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.

Astral hunched on a tree branch between the temple and the downed airship. She had seen Takin make his short journey to the temple, hopefully to pick up Genkai at least. Astral didn't attack. Takin wasn't her problem. But Genkai was. "Come on out, handsome. A lot of people are desperately awaiting your presense." Astral said to herself, remembering her orders. "Kill Genkai. Take up the Raigaki. Escape."
But escape was impossible. Sure, there was no problem with leaving, but the first two orders took precedence in Astral's mind. She would see Genkai dead and the sword in Lady Shizuka's hands or she wasn't leaving the island. Not alive, anyways. Astral remained motionless, her eyes trained on the temple.

Shortly after Taken had made himself comfortable, he heard the screaming cries of a small child. For a few minutes he attempted to ignore it, but the screeching was splitting into his sensitive ears, and causing him no end of irritation. With no life-threatening battle to focus on, the mercenary found it hard to concentrate, and so he finally stood and moved toward the screaming, holding his sword and sheath in his off hand.

His expressionless gaze moved up the tree and through the small screaming child. Apparently IT was the cause of his irritation.

Muteki flashed out from Taken's sheathe in one smooth movement, and passed directly through the tree at a forty five degree angle, up and away from Taken's position, before sliding back into its sheathe. For a moment the great tree just stood there, as though nothing had happened at all. Then there was a creaking sound, and Taken took one step backward before turning and walking away from the tree.

The great pine groaned again as the upper portion slid down across the cut, before tilting and falling over. Yuu's little body rushed downward on a collision course through the air, and for a moment it looked as though he would be crushed. However, for some reason, the little child stopped just before he actually collided with the ground.

A second of investigation would reveal that Taken was now holding onto the back of his shirt where the branch had been stuck before. However, the mercenary only held him for a moment before setting him down and turning to walk away, assuming that the child would cease his screeching now that he was safe.

...A short distance away, Yuu's paintbrush had barely avoided getting crushed, and now sat between the new log and the stump.

Yuu was to busy crying to realize he was falling. He didn't even noticed that he was saved. However, he did notice that his paintbrush was now only a few feet in front of him.

The crying chold instantly stopped crying and dove for his paintbrush.

"Paintbrush! I'll never lose you again, I promise!" Yuu said to his paintbrush as he hugged it. Then he used the paintbrush to create an "indestructible" chain that connected the paintbrush to Yuu's right wrist.

Now that he was happy and not crying, Yuu realized he was not in the tree anymore. Then he realized some one must have saved him and taken him to his paintbrush. After a quick inspection of the area, Yuu only saw one person, a human man walking away from him. Since he was the only person, he must have been the person to save Yuu's life.

"Mr. Hero! Wait up!" Yuu yelled out as he chased after the man. The little demon wanted to be with his savior so he may some how repay him. Plus, being around the man who returned Yuu to his paintbrush would make Yuu feel happy and safe.

OOC: Indestructible is like iron to Yuu.

Also, all of the strong-silent types lacking emotions need some little kid to follow them around which slowly makes them care about other people.

The power of the Dark weapon, in Sanjuro's hands.
 

(Gah, been feeling blah as of late. Oh well. WRITE ON!)

Pyros led the amnesiac Falcon forward through the forest, being careful not to let her trip. He was fairly sure he was heading in the right direction, but he did have a few problems with it.

For starters, there seemed to be lound, booming noises from that direction. Secondly, it didn't seem quite right for the ship to be so far into land. And Thirdly, Pyros moved a bush out of his way to see it wasn't his ship.

No, it was a strange, strange ship that seemed to also be broken and crashed as well. At least, he guessed it was broken. Without knowing the Ship's makings, the broken wood that was scattered about and the gaping holes could just be decoration. But then again, there did seem to be strange creatures attacking the ship, as well.

"Huh?" Pyros and Falcon were awed as they saw a drama unfold before them.

-----------------------------------------
Chi swore a forbidden curse as the claw went into his unguarded flesh. Despite the pain of poision, Chi snapped with newly fanged jaws at the unguarded Koyuki, with both weapons locked and her free arm in Chi's flesh....

--------------------------------------

With a mighty roar, Sanjuro slammed the sword right into the deck, the force of the swing enough to even jar the entire ship. Yes, the sword was powerful, and even more so in the hands of Sanjuro Yamada. Not only did the weapon damage what the sword touched, but a strange damaging force also went from the blade, cutting through the ship and anything unfortunate to be in the way. Which in this case was Kirakiri. But the trickster demon was not alive today for being slow to think and act, and was well out of harms way as the force of the blow kept cutting through the deck, until it reached the end and began kept going, cutting through the trees.

Pyros watched. There was yet another thing familiar about this, but he chalked that up to having been on a ship earlier that day and being attacked. As he watched however, he felt something coming towards him. It was like a giant bubble of something that cut through all it touched, moving like a bat out of hell. Pyros, drew his sword (still on him from the sea battle. He could only hope his clothes and armor were okay) and got in front of Falcon instinctively.

"Don't move!" he cried out to her as it came zipping through the empty air. With one quick slice of his sword the energy from Sanjuro's swing was dispersed, avoiding Falcon. But Pyros did not get off unharmed. Pyros grabbed his face. He had a horizontal gash on his right cheek that immediately oozed blood.

"Hmm....my..." He said, looking at his bloody hand. He looked back up to the strange projectile's source direction.

-----------------------------------------

"OOOH! THAT WAS REALLY AWESOME!" Sanjuro smiled at the power of the sword's attack. "DO IT AGAIN SWORD! DO IT AGAIN!" Sanjuro replied, shaking the blade. It was beyond him why he was suddenly able to send a great amount of energy through the air with the sword, and he felt almost as if it wasn't him doing it, but someone else. So he was pretty sure it must have been the sword.

It made perfect sense to him, considering he'd already discovered Katsuhiro's linguistic skills.

Chi's fangs roughly clamped onto the only thing within range, Koyuki's left arm. The pain of having several fangs sunk into her forearm was a powerful one, but not something too excrutiating. After all, she took great pleasure in enjoying the much greater pain Chi must be feeling from her poison, still seeping into the blood-demon from her still-buried claw. Further locking the struggling demon's tail between the pommel and guard bracer of her sword and swordarm, Koyuki takes this moment to reveal something to Chi.

"Allow me to enlighten you, little fool, that Lord Talkatz is dead." Koyuki hissed, "And even if he *was* a god among demons, he is still dead. The servant of a dead god is both a fool and a psychopath, and I see both traits roiling within you. Now, before you die, allow me to show you the entirety of my black book."

"You may wonder why the Legion Sanguinary hasn't destroyed this temple while we speak, or why I have not fielded even the smallest contingent of troops." She says, face curling into a wry smile. "On sortie, the reports to our lord say! On sortie!" she cackles, "You don't even know how true it is, either."

"When an emperor dies, his servants make grabs for his powerful throne. Talkatz is dead, but yet! He has some measure of power, a useless fear that keeps his weak willed servants, much like you, in a state of constant submission."

She laughs.

"Oh yes, Chi. Talkatz is going to come back, I'm sure of it, and then Genkai will kill him. It's destined, my good Chi. I wonder how long he'll last... Five minutes? Or perhaps ten?!" She says the last words in a psychopatic cackle, "Why you're looking a tad pale there, Chi... Scared, are we?"

Chi's struggling has gotten rather severe by now, forcing Koyuki to wrench her bloody arm free of his teeth, and simultaneously free her sword to make a quick deceptive swipe at the blood demon before leaping high into the air atop one of the Airship's propeller assemblies the two had been fighting under.

"You can't stop him, and you can't stop me, Chi. You're worthless." Koyuki spits down as she brushes the blade of Angetsu Shouten across her bleeding offhand, bathing the blade in her own black blood.

Youji didn't say anything to Sanjuro at first. Instead, the sword simply sweatdropped, almost causing the Kontanmi to slip out of Sanjuro's hands for a moment. However, it didn't feel right to remain silent, if only because the boy would probably keep on shaking him if he did.

Youji coughed to get Sanjuro's attention, though not really because it was all in Sanjuro's head. Having been able to peer into Sanjuro's thoughts (he had to admit, even though there weren't many the sheer volume of them was amazing, frightening, and downright annoying), he decided that the first thing he should explain was what exactly had happened. "That wasn't me that did that Sanjuro, that attack was all you. Of course, that means that it was also all your fault that IT MISSED YOU BAKA!"

Kurama, Garud, and Suzume walked down the path of the forest, followed by another pair of Elite monks, and two normal monks. Kurama's straw hat covered half his face, allowing him to see through the parted straw of the front.

Then Kurama stopped. He smelled the air. He scratched at the dirt. He rubbed at the bark. He raised his leg up and rubbed the bottom of his foot against an upsprung root. He cocked his head back at the others.

"Suzume. Something's off around here. Look around. I don't know what it is though...."

He put his thumb and finger up to his right eye and spread the lids apart, making his eye as large as possible.

".....so keep your eye open."

Garud sighed. He felt it too. Kurama knew what he was talking about. There was a rustling in the trees behind him. A large figure loomed overhead, and the ancient guardian nearly jumped out of his skin... until he realised it was the rock spirit.

"Oh, it's you boy... don't scare me like that."

The rock spirit made a squealing sound.

"I know you are sorry, and you didn't mean to frighten us... it's okay."

Garud turned to Suzume and Kurama.

"This one is with me. Don't attack him because he is under my control."

Sakiko and Gekido attacked the airship itself. Gekido was smashing the rear propeller assembly to bits with his axe, finally tearing a rent in the hull. The oni beserker then disappeared out of sight, charging into the bowels of the airship, accompanied by the sounds of complex destruction.

Sakiko stood near where a crumpled wing section joined the airship's hull. Lit with vibrancy and arms outstretched, she drew upon the powers of her life aspect. The wood of the hull suddenly came to life again, tiny twigs sprouting all over the wooden planks. It began to groan as the revived wood sought to tear itself free of its constraints.

Moon saw the two battles atop the airship, quarterstaff held out before her. With both being very close battles, she waited, watching for an opportunity to strike if necessary.

Meanwhile, Kirakiri was unimpressed by Sanjuro's attack. It seemed that magical blade was powerful indeed, but the warrior who wielded it had a rudimentary fighting style. Sanjuro used no real skill or finesse, simply brute strength.

Seeing the destructive force leap from the blade, Kirakiri rose up, claws emerging from the control room's wreckage, tearing out the complex mechanisms they gripped. He sidestepped and turned, moving out of the path of the blade. Kirakiri believed in economy of motion - every movement he made was just sufficient to fulfill its intended purpose.

Even while the destructive wave thrown off by the sword passed mere inches from the towering demon's face, he counter-attacked. A fluid extension of his turn, Kirakiri swung a scythed claw out towards Sanjuro, the momentum of his partial spin behind it. Behind Sanjuro, Kirakiri's second self was moving forwards, ready to also engage Sanjuro.

As Sanjuro's blade buried deeply into the ship's deck, Kirakiri's massive scythe blade carved a smooth, almost horizontal slice through the air. It glided with deceptive speed, intended to slice Sanjuro in half.

Astral peered at the party assembled. One of them fit the description and sketches of Genkai Kurama perfectly. "But he's completely surrounded by his allies."
She stood up, unsheathing her twin katanas and deciding to speak up. "Well, orders are orders. Let's see if this guy truely has what it takes to destroy Talkatz for good."
With her presense announced, Astral leapt down from the branch she was on and directed her right sword to point at Kurama. "Genkai Kurama. Your mission shall test your skills and your sword to their limits. Limits that I believe the sword is prepared for yet you yourself have not reached. In fact, I'm surprised the sword considers you worthy of simply carrying it around. This is why I am here, Genkai. I'd prefer an honorable duel, if you don't mind terribly. Your party may pass by without incident. It's you I want, after all."
The ninja master then assumed her stance, both blades aimed towards the ground. Only her shiny brown hair, blowly gently in the wind, moved.

Kurama cocked his head at the ninja.

"So many people want duels with me. Hmmm....what to do?"

Kurama pulled out a scroll and read through.

"Well, according to this story about old ninjas, this one guy had you defeat some of his bodyguards before you could face him."

Kurama scratched at his head beneath the shirt hat.

"Well, I have places to go. So....."

Kurama turned to his group.

"Suzume. Entertain this ninja for me, will you? I need to go check on the ship."

Astral felt like objecting. Genkai was her target, not the pretty boy with the naginata he was talking to. "Understood. After all, it's only fair to delegate this down to an underling considering this task was delegated down to me. However, if I win, I will be coming for you."

Suzume looked around at the group, then back at the ninja, then back at the group, and simply shrugged. It wasn't like anything else was going to happen, anyway. Yanking his double-bladed staff out of its place on his bck, Suzume just looked at his enemy's stance and, again, shrugged.

"Hey, if you win I'm guessing you'll have gotten lucky. Still, I don't know what the hell I'm doing so let's just get on with it," Suzume stated simply, keeping no stance.

While waiting for the first attack, Suzume had two souls swirling around each arm. There was no telling what this person could do, and having a shield at the ready could mean everything.

OOC: Woo, I finally get to do something!