.

Toguro at 100,000% had even tighter and tauter musculature with enough strength and torque behind them to break bones to dust. His ripcord muscles could handle punching velocities similar to that of or even faster than Yusuke's.

It also didn't help that Toguro now had a body that could accommodate four arms, thus giving him twice the hand speed and arm speed due to his literal extra limbs.

***

"...SHISHIO!" screamed Sanosuke at Tenro, his blood (ectoplasm) boiling. His right fist, which Makoto Shishio broke, pulsating like a second heart.

Even though Tenro wasn't wearing bandages and his skin wasn't burned to a crisp, Sano could recognize that voice and that demeanor anywhere.

'Shishio?' thought Kuwabara. So Tenro was the man who founded the original Juppon Gatana? Kenshin's greatest rival? The man who ultimately caused Kenshin's demise? The man who might actually be the alter ego of the Chojin himself?

The guy who not only pushed Hiei to his limits, but also possibly two of the Demon World's three kings, Yomi and Mukuro? Was Tenro Shishio's reincarnation or something...?

Before they knew it, they were suddenly faced with the final boss of the game.

The fighting spirit of Sanosuke rose high enough for him to defy the nullifying presence of Yahiko and form half of a zanbatou in his hands, which he swung at the (presumably) non-burned version or reincarnation of the ex-hitokiri and Meiji rebel known as Makoto Shishio.

With one swing of Tenro's Mugen Jin (Unlimited Blade) sword, Sagara's suspicions were confirmed.

"Secret Sword One: HOMURA DAMA!"

Shishio's signature Homura Dama (Burning Soul) technique where his sword burst into flame clashed hard against the 6-foot (normally 12-foot) horse-chopping sword, smelting it in the process like a blacksmith's forge in a shower of sparks.

"A weakling like usual, Sagara Sanosuke," sneered Tenro. "It's been a while, though."

"I don't understand. Wasn't Shishio supposed to look like a mummy or something? He's some guy who was burnt to a crisp and covered in bandages, right?" said Kazuma.

Sano answered, "Yeah, but obviously it's been 100 years. He must've found a way to get a new body, or ended up with a solidified soul, or got reincarnated as this Tenro clown."

Myojin gulped. He considered deactivating his powers to allow either Kuwabara or Sanosuke to attack the youkiri. However, if Tenro was this powerful with his spiritual power nullified, how much more powerful could he get when Yahiko's powers ceased working?

The disheveled Yumi then cackled in the background, the hole in her chest throbbing with a ghostly heart that the man before her had "stolen" from her.

"It's about time you got here, Tenro. What took you so long? Don't tell me the Miburo (Mibu's Wolf) gave you all that you can handle and then some."

Tenro harrumphed. "Perish the thought, Yumi. I merely gave my respects first to the Shinsengumi in the Battle of Hakodate Monument, and guess who I also found there? That's right, our favorite Shinsengumi Captain, Saito Hajime."

'Hakodate?!' thought Yahiko. 'That's four hours away from Okushiri! All the way on the other side of Hokkaido, at that!'

Sanosuke himself snarled at Tenro, his fist burning with pain and fire, as though it remembered how Makoto had shattered it when they'd faced each other back at Mt. Hiei.

'Hakodate is the place that served as the Shinsengumi's last stand. Did Saito go there to pay his respects to his squad? In the middle of our war against the Shin Ju? It's not like him to be so sentimental.'

The street fighter spared a glance at the remains of Hajime Saito. Unbelievable. Just earlier, he pushed several of the Shin Juppon Gatana to their limits, but now he ended up as dead as the rest of the original Shinsengumi.

Well, Saito himself was supposed to already be dead and buried in the first place, but this time around he got killed off for real by Shishio. Or Tenro, which was probably the reincarnation of Shishio.

Kuwabara turned towards Yahiko and said, "Kid, turn off your powers! I'm going to face off with the final boss one-on-one at my full strength!"

"But...!" the ghost kid trailed off before Botan filled in the rest.

"Kuwabara-kun, he can't. He's the only one sealing Tenro's immense power. If he was able to do that to Saito, imagine what he could do to us! Let Yahiko seal his power for now until either Kenshin or Yusuke arrives!" warned the ferry-girl.

"I DON'T CARE!" shouted Kazuma. "Let us face him at his full strength while we're also at full strength! As a real man, I won't back down!"

Tenro smirked. "Fine then. If you're not bluffing then come at me. In this world and beyond it, the same rules of nature apply. Only the strongest survive and the weak are food for the strong."

Sano's eyes narrowed. That convinced him that the man before him really was Shishio. That was totally a Shishio-type line. 'It's now or never. We just have to keep him here until either Kenshin or that delinquent best friend of Boke arrives!'

***

"REI-KOU-DAN!" shouted Urameshi, his Spirit Wave Light Bullets bursting through his fist like bolts of lightning from a Railgun.

The 100,000% Toguro blocked the punch with his elbow, shattering Yusuke's hand bones in the process. "Is this the power of an S-Level? Don't make me laugh. Me at 100,000% of my power is enough for you."

Toguro then grabbed hold of Urameshi's limbs with all four of his arms in a bid to tear the teenager apart literally from limb to limb.

Yusuke considered Toguro's statement for a second and then said, "Fuck that," before flipping the four-armed monster off with his right hand.

The mere idea that someone like Feng Xinhai or The "Beautiful" Suzuki was more powerful than Toguro just didn't sit well with Urameshi. At all.

At any rate, the middle finger he raised at the 100,000% Toguro then flowed with energy he'd been saving for a special occasion.

Yusuke discovered that he could actually save and store his dormant spirit energy as a reserve or extra Spirit Gun blast for use in case of emergencies since it usually took forever and a day to charge his Rei-Gan.

The energy for this one he'd been gathering for weeks' on end.

Also, in order for him to not mistakenly fire off his reserve Rei-Gan, he had this special energy bullet stored in his middle finger. This was how the new technique that he improvised when facing off against the S-Level Xinhai ultimately evolved.

This was his "Fuck You!" Spirit Gun. Also known as the "FAKKU GAN! (FUCK GUN!)"

The 100,000% Toguro chucked Yusuke away like a hot potato in order to better dodge the point-blank spiritual projectile then punted the Fuck Gun back to the teenager who fired it.

However, by instinct borne from his hundreds of fights against spiritually powerful humans and demons, Yusuke jumped away from the Fakku Gan, grabbed Toguro by the ankle, dragged him towards the ball of plasma fire he actually outran, and then threw the monster back into its path.

From there, as the 100,000% Toguro braced himself for impact, Urameshi emerged from behind him. Attacking him from the rear for good measure.

Toguro was now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or between a demon and his energy blast.

"REI-KOU-DAN! SHOT GUN!" screamed the half-demon prince.

While the Fakku Gan blasted and disintegrated the giant from the front, Yusuke attacked with his Spirit Light Wave Bullets and reiki scattershot from behind, which kept even the four-armed monstrosity from defending himself from the upcoming onslaught surrounding him.

The charged-up blasts of energy in particle and wave forms bore on Toguro like plasma tides or a solar wind. An endless series of reiki tidal waves from the vast ocean of Urameshi's power.

Thanks to the extra pressure brought about by his stored energy blast from many weeks ago, Yusuke's Rei-Kou-Dan was able to penetrate deep into Toguro's core. The technique ripped apart the steel cord muscles of Toguro as they got softened by the comet of energy that cooked him alive.  

Then, as Yusuke had hoped deep in his unbeating heart, the mangled Toguro changed form yet again.

The same heart that stopped beating after Shinobu Sensui first pierced it felt like it had started beating again in anticipation. In excitement. In nostalgia, even.

Toguro still had more forms and powers up his sleeve. Just like old times.

And from there, out of the ashes and melted muscle of the 100,000% Toguro came forth the One Million Percent Toguro.

"One Million Percent. This is me at One Million Percent of my power, Urameshi Yusuke."

***

Kuwabara and Sanosuke attacked Tenro at the same time while Yahiko struggled on the spot to focus all his neutralizing powers on the Shishio reincarnation(?) alone.

Botan checked her Spirit Detector again. Hope sprouted anew within her heart. 'Yes! Tenro's power level went down to A-Level. He's still on the cusp of S-Level, but at least he's not as powerful as someone like Sensui or Xinhai! We have a chance!'

Tenro frowned. His aura of jaki had become fainter and weaker due to Myojin's powers.

'Hmmm. The Shin Ju had warned me about this impudent brat. Even Toguro Ani couldn't heal properly thanks to this kid's neutralizing reiki.'

As Yahiko slowly mastered his neutralization powers so that only Tenro was affected by them, the energy levels of Kuwabara and Sanosuke went up higher and higher than before, their auras flaring with spiritual might that was boosted by Botan's healing powers for good measure.

"JIGEN TOU!" screamed Kazuma, summoning his Dimension Sword.

"ZANBATOU!" shouted Sanosuke, producing his 12-foot long Horse-Chopping Sword.

"How appropriate. Isn't this just a reflection of today's society? The weak are using their great numbers to suppress their betters, not realizing that without the strong to lead them or the will to become strong themselves, they will end up extinct. The world stands on the shoulders of giants."

"SHADDAP! I don't know who you are, but all's fair in love and war," declared Kuwabara.

"Not all men are created equal. Like in the Animal Kingdom, some men are simply better than others. Equal opportunity doesn't guarantee equal results. Forcing equal results in an aberration of nature, like forcing animals to act like men, the pinnacle of evolution."

Tenro used a bare hand to grab hold of Kuwabara's Dimension Sword and used his other hand holding the saw-like Mugen Jin to block the full-length zanbatou.

"Ganging up on the strong can lead to the survival of the weak temporarily. However, their own respective weaknesses will sort them out. Their celebration of mediocrity will make them food for other apex predators in the future or have them subjugated by any of their own who decide to become rams instead of sheep."

The Youkiri then broke the Jigen Tou apart like it was made of cardboard instead of pure energy and stabbed Sanosuke's chest with it while also melting the zanbatou with his Mugen Jin's Homura Dama.

"Regardless, it is better to live one day as a lion than one hundred years as a sheep. These are... THE RULES OF NATURE!"

"AUGH!" grunted Sanosuke, his recently recovered soul flickering in and out of existence, his chest spewing ectoplasm, and his aura dissipating into pinpoints of light like a disturbed nest of bioluminescent fireflies.

He felt the light inside him slowly fade all the while.

"Bastard...!" said Kazuma, who repurposed the broken shards of his Jigen Tou and shot it pointblank at Youkiri Tenro's face, turning them into "REI-SHURIKEN!"

He should've hit him with the projectiles from a distance, though. The first few blades bounced off of the intense aura of jaki that covered Tenro's body like armor, which reminded Kuwabara of the aura that Detective Matsudaira developed.

Reiatsu (Spirit pressure).

Tenro's aura was dense enough to become spirit pressure reminiscent of Bui from the Toguro Team. Or Yusuke whenever he unleashed his full power.

So this was the Chojin's secret weapon? If not the Chojin himself altogether?

The demon-slayer then grabbed the teenager's wrist and redirected the shuriken at Sano again, injuring him further. From there, he broke Kuwabara's hand altogether then grabbed him by the collar, declaring, "Secret Sword Two: GUREN KAINA! (CRIMSON LOTUS ARM!)"

Using his Mugen Jin to ignite the gunpowder-laced glove, the youkiri blasted Kuwabara with the force of a bomb.

The gunpowder-inside-the-glove trick that Shishio used on Kenshin was also used against Kazuma, with the explosion violently blowing him away. A hundred years ago, Makoto's hand was kept safe from the blast using a special metal gauntlet underneath the glove full of gunpowder that resisted the impact.

Tenro somehow ended up doing an even stronger version of the Guren Kaina that was imbued with the chaotic negative energy of the Chojin, which made the explosion strong enough to injure a human with the A-Class power level of Kuwabara.

Yahiko's power-suppressing aura didn't help in this case.

Tenro then shot the samurai ghost teen a look that chilled him to his "bones" or "spine". The youkiri then declared, "You will not drag me down to your level. Know your place, child."

However, while Tenro was distracted, the flickering spirit of Sanosuke stabbed the youkiri with hot molten metal of what was left of his sword in a spectacular display of sparks.

This was Sano's one chance of making a dent, so he had to make it count. However, as he attempted to punch Tenro's heart out, his hand ended up crushed with the youkiri's elbow block.

With a harrumph, Tenro proceeded to punch Sanosuke on the forehead, just like when Sano fought Shishio. "You never learn."

"I don't understand," murmured the Kaoru inside Botan's body. "Isn't Yahiko's aura supposed to suppress Tenro's powers too? Why is he still so strong!?"

She then noticed the unconscious Itsuki open his eyes and wake up, which led her to keep her guard up.

The black-and-blue Itsuki chuckled, tracing his finger over the scar Kuwabara had made on his face back when the Reikai Tantei faced off against Shinobu Sensui. "Y-You don't understand. This is him with his power held back."

"W-What do you mean? That's impossible!" Botan checked her Spirit Detector. "Oh no. His power is fluctuating between A-Level and S-Level when earlier it was just A-Level. That can't be! How powerful is he?"

Sneering, Itsuki said, "Who knows? Rumor has it he's about as powerful as one of the Former Three Kings—Mukuro, Yomi, and even the Late Raizen. He might even reach the mythical X-Level like Kurama did when he took hold of the Demon Sword."

Botan's face went pale blue as though unseen hands suddenly grabbed hold of her thin neck. "X-Level?!"

She remembered the event like it was yesterday.

The Spirit World went on high alert when Kurama went Class-X after wielding the Youtou Shinnoken (Demon Sword). They even called the entire Reikai Bouetai in. Not that it would've done them any good, since the Special Forces were composed of Class-A agents and Class-X was a level beyond Class-S.

She couldn't even fathom how strong an X-Level was since Kurama immediately rejected the Demon Sword, which transformed him back into his "human" self.

However, stronger than Yomi, Mukuro, or Raizen gave her a ballpark estimate of what they were dealing with. Someone as strong as or stronger than a Raizen-possessed Yusuke who ragdolled the mountain-destroying Sensui with ease.

All the same, Tenro stood victorious over the beaten figures of Sanosuke and Kuwabara.

"Will you become rams or sheep? Lions or feral street cats? Wolves or mongrel dogs? Can you evolve and turn into apex predators yourselves? It's natural selection. Kill or be killed. Make your choice."

***

The peaceful Tsurikake River had now become a war zone. A swamp in one part and a desert in another.

It was Baghdad. It was bedlam.

The 1,000,000% Toguro was there at the epicenter of the devastation. A nuke all his own. An unnatural force of nature.

An over-muscled demonized human even taller than his 100,000% version. A walking contradiction of chaos and order.

He had no skin now. He was all pure, red muscle and tendons pulsating and wriggling in every which way.

He also had six arms instead of two or four, with him towering even higher than before because he had to elongate his torso to cartoonish levels just to accommodate his extra pair of limbs.

Curious at how strong this Toguro was, Yusuke flipped the bird on Toguro with his other hand.

Yes, he had also stored another Fuck Gun on his other hand, with about the same amount of potential spiritual energy gathered for multiple weeks since he fired his first Fakku Gan at Feng Xinhai.

"FAKKU GAN!"

Again, Urameshi blasted all of his pent-up "Fuck You!" energy at Toguro by flipping him off, shooting the bolt of concentrated lightning that came out with the force of a shooting star.

Again, he outran the modified reserve Rei-Gan and came up from behind the six-armed insectoid Toguro with the intent of making sure he got hit by it.

He then attacked Toguro with both hands using the Rei-Gan and Shot Gun.

"DOUBLE-BARRELED SHOT GUN! DOUBLE BERRETTA REI-GAN!"

Those extra pair of hands on an even bigger and sturdier body made all the difference.

Two of six arms grabbed and held back the charged-for-weeks Rei-Gan. Another two of the arms parried and blocked all of Yusuke's energy-laden punches as well as the projectiles blasting through them.

This freed up the Million-Percent Toguro's two remaining hands that grabbed hold of Yusuke and pummeled him into submission.

The Younger Toguro utilized punches that carved the landscape. Made and destroyed mountains.

The kind of unnatural force of nature (as contradictory as it sounded) that could affect plate tectonics, weather patterns, or change the area forever, like in the case of Mt. St. Helens when it exploded or the nine ghost villages of France that remained wastelands to this day thanks to the Battle of Verdun in the First World War.  

If Yusuke's reiki-dense body weren't there to absorb the blows they would've shattered and sunk Okushiri right off of the map.

Even though Urameshi was breathing through his mouth, had lost several teeth, and ended up with a shattered jaw he couldn't close, he couldn't help but grin. Or at least do an open-mouthed smile.

"I'm beating you to the punch at every turn. So why is it...?" Toguro tilted his head to the side in askance. "Why do you have such a happy look on your face?"

Disturbingly, Yusuke's teeth grew back. They weren't supposed to do that but they did. Even accelerated human healing wouldn't allow the return of lost permanent teeth. All his bruises healed. All his broken bones mended themselves. His shut black eye's swelling subsided and went back to normal.

There he hung from Toguro's grip. Smiling. None the worse for wear save for torn clothes that couldn't restore themselves to their previous state.

"Come on, Toguro. You can do better than this, you son of a bitch! Gimme your best shot!"

Toguro then proceeded to smash Yusuke and his own heavenly body of a Fakku Gan together, which resulted in a mushroom cloud of pure destructive power.

Another atomic blast had hit Japan.

Toguro the Younger turned Urameshi into the atomic bomb he was afraid he had become.

***

Back at the Okushiri Pier, two things happened.

Botan, using the wealth of leftover negative energy that Kaoru purified earlier, again started healing the damage inflicted upon the available Reikai Senshi.

Kuwabara and Sanosuke stirred, as if shot by multiple doses of adrenalin.

Also, when the youkiri decided to deal with the shinigami herself to keep her from aiding her comrades, Yahiko himself confronted and attacked Tenro head on.

For all the good it did. Bless his ghostly heart.

"DOU GAMI...! (GOD ON EARTH!)" shouted Yahiko, hoping against hope it'd land on Tenro's head or sword or at least near him so that he'd get pelted by rocks and debris.

'So this is Shishio. The leader of the Juppon Gatana. Kenshin's most powerful rival,' the samurai spirit thought.

Tenro caught the reverse-edged blade between his fingers before it could make contact with him or the Mugen Jin. The God Hammer relied on recoil to give Yahiko enough space to consecutively strike something or someone three times fast in order to break their resistance and apply a zero-resistance strike.

No recoil meant the technique was neutralized.

Myojin's jaw dropped. "How...!?"

"So you're the brat who can neutralize spirit energy," said Tenro with narrowed eyes that traveled from Houji's unconscious form then all the way back to Yahiko.

Readjusting his grip of the sword tight with a gloved hand that smelled of gunpowder and negative spirit energy, Tenro again did the "GUREN KAINA!" on the blade.

The explosion blasted Myojin clear away from (presumably) Shishio, the shrapnel from his own spiritual construct of a sakabatou hitting him at the speed of bullets. His spirit fading and dissipating with pinpoints of energy.

''YAHIKO!" both Botan and Kaoru chorused in one unified body, fearing the worst.

However, the shards of Yahiko's shattered blade also penetrated Tenro's body, sealing his power further away from S-Level.

'What a problematic child this is.'

Myojin got up to his feet and charged with his broken reverse-edged blade, hoping to buy Sano and Kuwabara time. Buy Kenshin and Yusuke time as well.

He intended to do the Inga Gami on Tenro's head, only to revert to the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu ougi for Hadome and Hawatari when his opponent beat him to the punch and struck first with the Homura Dama.

However, as he defended against the downwards flaming strike with a crossed-wrist block, Tenro grappled with him and kept him from parrying the strike. "Do you want to know how your idol, Himura Battousai, died a century ago? Like this. Guren Kaina. Homura Dama."

After the explosion from the gunpowder happened, Tenro allowed the resulting fire to flare and roast the hapless ghost of Yahiko Myojin.

"AAAHH...!" screamed the burning Yahiko.

"YAHIKO!" shouted Sanosuke.

"BRAT!" yelled Kuwabara.

Tenro himself stood in the middle of the conflagration, but like in his confrontation with Hiei, he ended up none the worse for wear from the roaring bonfire.

"Too strong... He's too strong...!" gasped Yahiko. "Even after all this time, I'm still as weak as I've always been."

The bright yellow flames turned green then blue as Yahiko's form reverted to that of a hitodama (will-o'-the-wisp).

Meanwhile, Botan shrieked, fell on her knees, and covered her eyes with her hands.

"Who is stronger? A wolf in sheep's clothing or a sheep in wolf's clothing? Don't deny your true nature. Embrace what you really are. It's either you know your place or claw your way up the food chain. Evolve. Transform. Step up or step aside."

The entirety of Okushiri then started to rumble as Yahiko's neutralizing reiki ebbed away.

Like a dam that was about to break.

***

A nuke did damage in three stages.

It irradiated heat and light, it blasted everything to Kingdom Come, and it scattered radioactive materials around.

The bigger you went, the less relevant the radioactive materials became relative to the other effects as the heat irradiation had a much greater and more noticeable immediate effect. Effectively, when a nuke went off, the temperature of the resulting fireball could go up to millions of degrees, but it dissipated relatively quickly.

However, instead of having a repeat of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1993, Yusuke's dense aura (arguably going at reiatsu level at this point) allowed him to absorb most of the impact of his own Fakku Gan.

The explosion became a blockbuster level blast instead of an atomic bomb mushroom cloud.

Yusuke collapsed on the ground, taking the brunt of his own spirit energy.

Before him towered a behemoth of a demonized man. His exposed muscles bursting out of his skin. His six huge arms giving him an insect-like vibe.

This was Toguro using a million percent of his power. He had become the Demigod Asura, a six-armed demon of war and destruction.

However, even in the face of this absolute unit of a monster, something else from many miles away grabbed Urameshi's attention.

Over the horizon, he felt a suppressed Low S-Level power grow and pulse. Like a leaking and cracked dam ready to burst.

Once that dam finally burst forth, Yusuke broke all of his limits at once. Every last Spirit Cuff. Every last bit of hesitation he had from the Kugai curse placed upon him by Rando.

He caught even the Million-Percent Toguro by surprise at how fast his power level rose.

He summoned his version of the Sei Kou Ki, the golden aura serving as his barrier against Toguro's atomic punches.

His hair grew long and turned white for good measure before he proceeded to punch the Million-Percent Toguro a million times. A glowing golden punch for every percentage.

"SEI-KOU-DAN!" Yusuke cried, blasting Toguro with the Sei-Kou-Ki version of the Rei-Kou-Dan.

He had to. That dark presence in the distance sounded all of his internal alarms and red flags. His primitive flight-or-fight instinct activated.

As though feeling the rise in power from a distance spurred him into action more effectively than the golem before him that, quite frankly, took too long to get to S-Level and beyond.

Whichever Reikai Senshi was out there, they were fighting the final boss. The Chojin himself, even.

***

Botan rushed towards Yahiko's side, doing her best to heal his injured hitodama form. But the damage was extensive on his human soul, the light within his spirit fading away fast. "Hold on, Yahiko-kun! I got you! Everything's going to be fine!"

However, no matter how much spirit energy she used to heal Yahiko's damaged soul, it never healed. His hitodama continued to remain in its fireball state, flickering like a candle in the wind.

Kuwabara was the first to get up shakily on his feet, the Rei-Ken in his hand (also) flickering back and forth between its normal form and its Jigen Tou form.

"You talk too much, you bastard!" said the redhead, who attempted to create a portal to send the youkiri to space, only for Tenro to grab the teenager by his curly regent-style hair and put his face into the portal in an effort to suffocate him.

"What happened to Japan? Is this the best warriors that this new age can pony up? Pathetic," said Youkiri Tenro. "It's so sad. The United States of America turned the proud Empire of Japan into a whipped dog. An island full of losers and weirdoes."

Kuwabara ignited Tenro's glove with a small Rei-Ken on his free hand, which made it explode in the youkiri's face. Gasping for air, the redhead attempted another blind swing at the would-be dictator, only for him to end up stabbed in the lung.

He coughed blood as his eyes watered. His insides drowned in his own blood through internal bleeding.

"Sheep will always be sheep. Wolves will always be wolves. Lions will always be lions. A hitokiri will always be a hitokiri. A youkiri will always be youkiri. It's an aberration of nature to be one thing and claim to be another. If you want to become strong then change yourself for real. Defy or accept your fate. Become the predator or become the prey. It's up to you."

Ignoring the throbbing pain from his right fist that somehow trumped the ectoplasmic bleeding he got from the Rei-Shuriken, Sagara attempted a Futae no Kiwami and aimed it right into the chest of Shishio.

Or Tenro. Or the Chojin. Whoever he was or claimed to be.

Tenro tossed aside Kuwabara's quivering body like trash then blocked Sanosuke's punch with his own punch.

Last time, Sano broke his fist on Shishio's concrete face, his own Futae no Kiwami deflecting back to the bones of his hand. This time, his Douhle Extreme was enough to match Tenro's strength.

Only enough to match Tenro's strength though.

As Tenro again attempted to punch and crack Sanosuke's skull open, something unexpected happened.

"...SANJO NO KIWAMI!"

Sano blew Tenro's fist away with the Triple Extreme, which opened up his chest to a direct heart punch.

The coup de grace.

"FUTAE NO KIWAMI! DORYAAH...!"

Sanosuke landed the Futae no Kiwami right into Shishio's heart. Or Tenro's heart.

A second passed. The youkiri cackled.

"Congratulations. You're a little bit stronger now than before."

As the fading, transparent visage of Sanosuke let out a soundless scream, his pupils constricted into tiny dots on a white expanse, Tenro finally attacked the street fighter with his flame-producing weapon, its Homura Dama splitting Sano's head apart in a spectacular spray of ectoplasm.

"S-Sano..." choked out Kuwabara, his own vision fading along with Sanosuke's soul.

All that time, even in his will-o'-the-wisp form, the soul of Yahiko kept sealing the power of Youkiri Tenro. However, he couldn't contain the immense power of the Shishio reincarnation(?) any longer.

His soul finally succumbed, fading to black before shattering into a thousand pinpoints of light.

"Yahiko, no! No! NOOO!" cried Botan. "Dammit, come back! Oh no, what's going on? Why is everything going wrong?!"

Okushiri rumbled as the unleashed power of Tenro began to expand into a tall pillar of darkness and miasma. His jaki shot up into the sky, which gathered nimbus clouds all around them.

The localized quakes grew stronger and stronger. It felt like the world was about to split apart. This was the power of an Upper Class-S being that somehow ended up in the Human World.

He felt like power made flesh. A walking disaster area. A humanoid cyclone.

Tenro smirked as he surveyed the pier. He felt their presence. They were coming. He felt their power, anger, and desperation travel towards him like moths to his flame.

He could feel their strong presences, spirit energy, sword energy, and aura even from miles away.

One was on land, on foot, going faster than a cheetah. The other in the air, presumably ferried by one of Reikai's shinigami.

Who could they be?

First, there was the one half-demon, half-human mazoku descendant of Raizen, Makai's God of War, who was able to harness his demonic power and lineage. Raizen's true son. The Last Son of the Mazoku.

Yusuke Urameshi.

Second, there was the man who "defeated" Makoto Shishio to a suicidal kamikaze draw.  The Hitokiri Battousai who died and then became the Youkiri Battousai, the Guardian of the Demon Sword.

Kenshin Himura.

"Come forth. Show me the best and most powerful champions that this era has to offer. I'll defeat them all!" declared Tenro the Demon-Slayer to his upcoming opponents.

However, before Tenro knew it, his chest tightened. His heart stopped beating.

His negative energy wasn't able to heal the damage in time. He stood there, frozen. His time had stopped care of Sanosuke's efforts.

This happened due to the combination of the Futae no Kiwami and the shards of Yahiko's neutralizing reiki damaging his mortal heart. It kept him from manifesting the full breadth of his power that managed to take down even Hajime Saito.

The Kenshingumi's curse, if you would.

"Before challenging the champions of this era, watch out behind you. The past has a way of catching up with you, Shishio Makoto!"

Speaking of Saito, it was then and there that the headless corpse of Hajime Saito began moving on its own, with his one arm cradling his decapitated head.

As though he were the Headless Horseman. Or a Dullahan of Irish folklore.

That bastard. He was playing possum all this time!?

Tenro willed himself to move, but couldn't. He felt his left arm go numb. The shards of Yahiko's sakabatou might've reached all the way to his coronary arteries.

There was no telling how much cardiovascular damage Sanosuke's punch had done to his heart.

Dammit.

He began to sweat hard while clutching his chest. "Damn you, Saito Hajime."

"I've never seen you so sweaty and pathetic before," the head of Saito mocked before charging with his Gatotsu Ishiki from behind Tenro. "Then again, your sweat glands did get all burned up in your past life."

Instead of aiming at Tenro's head like with his encounter with Shishio, Saito instead aimed his sword right at Tenro's stopped heart while he was in the middle of a heart attack.

Appropriately enough, instead of being defeated by someone stronger than him, it was the desperate alliance of those weaker than Tenro that ultimately dragged him towards his ultimate defeat.

The ultimate irony.

"Go back to Hell, Shishio...!"

"No, I will make this world Hell and feel right at home!"

No. This was the same method Hajime used to "kill" Usui (temporarily). He took advantage of other people's hard work then opportunistically struck at the right time.

There was no way Youkiri Tenro would go down like a punk. Like Usui, of all people. An outsmarted weakling.

Tenro willed himself to move to block the strike.

His Homura Dama melted right through Saito's sword. Apparently, the Shinsengumi Captain was already using the last of his soul's strength to even make the strike, resulting in a vulnerable blade with barely any spirit energy to protect it.

Nevertheless, the rest of the hot blade plunged right into one of Tenro's lungs, spraying his blood all over the empty pier.

Saito smirked and closed his eyes. Instead of a solidified soul, Shishio really was reincarnated into an extra powerful human being. But a human being nonetheless. A mortal one that could be killed.

Tenro awaited the Gatotsu Zeroshiki that never came.

Alas, Saito already spent most of his energy fighting a full-powered X-Level Tenro earlier, with him sacrificing his very life force to just injure him now.

"I win again, Saito Hajime," hissed Tenro, coughing blood. "I survived your attack while you're already as good as dead. I can easily heal this damage and finish off the rest of the Reikai Senshi."

"That's my parting gift," said Saito, his own spirit fading. "You won't be able to reach X-Level in time now."

Before Tenro could wonder any further what Saito meant by his words, a gigaton punch shattered his face from out of the blue.

"Wha...?! GUAAAAH!!!"

Again, the wolf outfoxed him at every turn.

The youkiri realized that he'd just been punched by Raizen's "Son". The Mazoku Descendant. The hanyou (half-demon) that scared the great Enma Daio himself.

His brain sloshed inside his broken skull, leading to a concussion.

Any other impact from a weaker opponent wouldn't have even registered to Tenro. But a punch from an S-Level mazoku? That was a punch that could tear apart entire continents.

He also spotted from behind the long-haired, tattooed, and angry Mazoku Yusuke a warp portal that Kazuma Kuwabara probably made to shorten his best friend's travel time.

This was bad news.

His compromised heart and lungs hadn't recovered yet. Even though his energy levels were rising, his mortal damage kept him from manifesting his full power. He wasn't healing fast enough.

But this also excited him.

Tenro missed out on slaying Raizen—one of the greatest, oldest, and most powerful demons of the Demon World. Fighting his distant half-breed offspring was the next best thing to it.

With Yusuke's white hair and boundless energy, he himself looked to be at the cusp of achieving X-Level.

"Far more important than your power level, you've upended the natural order of things in both the Spirit World and the Demon World," said the gasping yet calm Tenro.

Yusuke picked up the pace, his nuclear-powered punches reaching speeds so impossibly, superhumanly fast that they came with their own eardrum-obliterating sonic booms.

However, the tough-as-nails Tenro absorbed every punch with his hard body and boundless jaki, so his mountain-obliterating punches "merely" made the pier shake and quake like a frightened child suffering domestic abuse.

"When Raizen died, you took over and found a way to keep the warring factions of Mukuro and Yomi from leading Makai into another millennia-long war for power."

Tenro gurgled but laughed with what sounded like a death rattle. Knocking at Hell's Gates with the sea of punches he had to wade through while punching and slashing at the elusive demon spawn in turn.

"You even helped expose the corruption within Reikai and had Koenma Daio depose his father, Enma Daio. Then you saved the Human World again from a Spirit World terrorist group. Imagine that."

The constant battery of kicks, punches, knees, elbows, and headbutts that barely gave Tenro any breathing room took their toll, making him cough and spew blood from many of his body's orifices, like his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.

"The Chojin views you as a threat not because of your power level but instead of how you affect everyone and everything around you. You're a spanner in the works. Someone who can defy fate itself."

The threat of death made Tenro feel alive. His flight-or-fight instincts were on high alert.

After the thousands of demon hunts he'd participated in for the sake of turning his reincarnated yakuza boss self into someone worthy of housing Makoto Shishio's soul, this was the first time he actually, remotely felt threatened.

It was as he had imagined facing Yomi, Mukuro, or Raizen would've been like when they were still the Three Kings of Makai or at the peak of their power.

"We're cut from the same cloth, Urameshi Yusuke." Tenro sneered, wiping the blood from his nose. "I too exist to spite God. I defied my ultimate fate of death. From one lion to another, I will fight fate itself to write my own destiny. Just like you have."

"What the hell are you blathering on about?" said Yusuke, who kept up his endless barrage of Sei Kou Ki punches and kicks in order to pummel Tenro to submission.

Although he was winning the exchange, Toushin Yusuke's fists ended up aching and bleeding.

They might've even been broken by the dense thickness of Tenro's own reiatsu of negative energy serving as a barrier from inside and outside him, keeping his human body intact in spite of this mauling.

Regardless, the human-demon spawn had to finish Tenro off immediately.

Even though Urameshi was able to best Toguro by going all out, he could still feel his old enemy's presence. The Younger Toguro could still reemerge and possibly go beyond a million percent of his power. Perhaps a billion or a trillion even.

"Let's end this, Tenro. Or Shishio. Or Chojin. Whoever you are.  I'll finish you and your Shin Juppon Gatana off for good! SEI-GAN!"

A black-and-blue Tenro grinned as he felt a meteor-sized blast of purest Sei Kou Ki grow bigger and bigger from Yusuke's pointer finger. A miniature sun that glowed gold instead of bright blue.

This was the correct move. In order to finally penetrate through Tenro's reiatsu, Yusuke had to use his ultimate, ultimate move. A Rei-Gan powered by Sei-Kou-Ki shot by his white-haired demonic form.

However, the Chojin foresaw all this. This was why he gave (back) Tenro his original Mugen Jin.

When Yahiko still had his neutralizing reiki activated, the Mugen Jin could only be used the way it originally was made for, which was to create flames through the body fat and human oils it collected.

However, a hundred years later, the sword itself became a cursed sword with supernatural powers like the Youtou Shinnoken. It gained an extra property.

Without Yahiko's powers sealing its supernatural abilities away, it could absorb, steal, store, and release the spirit energy of others.

Thus, Tenro's Mugen Jin absorbed every last bit of the Sei-Gan from Mazoku Yusuke, only for him to do the third secret sword on him powered by Urameshi's own Sacred Light Spirit Energy.

"Secret Sword Three: KAGUZUCHI! (FIRE-BEARING SPIRIT GOD!)"

A fire tornado that mixed Tenro's demonic negative energy reiatsu with Yusuke's angelic sacred energy tossed the teenaged warhead around in a maelstrom of malcontent (since jaki was basically just energy derived from humanity's hatred and grudges).

If the mixture of volatile energy didn't kill the demonized Urameshi, then the centrifugal force of an F5 hurricane that would normally turn any normal human being into liquefied butter would.

"Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu Ougi: AMAKAKERU RYU NO HIRAMEKI! (HEAVENS GLIDING DRAGON FLASH!)"

The void created by the ultimate attack of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu destroyed the red, black, and gold wind funnel that had threatened to rage against Okushiri like a seasonal typhoon.

As a battered Yusuke fell from the sky, an erstwhile Kenshin jumped and caught him in midair before he could've crashed into one of the many cargo containers, if not outright fall into the hard concrete below.

They landed safely on ground zero of Yusuke's fight with Tenro, which was filled with craters and debris. From a distance, they could hear the blaring siren of many an ambulance.

"I came here as fast as I could with Ayame-dono's help," said Kenshin.

"K-Kenshin. S-Sorry. I-I almost had him, but he still had a trick up his sleeve," rasped Yusuke, who had transformed back to his human form, with most of his long hair burned away by Tenro's Kaguzuchi.

"Don't worry, Yusuke. I will finish off what you have started. What everyone had started, that I will," said Himura.

Tenro harrumphed, clutching his side. His chest still ached, his heart beating so fast it felt like it could explode. His brain throbbed and pounded inside his skull as well.

However, his adrenalin and his thrill for the fight coursed through his body, making him ignore every bit of pain he felt. He was about to pass the point of no return, after all.

In the corner of Kenshin's eye, he saw Botan stare at him with her own glistening eyes. He had heard the bad news directly from her care of the Spirit Communicator. She reported that the souls of Sanosuke, Yahiko, and Saito were no more. Also, Kuwabara was in critical condition.

They all fell against the hands of the man... the monster... before him. The wannabe dictator that he should've defeated a hundred years ago.

"I also look forward to fighting you again after all this time, Battousai. Come and die in my hands once more. The only law I follow is Survival of the Fittest. Only the strongest survive!"

"Survival of the Fittest, eh?" asked Kenshin. "Tell me, do you know what the first sign of human civilization is? How humanity became the most dominant species on earth?"

"...What?" asked Tenro in turn. "What are you talking about, Battousai?"

"I believe that the first sign of civilization is a femur that's been broken and then healed," said Himura. "In nature, a broken leg meant death. Kill or killed, right? Humans became the dominant species against stronger animals because of our cooperation and compassion. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized."

"No. Nonsense," said Tenro. "Humanity stands on the shoulders of giants. Normal people are trash. Don't let the weak punish the strong for being strong while they themselves drown in their own mediocrity. Civilization or progress came about because of the strong. The exceptional. The best. The intellectuals. The Superman. The Overman. The Ubermensch. The Chojin."

"So you're the Chojin, huh?" said Himura. While it could be translated as "Overfiend", the name "Chojin" could also be translated as "Superman" or "Overman".

"The fates conspired against me and denied me my destiny to rule. I will write my own destiny now," said the youkiri to his fellow demon-slayer. Fellow manslayer, even.

"Regardless of what you say, both fate and time have already decided that you will not emerge victorious," Kenshin insisted. "You're destined to lose."

Tenro cackled. "Fate and time have chosen poorly, hence the pathetic state of Japan. The state of the world that's being led by sheep in wolves' clothing. Let me correct that century-old mistake. Even now, the weak are depending on your strength to protect them. Let the Ubermensch show the world what it's truly like to be strong! I will show them how to win!"

"It is neither the strongest of the species nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change," said Kenshin, quoting Charles Darwin himself as he fell into his battoujutsu stance.

Himura had to attack now, while Tenro was injured and recuperating. He would've attacked sooner, but he himself had barely recovered from battling Enishi.

As soon as the Shishio reincarnation healed and achieved X-Level, it was all over for the Reikai Senshi.

"AMAKAKERU RYU NO HIRAMEKI!"

"KAGUZUCHI!"

Kenshin and Tenro—or rather, Battousai and Shishio—finally clashed swords, the Youtou Shinnoken glowing bright-blue against the bright-red Mugen Jin. They picked up where they left off.

On one hand, Yusuke's leftover sacred energy powered up the Kaguzuchi and overwhelmed the initial strike of the Hirameki. On the other hand, the resulting void still formed, which multiplied the power of Kenshin's second strike many times over.

Tenro learned from his mistakes, understanding a century ago that there was a void formed after blocking the first strike of the Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki. He sunk his stance low and pierced his Mugen Jin in the eye of the maelstrom so that his technique could be magnified in power instead of Kenshin's.

Kenshin hesitated, his soul remembering how Shishio snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat. He willed himself to slash upward regardless as an image of Kaoru filled his mind. Followed by all his friends and comrades.

He wished the same image had filled his mind a hundred years ago too. Then he wouldn't have died against Shishio.

Reality seemed to split from the lightspeed slash Kenshin did that clashed hard against Tenro's... no, Shishio's... red-hot cursed sword Mugen Jin.

On Kenshin's left was one timeline and on his right was another.

In one timeline, Kenshin found the strength and will to live to block Shishio's strike before he spontaneously combusted and died from overheating. Soon after, Shishio became the new King of Hell.

In another timeline, Shishio finished Battousai off then murdered Saito, Shinomori, Sagara, and the rest of the Oniwabanshu and Shinsengumi before forming a New Juppon Gatana and leading a coup d'etat against the Meiji Government. A second Bakumatsu. Afterwards, he died a despot. Japan's Genghis Khan.

In the timeline they were in, Kenshin and Shishio fought to a draw, with Kenshin dying along with Shishio in a blaze of glory. A hundred years after their fateful battle, Shishio ended up forming a New Juppon Gatana in order to lead a coup d'etat against the Spirit World.

In nearly all timelines, Shishio woke up from beyond the grave and ended up with an army of the undead, leading the charge towards world domination. Like a phoenix reborn from its own ashes. Again and again.

Even after his death, he was inevitable.

Would Kenshin falter like a hundred years ago or would he rise up and correct his century-old mistake? Which timeline would prevail?

A shining star of a whirling convergence of afterimages happened afterwards, followed by a huge explosion far into the distance. Right into the Sea of Japan.

A 7.8 earthquake then rocked the west coast of Hokkaido.  

On Monday, July 12, 1993, at 10:17 PM, a tsunami had formed off of the coast of Okushiri, leading to the loss of many lives.

***

To Be Continued...

Oh god, finally it's done. This took years to finish due to real-life things cropping up. Regardless, the arc that's been decades in the making is at last over.

Next up, the Spirit World deals with the aftermath of the failed Okushiri mission. Also, the first sign of civilization speech was taken from a quote from Anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Ciao, Abdiel

[turnaboutimagines]

Oh my goodness all the writing on your blog’s amazing aaa— I’m super excited to see what you write in the future!! If requests are open could I request Franziska (I hope I spelled that right-) and/or Edgeworth with an autistic S/o?

o(-I tried to keep things p variable since there are a lot of different traits people with autism have, so I wanted to do my best to encompass as many aspects as I could!  These honestly got p long because of it, but I had so much fun writing them.  ^^

Miles Edgeworth

Miles does so much research on autism after he learns that you’re autistic.  He does so because he wants to better understand you, because you’re important to him!

He’s a man with a passion for learning, so he really appreciates that he gets to learn so many new things from and about you.  

And he’ll always ask you things directly, too, especially since he’s very curious about your own experiences.

Do you struggle with social interactions?  So does he, he has nothing but empathy since it’s a shared struggle.

If you tend to be more blunt and direct while talking, he actually really appreciates it and doesn’t mind it at all.

Similarly, he won’t mind a bit if you aren’t a big fan of eye contact!  He’s not either in most situations, so it

He does his best to be clear.  And he’s always quick to correct any misunderstandings that may come up from poor phrasing or sarcasm on his end, something that you likely have to do in kind for him.

Honestly, he completely understands if you ever need space from him and if physical affection can be overstimulating for you.

In general, he tends to let his partner initiate the physical affection piece of the relationship since it’s something that takes him a while to get used to.  So you can really set your own pace and boundaries.

If you like fidgets or certain textures, he always does his best to make sure he has plenty of sensory items around his office and home for you.

Similarly, he may surprise you with practical things like a weighted vest or blanket if he thinks that it or really high quality noise cancelling headphones if noisy environments overwhelm you.

Once he understands how stimming works, he doesn’t pay any of your own stimming methods any mind.

The only exception is if you like stimming by making noise or using your voice, since it can sometimes startle him if he’s really focused in on something.

And if you have special interests that you really enjoy talking about?  He’s delighted.

He loves listening to you talk and will always ask you more questions!  No matter what it’s about, even if it’s something he’s not really into, himself.

Please info dump to him to give him a reason to take a few minutes break from work, he will for you.  

And he’ll do the same in kind if you ask him about the Steel Samurai, since he trusts that you won’t think less of him or make fun of him for liking a kids’ show.

The main thing that’s a bit of a struggle for him is if you’re really into routines.  Mainly because his job has chaotic hours and that makes it really hard for the two of you to have a consistent rhythm.

But on his days off, he loves having a schedule for the day with you.  It’s familiar and comforting for him, a piece of certainty amidst all the chaos.

Overall, Miles really just appreciates you and does his best to understand you and make sure you feel heard and loved.

Franziska von Karma

Franziska, also, hits the books and does as much academic research as she possibly can on the subject of autism as soon as she learns you have it.  

It’s an opportunity to rectify a gap in her education… along with being a fantastic way to learn more about you, too!

Communication may be a bit tricky at first, since she has a really hard time expressing her true feelings… because she has a hard time swallowing her Von Karma pride, but also because abstract feelings are just hard for her to articulate.

But it does get better with time as you both get used to each other’s styles and she learns to open up more with you and how to tell you what she wants.

While she may not seem like she would be, she’s very patient with you if you need to pause to give your brain some time to process what she just said or figure out how you want to say certain things.

Similarly, if you’ve got a more naturally blunt/direct way of speaking, she really appreciates it because she’s the same on most subjects!

If you have trouble speaking up to others, she has no issues doing that for you, either.  She’ll make sure you’re heard, no matter what.

And if you’re a rather literal person, she’ll do her best to not call you a fool in most situations.  She still slips up from time to time, because it’s a bad habit.

If loud noises are an issue for you, her whip might prove to be a bit of a problem, one that she’s quick to notice.

In response, she’ll only tug on her whip while you’re around and will lash out at the poor soul the moment you’re not.

You’re her significant other, so you’re the one (1) person who’s safe from her whip and that includes from the noise, too.

However, if whips are something that you’re interested in, she’ll be more than happy to teach you!  

For her, it’s something she does to relieve tension when she gets agitated or overwhelmed and it’s one way that helps her empathize with any stimming you may engage in.

Like her brother, physical affection is not her forte and it’s one of the few areas that she’ll be happy to let you take control of.

Once she does get used to it though, she’s good about asking you if you’re okay with her touching you if she knows it’s something that may be overstimulating for you!

When it comes to any special interests, she’ll always listen to you with the utmost respect and appreciation since she enjoys getting to learn more about you.

She may give you mini-lectures on things like flowers or the law, 

She’s huge on routine and while she is traveling a lot with Interpol, she makes sure to call or text you at the same times each day.

When she’s home with you, she makes sure her work schedule works for her and not the other way around.  There are exceptional cases that may throw things off, but she does her best to maintain order.

Overall, Franziska does her best to be the partner that you deserve and enjoys being able to grow alongside you.

[kinetic-elaboration]

October 2: 1x17 The Squire of Gothos

Not one of the strongest S1 episodes but not bad either.

Why is Spock not nostalgic for the desert? It’s where he’s from.

I love, and it never gets old, how Kirk always grows so Fond whenever Spock and Bones banter. “Ah, yes, my two favorite people in the world, Interacting.”

Spock showing off his eye makeup with a dramatic eyeroll.

Uhura’s voice is so beautiful.

OH NO SULU? WHERE’D YOU GO?

THE CAPTAIN? DISAPPEARED?

Love how Spock yells “emergency!” Like, yeah, I’d say it is!

The rarely heard Spock narration. “Captain James Kirk”--do none of his boyfriends know his middle name?

Lol at Trelaine trying out his calligraphy.

Spock’s not up for this nonsense. “If that’s the Captain or Sulu they’ve lost their gosh darned minds.”

Spock in The Chair.

Spock and Scotty can’t be spared for the landing party but McCoy can lol. He’s only the CMO nbd if he just dies in a totally unbreathable wasteland.

Spock is looking thoughtful and clearly upset.

Oh no, no cell service! Again! Have you guys tried switching networks?

Love this weird ass set.

Salt monster! What! Look Bones it’s your gf.

“Display pair” lol.

Is that...Liberace?

“Did you like my whimsical way of getting you here?”

This episode is both way funnier and way more interesting knowing who Trelaine really is. Like the concept of an alien child watching past Earth, thinking its present Earth, and becoming obsessed with in the exact way children do, is so good?

“Our missions are peaceful, not for conquest.”

“One of the few predator species that preys on itself.”

Omg at the French and German. A little disappointed he didn’t break out the Japanese and/or call Sulu a samurai.

Not very smart of DeSalle to approach stealthily from behind when Trelaine is looking into a mirror like duh he can see you? In that huge-ass mirror?

It actually is kind of nuts, and doesn’t make the most sense, that phasers make things disappear.

No! Salt monster!!

I love Kirk in suspicious mode. He can be fun and relaxed and have a sense of humor but the SECOND something threatens or appears to threaten his crew he’s on high alert, very serious and focused and not up for nonsense of ANY sort.

Absolutely hilarious that Spock was the First Officer a moment before and now he’s the Science Officer.

“If the Captain’s alive, that’s where he’d have to be. And uh those other people too, whatever.”

Sulu asking the important questions here. (I wrote this down and already have no idea what it was referring to.)

“It doesn’t even show that he exists at all.” Well either their instruments just don’t know how to pick up on the life force of this new kind of alien or they’re confused because he’s essentially just energy, non-corporeal.

Kirk thinking so deeply about all this is also hilarious in context. “He’s not all knowing. He makes mistakes.” Uh you think? He’s 8 years old.

I feel like this whole ep is just a burn on humans who are obsessed with war and romanticize the whole concept of war-mongering. (ETA based on the amazon trivia I am right about this.)

“Our companions.” Such a sweet way of referring to the crew.

WOMEN! Hydration game: drink whenever someone finds women surprising.

“Those are crucial operating personnel.”

“The party’s over, thanks to Mr. Spock.”

Trelaine is not a “life being” obviously.

Who’s this bitch in the Captain’s Chair? Shouldn’t it be Scotty?

Random Yeoman trying to flirt.

“Don’t you display your weapons?” Oh man you should see Spock’s room! You’d love it!

Are Vulcans predatory? LOL. Love Spock’s answer (”Not generally but there have been exceptions”) but like honestly I think, historically, the answer is yes?

Sulu is hilarious. He’s like the opposite of Kirk--when faced with danger, he goes into “might as well laugh through the awkwardness” mode and I appreciate that. A really underrated Sulu trait that the reboot movies completely failed to acknowledge. (Which is extra nuts considering John Cho is very funny!)

Trelaine obviously discerns that McCoy is the most likely to want to drink.

Well at least Trelaine’s not racist....

Never mind.

Spock is so Tired of this already. This little bit, the Trelaine and Spock exchange and Spock’s definition of fascinating, is the best part of the episode. Also I 100% believe this disinterested attitude is the exact one Spock took with Sarek throughout his adolescence. “Is that what you’re doing? Challenging me?” / “Uh, yeah.”

Whereas Jim is just loving this. This is the only fun he’s had all episode. He’s been so annoyed the whole time because Trelaine is annoying but then Spock starts speaking and he breaks out the heart eyes.

McCoy looks so into the food and the booze. Except actually it’s tasteless, never mind again.

“Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected.” I mean definitely the best quote of the ep!

Trelaine’s not into the miniskirt look.

Kirk, whispering: Explain.

Kirk and Spock figuring things out together <3<3<3

Look at that crocodile head over the mantle.

ALSO love when Kirk breaks into acting mode. I stan one dramatic nerd.

Trelaine: a Hamilton fan. Don’t tell him about the musical.

Kirk doesn’t like that gun pointed in his face.

Some good quotes from the Captain’s log: “The creature Trelaine.” “Everything depends on my one chance with the ancient dueling pistol.”

This actor does a good job of being a petulant man child.

He knows Kirk loves Spock the most! Always love when aliens discern that immediately.

The sound effects when Kirk destroys the computer are so wacky.

“Space fleet command.” Still?

Lol at Princess Yeoman. See, Kirk thinks they’re out of danger, and his humor immediately returns.

Oh no, not Gothos again! I love their subtle “hey, we’re turning now” movements.

Judge Trelaine is hilarious but Kirk does not have the sense of humor to appreciate this. “You’re charged with the high crime of being annoying to me.” “Anything you say has already been used against you.” His knowledge of the judicial system is impeccable!

“Vent your anger on me alone!” He is so good!! He is the hero we deserve!

“Captain’s log, Spock here again.”

“Why, Captain, you’re still angry!” I do kind of like this thing about Trelaine not really being able to feel emotions, or at least not for very long, like that’s one of the things he’s seeking in his play.

“Everything’s too easy for you. Check your privilege Trelaine.”

Lol at the noose just moving in the air toward him.

Trelaine has obviously read The Most Dangerous Game.

Kirk is looking extra handsome here.

“You’ve been beaten.” / “But I’m not defeated.” You tell him!

It’s sooooo obvious that Trelaine is a child.

I like that when his parents are speaking to him, they shoot him in a way that makes him look very small. Kirk is finally finding this funny now. “Time to come in now.” “But I’m not done studying my predators!” “Or you’ll not be permitted to make any more planets.”

“Beam me up, Mr. Spock. Beam me up into your loving arms.”

Alien classification: a small, naughty boy.

The concept of the last banter between K and S is cute but really distractingly anachronistic. Like why does Kirk think Spock’s childhood took place in, idk, the 1800s? However, I appreciate both Kirk’s flirty face and Spock’s super confused face. (Which, I must say, ZQ could imitate really well.)

So overall.. I like the general hook of this episode--the alien child who appears as a humanoid adult, is obsessed with humans, acting as a commentary on human obsession with war--but I don’t think it needed to be 50 minutes. The story could easily have been told in half the time. Like everything after Kirk shoots the mirror, other than the final reveal, reads like fluff, to make the ep fit the time slot.

Thus I would say it’s decent, a B episode, with a strong concept and some good moments, but not as iconic as most of the other eps this season.

Next up, Captain Gorn co-starring in Arena!

[inikavulpixelreviews]

Let’s Talk About Pokemon - Galarian Farfetch’d and Sirfetch’d

Galarian Farfetch'd:

Bahahaha, just saying, it was hilarious learning of Sirfetch'd pre-release only for the game to release and have it turn it evolves from an edgy version of Farfetch'd.

As super simple a transformation as it is, it's absolutely funny with how effective it is. All that's really done is it looks a little meaner, which more exaggerated eyebrows and darker feather colors. But after all, you gotta be tough to carry around a huge leek like that. It's just hilarious to see it carry its Japanese origins with it in that it looks about no different from your typical edgy anime dude that carries a sword that's bigger than he is.

But why is its leek so big? Well, evidently, leeks grow to be HUGE in Great Britain. That is one thing I love about this generation as a whole is that it REALLY sticks to the theme of the region no matter what. In other games you'll occasionally wind up a Pokemon that feels really weird and out of place for the theme of their region (Daruma dolls for Poke-USA, Lucha wrestlers for Poke-France, Koalas for Poke-Hawaii, etc). But nah, pretty much every new Pokemon this time around ties into the UK theme of the region in one way or another.

There isn't a ton to talk about for this one given they didn't change much though. It really is just an extra-mean version of Farfetch'd for your extra-mean Farfetch'd needs.

It does adopt a mono-Fighting type! So that's fun. Logically, a sword-fighting Farfetch'd wielding a huge weapon like that isn't gonna be able to do much flying, right?

Personal Score: 8/10

865: Sirfetch'd

And at last, after all these years of begging and unfortunately learning a Farfetch'd evolution was actually planned as far back as Gen 2 all along, we finally have gotten the fabled Farfetch'd evolution. With the unexpected knight theme to go with it, somehow. Loads of interpretations for a Farfetch'd evo have been notably samurai-based, so I do at least appreciate going with something more unique in that respect. The one downside to all this is that it's only Galarian Farfetch'd that can evolve of course. But who's to say they can't bring it back around to give Kantonian Farfetch'd its own evolution at some point? Sky's the limit as far as the Pokemon themselves go, it seems.

AND YEAH, it still doesn't change much. Take away the leek and it's just a white Farfetch'd. But again, I kinda prefer that compared to all the fan interpretations of Farfetch'd evos that give it more swan-like proportions. It's just Farfetch'd; it's a delicious duck that beats you up with the veggie that goes well with it taken to its most possible extreme and I can't help but love it.

It's clever to have translated the leek itself it's both a sword/lance, AND a shield. Keen-eyed art dorks have pointed out that Sirfetch'd sword and shield are from the same plant, the shield is just the top of the leek cut off and flayed out to look more shield-like. Along with layers of the leek peeled back to form the “hilt” and “handguard”.

I do also think its stoutness only emphasizes the amusement that is its design. Yeah it's unpressively not that tall, but that only gives emphasis to the sheer size of its leek. That thing's twice as tall as Sirfetch'd itself! It's just funny to have a dopey little farm duck try to pose as a gallant knight, charging forward on foot with its stumpy little duck legs.

And we can't go over Sirfetch'd without talking about that face. The face of a big ol' disgustingly smug asshole. It's the type of attitude of a snobby knight-type character that I don't think has really been portrayed in a Pokemon design before. It only makes it funnier that it's just a white Farfetch'd overcompensating with giant gear. Whenever I look at this thing I can't help but crack a dumb smile or hear Prince Peasley's theme in the back of my head.

Those goddamn bishounen eyes are just the cherry on top of everything else. It could've taken itself with deadpan seriousness like is unevolved self does but no. Of COURSE it has a stupid, dumb face. It can take itself seriously all it wants, we KNOW this thing looks ridiculous.

I am sorry if you didn't get what you wanted out of a Farfetch'd evo, or if you were invested in the cool samurai motifs of the ditched Beta Gold evo or the numerous fakemon, but I'm all the happier it wound up like this of all things. I do agree that they could've done a little more to change it up, but it's friggin Farfetch'd. An absurd character idea should get an equally absurd design like this and I would easily say a jokey-hokey design like Sirfetch'd is a better fit for the line than anything with a cool badass personality but is unironic about it. If we do eventually get a new split-evo in the future that gives the fans of Madame what they want, I'll be happy for you. I'm just more likely than not just going to prefer Sirfetch'd anyways.

I just can't get over that face. It's dumb anime bs but it's MY kinda dumb anime bs. It’s stupid. It looks so damn stupid. You’re stupid, Sirfetch’d.

Personal Score: 10/10

[darksaiyangoku]

Noodle Boy gets a date! Part 2

To say that Jaune was excited would be putting it mildly. He spent a good 20 minutes rummaging through his wardrobe before he found the perfect outfit; a white shirt, with a red t-shirt, black jeans and yellow shoes. He took a look in the mirror before spinning around and giving finger guns at his reflection.

Nora: Yeah! Work it Fearless Leader!

Ren: Looking good. Let’s just hope you don’t end up giving Blake a heart attack before the date.

Jaune: *laughs* Thanks guys. Hey, do you have any cologne?

Ren: *pulls from his sleeve* Here.

Jaune: *shocked* Man, you can fit anything into those sleeves of yours, Ren. *sprays cologne over himself*

Ren: *thumbs up* Good luck.

Nora: Knock her dead!

As Jaune walked out the room, his legs began to feel like jelly. The truth was that he was very nervous. He’d never been on a date before and now he was panicking. What if he messed up? What if Blake started hating him? Their friendship would be ruined! His mind was racing so much that Jaune didn’t notice when Blake was standing in front of him.

Blake: Hey Jaune, you ready?

Jaune: *snaps out of thoughts* Yeah I- woah!

Jaune was stunned by Blake’s outfit. It was a purple vest with black skinny jeans and matching black boots. Her usual black bow was swapped out for dark green.

Jaune: *blushing* Wow!

Blake: *giggles* You’re not looking to bad yourself. *offers hand* Shall we?

Jaune: *stutters* U-U-Uh y-y-yeah.

Jaune took Blake’s hand, blushing as he did, and set out of Beacon onto the airship. Once they arrived in Vale, the headed near Tucson’s Book Shop, where opposite it was the new café: Café Forêt. For a small café, it looked unsually high class. There was even a small fountain in the centre.

Jaune: *low whistle* Man! I wasn’t expecting this!

Blake: *eyes wide* Yeah. Me neither.

Blake managed to find a table, while Jaune placed and collected their orders; a latte and traditional Vale tea. He sat and they had their drinks, satisfied with the results.

Blake: Mmm. This is great.

Jaune: I know! It feels like I’m drinking a sweet cloud!

Blake: *laughs*

After a few minutes of silence, Blake finally spoke.

Blake: So Jaune, I have to ask; what made you ask me out?

Jaune: *blushing* Well...... I’ve kind of had a crush on you for a while now.

Blake: *intrigued* Really?

Jaune: Yeah. When our teams started hanging out more, I took more notice of you and I couldn’t help but be...... well, fascinated by you.

Blake: *smiles* Fascinated?

Jaune: Yeah. You have this aura of mystery about you. Especially your eyes, they’re really pretty.

Blake: *blushing* Really?

Jaune: *realises what he just said* Oh god! Sorry! I shouldn’t have said that! I-

Blake: *laughs* Jaune, calm down. It’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong.

Jaune: ...oh.

Blake: *places hand on Jaune’s* Hey, don’t worry so much. First dates are always a struggle and, in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m enjoying your company.

Jaune: *blushing* O-Okay. You’re right, I should just relax more.

Blake: Yes you do. Oh, before I forget, I... think your eyes are pretty too.

Jaune: *blushing even more* Really?

Blake: *nods head*

On the other side of the café, a group of six had their faces hidden by the menus, only to drop them when of them made a scene.

Nora: This is adorable!!!!

Yang: *whispering* Nora, keep your voice down! We’re supposed to be undercover.

Nora: I can’t help it, they look so precious!

Weiss: I can’t believe that dolt asked out Blake! They hardly even talk!

Ruby: *smriking* What’s wrong Weiss? Jealous?

Weiss: *blushing* What? Absolutely not! I don’t care who Arc goes out with!

Yang: *smirking* Then why were you the one who suggested that we spy on their date?

Weiss: B-B-Because I’m worried about Blake. Yes, I want to make sure her date isn’t ruined by Arc.

Yang/Ruby: *evil grins* Suuuuuure.

Weiss: *face completely red* S-S-Shut up!

Pyrrha: (I can’t believe Jaune is on a date with Blake. That should be me up there, not her!) *crushes menu*

Nora: *slaps Pyrrha on the back of the head*

Pyrrha: Nora!

Nora: You’re doing it again. That was the fifth menu we had to replace.

Ren: Uh guys? They’re leaving.

Ruby: Quick! After them!

The spy group fumbled out of the café, making sure they weren’t seen by the odd couple. They managed to follow them inside Tucson’s Book Trade. They each took a book from the shelves and placed them over their faces, trying to make sure they weren’t seen. Jaune, meanwhile, pointed Blake to the comic book section.

Jaune: So, here is where the comics are. You probably don’t care for them much, but-

Blake: What are you talking about? I love comics!

Jaune: *eyes wide* Really?

Blake: Yeah. I’m not so big on superheroes but I love a lot of the old reprints of Detective Onyx. They were my favourite growing up.

Jaune: Well, if you want to give superheroes a chance, you can’t go wrong with Captain Vale.

Blake: You mean the guy who fights with the shield?

Jaune: Yeah. Trust me, you’ll love it. In fact *pulls out wallet.*

Blake: *bashful* Oh Jaune, you don’t have to.

Jaune: It’s okay, I want to.

Blake: Well.....

After several minutes of back and forth, Blake finally let Jaune buy the Captain Vale comic. As they left, they spy group followed them. Jaune decided to take Blake to the local park, finding a bench for them to sit on underneath the silver tree.

Jaune: You know Blake, aside from books and tea, what else do you like?

Blake: *smiling* I’m a huge fan of Mistrilian period movies. They’re so exotic and rich with history, especially the ones featuring the samurai and ninjas. The fight choreography is always incredible. You just can’t go wrong with Mistrilian movies.

Jaune: *smiling* Wow. Maybe after this, I can take you to see a movie with me.

Blake: Already planning the second date before the first one is even over? Very bold of you, Jaune.

Jaune: *blushing a storm* Uh! That’s not what I meant! Not that I wouldn’t wanna go out with you again, I do! But you’re right! I shouldn’t rush! I-

Blake: *laughs* Relax Jaune, I’m just joking.

Jaune: *face completely red* One of these days, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.

From behind the silver tree, the spy group were watching instensely. Weiss and Pyrrha glared at Blake, furious that she had snagged Jaune for herself. Ruby, Nora, Yang and Ren, on the other hand, smiled. At first, they were all confused as to why Jaune would date Blake, but after this, they realised they were good together.

Blake: You know Jaune, as far as first dates go, this was nice.

Jaune: *smiles* Really? I liked it too.

Blake: You know, I have something I want to give you. Two somethings actually.

Jaune: What are they?

Blake: First is this *pulls out a book from her bag, it was a fantasy novel with four heroes and the title was in gold writing*

Jaune: Last Fantasy?

Blake: This is one of my favourite book series of all time, and here is the remastered edition of the first book. So I got it for you after you bought me Captain Vale.

Jaune: Wow! Thanks Blake! *places book on the bench* So what’s the second thing?

Blake: *smiles and leans in* This.

Before he could ask further, Jaune felt Blake’s soft lips against his own. It was a short kiss, but it was an amazing feeling, like he was doing backflips across all of Remnant.

Jaune: *softly* Wow.

Blake: *giggling* Glad you think so.

Ruby: *popping out from the tree* Aw yeah!

Jaune/Blake: *turning around* Ruby?!

Before Ruby could stop herself, she was pushed onto the floor by Yang, causing a chain reaction of the spy group to topple over each other!

Blake: *ahouting* WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?!

Yang: Uhh..... seeing how this date is going?

Jaune: YOU WERE SPYING ON US?!

Nora: *points to Weiss and Pyrrha* It was their idea!

Weiss: *looking in one direction* I was making sure Jaune was doing well.

Pyrrha: *looking in the other direction* As was I.

Ren: *deadpans* They were jealous that Jaune took Blake on a date.

Weiss/Pyrrha: *blushing* NO WE WEREN’T!

Jaune: *smirking* Jealous, huh?

Pyrrha: It’s not what it looks like!

Weiss; Shut up, Arc!

After a long explanation from the spy group, they all decided to call it a day and head to the airship. Throughout the journey, Jaune and Blake held hands, both blushing and smiling gleefully.

Jaune: So Blake, does this mean we’re boyfriend and girlfriend now?

Blake: *smiles* Absolutely. Thanks again for this date. I look forward to the next one.

Jaune: *smirking* And the one after that.

Blake: *leaning in* And the one after that.

Jaune: *leaning in* And the one after that.

Blake: *closing her eyes* And the one after that.

Jaune: *closing his eyes* And the one after that.

They both silenced themselves with a deep kiss, much longer than the last one. Suddenly, they broke apart when they heard the sound of a camera flashing. They turned to find Yang with her scroll out, sporting a toothy grin.

Yang: Aww, you two are adorable!

Blake: God damn it, Yang!

(And here it is, Part 2 of Noodle Boy gets a date! Special thanks to @lazerwolf1123 for giving me some ideas. Couldn’t have done this without you.)

[basedkikuenjoyer]

The one bingo card we’re obligated to see, and our girl gets a bingo! Her prize is being perfect. I mean, obviously I like her. A lot. What’s not to love about a 10ft tall samurai girl who’s a total sweetheart and cutie supremo? Well, there was that one aspect where she got done dirty by a lot of fans. I have to say it was pretty gross how many jagweeds just like...memory holed one of Wano’s core new faces and wrote her out of the arc in their minds rather than accept the “Conis” local girl for this arc happens to be trans. Which is even funnier when that’s barely mentioned, opting to tell a story beyond that basic “finding yourself” narrative. I like the subtle touch but it was clearly lost on a lot of people. Oh, and her song would be Metaphor by a fittingly-named band called The Crane Wives.

So...bottom left. I do actually think Okiku is one of the most well-written characters in the series. And earnestly one of the spots Oda flexed his skill as a writer to do something special. This could continue to grow if my hunch we aren’t entirely done with her story pays off, but even if it is done...

Just...look at her. This is perfection...personified. We meet a sweet young woman at the teahouse. It turns out she’s quite tough and shows that off in a way that sticks with Luffy. She hangs around a bit and...oh! You’re really close with Kin’emon but we’re keeping it vague? Okay, that’s why. I don’t mention it much, but the trans aspect and way it’s used are both incredibly clever. Saving the reveal until after she’s well established is one of those basic little things few authors ever do, but it completely changes how you approach her. Even better when you have a few breadcrumbs that make it possible to piece together beforehand and especially when you have a scene that’s perfect for a lowbrow gag at her expense...but choose not to. 

This “negative space” idea is something we’ve talked about a lot here on this journey. Making a character arc that’s fun on the surface, but very deep when you start thinking about the notes we don’t play. And you have enough context to have a pretty easy guess why we didn’t. What that says about her. Seeing it is a nice “test” of the reader’s maturity on the same lines the whole arc is running on, and it’s so sharp to staple that to a humble victim of circumstance. The type of person hurt by this culture who doesn’t hold a high enough station for those concerns to get time. 

Thing is, you could be done there and call it phenomenal work. But then we drop another huge hammer! Izo’s this dude we were wondering about. Juuust about getting to the point we’re wondering if that theory was a bust. Then, oh wait, there he is! But hey shouldn’t Kiku be in that scene? Weird. Oh my god!!!! They’re brother & sister!!! Adorable! This was a masterstroke. Ten years ago, sprinkle in a striking looking dude that doesn’t get a lot of focus but is in the right places you’ll notice him. He obviously looks like someone with the vibe of a place we mentioned. Quietly build a relationship with the little sister we’ll pay a bit more attention to, then bam! He gets to piggyback off of the fun we’ve been having with her, Kiku gets a wrinkle that once again opens up her character arc. I get why she seemed more fond of Kin’emon than Oden leading up to this point. Which gets even more clever when you bring in Toki and flesh her out by telling things that track with what we’ve been shown about Kiku. Duh, of course that’s an influence.

And we’re not even to the Raid, where she apparently “falls off” but I’m not exactly sure where. Starts it off really strong. Has the climactic gutpunch and following show of resolve for the samurai. That flows into Zoro/Chopper’s story beautify. Has a nice spot in the middle for Kanjuro round 2 followed by the rescue. Then you have Izo carry that story into a bizarre clash with CP0 that feels like a classic element of one arc more important for the next. All while adding another Straw Hat side story as Usopp makes the daring rescue. Every single part of that was elegantly done; quick and to the point but well woven into the core themes of the story. 

She goes through so much...but after all that she’s back to her sunny self. This is where the trans aspect is so fun because it makes being cute and girly lowkey rebellious. Girl knows exactly who she is, and even if she has to put it aside for a bit to play her part she does it and snaps right back to bein all cute and stuff. Sometimes seeking freedom looks like asking for a simple accommodation the people around you don’t really care about all that much, and it isn’t a big deal to flout convention. It’s a nice little aesop. That said...we should have gotten so much more. She should always be on screen and when she isn’t other characters should ask “Where’s Kiku?”

[the-passenger-if]

so Malin had that interesting post on game design and some of the rules he created for Fallen Hero specifically, and tbh, I think FH has become a model for how others are creating their own from what I've seen. I was curious if you did something similar when you were planning out Passenger, and/or if there was anything different that you've been focusing on or trying to emphasize (i never give you easy questions)

I read it; Malin is, once again, the person I want to be when I grow up.

I think FH has become a model for how others are creating their own from what I’ve seen.

Hopefully; Fallen Hero is one of the best examples of interactive fiction I’ve read (it ticks all the right boxes for me and by now I think it’s pretty obvious it’s been a huge inspiration for my own work).

(i never give you easy questions)

(pictured: my last 2 brain cells trying to work together)

I will take the atheist youtuber approach and I’ll revise Malin’s comment step by step to see what resonates with me and what doesn’t.

Malin: “My goal was to write interactive fiction, not a game.”

100% this. Reading the forums I realized I was a lot more into games that told me a story and had rich characters and interactions than, I don’t know, about the I shoot the gun *roll dice* It doesn’t work. Baddie shoots gun *roll dice* It leaves a cool scar on MC’s arm. I have nothing against that type of games, neither against micromanaging, it’s just there’s so many times I can go feed the goats before my brain goes away and comes back once every goat has died of starvation. I get bored, that’s what I’m saying.

M: “Trust. This was the first rule. I needed to build trust in the reader, and make them realize that there would be no game over in this book, no way to fail so badly you couldn’t get back from it.”

This too. I didn’t want to put game overs around every corner. Don’t get me wrong, it works. One of my fave WIPs is Monsters (TW for everything basically) and I died like five times before getting it right, but Monsters isn’t just about dying; I like the NPCs, I like the MCs, it’s a cool slash horror game and I think it makes more sense to die in that game than it does to do it in mine. They say eliminating the possibility of dying kills the suspense and encourages players to play stupidly; TP is a game about an eldritch abomination and their gang of freaks, not rocket science: If players are having fun I did my job.

M: “The only reason you would make a choice should be that it felt right for your character, and you wanted to see what happened.”

I disagree with this one; I really like the oppose pairs COG encourages so much, and after reading dozens of games I found that the author that makes it work best is Devon (Samurai of Hyuga saga). I loved that the most important use of the oppose pairs was to choose your ronin’s personality traits (Devon tends to get a little carried away with how every single choice must be affected by them, but that’s because he’s a more gamey author, while I’m more interested in the role-playing aspect). That’s why there’s no way to fuck up too much in my game if you choose the “wrong” option (read: the option that doesn’t align with your traits). You are still supposed to think about your Newman and what answer feels the less OOC. Some people like to play a character that has some agency of their own (raises hand), other people are control freaks (jk I love you all xD) which bring us to the next point;

M: “Immersion. The second rule, and the thing that influenced my stats and flags. They should be there to help immersion, to enable me to to callbacks to earlier events, and to tailor text to the reader. While there’s an unusually fixed protagonist in Fallen Hero, I wanted variability in how they were presented. While things like cautious/daring influences success in certain fights, that’s actually a secondary function. Instead of trying to artificially have a stat chance with every choice to make it ‘matter’, I embraced the thought that the changing text itself did matter enough.”

All of this. There’s no way I can say it better. Also ties in with MCs having different thoughts and reactions on what’s going on around them. Flavor text rules.

M: “Consequence. That being said, I wanted there to be tension and nervousness, which meant that there needed to be consequence. This was tricky, especially over three books where a lot of the consequences won’t come until later in the series.”

The consequences in my book are a lot quicker to come and bite you in the ass than in Malin’s book (of fucking course); that’s why there are flags just about everywhere and some people will be lacking one or two companions from CH6 onwards.

M: “No lock-in.” “There’s no point in which a RO becomes locked in for good, and at the same time you don’t get locked out if you didn’t start a romance at a certain point…”

Since I have less time to show you things, I had to pick and choose what’s more important for the story I’m trying to tell. For example, what’s more important: keeping the romance paths open or having more fluffy flavor text with your chosen RO. Guess which one I chose (took me 2 solid seconds to make that call I’m telling you)

As I said before, don’t try to create your own angsty path: I FEED on angst, I won’t disappoint you. Smooch that RO, hug Livvy, everything will be taken away by me raining fire on Newman and co anyways.

M: “Secrecy. One way I picked to help me heighten tension was to keep secrets from the reader,”

Not a big fan of this one if I’m being honest. I’m not mad about it or even vocal (this is the first time I say anything) I just could do without it. Fallen Hero is great and I love it, it’s just sort of weird at times when Sidestep goes like “Did they know about the blue button and the diet coke, did they?” And I’m like, “Bitch I sure hope they do because I have no idea what you’re talking about”. FH is my second favorite game (my #1 if I don’t count WIPs) but yeah, that. Maybe if all secrets are revealed by the end of book 2, and book 3 is about Sidestep (and the player) reacting to them, maybe I won’t find it so distracting.

The Passenger has its fair share of secrets (it has to) but most of them aren’t even secrets (what is Newman? where do they come from? what about the Old Ones?) that’s just how cosmic horror works. Things just are, there’s no explanation; the magic trick is always a lot less impressive once you know how it works, and some things are better left unsaid. Whatever your mind comes up with will be one hundred times worse than any explanation I might give you.

M: “Community.” “by having people share and gossip and theorize, the story became so much greater than their single paths.”

No shit I love this. And not only when someone pushes too far and breaks their own heart by being curious *cough*shokujin*cough* but also when people come up with their own headcanons, fanfics, fan comics. Reading my babies’ words through someone else’s creation blows my mind, I’m not kidding. It’s almost dissociative. Also, I write fanfiction, I read it, I’ve made fan comics and art and I know the amount of work and love that you guys pour into it and it’s always super flattering.

All in all, I guess our approaches were pretty similar. I could talk about this for days, that’s why I chose to keep it as close to Malin’s comment as I could.

[twilightofthe]

For the Star Wars questions- 16 & 19. :)

Thank you!!! (y’all this got ridiculously long for two damn questions lol)

Send me a number and i’ll tell u my fave/least fave:

16. Book/Comic (Aight, so I’m actually not a huge comic reader in general, most of my comic knowledge comes from other fans on here posting about them, so this is gonna be mainly book-focused)

FAVE:  Welllllll, since I’m literally incapable of narrowing down my favorite anythings, I’m gonna do faves for both canon and EU novels.  

Canon-wise, it’s a tie beween A New Dawn and Ahsoka.  I know I don’t post about them as much on here, but I truly have a super soft spot for Kanera and Kanan and Hera’s characters, they’re just so GOOD and I love themmmmm aaaaaaaaa.  You get super good insights to how Kanan was running wild and traumatized and trying to repress everything and how Hera was a little naïve but still tough as nails and she had a dream and she was going to make it happen or so help her, ugh I just love how the story showed how they’re strongest as a team working together and I just love character dynamics where the two are so obviously married and kinda snark at each other sometimes but they have each other’s backs through everything and know each other like the back of their hands and uggghhhh this is just such a healthy good ship and such a good book.  The Ahsoka novel is just fantastic all on its own because it shows Ahsoka as a young adult, kinda floundering and lost in this new world, full of guilt over what happened with Anakin and the Order, trying to do what she can to help people and just enduring because she’s a survivor, she was raised (by two argumentative, adoptive parents who love her very much SO SAYETH THE BOOK) to be a survivor and handle herself, but that doesn’t mean she’s not lonely as all hell.  And oof I just fucking adore Kaeden Larte and her relationship with Ahsoka (who absolutely comes back and marries her once the war is over oh yes) and her relationship with Miara and ugh just all of it is A+++++.  E.K. Johnston is just an amazing author in general and her other book, Queen’s Shadow is one of my two canon runner ups because I am in love with her Sabé and her Padmé.  Other canon runner up is A Certain Point Of View, if only for the “Time of Death” chapter.  Don’t get me wrong, the rest of it is also fantastic, but oh god it kills me DEAD OBI WAN DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER AND I CRY I REALLY CRY

EU-wise (oh god, I haven’t even gotten to least-faves yet), it has to be the Revenge of the Sith novelization.  Without a question.  Y’all it’s SO FUCKIN’ good, and in my personal opinion should be considerrred canonnnnnn (look I think the reason they gave for excluding it is that there’s no mention of Ahsoka or Rex or Mandalore or any of the stuff that happened literally the day before which is valid, but I counterpoint that Anakin is a mess with A Lot Going On At The Moment, he could have just forgot?  He forgets most of his morals, all of his common sense, and three of his limbs by the end of the story, Snips could have just slipped his mind! xD).  Anyway, besides the fact that it’s like 99% written in Obikin-colored glasses which really just makes me happy as a person because I love it being acknowledged just how important they are to each other, it really offers a deeper insight INSIDE the chaos going on in Anakin’s head, the mess, just why he falls so quickly and so awfully.  I love it gives the Padmé plot that got cut on screen some validity.  The beautiful beginning and the goddam introductions to Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi are just A++++++++++++++ and oof other people can more accurately describe just how good this book is, but I love it a Big Lot ok?

LEAST FAVE:  Okey doke, here we go....  So firstly for canon, I’m not the biggest fan of how Claudia Grey writes Leia’s character.  She’s a wonderful storyteller and I love her worldbuilding, but just the way she characterizes Leia herself never felt... right, ya know?  Idk, I can’t really explain it, but it makes it difficult for me to enjoy her Leia novelsWarning right now that this is a VERY unpopular opinion and my opinion alone, please do not yell at me!  So as skilled and admired an author Timothy Zahn is, I don’t like the Thrawn books.  I’m sorry, I don’t.  To me, Thrawn is just.... ok so he’s like BBC!Sherlock but in space.  The plot makes a big deal about how “oooh cool and intelligent and Literally Better Than Everyone Else” Thrawn is, but the only way they really show his “cleverness” is by either him solving problems by pulling together information that literally no one but the writer knows and then acting like it was oh so obvious and in front of everyone OR, the story dumbs down other characters to make him look smart.  And maybe it was because the one Thrawn book goes after Anakin/Vader in particular to do the latter is what kinda ticked me off on Thrawn books in general, but y’all, it really ticked me off, because Anakin is like the lowest hanging fruit for an author to pick to make their character look good in comparison, and therefore it is done All The Time (LOOKING AT YOU, CLONE WARS), which I think is lazy and an insult to Anakin’s character.  Look, I am fully aware Anakin Skywalker is a dolt to the highest degree sometimes, but he is ALSO A GENIUS.  He is SMART.  IT IS CANON THAT HE IS SMART.  So when the Thrawn book has Thrawn constantly one-upping Anakin The Useless Doofus (and Padmé a bit!!!) and then doing it again once he meets him as Vader, that just makes me hmmmm.

The canon comics are actually gonna be featured on the list here a bit because if y’all don’t already know my hatred for That One Particular Vader Comic (not the rest of the series run as I have not read it and from what I hear, it’s excellent and I’d probs like it a lot) doing the implication in a dream sequence where it says that Palpatine used the Dark Side to impregnate Shmi and create Anakin, well I HATE IT.  Look, I know the plot was literally about Sidious trying to mess with Vader’s head and that dream shouldn’t be trusted, but it fooled all the fans too and now like 60% of Star Wars fans actually believe Sidious fathered Anakin and I am so damn tired of hearing about that.  Yeah, now that Reylo is canon, that comic’s authors are trying to do damage control by saying that no, Sidious isn’t Anakin’s father and Rey and Ben are not second cousins, but they’re still being mysterious about it and “oh well it COULD be this--” so now there’s just more fans who are digging into that theory just because they don’t like Reylo and I don’t really care for the ship either but I really HATE the entire “Born of the Dark” concept for reasons I can explain more separately, so I’m pissy at that particular comic for spawning it.  I know it’s petty but I do.

EU-wise, well, this is gonna be unpopular too, cuz I haven’t read most of the EU stuff, and from what I’ve heard of it, there doesn’t seem to be much that I WOULD like.  The movie novelizations all seem good, but everything else???  “Obi Wan prequels but guess what, he had a shitty childhood too!” uh, no thanks, the rest of his life sucks enough, I want to see him happy.  “Mandalorian worldbuilding, but they’re all a bunch of stoic, overpowered badasses who are Good At Everything And Better Than Literally Everyone and the plot bashes the Jedi left right and center!” ehhhhhhhh pass.  “What happened after Return of the Jedi, except the Skywalkers still don’t get a happy ending because the galaxy goes to war again, Han and Leia’s son turns evil, Luke Suffers, and Palpatine comes back again!” nah, that sounds too depressing-- oh wAIT :) :) :)(at least the EU actually lets Han and Leia grow old and happy together okay okay that’s enough sequel salt for one day)

19. Outfit

FAVE:  Everything Padmé Amidala wears in the movies.  No I will not narrow it down.  I am in love with her whole wardrobe and I want it. 

 I also love the standard Jedi tunics and tabards and cloak (c’mon, the cloak completes the picture!)  It’s just such a signature and unique look that’s supposed to combine medieval European knight tunics and samurai warrior clothing and just the #aesthetic is oof, just wonderful.

Also Sabine Wren’s armor and its various paint jobs.  It’s just so uniquely her and bright and beautiful and badass in all its stages and yes good I like it.

Also Lando Calrissian’s cloaks!  Swooshy and colorful and good!  I love cloaks!  

LEAST FAVE:  Gonna go with my petty, silly ones first, and those are all of Padmé Amidala’s outfits that are only seen in the The Clone Wars TV show (so not the ones that were based off of movie costumes).  Eh, actually three of them were nice, her orange outfit she visits Mina in, her white casual housedress, and her black slinky Clovis dress.  All of her other series-only outfits made me highkey pissy because they were either A.) Wrong for the situation she was in, B.) Defied the laws of physics and should not have held the shape they did/stayed on her body, or C.) just plain UGLY (the highest crime of all), and for the animators to have the audACITY to put any of those things in the mere vicinity of the most stylish woman in the galaxy is an insult to Padmé, an insult to ME, and an insult to Star Wars as a whole (yes, I am mostly joking, but come on!).  No, I will not give the designers the excuse of clothing being difficult and expensive and time consuming to animate because I have SEEN the fancy, PRETTY outfits of the other ladies of Padmé’s status on the show.  Everything Satine Kryze wore was intricately beautiful as all hell and I loved it.  Riyo Chuchi’s two outfits were lovely and fashionable.  Heck, I’m pretty sure I liked Mina Bonteri’s outfit too.  There were tons of people on that show with stylish clothing!  How hard would it have been for the animators to remember Padmé doesn’t wear exposed midriffs on official government business?  That dresses with no sides or back cannot be sleeveless or they will not stay up?  Not give her hairstyles that looked like either a goddam tuning fork or like Jimmy Neutron’s mother?  That beige jumpsuits are BORING and adding a mauve vest is NOT enough to make it exciting!!!! xD xD xD 

Aight, now in more seriousness, I also hated both of Ahsoka’s outfits in the original TCW show.  Enough people have spoken on why sending a fourteen year old into an active warzone in a tube top and miniskirt is a BAD IDEA, but like it just makes me extra mad when you remember her older and more experienced at Not Getting Pulverized Masters were both in full concealing robes and chest and shoulder and shin armor, so you can’t even pass it off as Jedi not getting hurt as easily.  Her updated outfit was only slightly an improvement because her Masters STILL got at least fully covering robes and arm bracers, while Ahsoka still had her entire back exposed, leg holes exposing valuable arteries and stuff, and a goddam boob window that basically signals “shoot me here”.  Look, I know the animators goofed, and I know how they have learned from it because from Rebels on, they never show her as improperly covered for battle, in the new TCW season both outfits are cute and practical too, but seeing her running around in her red outfits actively impeded and took me out of my watching experience because I was cringing over her having a lack of protection, that it made her that much more vulnerable to injury.

Finally just gotta give a standard raised finger to the Slave Leia Bikini.  Carrie Fisher hated it so I do too.

[shewhowantsmouseears]

The Little Peach, Chapter 14

Notes: As always, huge thanks to my editor Drucilla, who has been my life saver again and again.

This last chapter took me a while as there were several plot points I had difficulty wrapping up, and while it's a rushed production, I'd rather it have it be finished than left dangling.

I believe I said it before, but just to reiterate - I'll be taking a story hiatus from now until Jan/Feb. I feel my writing juices have been drained and I need a break so I can do proper justice to the tales in my head, and proper justice to all my loyal fans. Speaking of!

Thanks to everyone who read this silly little story, to all who commented, reblogged, etc, you guys are a big reason why I do this. When I return, I hope to be better than before. This isn't a complete "see you later" - if inspiration strikes, I may do the occasional drabble and upload it, but we'll see what the future holds.

Once more! Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy the final chapter!

Summary: As the Oni King casts a dark shadow over all of Japan, Mickey takes one last heroic stand, finally becoming his father's son.

Fear and surprise can do wonders to the rational mind. Looking outside of the situation, one would think the obvious thing to do when seeing a maniacal rapidly growing Oni is run in the opposite direction and never look back. To be entirely fair, several of the villagers did exactly that. But the majority of the kingdom, especially those who had previously been inside the palace, could do little more than gawk at who had been one of their most trusted guards.

“I quit,” Marsupilami said while raising his hand and tail.

“How could this have happened?!” Clarabelle was close to having her legs give way, her arms tightly around Minnie. “To think that Pete would use the Lucky Hammer...!”

“How could he do such a thing?” Jose lamented, hand on his heart. “Why, he's never been anything but rude, mean, judgmental, selfish, lazy...” He stopped to click his tongue. “Huh. Hindsight is not a pleasant thing.”

“How did he even know where to find it anyway?” Donald pointed out, keeping Daisy behind him as if that would protect her from Pete's wrath – although all he was doing at the moment was continue to laugh in victory. “It's supposed to be hidden away in a secret location!”

“I only ever told Sir Mickey where it was!” Minnie answered, and automatically everyone's heads shot to little Mickey atop Pluto's head.

Once upon a time, Mickey noted that being small was almost like being invisible. Now he realized this wasn't true at all, because even when he did try looking away, he could feel everyone's eyes on him. He knew he should apologize, perhaps try to explain why he'd done it, but the words were hollow and dry in his throat. Saying the right thing wasn't going to fix the problem they were in now. He clenched his fists, eyes on the ground, head lowered shamefully.

“Oh, Mickey,” Daisy broke the uncomfortable silence, voicing everyone's thoughts at once. Pity was evident in her voice, and Mickey nearly would have preferred their anger.

“We can chastise Mickey's actions later!” Panchito declared, stepping forward and unsheathing his blade. “Right now, we literally have a bigger problem! We have to stop Pete from taking over all of Japan with his size!”

“But how do we do that?” Goofy asked, holding his own sword to his chest like a child's teddy bear, full of fright. “One wrong move, and he could stomp us flat!”

Pete let out another belly laugh, sending shockwaves of sound throughout the kingdom. “ALL ONI, ASSEMBLE AT THE CAPITAL AT ONCE! WE'LL MAKE THIS PLACE OUR NEW HEADQUARTERS, AND ALL THE PEOPLE HERE OUR SLAVES!”

Jose whipped out his own sword, ready to do battle. “We'll never submit to you, Pete!”

“LET IT BE KNOWN THAT FROM NOW ON, EVERYONE WILL CALL ME THE GREAT ONI KING!”

“I'll call you a great palooka, and nothing else!” Donald snapped, fingers trembling but ready to fight as well. At this, Mickey began to notice something, lifting his head and raising an eyebrow.

“ALL ONI WHO REFUSE TO DO AS I SAY WILL SUFFER THE SAME AS THE MORTALS! ANYONE WHO DISOBEYS, DIES!”

This “back and forth” between the small and tall could have gone on for some time if Mickey hadn't snapped his fingers to try and get everyone's attention. “Y'know, sometimes I have to shout in order for people to hear me, cause I'm so small. So...” To test out his theory, he rather calmly began to say, “Boy, Pete, one of the worst parts about this is now that you're bigger, everyone can smell how badly you reek!”

Mild panic broke out among friends and family, thinking Pete would stomp down in revenge, but Mickey held out his hand, signaling them to wait and watch.

“AND NOW THAT I'VE TAKEN OVER ALL OF JAPAN, WHY STOP THERE? THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE MINE!”

Mickey then held out his hands again, in a light “ta-da” gesture. “I don't think he can hear any of us.”

“Huh. How about that?” Donald put a hand above his eyes to try and see where Pete's head actually ended. “We could plot a whole take-down right in front of him and he'd never know.”

“You guys have fun coming up with that.” Marsupilami tried to turn tail and run, but Maurice merely grabbed his tail and kept him in place. “Hey, cowards have common sense! How are we supposed to take down a guy as tall as a mountain?”

“Dear friend Mickey defeated Maurice, did he not?” Panchito reminded them.

“It's our 'dear friend Mickey' who put us in this mess to begin with!” Clarabelle snapped, hands on her hips. “If he'd never come to the palace, this never would have happened!”

“He only came to the palace because Donald said an awful thing to him!” Daisy fought back, fists balling up.

“So you're saying this is my fault?!” Donald gawked.

“It's somebody's fault!”

“It's Mickey's fault!”

“He didn't mean it!”

“I say it's the Emperor's fault!”

“How can you blame a dead man?!”

“We never should have trusted the original Oni King!”

On and on the arguments circled, with Mickey staying silent, knowing that getting involved would only make things worse. Yet he couldn't think of a way to make it stop without the flaring tempers only burning hotter. He was starting to get one of his big headaches again, worse than even before. How could they take down Pete if they couldn't even agree on who to blame? Even if they did, they were all ants compared to Pete's height – he might not even feel their blades on his skin, just something close to a mosquito bite. He couldn't be reasoned with, and the only thing he wanted was more power.

It was then that Pete accidentally did them all a favor, distracting them from their arguments by taking one step forward – it was enough to shake the earth and remind them all that being so close was being closer to death.

“Run!” It was not something that really needed to be said, but Mickey said it anyway, as one does in these rare type of situations. No one was sure where they could run to, as Pete could catch up to them without much effort, but they all began to jolt as far away and as fast away as their feet could take them.

Pete, for his part, had run out of evil things to say, and only now remembered where he was. He looked down, though he had to squint to see the specs of people on the ground. “WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING, PRINCESS? I CAN'T BE EMPEROR UNLESS YOU GET HITCHED, HUH? LET'S SEE ABOUT THAT!” With another great, wicked laugh, Pete began to walk forward, enjoying the feel of the earth moving beneath him. This joy lasted for a very long five seconds, as in the next step he wound up planting his foot into a small building – given how tightly packed the capitol was, he didn't have much of a choice.

But being tall didn't make him impervious to pain. “OWWWW!” He held his leg, which was cut up by walls and ceilings. “THAT SMARTS AND... AW NO, THAT WAS MY FAVORITE SUSHI PLACE! WHERE ELSE AM I GOING TO GET MAKI ROLLS AT THREE A.M.?” He tried to back up, but that made him collide into a taller building, which made him wobble and sit upon a third building – his howl as he clutched his rump was loud enough to part the very heavens. “OW OW OW OW! AH, CRIMINY! I'M GUNNA WIND UP DESTROYING THIS PLACE BEFORE I CAN RULE OVER IT!”

He tried to stand up straight, dusting off bits of city block from his armor. “OKAY, EASY DOES IT...” Surely he was still intimidating even though he was tip-toeing through the capital, he told himself. As it was, he was doing the heroes another favor, as this method of walking made him much, much slower.

The small group made it to the gates of the capital, as terrified villagers continued to flee. But Minnie wouldn't move another step. “I cannot and will not abandon my people!”

“They don't seem to have a problem abandoning you,” Clarabelle pointed out as people ran past them. “Besides, if we stay here, the Oni he called will wind up at the gates, and then we'll be stuck between a rock and a very, very, very hard place!”

“You women ought to get out of here,” Donald decided, eyes on Pete. “As samurai, it is our duty to take on this menace and protect you.”

“Donald, you can't be serious!” Daisy grabbed her husband's good arm. “You're in no condition to fight, and you can't possibly win!”

“But what about all the people across Japan?” Panchito could feel his head spinning. “At least before, some Oni were willing to live and let live...but now they'll all be forced to take over the remaining villages, and Japan will be completely conquered! If we don't stop him here and now, this might as well be called Oni Land!”

“If we must die, we'll die with honor!” Jose gripped his fist. “I would proudly die if it meant my last stand was against such an evil foe, defending my home and my people!”

“Speak for yourself, bub.” Marsupilami held out his hands, with Maurice copying. “I just discovered the joy of doing a hard day's work, and now I have to die for it? That just sounds like another way of giving up!”

Goofy didn't have much to add, twisting his hands and looking around at everyone, until his eyes fell on Mickey. Mickey was watching Pete very seriously his chin cupped, eyebrow raised. Goofy never considered himself an intelligent man, but he knew a plan in mind when he saw one. He knelt down beside Pluto in order to somewhat-meet Mickey at eye level. “What are you thinking?”

Mickey glanced over at Goofy, then back to Pete. “Where'd the Lucky Hammer go?”

Goofy blinked thrice, then joined Mickey in staring at Pete. One hand was open, trying to help himself wiggle through a pair of tight towers, but the other hand was clutched tight. “Gee, I don't see it at all. Did he drop it somewhere?”

Minnie quickly caught on to the conversation. “It must still be in his hand! If he were to let go of the Lucky Hammer, he'd pop back to normal size...the Lucky Hammer doesn't change it's own size, only the people who hold it.”

“Which means if we made him drop it,” Donald concluded, “Then we could get the drop on him!”

“Except his fist is wayyy up there,” Jose pointed up, “And we're wayyy down here. The most we can do is attack his big smelly toes, and even then, that's no guarantee he'll let it go. How can we do anything when we're so small? He may as well not even know we're here.”

Mickey's head jolted up, his eyes flashing. Just like that, everything he'd seen had come together. “And to him...” He said quietly, his voice getting louder with his revelation. “I'm even smaller than before. He might not even feel me walking up his arm...”

“NO!” Daisy shrieked, trying to grab Mickey with her hands, but this time he'd prepared and jumped away in time. “I don't know what you're thinking, but there is no way you're going near him! I won't allow it!”

“Sir Mickey, you mustn't!” Minnie knelt down, hands clasped together, the sheer thought of Mickey dying bringing tears to her eyes. “I couldn't bear to lose you too! I'd rather never see you again than see you dead!”

Mickey looked back and forth between the two most important women in his life, unsure if they cared for him or for what he represented to them. The rest of the men looked equally unsure, and Mickey was starting to consider giving up for the first time in his life. He shut his eyes hard, and when he opened them, he saw a hand reached out, palm flat, the usual gesture one made to him as a signal to climb up for a close talk. That was nothing new.

What was new was who it belonged to – as Donald had never done it before.

Mickey's eyes widened in disbelief, and Donald's expression was difficult to read. No one spoke, unsure of what to make of this moment, as Mickey walked onto his father's open hand. Slowly and gently, Donald lifted Mickey up to his face.

“This plan you've got,” Donald finally said, “Do you really believe it'll work?” It wasn't accusatory or mocking. It was an honest question.

Mickey swallowed, but then stood tall, his back straight, staring right into the eyes of the man he'd always wanted to be like. “I do. I never act unless I'm sure of my actions! And sometimes they're wrong... what I did to the Princess... what I helped Pete to do... that's something I'll never forgive myself for. But I have to make it right! Not to be considered your son, not to win over a girl who thinks I'm just a drawing, not for honor or glory or anything useless! I have to do this because it's the right thing to do!” He then inhaled sharply, lowering his shoulders. “But... it's also time to admit... there are some things I can't do alone.”

Mickey looked around at the friends he'd made along his journey, the new companions he'd befriended at the palace. “I've been acting like having help just makes me weak...when the truth is, my real strength comes from everyone. Maybe if I'd asked for help more often, instead of just assuming everything on my end... this wouldn't have happened. Instead of trying to prove things on my own, we need to work together. I'm not asking you to help me as my father, or as a fellow samurai. I'm asking because I know you all can do great things – I've seen it myself! So, please...give me one more chance.” Then Mickey closed his eyes, and waited. While he had faith and hope that his pleas would be heard, there wasn't a sure guarantee in the bond between these men.

After a brief moment, the hand moved again – this time to Donald's shoulder. “Then let's not waste any time. What do you need us to do?”

Daisy let out an agonized whine, but Minnie stood up, realizing there wasn't anything she could do to persuade Mickey otherwise. Mickey himself was a little startled at the acceptance, but hopped onto Donald's shoulder. “Marsupilami, Maurice, Goofy, you guys stay here and make sure the villagers get out while keeping any Oni away!”

While the trio were still frightened, having an order and thus something to do eased their nerves a smidgen. “You got it, Mickey!” Marsupilami saluted, with Maurice and also Goofy copying.

“Mother, Clarabelle, you two search the capital for anyone hurt and who needs help. If this doesn't pan out, we need this entire place evacuated!”

Daisy sniffled but nodded. “If you don't come back to me in one piece, you're grounded for infinity!”

Clarabelle was hesitant about something else. “What about the Princess? I need to stay by her side!”

“I'm sorry, but I need her for a big part.” Mickey and Minnie met each other's eyes – while she was trying to put on her cold, ruling appearance, the comment about him being a “drawing” had clearly hurt.

Yet she knew it was her own fault, and if there was a time to make up for it, it was now. “I'm ready and willing to do whatever it takes to help.”

“Good... because the best way for this to work is for Pete to stand still so I don't get knocked off. I need you to distract him while Pluto, Donald and I get in as close as we can without being spotted. Jose and Panchito, I want you with her to protect her.”

Clarabelle clutched her chest at the idea, ready to pass out, but while Minnie felt a cold fear run down her spine, she didn't back down. “I'll do all that I can. I won't let him move from that spot.”

“We'll protect you with our very lives, Princess!” Jose came to her left, and Panchito to her right. “We're ready when you are!”

“Then let's not waste any time!” Mickey slammed a fist into his open hand, the heat of battle already beginning to burn hotly in his heart. “Father, I need you to get me to Pete without us spotting him. Let's circle 'round while the Princess goes right on ahead!”

“Then you better hang on tight.” Donald kept one hand on the hilt of his blade, memories flooding back to him of how he injured his arm in the first place. Mickey had always been told it was merely “in battle” but not many details otherwise. He never planned on sharing that story, and had told Daisy the same. But now of all days, now of all times, he wondered if speaking of it could have saved them all some trouble. “Everyone... head out!”

Though Donald's arm was weak, his legs were not, and he bolted off like a flash of lightning, Pluto having to race in order to catch up. The group split up as they were assigned, each one having an equal share of doubt and hope in their hearts for whatever the plan ultimately was. Yet they all also knew giving up was not an option. Now they were all small, compared to Pete – now they all had Mickey's burden.

Minnie picked up her dress – mentally noting that perhaps in the future, she should have much shorter kimonos designed – and ran back the way she came, Panchito and Jose steadily at her side. Pete hadn't moved in some time, as he was still trying to decide the best way to move around without destroying the city. It would be rather silly to be ruler of an entire city of flattened wood and brick! Because of this, Minnie and her guards had no problem approaching him – but getting his attention was another issue. “If he can't hear us, how do we get his attention?” Minnie asked out loud, trying to wave her arms in an effort to be seen.

“We just have to crank up the volume!” Panchito tossed up his sword, twirling it around before pointing it at Jose. Any confusing, awful, weird feelings towards him would have to be set aside. “Jose,  smash me!”

Jose stopped in place. “Eh?”

“Come at me! Give it to me! Hard and fast, right now!”

Jose, who had always been the one hitting on people and never the one hit on, felt his mind go utterly blank. This was a new feeling. Not a bad one, exactly – rather he wouldn't mind if Panchito kept going -

“Hit his sword, Jose,” Minnie interrupted the train wreck of his thoughts.

“Oh. Right. Yes. Of course.” Jose cleared his throat, not noticing Minnie's eyerolling, and then held out his sword, smacking it against Panchito's and creating a loud TWAAAAANG!

Panchito gave it back in full, trying to create as much noise as possible. “Come on, you can give it to me better than that! Don't hold back, give me everything you've got! Harder now!”

Jose was finding it difficult to look Panchito in the eyes. “Yes, sir. Doing my best, sir.” Boy, his armor was really hot today!

“Harder! Faster! Louder!”

“Yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir!”

Fortunately for everyone involved – especially Minnie who was starting to wonder if Princesses could officiate marriages because it seemed like it was soon going to be necessary – the loud smashing of the swords was starting to gain some traction. Pete was growing annoyed, wondering where that blasted sound was coming from before he finally looked down and squinted - “IF IT AIN'T THE LITTLE MISS! I KNEW I'D FIND YOU!” Yes, he was ignoring the fact he hadn't. As far as he was concerned, every move was his victory.

Minnie doubted he'd be able to hear her no matter how loudly she shouted, so actions would have to do the talking. In order to save her people, she'd have to throw away her pride and dignity – a small price to pay for their safety. She also saw it as a way to apologize to dear sir Mickey – if only she had been honest with him from the start! While the books had gotten Mickey's foot in the door, it was the real him that had made her smile and feel like more than a Princess. Maybe a cold, unfeeling Princess would keep her pride no matter what – but Minnie wouldn't, because Minnie was more than a title.

She took a breath, and then knelt down on her knees, placing her hands on the dirt. Panchito gasped, a hand to his mouth. “Princess!” A sign of deep submission! “Jose, can you believe this?”

“Not really, no.” To be honest Jose wasn't paying attention, as he was bemoaning the fact that cold showers had yet to be invented.

Pete was just as surprised – he would've thought the royal family would rather die than surrender to him. He had planned on humiliating her himself, but for her to do it on her own? Why not enjoy the show? “THAT'S RIGHT, PRINCESS! FROM NOW ON, YOU'RE DOWN AND I'M UP! MAYBE IF YOU DO WHAT I SAY, I'LL LET YOU LIVE! HA HA HA HA HA! I COULD WATCH YOU DO THIS ALL DAY!”

Which suited Mickey just fine. He clung onto Donald's shoulder, him and Pluto making their way through debris and broken buildings, their bodies covered in the darkness of Pete's shadow. Donald still wasn't wholly sure what Mickey planned to do, but the time to get a full explanation was running short. He had no real choice but to trust that all would work out. “We're almost there!”

“Just a little closer!” Mickey kept his eyes ahead, squatting down, ready to jump. “Once I get on, you need to join the Princess. If this works, he's gunna come down in a big way!”

It was only then, when they were close enough to Pete to smell his stench and have his voice rattling in their ears, that Donald realized the worst part of this plan. “Mickey, once you get up and do what you're doing... how are you going to come back down safely?”

Mickey didn't answer. It wasn't that he didn't have an answer – it was just one he knew Donald wouldn't like. And he was right, with Donald getting a cold stone dropped into his stomach. “Wait a minute, Mickey, you're not saying you-”

“Thank you for everything, oto-san!”

It was too late, and Mickey had jumped from Donald's shoulder, landing on Pete's leg, grabbing onto some bits of black fur that stuck out from the enlarged armor. Pete's clothes had, thankfully, grown with him, and the edges of the armor allowed Mickey to climb up, up, up. Donald stood in place, frozen with horror as he understood what it was Mickey planned to do – or rather, not plan.

Mickey wasn't expecting to come back from this alive.

Long ago, when Donald was young and the war with the Oni was dwindling, a few straggling Oni had come into the capital, causing trouble while the Emperor was out visiting his people. Donald was there with his maiden fair, and the Oni themselves were easily defeated. They had hung their heads in defeat, willing to peacefully surrender, and the Emperor was just as peacefully ready to let them go on their way. But two of the Oni, embittered and angry, had lashed out in a last ditch effort to get revenge, no caring who they struck.

As a loyal samurai, it was Donald's duty to defend his Emperor above all else.

“NOW STAND ON YOUR HEAD!” Pete commanded, having decided Minnie was his toy to play with however he pleased. Minnie obeyed without hesitation – physically difficult as it was – to do all that he said, whether it was standing on her head, cartwheels, dancing... so long as it kept Pete's attention and allowed Mickey's plan to work, she'd roll around in the dirt like a pleased pig if need be. “HA HA HA HA! SOME PRINCESS YOU ARE NOW! I WOULDN'T TAKE YOU AS A WIFE EVEN IF YOU BEGGED! BUT I WANNA SEE YOU BEG ANYWAY!”

Mickey climbed onward, even as Pete's sweat made his fur slick, even as the heights made Mickey dizzy, even as the roaring of Pete's voice made his headache even worse. He made his way up Pete's leg, past his hips, on his back, and still kept going. His body ached, his senses gagged, but not once did he stop, not once did he look back down. His headache was worse than it ever had been before, almost blinding him with sheer pain. But if his father could fight with an injured arm, so could Mickey climb on with the feeling of a stabbed skill.

But on that day, long before Mickey was born and entered their lives, Donald hadn't protected the Emperor. He'd thrown himself in front of his bride, taking the blow meant for her and damaging his arm for life. The Emperor had been protected by his other guards, but he'd made his choice all the same. Instead of acting out of honor, he had acted out of love. A real samurai would have seen that as an act of shame, and a part of Donald had carried that with him always, even as the Emperor absolved his actions.

Now as Donald stood there, his eyes feeling hot and wet, he realized that shame and pride meant nothing at all. If he had only shared his stories with Mickey instead of Daisy doing it all – if he had been a better man, a better husband, a better father – Mickey wouldn't sacrifice himself out of some sense of honor that had been forced upon him. What had he done?

At last, Mickey reached his goal – Pete's head. Pete was laughing so hard at Minnie's antics, now making her stand on one foot while trying to dance, that Mickey had to cling on to keep from falling off. Pete's stubble threatened to cut Mickey at every opportunity, and his breath was as noxious as any poisonous gas. Mickey continued to climb and only stopped when he reached Pete's ear and climbed right inside. Balance was the key, and in Mickey's short life, he knew that once you took away balance, it was difficult to keep anything else. Also, this was going to hurt a lot, no matter what size you were.

It was difficult to see, with not much sunlight and the inner workings of any living creature not equipped to shine. But there was just enough light for Mickey to see one large shape in Pete's ear, and while Mickey knew little about anatomy, he guessed this was the important part of any person's hearing – the eardrum. He pulled out his mother's sewing needle, approached the cone-shaped body part, held his breath  - and stabbed just once.

It's said the scream from Pete was so loud, it shattered the smaller planets into stars, it divided the heavens and frightened the gods, it split apart the oceans and made the entire world go deaf for one straight minute. He raised one foot to kick whatever was nearest – but now his balance was so off, he fell backwards -

Pluto grabbed Donald's clothes by the teeth, urging him to run and remind him of what Mickey had sworn him to do. Donald gasped for air, and bolted, running right for the surprised Princess and her stunned guards. “MOVE!” He threw the  young woman over his shoulder, and all of them ran as fast as their feet would go – for the force of Pete's fall was so great that it sent a storm of dust and debris for miles and miles in all directions. The earth shook so hard that Panchito lost his footing, stumbling right onto Jose, but when he landed, he kept his back to the air, ready to shield the Jose with his life.

It seemed to take an eternity for the dust to settle, for the world to be silent, and when Donald dared to look over his shoulder, he could no longer see the gigantic form of Pete taking up all that space. If he couldn't see Pete in all the destruction of the broken buildings, then that must have meant he let go of the Lucky Hammer, and the plan had worked – but at what cost?

Panchito lifted his head, wining in pain, a hint of blood running down his face as he looked down at Jose. “Are you all right?”

Jose – who had always been the one saving and never the one saved – for some reason thought he saw a swirl of cherry blossoms moving in slow motion around his savior, and he was fairly certain it wasn't because he had a concussion. “About that senpai thing...”

“Where's Mickey?” Minnie asked quietly, fingers trembling as she didn't truly want an answer.

Donald swallowed, putting Minnie down, his heart beating hard at his own idea of the truth. “Mickey... Mickey!” His sword lost, forgotten, and mattering little now, he sprinted to the crater Pete had left. Pete could be heard moaning in pain and dizziness, likely not to get up anytime soon. Doors, windows, walls, ceilings, were scattered and shattered everywhere in an endless sea of ruin. Donald began to tear through it all, even with his bad arm, looking for any small sign of the small boy. “Mickey! Mickey, answer me!”

Minnie quietly began to weep, and Panchito took her into his arms to console her, even as his own tears started to flow. Jose took off his helmet, showing respect to the samurai who made the ultimate sacrifice. Pluto whined, but then began to sniff around the area.

It wasn't long before Clarabelle came upon them, who turned her head away in grief. Soon after that came Daisy, who held her husband from behind, her crying the quietest it had ever been. Marsupilami, Maurice and Goofy came running with urgent news, but upon seeing this scene of devastation and anguish, were shocked into silence. Marsupilami swallowed hard, forcing the words out. “We...we've got to go! There's a whole bunch of Oni coming this way, they must have heard Pete's commands!”

“I can't go!” Donald snapped without looking up, his fingers torn and bleeding as he kept digging. “Not without him!”

“Listen, he wouldn't want you to be captured or killed by these guys!” Marsupilami tried to grab Donald by his shoulder, but he was violently thrust off -

“I AM NOT LEAVING MY SON BEHIND!” Donald screamed, slamming both of his hands to the ground, even as pain stabbed his old wounds because it couldn't compare to the pain in his soul. “I will not, I cannot, I... I...” He choked on his words, and the world became blurry, the tears coming so fast he couldn't see any longer. Marsupilami staggered backwards, unsure what to do know, and the world around them came into silence...

…But then there came the sound of laughter, of all things. Quiet, muffled, but it was definitely there. Confused faces were abound, and Donald's grief poured into rage. “Who thinks this is funny?!” he stood up so quickly that Daisy rolled off haphazardly, Donald cracking his knuckles and whipping his head around to see the offender. It wasn't coming from anyone in the group, but a few feet into the air of toppled building, with Pluto sticking his head in. As Donald approached, he could make out a few words between the hysteric laughter.

“Q-quit it, boy! That tickles!”

And there, underneath the dirt and debris and  defying all logic, was Mickey, his face being licked by a very happy pup. Except Mickey wasn't the size of a peach pit anymore, which was why Donald briefly thought the sight was an agony-induced dream. Mickey, whose old clothes were now tattered and frayed, his body covered in dirt and dust, was about the same size as an average young adult. Pluto quickly caught the scent of something else, and resumed sniffing elsewhere, allowing Mickey and Donald to see each other.

Mickey blinked a few times, and then cracked a tired smile. “Hello, oto-san... I mean, Don-”

Donald fell to his knees and held Mickey for the first time in his life. He wasn't sure he could ever let go again. “I am so sorry, Mickey,” he said softly, not caring how or why he was able to do this. “For all that I said, for all that I did... I was wrong. You deserved so much better than me as a parent...but I am your parent. I am your father. I promise you this – you are a member of this family, and you always will be!”

Mickey had never held anyone before in his life. He wasn't entirely sure how to go about it, how much strength to use or how long it was supposed to be. Slowly, he lifted his arms, in quiet awe that he could put his arms around anyone now, and he felt his father's warmth. Hints of tears began to dribble down his cheeks, and for the moment, he buried his face into his father's shoulder.

The tender moment alone didn't last for too long, as obviously everyone wanted to know what was going on – and when they came upon the scene, all burst into joy. Panchito and Jose danced merrily, Clarabelle momentarily fainted into Goofy's arms, Marsupilami and Maurice couldn't stop laughing, and Minnie and Daisy joined in on the hug with tears and relief. The oncoming Oni threat was forgotten for the moment, which was unfortunate, as there were a great number heading for the gate.

“Oh, Mickey, you clever dear!” Daisy squealed, rubbing Mickey's shoulders. “Managing to the grab the Lucky Hammer as you fell, that was amazing!”

“Uh...yeah, that would have been amazing.” Mickey awkwardly replied, now realizing a thing or two. “Except I didn't do that.”

All at once, the joy was paused. A little “woof” cemented things, as Pluto now sat among them with the dug-up Lucky Hammer in his mouth, which had landed away from Mickey.

Minnie looked back and forth between Mickey and the Lucky Hammer, perfectly puzzled. “Then... how did you turn this size?”

“Beats me.” Mickey shrugged helplessly. “All I know is that I was fallin' down, with a really bad headache, and then... I dunno, just before I landed, I felt really strange.” He scratched his head, some clods of dirt beginning to fall off. But as he scratched his head, he felt something funny – three little bumps. He supposed, given how far he fell, that having a bump on the head was normal, but why three? And why did they feel kind of pointy?

“I hate to break up the party,” Panchito suddenly declared, seeing figures over the horizon, “But it looks like part two of the battle is upon us!”

Dozens and dozens and dozens of Oni had arrived, all shapes and sizes, one horns and two horns, none of them wanting to be there but all of them wanting to avoid Pete's wrath. Would they even listen if they were told Pete was defeated? There was no time to risk it – Panchito, Jose, Goofy, Marsupilami and Maurice readied themselves for battle, swords drawn and willing to fight. Mickey shoved his father off, wanting to join in, even if his original sewing needle blade was now lost in the mess. “We won't let them get any further!” He heroically declared, as he ruffled his hair to remove the last bits of dirt from his head, and he stood with his friends, ready for anything – so he thought.

The band of Oni headed right for the guards, but the strange day only got stranger – the ones upfront took one good look at Mickey and stopped in their tracks – which led them to get tripped and trampled by the ones in front, until they saw Mickey, and the process repeated itself until most of them were laying on the ground, confused and embarrassed. Mickey would have laughed if he wasn't very baffled. “Huh... I guess they won't let themselves get any further either.” He looked at his friends to confirm this – but now they were all staring at Mickey with wide eyes and open jaws. Maurice was frantically pointing to the top of Mickey's head. “What?” Mickey felt his head, trying to understand what was causing such a fuss, but he didn't feel any open wounds. Just those three pointy bumps, almost like horns -

Oh.

Wait.

What?!

“I don't believe my eyes,” One of the Oni said as he began to get up – the one Mickey recognized as Hutch. “I thought the previous Oni King's family was all taken out!”

“Guess he must've missed one,” one Mickey recognized as Pacuvio answered. “He's got the three horns, and only royal family blood gets those! I did hear that the Queen was running away to her peach orchard before she got killed with the rest of 'em...”

“TIME OUT!” Donald squawked, storming up between Mickey and the Oni, his head spinning. “What are you guys saying?! That Mickey's an Oni?!”

“Not just any Oni!” More Oni that Mickey knew piped up, like Bigtime. “This kid's the real deal! He's the real King, not Pete! We don't have to follow Pete anymore!” He looked so happy he could start crying, as did the rest of the exhausted and weary Oni.

“Hang on, my baby can't be an Oni.” Daisy interrupted. “All his life, he's only ever been as small as a peach pit!”

“So?” Bouncer shrugged off the question. “All Oni start out that small. It's when we get older and our horns grow in that we reach our full size. Everybody knows that!”

“EVERYBODY DOES NOT KNOW THAT!” Donald yelled, with Mickey still feeling his horns in disbelief. “HOW WOULD WE EVER KNOW THAT?!”

“Did you ever ask?” Burger quipped.

Daisy grabbed her husband and pulled him away before he tried to smack someone. Mickey crossed his arms, remembering a few odd things – in past encounters with Oni, hadn't they always called him a kid, a child, someone very young? What an odd revelation – but what to do now? He only wanted his size to change – he never wanted power over an entire race of people! “Shoot, this is a lot to handle in one day.” He glanced at Minnie, who still had her mouth open in surprise. “Hm...let's see...if I'm the Oni King now...that means you have to do what I say, right?”

“That's the deal,” said Hutch. “Even if we don't like it.”

“Then my first act as Oni King is...that you no longer have to obey me.” He expected and received plenty of stares, along with “huh”s and “really?”s thrown in. “What do I know about being King? You guys are citizens of Japan, just like the rest of us. If I'm an Oni, than that must mean Oni ain't different from everyone else after all, cause I can tell you right now I don't feel any different. Just live with us, that's all.”

What a new concept! Living with people! Pacuvio chuckled quietly, finally losing a sense to nap. “He really is just like the old Oni King.” The rest of the Oni talked among themselves, some in disbelief, others in happiness – they didn't know their future anymore, but it had be better than being under Pete's thumb.

Mickey was feeling rather good. He'd gotten his father's love, a normal size, and settled an old war in a matter of minutes! “Can this day get any better?” He expected to wake up from this amazing dream any second.

Then a sudden snap caught his attention. Minnie was now standing up, having pulled out one of her classic fans from her sleeve. She was wearing her cold, stony expression of royal business, and Mickey felt a chill down his spine. “This is all well and good, but... Sir Mickey, you did break your promise to me, you did attempt to steal the Lucky Hammer, and as a result, you did help destroy a major part of the capitol. As Princess, I cannot let this stand without proper punishment.”

Donald and Daisy gasped, getting in front of Mickey to protect their child. “But he saved everyone too, doesn't that count for something?” Donald asked, not wanting to lose his son after he finally acknowledged he had one.

Mickey's heart ached, but he couldn't deny what had been said. “No... she's right. As a samurai, I dishonored my master. What I did was wrong.” He walked around his parents, and then knelt before Minnie, his head bowed. “Whatever punishment she gives me, I'll take it without question.”

Donald and Daisy held each other, afraid of what was to come, and it seemed all were holding their breath. Even the Oni began to worry if this would mean punishment would come their way as well. Minnie opened the fan again, hiding her mouth, studying Mickey intensely. “As eager as you are to throw away your birthright...we cannot ignore your blood-right. Not everyone, nor will every Oni, so readily accept your order to simply live freely. They may even see you working for me as a sign of aggression. In order to pay back for your crimes, and to keep peace with the Oni, you must stay here at the capitol so I can keep an eye on you... as my husband.”

Mickey lifted his head up, unsure he heard right. “Huh?”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Now it was Daisy's turn to be dragged away by Donald. “HE'S MY BABY, I'VE STILL GOT THREE TO FIVE YEARS OF MOMMYING LEFT!”

“You're welcome to stay, of course, to make sure your son is carrying out his punishment.” Minnie replied, and although her mouth was hidden, Mickey was certain she was grinning underneath the fan.

“Can it be a double wedding?” Jose asked, giving Panchito whiplash.

Mickey blinked up at Minnie, still on one knee. “Well, uh... if that's my... punishment, and you're the princess, guess I gotta live with it!” He'd try to make it through, somehow, even as his own grin was giving him away.

“Well, what do we do now?” Hutch asked the general population, feeling more confused than ever.

“I say, if we're going to be living among people...” Pacuvio began to pick up broken bits of walls and doors. “We help them live again.” It seemed as good a plan as any, and the Oni began to clean up – which would eventually confuse the townsfolk when they realized it was safe to return again.

All in all, it was an odd sight to behold – Daisy and Minnie starting to have a tug of war over Mickey, Donald laughing his fool head off, and Jose insisting on Panchito bridal carrying him. Marsupilami looked at Maurice. “Y'know...this may be one of those happily ever after type deals. But I have to say, it's the oddest one I've ever seen.” Maurice nodded in agreement. “I thought about ditching this whole place once we repaid our debt to Mickey, but with things this weird... it kind of makes you want to see it through, don't it?” Maurice smiled, and ruffled the top of Marsupilami's head. Eventually they'd chip in and help – but for now, watching everything unfold was far too entertaining.

At some point, they'd unearth and lock up Pete – at some point, there would be more official talks between the Princess and the Oni – at some point, there would be a wedding, perhaps two. But there didn't seem to be any big rush. Time would flow as it always had, and there were uncertainties all around. But as the day ended, and more days would come, there was one thing that would be agreed upon, and shared with as the tales became legends passed from new fathers to new sons.

Mickey's heart would always be the biggest thing about him – and while not through blood, he inherited it from his father.