Despite the sickening sluggishness that Chi's blood often moved in, Chi could move quite fast. Chi slipped out of the way of the sword, giggling. "What? Are we throwing a tantrum, little girl?"

Chi slithered like a snake, with a head that looked like a grotesgue version of Koyuki's. "WAAAH! WAAH! The mean old Chi knows a page from my little black book! Waaah!" The head cried in faux, mocking her.

Her anger doubled, Koyuki swung true and made a hit on the Chi-snake. Chi roared in pain. "YOU!" The tail of the snake whipped forth with a razor sharp edge formed atop it, intent on impaling the dog demon.

During this battle, those that had remained in the temple were happily oblivious of the tragedy going on outside. For the time being, at any rate.

Kurama, his group, the Elder Monk, and a few other Elite monks were sitting in a quiet area inside a main hall. Kurama was sitting against a wall, leaning back against it while Sarai sat beside him. Every so often, she'd look over at him, but would quickly look away when he sensed her staring at him. The Elder Monk was just finishing a little report.

"The glyph seems to be holding strong, even after a millenia of work. It has been quite beneficial to us in the defense of the temple."

Kurama nodded, his straw hat on his lap and his hair lying about.

"Good to know. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like a look at the message..."

The Elder Monk reached down to a bag on his belt and pulled out a small capsule. Its age was quite apparant from the worn away metal and inscriptions. He cracked it open, and an ancient piece of paper rolled out. Kurama picked up it gently and unrolled it. The message was written in japanese, though a shaky japanese at that.

"Hey, grandson. Or great grandson. Or great great grandson. Or....fuck, I don't know. My head's pounding and my vision is double. Whoever is reading this, good for you. Good to know my line isn't too much of a fuck-up. Anyway...yeah. Stuff. Stuff is good. It's enjoyable. You can do a lot of stuff with...stuff. Of course, stuff is different than things. Stuff is stuff, but things are so much more."

Kurama read quietly to himself. The Elder Monk leaned forward.

"Well, what does the rest say?"

Kurama looked up.

"I'm still reading it. He's basically been going on about stuff, things, and crap for the past two paragraphs. Damn drunk."

After reading for a few more minutes, Kurama finally found a passage worth noting.

"Anyway, enough about that stuff. You want to know about the body piece here. I would hope so, anyway. Why the hell else would you have this? Well, the piece is hidden away and protected. However, to get at the piece, you need to figure something out. You see, I can't just let ANY damned descendant get the thing. So, we need to be sure you're able to defend not only yourself, but those with you. Remember......"

It hit the end of the page. Kurama looked questioningly, then flipped the paper over. On it was one sentence.

"A heart of steel and a will of iron creates a Perfect Defense."

Kurama put the paper down on the rug.

"Huh....A drunkard making up riddles. I feel so good for my gene pool."

As the others battled fiercely aboard the airship, Taken merely made his way to a tree a short distance off. Making sure he had a view of the battle--if not a good one--he sat down cross-legged on the forest floor and watched with mild interest. The manuevers of the Dog-General Koyuki caught his eye. Slaying her may be enjoyable.

However, he still refused to enter combat, laying his sword across his lap to facilitate a more comfortable rest, and quietly uncorking his bottle of--relatively weak and watered down--sake to sip from.

Chi had Koyuki at somewhat of a disadvantage, what with being able to make weapons from his own body at will, particularly in response to her own weapon. Regardless of this, Koyuki was still able to make good of her swing's reverse-pull, helped by the fact that pulling a sword out of Chi was conviently easier than pulling it through a human's ribcage.

The essence-blade steadily burning away the blood in contact with it made this even easier.

Snapping her arm backwards, Koyuki catches the bottom of Chi's snake tail with the pommel of her sword, knocking it upwards over her right shoulder. She growled as the razor-Chitail managed to cut a few centimeters into her upper-arm, but it wasn't important right now.

Now, with both warrior's weapons trapped, Koyuki lunged her left side towards Chi, thrusting her left claw at him in a knife-hand strike.

Yuu's painted harnesses had not been the most secure safety devices. During the crash he was thrown off of his mount and away from the ship. During his fall his shirt got caught on a tree branch.

For a while Yuu sat there, crying about his airship and falling once again. Eventually he managed to stop crying, and decided it was time to get down. After much struggle, he realized he couldn't do it himself. So, just like every other time he had a problem, Yuu turned to his paintbrush. However, when he reached into his shirt, it was gone.

Now he was crying louder then he ever had, screaming out for his paintbrush to return. His life revolved around that paintbrush, so without it, he did not know what to do, besides cry.

What he didn't realize was the paintbrush was several feet below him, at the base of the tree. It had fallen out during the first cry.

"Huh... A drunk making up riddles. I feel so good for my gene pool."

Suzume looked at Kurama for a second and couldn't help but chuckle just a bit at that. He'd been sitting around listening for a while, but that was still about all he could do. And it was still boring.

"What's with me and bad decisions..." Suzume muttered under his breath. He'd probably been heard, but he couldn't really care. "So, uh, boss man? There any chance we'll be getting to work? Sorry to say it, but I've been getting kinda bored."

"If you're bored, then go out for a walk. I'm sure the monks wouldn't mind if you joined them for training."

Suddenly, the doors to the hall were flung open. Rushing into the room were three monks, an unconscious Tayuumi being carried by two of the monks, and a rather cranky Takin.

"Takin? What's wro-"

"Don't you dare. Don't you fucking DARE ask me what's wrong! Do you not know?! My baby crashed! Some demons brought it down!"

Kurama stood up from his spot a bit too casually.

"How are the others?"

"They're fighting. The girl here got herself injured."

Kurama looked down at Tayuumi. It was true. She was rather worn out.

"Hmm...Takin. Take Tayuumi and follow the Elder Monk. He'll take you two down to the hidden undercaverns. It's where the legs are kept. You won't be able to get the legs just yet, however. I have some riddle I need to figure out first."

Kurama picked up his strawhat and placed it on his head. He looked to Suzume and Garud, giving them a small nod to follow him.

OOC: And now to give one of the last monks a send off.

The elite monk that one Kirakiri charged stood his ground. He would not show cowardice to this monster. It had killed two of his companions already, younger monks he'd seen grow from youths into the devoted defenders of the Barrier Temple. He would avenge their deaths or die in the attempt.

A purely physcial attack would almost useless against the beast, so his hand slippe dinside his gi and withdrew a prayer strip. Kirakiri's stride ate up the distance, the demon a living battering ram and then the monk suddenly turned and ran. Kirakiri pursued, catching up in moments. With the full force of his body behind it, he swiped in a massive horizontal slice with a scything talon.

But the monk had already reached his target. A tall pole, no thicker than a man's waist, sticking almost upright out of the deck. The monk ran straight up it, kicking off and barreling back at Kirakiri at about the demon's chest height. Kirakiri's slash hit the post at a height that would have neatly bisected the monk. The elite monk pressed the prayer strip to the demon's left side and landed safely past Kirakiri.

Kirakiri spun to face his enemy again, the pole falling over behind him, sliced cleanly through. The monk saw his prayer strip was already gone. Thin gashes oozed blood where it had been. The prayer strip was intended to daze and weaken demons, the demon must have raked it off almost instantly. With a strange clarity, he could see the demon's blood on one of its right claws.

Despite its size the demon was damnably fast. The monk hadn't even seen it tear the strip off. A claw slashed out at him, intended to remove his head from his shoulders but he rushed forwards, rolling under the other claw that already moved to block him. It stepped back, turning half to the right to move it's leg further away from him. With his second attempt to get close a failure, he came to his feet and kept with his forward direction to get out of Kirakiri's reach as soon as possible. Up close the demon was just too fast and dangerous to fight with the slower prayer strips and fire.

But Kirakiri neatly pivoted on the spot, head swinging around and catching the monk in his jaws. The monk felt pain as long teeth jabbed into his body and could see one golden eye watching him die. He had failed. But he would not go down without a fight. With a superhuman effort, the monk pulled an arm free of the teeth, uncaring of the horrible gashes they inflicted and called up all his ki.

Palm just inches away from the eye he unleashed a torrent of raging flames. Kirakiri screeched in pained rage, rearing up and shaking his head to let his teeth slice the monk apart. His senses all fading, the monk gave a last smile He couldn't see how much damage he had done but from the thunder in his ears he guessed it was considerable. The pain all flowed away.

Blinded in one eye, Kirakiri swung around and headed back towards Sanjuro. Around the ruined eye, the flesh was raw and pink, but already turning strangely puffy and beginning to close over the socket.

* * *

Sanjuro had taken a while to attack, giving Kirakiri time to size up his opponent. The way he moved despite the heavy weapons rack he carried and how he held his heavy blade suggested considerable strength. Sanjuro's speech also suggested severely limited intelligence. Kirakiri might think it was a trick, but no-one was that convincing an actor.

The way Youji had tossed Sanjuro his sword made Kirakiri very suspicious. It was almost certainly magical in some way. But why hadn't the other wielded it himself? He shifted slightly, claws working deeper into the delicate innards of the airship's controls.

"Now MONSTER WHO TAKES AWAY COOKIES! COWER BEFORE SANJURO YAMADA!"

Sanjuro had commited himself to an attack. Kirakiri choose not to use his superior reach, cautious of the sword and let Sanjuro attack first. Looking at Sanjuro's attack, he simply drew backwards about a foot or so to make the attack fall harmless short and then suddenly swept both scythe limbs forwards in a angled scissor attack.

Meanwhile, Kirakiri's reinforcements had arrived. Sakiko and and Moon arrived together, the former beginning to shift towards her life aspect as she approached the ship's hull while the half demon monk gathered herself and leapt gracefully onto the ship's deck. Wise enough not to rush into battle heedlessly, she looked at the two battles in progress. From a different angle, Gekido came charging out of the woods focused on attacking the airship along with Kirakiri's daughter. The ogre's giant axe whistled through the air and smote one of the propellors on the airship's rear.

OOC: Let's see, who wants to take bets on the chances of Sanjuro falling in love yet again?

Garud gave a small nod back. It was time. Zrologus, Zrolzz, Aenca!. A pillar of brown light erupted from a spot on the airship. Garud followed Kurama, to the outside.

+++On the airship+++

In a dark room, undisturbed by the commotion, a huge rock beast opened it's eyes, and stood up from it's crouching position. It made a huge roar, and made it's way to the door.

+++

Hearing the roar Garud said to no-one in particular...

"Those demons won't know what hit them."

"Uh... huh. Yeah, let's just make this quick," Suzume said after hearing Garud.

Getting up and brushing himself off, the demon hunter followed Kurama deeper into the temple. Maybe now was the time Suzume could get something to do that actually had a little more than talk to it.

"Knowing my luck, though, that isn't gonna happen," he thought pessimistically.