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seokjxnnie · 5 years ago

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celestial (pt. 4) | kth (m)

↠ genre: smut, angst, demon au, incubus!taehyung x f reader ↠ warnings:��only 2k words of this chapter isn’t smut 🥴, big dick tae, rough sex, slight brat!reader, f masturbation, slight exhibitionism, public sex, fingering, oral (f receiving), handjob, thigh riding ↠ length: 7.4k

↳ her flesh and blood imparts immortality to any demon, but the incubus protecting her from the hunt requires something else of her body.

↞ part 3 | masterlist | part 5 ↠

a/n: thank u for being so patient throughout my absence in updating this series! this is a pretty smutty chapter to make up for it hehe

“These ones?” A gala apple rolls in the pads of Hoseok’s fingers.

She shakes her head, the fix of her stare offered to the fuji apples on the neighboured shelf instead. The visual of a clean snap advertised by its firm speckled skin draws her reach to them. Hoseok holds the skimpy plastic bag open for her to drop in four.

He continues their prior conversation while steering their shopping cart along the margins of the produce section and towards the aisles. “He’s been resting, been wanting to be alone, holed up in his room.” A sigh carries his dim volume. “But don’t worry, he’s just being a stubborn piss baby. His wounds will close up to nothing but scars in just another few days.” His elbow finds her arm with a light, playful rut in hopes of evicting the discourage from her expression.

Surface wounds may heal, but Taehyung’s eyes will remain muted, telling of the wuthering that colonizes from within.

The nod she replies with is made unconvincing by the distance her gaze wear. It’s guilt, it’s worry, it’s confusion that occupies her and disorients her coordination, so that a jar of instant coffee is pushed off the ledge when she grabs the one next to it. She flinches in anticipation of her ear splitting from the vibrant sounds of shattered glass, but a sigh of relief deflates her instead when it fluently transitions into the catch of Hoseok’s palm.

Her lips pull into a taut purse that a self-deprecative “Shit, sorry” pries its way out of.

The sympathy doesn’t depart from his eyes as his voice adorns something tender and comforting in the delicate utterance of her name. “This is not your fault, you know?”

He means the condition of her familiar, not necessarily the coffee jar she nearly splintered.

The features of her face soften and traces a faint smile. “I know, thank you.” She catches the place above his elbow in a reassuring squeeze.

With Taehyung bedridden, the rest of the guys worked on rotation for her surveillance. Jimin attended class with her yesterday, Hoseok is running errands with her today, and Namjoon is accompanying her at the library study session tomorrow.

The bleakness that the familiar played in his tone in the last words he muttered to her had deterred her from visiting. And so, she now only knows him by the crudely pieced together fragments she’s received by mouth, all of which were unfortunately futile in alleviating her disquiets.

Nighttime poses as the largest threat – the perfect sheath of dusk for the summit of deviant activity, especially for those of supernatural existence. Hence, she has had Jungkook at a few arms’ lengths away for the past couple nights while she sleeps. After Taehyung, Jungkook succeeds in strength, making him the most qualified to guard against whatever tribulations are hiding in the night.

It didn’t come as easy to Jungkook to fall asleep just anywhere like it did for Taehyung though. The incubus effortlessly found slumber atop floorboards that were buffered by a mere pillow. Meanwhile, Jungkook finds himself tipping over windowsills and toppling over edges of bedframes when he even just grazes a snooze that wasn’t in his own bed. Tonight, he’s grating and rustling against the wood panels in a seemingly endless pursuit for a forgiving position on the ground, even with the layers of blankets and cushions she’s assembled into a makeshift sleeping bag.

The girl mirrors his sleeplessness with her own.

“Jungkook,” she sighs and elevates her shoulders in bed with the prop of her elbow. “Go home.”

Jungkook twists his head around to her, and the quick of his reaction only confirms how estranged he is to sleep.

“Go home,” she repeats with a sadness when she reads the barren in his irises, loud even in the shadows. “Get some rest in your own bed.”

“I can’t just leave you alone. Especially at night.” A grog swathes his voice.

“I’ll be fine. And you can’t fend anything off when you’re so worn out anyway.”

She speaks in gentle volumes that envelopes a vivid, sincere plead, and it sits him up with an uncertain hand raking against the nape of his neck. Another word of reassurance from her, accompanied by the overwhelming craving for his cold bedsheets that promises an uninterrupted rest, and Jungkook leaves by her bedroom window.

The girl flattens back down onto her bed, breathing in with relief the still hush that’ll encourage her own unbroken slumber. And she’s allowed to think that for about six minutes, until the fabric of Taehyung’s clothes susurrate against her window frame.

Initially unidentified, the noises rattle her with a wince. Even after recognizing him as he faces her in a slump on the sill, her bones still shiver at the glimpse of the near eerie paleness of his skin, glowing as if dimness is no deterrent. His wounded arm seems to have recovered most of its mobility, but the bandages that hide the scene suggest that the gashes remained vulnerable. Before her exasperation could carve words questioning why he was out of bed, he breaks the air with his own gritted vex.

“You know you can’t be alone, especially at night.”

She deflates, head wilting on her shoulders. She doesn’t want an argument at this time of night while she’s been brewing in this state of turmoil, but it’s what he greets her with after his interval of cold seclusion that he started curtly, unjustly. The sigh that empties from her chest is hefty. “Jungkook wasn’t sleeping. He needs sleep.”

The familiar lets go of his own disheartened exhale as he falls deeper against the wooden frame. He’s reminded of what a fussy sleeper the youngest is and recalls the absence that occupied his stare when he arrived home moments ago. “Fine. I’ll stay.”

She purses her lips tightly. “Are you in any state to do that?” her counter is frail, concerned. “How are you feeling?” she tries.

“I’m fine.”

He’s a broken record that recites the same acquainted phrase that evades any delving honesty. It’s delivered just as blunt as any other time, and it bullies her already faltering spirit to wane further. A corner of her forehead sinks into the flat of her palm.

He swallows, recognizing that even a hush couldn’t disguise the bleakness that left his lips and elicited the dispirited surrender in her silent reply. His heart sits a little heavier in his chest. He softens his tone this time as the pang of remorse inspires him to browse the surface of transparency. “I’ve been resting. I’m healing. I’ll return back to normal in a few days.”

Finally, he offers a trace of accessibility, and it’s enough to lift her peer to directly meet his eyes. She drives the crescent of her nails into her palms. “But you won’t.” The blanched quality that swamps his irises will certainly remain a few days from now, an eternity even if he keeps eluding her like this. Her legs swing to flatten her soles on the floor. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t need anything from you,” he speaks without hesitation, and it ties a hurtful knot in her gut.

His blatant lies would’ve enthused her anger if she wasn’t already submerged in hurt. “Why are you doing this? We both know very well there’s something I can do for you. You’re like this because of me, because of what you do for me, and because of what you’ll continue to do for me until you’re on the brink of death.” Composure is held at a grand length away from her. A gale of frustrated words sputters from her lips while tight fists rigidly fixed at her sides drain of colour. “So why won’t you let me do this for you? It’s what you need and it’s what you’ve been trying to do since the day we met.”

“That’s just it!” he at last grazes a volume that strays from the safety of scripted detachment. “You just feel indebted because you blame yourself. It’s not your fault, and I won’t take advantage of you like that.” With the upset sigh that follows from his chest, his eyes slope down to the wooden panels of the floor rather than confronting the perseverance in her stare.

He is distraught, and yet it spreads a warmth to ease the twinge inside her, because it was his cold front pulling back to reveal unpolluted intentions fostered by his concern for her. He’s thwarted by the idea that he’s forcing a hand over her. Except, he hadn’t realized – and maybe, she hadn’t either – the craving for him that’s taken her from the start.

The sheets are squeezed between her fingers as, in the brief interval of a soundless air between them, a subtle muse of what if’s ghosts in her mind. Then, a few modest movements pull her off the bed. “Taehyung,” the wisp of his name travels on a thin breath. A few more timid strides retire the distance between them.

His jaw tightens in response, gaze still resolute in being her stranger. “Don’t—“

She carefully dips to her knees in front of him, so that she falls under the meet of his eyes. His breath hitches in the cap of his throat when he distinguishes a lace of longing weaved in her irises. A clench claims his muscles when her meek fingers overlap his with tantalizing delicacy.

“I want you.”

Taehyung remains unmoving alongside her docile tenor, but it is him refusing to let the charge of anticipation from within reach the surface before he confirms the allure that she projects. “Don’t say things you can’t take back.” There’s a gravel in his voice composed by the restraint that occupies him.

“I haven’t.” The whine in her whisper is nearly invisible, yet it couldn’t evade his refined senses. The weakness that gains on her only confirms her declaration. She shakes in her respires as she climbs her nose closer to his. His grazing hot breath paints her face with deep colours. “I want you,” she repeats so that in their new abbreviated vicinity, he could catch in full her radiating desire.

Inhibitions evaporated, Taehyung immerses in his hunger.

His lips crush against hers with fever before he’s greedily drinking in the gasp that fogs over his tongue from her mouth. The deficit of withheld indulgence abounds him with a ravenous impatience, and it shows in the way his palms splay the nape of her neck and the small of her back to further sink him into unventured depths of her kisses. He drapes her tongue in the invigored vibrations of his hum when he feels her small hands gain desperate clutches on his shoulders while she’s fighting to catch up with his gluttonous pace. The inundation that cripples her breath afflicts just the same tremors in her kneel atop the unaccommodating floorboards. Her limbs stutter, her lungs give, and she’s forced to just barely break from his lips with a pant. It echoes in his ear with a lust that sings to his animal quality.

He catches her before a space is able to exist between their chests, and the heat doesn’t depart even when he’s haste in moving to lay her down in bed with his own frame a meld atop hers. While his lips close right back in with the rake of his teeth that seeks to swell her bottom plump, scarce surges course his body in reminder of what the rapture of revitalization feels like. The taster of an energy that is soon to be brimming coaxes his appetite to thunder, so that his zeal refuses to break himself from the caresses of her tongue if he were to slide the tank top over her head. Instead, he drags the straps down her shoulders while their wet warmths continue to cushion around one another.

She is just as starved, and the tugging that torrents between her thighs to the stretch of her lower abdomen is a tireless reminder of just so. Rejecting any leave from his kisses as well, her back arcs in allowing him ease in peeling her top down further, just until her breasts meet the naked air. It’s a short encounter, because Taehyung is keen to fill his palm with its suppleness, the cave of his hand rolling circles with the punctuation of burrowing nails. All the while, his mouth drops to catch her other nipple and feel it pebble against his tongue. Her chest flitters under his ardent touches in mirror of her respires that had rid themselves of her control. The saturation that grows between her legs makes her frantic in pulling the back of his shirt up over his neck, anxious to relish in the bliss of flushed skin against flushed skin.

The writhing legs hooked around his hips has him dragging a smirk down the length of her torso, trailing raw redness that will bloom purple the next day. The salt of her skin is of an inebriating flavour. The drifting smell of her slick desire enthrals him to a carnal degree. The pulsing gains on him more and more. It all debilitates him just enough that he forgets to overlap judgement with action, and the pair of shorts he meant to glide down her legs hadn’t even reached her knees before they were frayed cloths completely torn from her figure. He’s even taken her panties with it, and as soon as her wet cunt is chilled by the cool air that kisses it, a moan of his name announcing her vulnerability shivers from her lips. And it keeps him from restoring any remnant of restraint.

Taehyung is eager to feel the sodden gloss of her slit for himself, and an unrelenting hand captures both of her wrists above her head to fix her in place for him to do just so. The pads of his fingers run a thorough trail that spreads the sheen for her to feel what an indecent mess she’s made of herself. All the while, he casts an unwavering gaze over her, indulging in the visceral reactions that rips through her.

Her helplessness roars under his stare, inspiring her to squirm against his touches that mercilessly walk the line between a ghost and a fulfillment. With hips innately rolling into the shapes he draws on her clit and walls fanatically clenching in a plead to be stretched, she climbs to a desperation that has her gasping for a breath. “Taehyung, please, I want it already.” Choked are her groans, but her imploring eyes flicker to find his in assisting her appeal.

Every element of her existence screams with need, and he wants it just as much—he needs it even more. But the sight of her hysteria to be filled by him is riveting.

“Hm? Want what?” His digits retreat from her sopping cunt and it earns him a gulp of relief from her, thinking that he was finally going to accommodate with his cock. Instead, Taehyung is grotesquely leisure in travelling his index to his mouth. His lips catch the dribble around his knuckle while his stare is resilient against her own rolling vision as he enjoys her taste. He tastes her like she belongs to him, and he’s awfully convincing.

“Fuck me, Taehyung.” She’s breathless as her thighs shudder against each other to demonstrate her restlessness for friction, impatient to be filled by him.

It is as if he intends to extort her suffering when he pushes his still saturated middle finger into her own mouth, splaying her own flavour across the cavity. She then works resolutely to lap the length to prove of her mania. He huffs a billow of something between a taunt and fascination to disguise the irreparable extent of how hypnotized he really was.

His bound on her wrists slacken, and he watches raptly as she hardly allows even a second to exist before her thirst drives her to pry herself from his grasp and lower to the tent in his pants. While she palms his hard-on, they sync in groans of urgency. Feeling the throb of it in her clasp even over his clothes peaks her greed, so she moves without waste when she straightens up and tears the waistband down his hips.

A purr rolls from her throat in finally having the heat of his cock in her hold, and she’s eager to spiral her thumb around the glisten that sheaths the rose tip. She’s mesmerized as she sizes his shaft against her hand.

“F-Fuck.” His daunting girth reels a curse from her lips before she’s able to catch it.

Has she even seen anything comparable to him? The sheer length of him makes her mouth crave to taste him, to stretch around him, to abrade the cap of her throat. But her greater hunger is the swelter between her legs. A single grip pumps his member a few times while her other hand dives past her pelvis, fingering her entrance and parting her digits in trying to stretch herself in preparation for him.

It’s a shamelessly lewd sight that has him viciously vexed towards any more delay. He hooks around the back of her knees and pulls brusquely so that she falls flat on her back. Hisses of greed brim his mouth as he grazes her slick folds with the aching head of his cock, previewing of the pleasurable tightness that’s to come and the vitalization that’ll follow.

“Yes, please,” she again begs in the currency of whispers and quaking limbs.

Taehyung is gradual as he pushes into her. Her neck cranes until it strains and her head is abysmally sunk into the pillow. Her eyes roll back until she feels the pulling of a stressed nerve. “Oh my god, you’re so—oh,” she gasps for a breath that seems to be at an unreachable distance when he’s filled her to the hilt. Her brows squeeze together and the seam of her lips adopt a taut purse as she is sorely inexpert against his overwhelming size.

He has to softly call her name a few times to reclaim her attention from the loud ache. His fingers frame the side of her face as he searches for her eyes. “We can stop.” The twist she wears in her expression convinces him that it’s a sensible suggestion.

“No!” she pants, desperate, as she embraces him closer so he doesn’t leave and take with him the linger of bliss that was beginning to surface. “More,” her untidy kisses drag along his jaw to sway him, “please, please.”

His hand braces on the mattress next to her head as a strangled sigh empties from his chest when she writhes in chase of movement. It amplifies the pulses that colonizes his entirety in a way that boasts of a point of no return. He gives in to the brash craving, and his hips adopt a steady rock that wrings him of a guttural moan.

Taehyung moves with a curbed pace, and yet she stretches from him to an unmapped capacity. It’s an otherworldly trance, an unparalleled fever. Every careful lunge has the ridges of his amply fulfilling size grazing every curve of her walls, exploiting her for every elated sound she is capable of. And for every one of her whines that gain in volume and colour, he mirrors with the heavying of his thrusts, meeting each of her clenches with a grunt that speaks of his own summiting appetite.

“So fucking tight,” he hisses, nothing short of predatory, “so fucking good.”

It’s not long until he’s already teasing a cap of nerves that floods her with ecstasy, prompting her arms and legs to envelop his strong frame in fervently inviting the depth. She’s forced to drive the clamp her teeth down on his shoulder to bite back the lurid moans that threatens to wrench from her mouth with alarming noise. It comes as a displeasure to the familiar, because he pulls out of her only to plunge back in with a remorseless force that drives her crown into the bed’s headboard.

“I want to hear you.” The animal vibrations of his peeved growl are palpable against the flush of her skin.

The escaped yelp of startle urges her to pack her knuckles between her teeth. “B-but—neighbours,” she shakes gracelessly in her words under the pound of his cock.

“I don’t care. Let me hear you.”

She couldn’t protest against the brute in his voice or the alien strength in each of his heaves, so a cry of pleasure is quick to follow, and it casts a smug quality over his grin. He huffs proudly at the depth he gains and the squeaks it earns him. He feels every shiver, every twitch, every rhythm under him with an immaculately sharp perception. His forehead falls against hers, connecting her pitched mewls with his gravelly groans, as he’s coerced further into a yield against the restoring vivacity that demands a deeper burrow, a greedier pace. He’s entranced, palming the base of her throat to fix her down so she has nowhere to go but to take all of him in. He eases his thorough sliding to cavernous depths with the throw of her legs over his shoulders.

The unacquainted pleasure hoods her eyes and hazes any thoughts that weren’t carnal, yet she couldn’t dismiss the foreign fire behind his eyes now, framed by the colours returning to his skin. His movements drive with a ravenous haste and power, as if exhaustion is a distant stranger. Her thrilled hums escalate to gasping shrieks when he starts ramming into her like he wants to fuck her into the mattress. Her skin threatens to tear under his raking fingers, and her hips stutter with ache with each of his untiring thrusts. The bed groans to all corners of the steamed room under their tenacious rock.

“Oh! Taehyung!” she is winded, the flat of her hands frantically grappling across his chest when the fleshy fold of nerves twinges with every meet of his laden length.

A panic hitches his breath in his throat and suspends his movement, “Shit.” Concern displaces the blaze in his irises. “Am I hurting you?”

“No,” she pants, restlessness plaguing her every tenor, “I like it.” She reassures with a hand that swipes at the beads of sweat collecting between his brows and trickling down his chin. While the break is appreciated for her to catch her breath, the throb that claims her walls only promises that she is desperate for more. She convinces him just so with the eager capture of his lips with her own, where a ghost of a plead exists in between. “Please don’t stop.”

Taehyung holds himself still there above her — a short moment yet feeling like perpetuity to her — as his eyes show a ponder. Her mouth starts to carve a displeased whine he pulls away, and with him the leave of his cock from the sheath of her heat. But it is extinguished before finding sound when his intimate warmth cascades down her spine instead. The incubus moves her on her side to lay beside her back, his chest moulding against her shoulders.

An elated whimper shivers from her tongue when he pulls her top thigh towards his hip before carefully gliding back in her. Their new position limits his reach and curbs his haste, which is likely his intention. Though she was within the vicinity of unbridled bliss that came with the soreness of his primal strides, she is just ecstatic to be filled by him again.

His arm that slithers under her holds her chest as if asserting possession, while their hips roll together with attuned fluency. He keeps her figure close and hot against him as he loses himself again in the loud sounds of her cunt wet with desire, of sweaty skin slapping and grinding against each other as he drills into her.

It seems like Taehyung’s gone on for ages, longer than she’s ever experienced before, yet his intensity seemingly refuses to falter. The brimming of her cunt by his delectable lunges is edging her closer to the idyllic sensations of a springing coil. He must be in a mutual proximity, because his swift motions were straying from rhythm. He confirms with the profanities that punctuates his erratic respires.

“Yes, please, please, please.” A vibrant volume flares in her chest for her to invite his veer into a tempo that pumps into her as if to chastise her pretty pussy. Her whines soar madly when an onrush of exhilaration strangles her muscles and sends her hands in a thrash that’s frantic for purchase, finding it in the locks of his hair and the crumpled cushions of her bed. It’s a foreign unravel – she’s never had an orgasm quite like it, seemingly a sensation that’ll follow her until kingdom come.

Climax bleeds into every one of her nerves, and she continues to twitch against him while he is close behind. Clutching onto her for her to take the whole of his stuttering core, he nuzzles the crook of her neck with gruff sighs that announce loudly through clenched teeth, just barely grazing a thunder. He empties into her, his thick load drenching her quivering walls with a warmth that parts her lips with a delirious grin.

Hazy waves roll down her entirety while she catches her breath. A purr falls from her lips when the pull of his cock trails a hot dribble of his seed to the seams of her sex. As the lingers of her high recedes further and further, she feels more and more of the soreness that weighs on her body. So much so that she could only find enough dexterity to just turn her head to follow him when his temperature draws away before rolling onto his back.

The fog of her mind nearly sobers right up when she registers the aura that just about renders him unfamiliar. He glows with an energy that warns of rampant strength, even to her mortal eye. He tears the loosened bandages from his arm, revealing his lost need for it as only unblemished skin sits underneath. She even finds herself being taken back when his gaze picks up to find hers — his stare reads with an unearthly vigour.

Taehyung lifts his weight onto the prop of his elbow as he leans over her. Only in this abbreviated distance could she study the traces of guilt that weaves through his eyes. A gentle pull from him has her falling onto her back before he’s sweeping the matted hair from her blushing skin, like drawing back curtains to reveal the rouge rawness that streaks her shoulders. He follows the evidence of his previously burrowing fingers down to her chest, he waist, her thighs. Taehyung is silent, but the self-disappointment that consumes his expressions doesn’t need a voice to be loud. He had edged too close to losing control.

“I’m fine,” she angles his peer back up at her with the cup of her hands on his jaw. Wearing his marks is a sinful pleasure, really. Besides, it’s impossible to find any sliver of regret within the same vicinity as the best orgasm of her life. “That was…”

But she keeps herself from voicing such shameless admissions when she brings his digits to her lips, busying her mouth with the peppered kisses she runs along the length of his index. The greatest relief of all lies in the disappearance of his blanched skin and drained eyes.

The familiar might’ve leaned into her reassuring caresses, yet nonetheless he drags his tongue along the red bands on her skin, soothing the tenderness. It’s the least he could do for the replenishment. It is also for him too, to savour her touch and taste while his cock still feels, with pristine precision, the ghost of her tight wrap around him, threatening to be a memory he’ll never be able to get rid of.

Fucking him was just so good.

It’s been an echo that trespasses into every one of her unrelated thoughts, on top of the very related thoughts that already swarm her mind. Even though it’s been well over a week, even when she has the much more urgent event of final exams that demands her attention, even when she commits every waking hour to exhaustive study sessions, nothing is as domineering as the reminiscence of his outlandishly thick cock twitching in her hand and throbbing in the slick walls of her warmth. It’s a reminiscence that then inspires the restlessness to find out just how much of him she could take into her mouth, what his hot cum tastes like when it jets against the back of her throat that scratches with pain from the assault of his velvet tip.

Even now when he sits across from her, both of them fully clothed and residing in a context where lust comes to die – reviewing notes in a stuffy library filled with miserable students who share the same notoriously difficult final exam as her tomorrow morning – her cunt anxiously beats to stretch even with just the pump of his two fingers.

“According to relevant theory, a brain-expressed gene that leads to an offspring that cries less and therefore elicit less demands from the mother is…?” Taehyung quietly recites a potential test question from the top cue card of her prepared deck.

Even when he’s helping her study, she’s losing herself in the subtle grinding of his teeth. When his mouth is idle, Taehyung has a habit of chewing on a phantom piece of gum, which is what he’s been doing between questions. Unfailingly, it’s been reminding her of the teeth that had nipped her breasts to urge the bloom of purple, the faint bruised flowers that still stamped her collar bones under her shirt now.

He blinks at her silence, and interpreting it as an uninformed blank, he answers for her, “A maternally-imprinted/paternally-expressed gene.”

Her stare then fixes on his fingers that shuffle the card to the bottom, marvelling at the veins that trail down his hands, picturing how the entire ensemble would look absolutely handsome wrapped around her throat.

Fuck it. She can’t take it anymore. She wants him.

The girl shoots up from her seat.

“Ey, where are you—?”

Taehyung is left alone with his bewilderment unresolved when she departs before he could finish his whispered bafflement. He watches as she weaves around the tables of cramming students without turning around to offer any expression of explanation. She’s quick to then round the far corner and disappear behind the bookshelves that occupy the back quadrant of the room. When she fails to resurface from the pillars of archives after a few passing seconds, he concludes that he’ll have to follow her for answers himself. An exasperated huff pushes him up from his chair as he retraces her strides.

The incubus didn’t even need to peek through several rows to hunt for his owner, finding her alone behind the bookshelf she had initially ducked into, meaning she had stood still here waiting for him to come.

“What the fuck are you—?”

His puzzled frustration is cut short when she reels him in by the pull of his shirt, stammering on her tiptoes before ramming her lips against his. His shoulders clatters against the shelves when she avidly moves in to deepen her reach.

She is quick to turn the kiss wet, smiling into the messy collides of their mouths when he unwillingly sighs of surprise against her tongue. “Fuck me, Taehyung.” The breathless wisps of his name parts her lips, creating an inch that urges for the delve of his tongue against the cushion of her own. “I just want you to fuck me so bad.”

The sheer wanton of her raw words charges at him without anticipation. The utter urgency in her shoving herself into his mouth, even in such a reprehensible setting, has his arms innately looping her waist and tugging her closer until their knees touch. He nearly growls with delight, hungry hands slithering down to grasp the full of her hips, before the rigorous drumming that starts within reminds him of his overpowering capacity.

A dissatisfied snarl rumbles in the back of her throat when he pulls her away. “I can’t,” he sucks his teeth to tame the excruciating tension of interrupting such delicious indulgence. “I’m too strong right now. I’ll hurt you.”

His energy had just been refilled last week, and without much expenditure since, he risks the fulfillment of the inhumanly aggressive instincts that surfaced during their last encounter.

She forces herself back into his chest, starved for the very ache he warns her of. “Then fucking do it. I want it.” Her lips dripping with venom might as well have carved out the word “coward” for him.

His brow cocks with vex from being tested, and from the arousal that begins its sear from within. But the offensive scold of “Don’t” channels past his gritted teeth before he’s creating distance between their waists again.

A peeved huff billows from her nose. But really, his restraint only kindles her desire to taunt his boundaries before ultimately evaporating it. Tearing her glare away from him, she peers to the terminal of the bookshelves, where a single row of study carrels lines the back wall. She had initially ducked behind these shelves to find cover for her lust away from witnesses, but she forecasts that the opposite might in fact rile her familiar.

She strides away from him and towards the cubicle desks, beaming with mischief in finding that they each sat a couple meters apart from each other. The one she arrives at is vacant, while the flanking tables are occupied by students studying with their heads ducked down out of her sight below the perimeter of partitions. It grants her just enough privacy to get away with what she’s about to do, yet bordering just close enough to being a disgraceful spectacle that provokes him.

The girl spins on her feet to face him while he remains standing a few arm’s lengths away. She rascally grins at the perplexed crease between his brows above curiously watchful eyes before heaving herself onto the tabletop surface. She leans back onto the cubicle walls that surrounds behind her before popping the buttons of her denim shorts. The bottom pillow of her lips glistens under the swipe of her tongue when she catches the clench in his jaw and the flare in his nostrils. Dragging the loosened waistband down her thighs until it falls to the dangle of one of her ankles, she arranges for his unobstructed view when her feet props up on the desk’s edge and her parted knees draw to her chest. Her fingers dive in between, and she’s immodest as she leans into each stroke she presses against the growing patch of moisture on her panties. A sultry giggle with scarce volume overlaps the laden breaths that empties from her chest when shadows of anger dances with shades of temptation in the darks of his irises.

She sways her glance towards her unparticipating neighbours, finding that her quiet pants have evaded their studious concentration, and the desk barriers were effective shields for her lower body from any surrounding eyes. So, she finds thrill in the fret of being found out, and an even lusher excitement in watching his defences wither. She lets the blistering heat consume her when her fingers glide under her panties and there, continue a knead of shapes against her naked, sopping cunt. The seams of her grin tuck under her teeth at the spellbinding skin contact in the fervent roll of her digits, as if chasing for them to cramp up. A pride lights up her face when the tension in Taehyung’s balled fists and the unforgiving purse in his lips is a tell that, even while she tries to remain below an ascertainable threshold of noise, his shrill senses pick up the slick sounds of her fondling her glossy pussy.

The mischief that hoods her gaze with a seduction has him exasperated by her audacity, yet effectively stirred by a craving to have his way with her. His glare swivels between the bliss spread across her face and the tight circles she traces against her clit. But when her lewd mewls escalate to graze a measure that’s enough to capture the attention of the boy on her left, who begins to inquiringly pick up his head, Taehyung’s quick to remove her from the situation.

With unearthly speed, the incubus closes in to gather her into his arms before withdrawing to the veil of the towering bookshelves. The thought of anyone else being a viewer to her erotic theatre is a detestable concept that he’ll vehemently deny success. He demands to be her only spectator.

His mouth crashes down onto hers to smother the titter of victorious delight that would’ve soared from her throat. When had she moved from the study carrel to being shoved up against the column of books escapes her, but she’s instead wholly occupied by the elation of being the receiving end of his pent-up appetite that is now uninhibited in the absence of onlookers.

“You want it that fucking bad, huh?”

She whimpers with anticipation against the predator in his voice. He reduces her to a victim against the antagonistic bites he leaves on her lips. A gasp exists between the parting of their lips when he’s rough and abrupt in spinning her around until her face and chest scrape against book spines and wooden planks. With her back to him, a harsh yank has her panties in a drape around her knees. The shivers that overtake her are violent when he drops to a kneel and his hot breath steams against her saturated slit. Unforgiving hands grappling her upper thighs part her ass cheeks for him to marvel at the wet anticipation that glistens in between, drawing a gruff hum of greed from the depths of his throat.

Then, shock rushes through her before anything else when his mouth closes in on her sex. She twitches at the contact she was so anxious for, irrepressible as if to confess to him that he’s robbed her body of autonomy. A quavering sigh departs her when he mutters a praise about her slickness and taste while his lips cycle the capture and release of her folds. He grazes with his nose when he moves to lap her clit, relishing in all of the trickling desire he presses out of her. The barrier of her teeth driven down on her lips tries to curb the voice that begs to break the still air with a brazen volume, while her hips are untameable as it grinds along with the thorough pushes and strokes of his wet muscle.

But then, he starts fucking her with his meticulous tongue.

“Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Tae—” she’s pried of a low yet audible tone that trembles with fever. The rows of books take the assault of her hands that are frantic for a concrete grasp.

He withdraws just the slightest, enough for her to hear, “Is this what you wanted, Princess?”

A relentless shudder courses through her. By everyone else, that address is used for respect, a friendly familiarity. On the other hand, she has never ever heard it touch the tip of his tongue. But now, it rolls from his lips as a corrupting taunt, and her body responds. Thirst boils her, as if she aches to hear him say it again, to degrade her again.

“You wanted to be heard, right?” Taehyung denies her recovery from his tongue-fucking, because it’s replaced by the unforgiving thrust of his two fingers. “Let’s hear you then, Princess.”

His unwavering regard nails to her, drinking in how lustfully she writhes with a core that couldn’t help but snap to meet his strokes. He hisses of approval at the painting of pleasure she leaves on his fingers.

And then, Taehyung gets what he wants when, to pair with the pumping digits that curl inside her, he invites his mouth back onto her throbbing bead. She implores that no unsuspecting patrons were anywhere within a few pillars from her, because her throat opens with a wanton whine.

He sucks generously as his hand doesn’t tire, and feeling her walls pulse around him confronts him with the realization that his composure is also evaporating by the sweet desperation of her pleads. He yields to the urge of watching the pleasure unravel across her face.

Taehyung drops down into a seat, pulling her to the ground with him. He sits up against the bookshelf with her on his lap. She straddles him, yet object of his dominating eyes, she effectively feels trapped under him. Then, feeling a stiff poke on her thigh derails all other thoughts and solely reminds her of her yearn for his cock. She eagerly rids his tent of the obstructing clothes, indulging in the possessive quality that flickers across his expression. However, before she could lift her core to position her entrance over his rosy head sheened by a film of pre-cum, he instead latches onto her waist to lower her back down onto his thigh where he steers a sway.

He’s still denying her the fill of his cock in wary of his erratic power, but so desperate for release, she’ll submit to anything that’ll get her just that. Hips convulsing from the violent pressure between her thighs, she hysterically chases for contact and finds it in the friction of grinding against the fabric of his pants. Shudders of pleasure claim her limbs as she dyes a damp pool on his lap. He applies a little more caution this time in gripping her skin, before his strength leaves behind painful markings familiar to their last encounter.

His inhale that carries a gluttonous hiss is a tell that he is hypnotized by the motions of her rolling abdomen. She wants to watch his undoing just as much, so she finds the base of his cock with the swath of her palms. She glides the length to support her ambition, and her persistence propells him into a stifling fervour. He sinks his head back into the rack of hardcovers as he groans a carnal thread of praise and profanities.

Her hushed moans climbing in pitch warns him of her incoming release. Her one hand pumping of his dick is hastening and straying from grace, while the other anxiously grits onto his shoulder for balance until they paled. The feel of her, the sight, the smell, the tune of her is so delicious, he’s climbing towards a blinding hot pressure faster than ever before. His hoarse groans pry through teeth that clenches at the tension colonizing his muscles. He keeps up the toe-curling abuse on her swollen clit against the grate of his leg until orgasm slams down on her.

Her mouth begins to carve out the words of her euphoria, but she’s unable to finish in the overriding boil of her core. Her hips stutter wildly, yet remaining in complement to her sliding palm on his shaft until he shot his hot load in a splay across her shirt. It goes unnoticed as the ecstasy that surges through her instead elicits breathless songs of elation.

Taehyung watches with mesmerisation at how beautifully her climax carries out. While the retreating currents of climax slackens his limbs, his focus doesn’t dare stray from her, wishing the movie of bliss in her expressions would never end.

Panting as if her lungs had been deprived and the stuffy air surrounding her is a tantalizing treat, the waves of her body slow to a stop once her high passes and she’s submerged in a weightlessness. Her thoughts are beginning to fall into the enclosure of a heavenly daze when her limp gaze falls onto the ribbons of his cum that sprays across her chest.

“Oh,” she murmurs with a tickle of a mischievous chuckle. But she finds out that she doesn’t need to concern herself with how she was going to leave and show her face with sex stains in her clothes, because one by one, the ceiling lights flicker off.

Amidst their orgasms, they hadn’t realized that the library had closed.

tag list: @ehu-agavebaby @http-jinnie @ggsmashgg @la-vie-en-tae @tangledsparkles @lilacdreams-00 @megladon1616 @enigmaticlove-03 @athletes-of-god @meowmeowyoongles @amanda-deann @atg-s @crisscrossapplesaucey @merakiiverse @jensryu @jeon-joker @chimchimsauce @bangtanloverrrrr @risefallrise @briramirezalipio @joon-july-agustd-septaember please let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future updates!

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fuji-sen · 2 months ago

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the 'evil imposter' just wants to be a baker!

hello little sprouts! Just recently remembered my love(?) or interest with the sagau concepts!

ɞ﹒₊˚ This is partially inspired by the manhwa "A Divorced Evil Lady Bakes Cakes!" ɞ﹒₊˚ Imposter AU's, there is a bit angst in the first three nations but you'll be fineeeee, hopefully. ɞ﹒₊˚ Female!Reader x Selective!Various

divider used is made by @saradika-graphics

[NAME'S] RECIPE AND INGREDIENTS BOOK!

nobody's allowed to touch >:0, especially you damn acolytes, stop trying to kill me! If found please return to [Name] [Lastname], definitely not the creator nor the imposter!

Prologue; The Foodie turned Imposter?!

When a foodie from the real world gets sucked into one of their comfort games, popular hoyoverse game's middle child Genshin Impact, it's not all fun and playtime as one would have expected. Finding out you share a face with the most divine God and Mother of the world, the creator, you are forced to fight for the right to live, so that you can eat and cook for another day!

Part 1: Sunsettia Part 2: Sweet Flowers Part 3: Mint Tea Part 4: hilichurl style stew > 4.5 special: adventures of a pyro slime Part 5: Burning Pinecones Part 6: Ginisang Ampalaya Part 7: Dawn Winery's Grapevine + Fruity Skewers Part 8: Buttery Mamon Part 9: Benny's Adventure Team + Wolfhooks POLL: Pyro Slime Name (Closed) LINK Part 10: TBA. . .

˙ . ꒷ 🍰 . 𖦹˙—˙ . ꒷ 🍰 . 𖦹˙—˙ . ꒷ 🍰 . 𖦹˙—˙ . ꒷ 🍰 . 𖦹˙—˙ . ꒷ 🍰 . 𖦹˙—

Volume 1; TBA

Chapter 1: The start of [Name]'s Recipes!

more coming soon. . .

ɞ﹒₊˚ Taglist! If you want to be added to the taglist, you can comment here or in the LATEST chapter! This is so that its easier for me to compare which comment is old or new, or those who have or haven't been added yet. ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

Also, please don't ask to be add in the taglist through my personal messages if possible. If it looks like im ignoring you guys in the comments about being added, im really not (╥ᆺ╥；), it's just I hold off on adding you or replying on your comments until I'm nearly done with the new chapters. I started avoiding chatting or entertaining messages especially from those that don't follow me, because I don't wanna get hacked or smth like that..

taglist:

@fantasyhopperhea @rhoswen-drake @cchiiwinkle @aman3kkun @coffee-or-hot-cocoa @bunniotomia @esthelily

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#fuji-sen works #fuji sen everything #sagau #genshin impact #self aware genshin #genshin sagau #genshin fanfic #genshin x reader #genshin x you #reader insert #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact sagau #genshin impact x you #fuji-sen navigation

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baylz · 22 days ago

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CHAPTER SIX: your move <3

main masterlist | now playing: Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners

backstory:

- akaashi barged into kuroos apartment spraying the fire and panicked when he saw y/n so he sprayed her and ran to the bathroom.

- bokuto came over to kuroos after finding out they y/n was there and playing music

- she 100% forced akaashi to dance with her

- akaashi is a light-weight so two glasses of wine can take him out

- kuroo and bokuto had to drag akaashi back inside after he threw up in the bushes and REFUSED to go to sleep until he texted y/n good night

NEXT CHAPTER

TAGLIST: [CLOSED] 50/50 @snorelexa @rrinkyoo @meekydeeks @neptunes-secret-garden @gigiiiiislife @akaakeis @giocriedpower @moonschocolate @aliensstolemyheart @milffiz @httpakkeiji @ryuverse @howsurjune @laughingfcx @cosmiicdust @moucheslove @sunsribn @anqelkoz @alexithemiyatic @tangyangie @your-mum3000 @cupidsblonde @renardiererin @k0z3me @cr4yolaas @atsumuenthusiast @nobodybutnnoorr @yumiecheesecrackers @rivaiken @iamflav @v3nusplanetofluv @naviaberries @fuji-sen @izanacult @linmabbe @ghostreader0307 @madiexuberant @rory-cakes @gsyche @kisses4kei @asthmaticcchoeee @moondrop-gummies @r4veeen @c4ttheart @hanatsuki-hime @stilletoed @mimisweetz @ji9sstar @kukkurookkoo @minimarkive

[comment if you want to be removed!]

#haikyu x reader #akaashi smau #haikyu fluff #akaashi keji x reader #akaashi x reader #akaashi x y/n #haikyuu #akaashi keiji #akaashi x you #x female reader #hq x reader #x fem!reader #x female y/n

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gabriel-gabdiel · 4 years ago

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Youtou Shinnoken: Demon Sword Chapter 57: Living Sin (Part 9)

Hiei does his best to take care of Usui Uonuma, who’s gunning for his Jagan. In turn, Yusuke deals with his old behemoth of an enemy who was once merely B-Class in power level.

Kenshin in turn deals with an enemy from his past with the assistance of one of the Spirit World ferry-girls.

Credit for the pictures goes to Ozzy Oz da Vyrus.

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

Up above the Okushiri Military Base....

The flying fortress made of solidified reiatsu (spiritual pressure or pressurized spirit energy) care of the Quest-Class powers of Detective Daiji Matsudaira (the reincarnation of Aoshi Shinomori) landed on the helipad of the base, startling the soldiers there.

Yahiko had earlier requested Botan to fly even higher up than the flying castle with purple beams of light shooting out of it in order to get the drop on the structure.

Literally.

From 50 kilometers above the earth, Yahiko descended straight towards the moving castle, its concentrated jaki beams dissipating against the ghostly human missile and his neutralizing reiki.

He first skydived from the ferry-girl's oar (much to her surprise and chagrin) up in the stratosphere and did his imitation of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu's "RYU TSUI SEN! (DRAGON HAMMER FLASH!)" for starters.

The impact then cracked the topmost outer shell of the dense fortress.

A trickle of reiatsu leaked off of the spiritual construct, like scattering fireflies in the night.

He then did one of his own Revisal Techniques of the Kamiya Kasshin School, named, "DOU GAMI! (GOD ON EARTH!)", which rocked the castle further at its core and spread cracks all over its very foundations.

Daiji's solidified reiatsu then turned into a shower of outright sparks, the solidified energy sublimating and ionizing into pure spirit energy.

Finally, the Tokyo Samurai Spirit executed a "TEN GAMI! (GOD IN HEAVEN!)" that started the downward spiral of the moving building, the cracks turning into outright crags and debris as the teenaged ghost got jettisoned high above even the stratosphere, reaching instead all the way to the mesosphere.

He reached a height about 70 kilometers or 43 miles away from earth.

The young samurai kid drove the Onmyouji's prison that whole distance from heaven to earth with a sky-cleaving, earth-shattering strike, or at least a strike powerful enough to send cloudy shockwaves behind them as they broke through the speed barrier.

"INGA GAMI! (KARMIC GOD!)"

Yahiko's first of two ultimate attacks had enough jaki-neutralizing power to push that huge pillar right into the middle of the military base like a meteorite. A shooting star.

The sublime mix of reiki (spirit energy) and jaki (negative energy) then ionized into their base forms, the kenki (swordsman energy) that bound them fading away into the ether.

All of these forms of energy were neutralized by Yahiko's own strange spirit energy. His own reiatsu or unique mixture of reiki and kenki.

His strike from his self-made sakabatou (Kenshin's reverse-edged sword that Yahiko manifested using his reiki) was powerful enough to warp time and space itself. Like a blunt version of the Jigen Tou.

Only a single helipad-sized spire of the formerly huge fortress was left by the time it crash-landed unto the base.

***

Youtou Shinnoken: Demon Sword

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

Original Concept by Chad Yang

The Kenshingumi will now take care of their loose ends before fighting the final boss of this arc. This battle is about to explode! FIGHT!

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 57: Living Sin (Part 9)

***

Back at Kitaoimisaki Park...

Usui Uonuma shook his head. The newbie member of the New Ten Swords, Kuronue, was outwitted by the legendary demon fox Youko Kurama as well.

If you wanted something done right, do it yourself.

Amidst the burned shadows and silhouettes that were once Kuronue stood Usui, his previously broken Tinbe practically whole now.

With it now capable of withstanding the heat and impact of multiple Jaou-En-Satsu Kokuryuha (Dragons of Darkness Flames) from Jaganshi (Evil Eye User) Hiei, the black serpentine flames were unable to affect the turtle shell one way or another.

But Uonuma knew that Jaganshi Hiei had one more ace up his sleeve. The Chojin's spies had briefed him about the fire demon and his ability to absorb the power of the fiery dragon beings unto himself.

As expected, Hiei boosted his speed and power tremendously by absorbing the flame dragons of the Kokuryuha right into his body, his youki (demon energy) rising to astonishing levels. To S-Level and beyond.

Under the old Reikai rules, Hiei's presence there would've been considered outright illegal. A demon that powerful shouldn't be in the Ningenkai (Human World).

A demon that powerful was on par with one of the Chojin's Ten Swords.

'So this demon's name is Hiei, huh?' thought the blind man, waxing nostalgic. That was also the name of the mountain where the old Juppon Gatana (Ten Swords) stronghold was.

What a curious demon. He had the speed of Souiro "Heaven Sword" Seta and the strength (or even firepower) of Makoto Shishio.

If Usui could conquer this strong demon, then he'd get one more step closer to standing as equals with the Youkiri (Demon-Slayer) Tenro.

To sit at the right hand of an unborn god. To be able to challenge an unborn god and become one himself.

Nah, perhaps that last one was still a bridge too far for him. But this, defeating the fire demon, wasn't.

The dragons roared and gnawed against the Tinbe but like a mountain standing above the earth with a crown of clouds, it wouldn't yield.

His Tinbe then reformed completely, but there was a gap the size of a sword slash right on its upper top left corner.

That was where Hiei focused his attack, sticking the tip of his Jaou-En-Satsu Ken (Sword of Darkness Flame) right into it, forcing its way in.

Hiei learned a lot from Kurama's little trick earlier with the Demon World Moss. This time around, the jaganshi found a weak point before the shield was able to fully heal or reconstitute itself.

Hiei's aura of youki and black flames flared to life, increasing the pressure on that one little crack, like a pressure cooker about to burst.

More cracks appeared on the shield as the pressure built up further and further. It reached the boiling point and then went beyond it. Through this one weakness, Hiei was able to focus his demonic energies and bust through.

The Tinbe cracked apart in twain and then into a million pieces, and from there Hiei released all of the Dragons of Darkness Flame unto Usui's hapless form.

However, that was actually a ruse.

The blind swordsman and spearman had actually activated a second illusion from Jine Udo's Jagan as Hiei attacked with the full power of the Kokuryuha inside of him, knowing full well that his Tinbe wasn't complete yet.

However, by making Hiei dream that he had broken the false Tinbe, this bought Usui enough time to completely manifest his real Tinbe with the small crack or gap finally filled in.

It was this shield that stopped the Dragons of Darkness Flame cold.

Usui baited Hiei into wasting his one shot at him and it worked. Hook, line, and sinker.

Every last one of the flame dragons crashed uselessly against the reinforced and complete Tinbe, like the waves of the ocean crashing against the sea wall or dam. The tides turned but the wall remained unperturbed.

Hiei's Jagan was now his...!

However, as Uonuma began his counter Rochin stab with the intension of pinning both Hiei and Kurama into the nearest wall like twin butterflies, something felt amiss.

His body then literally fell apart into tiny pieces of meat cubes, red mist spraying all around him.

Usui was able to seal the crack on his Tinbe, but the gap of time he needed to do his counterstrike was all Hiei required to strike back.

In that fraction of a fraction of a second, the super-powered fire demon slashed at him at the rate of a hundred times per second. Or more.

Before Usui could block one strike with his shield. Or counter with a thrown spear to the heart or face. Or even activate Jine's Jagan at the last second and create another illusion to fool Hiei with.

Moving faster than his sensitive hearing could detect. Or predict.

Moving faster than his mind could fathom.

Moving faster than sound itself.

***

About a hundred years ago, around the 1870s, inside Shishio's hidden fortress within Mount Hiei...

From out of the blue, Usui Uonuma asked Makoto Shishio a simple question.

"Between the Ten Ken (Heaven Sword) and myself, who is more powerful?" he had asked out of whimsy. "Who would win in a fight?"

Shishio chuckled, swirling the wine inside his wineglass as he considered Uonuma's unusual query. He decided to humor his former hitokiri (manslayer) rival.

"You can keep up with Sou-kun's speed up until he uses the Shun Ten Satsu (Instant Heaven Kill), which is him using both battoujutsu (sword-drawing techniques) and the Shukuchi (Reduced Earth) at the same time. If you're able to disable him before that, then you will win."

"Shun Ten Satsu, huh?" repeated Usui. "Why do you think that?"

Makoto drunk his drink in one shot and then gave the glass back to his courtesan and lover, Yumi Komagata.

"It's simple. You can counter anything you can hear, smell, sense, and react to, right? Sou-kun's Shun Ten Satsu is faster than sound. Your Shingan won't even hear him coming."

***

Back in 1993, at Mount Kannon...

Kenshin Himura sighed as he trudged on foot back to Mt. Kannon within the Hidaka Mountain Range of Hokkaido.

He had Kazuma Kuwabara place him near the mountain care of the trusty Jigen Tou (Dimension Sword).

Like in the case of the battle at Mount Kamui, Mount Kannon was outside of Okushiri.

Kenshin had absorbed enough spirit energy from all the Reikai Tantei (Spirit Detectives) earlier to manifest himself and his spiritual body on his own, without being wielded by any of them.

Although he was kind of curious what sort of powers would manifest if his sword were held by the likes of Yahiko Myojin, Natsuki Shinkai, Likka Ikumi, or Daiji Matsudaira.

Perhaps another time, they'd find out.

Most of the energy he soaked up came from Yusuke Urameshi, in fact. It should last him until the rest of the battle.

The fact that Yusuke's reiki was that immense was both reassuring and worrying.

Reassuring in that they had the big guns against the Shin Juppon Gatana (New Ten Swords) this time around. Worrying in that he wasn't sure if it was Rando's Kugai (World of Suffering) curse or Urameshi's own developing powers that led him to have this surplus of energy.

Without all those multiple seals that held back his power, Yusuke might still suffer from power incontinence. He might still be unable to control his full immeasurable strength.

Regardless, Himura had other concerns to deal with. He was busy taking care of this Chinese warrior earlier, who wounded him in battle that made it difficult for him to save Hajime Saito from Feng Xinhai's schemes and Toguro Ani's attempt at possession.

A Chinese warrior that ended up related to him and his dark past after all.

The stranger with white hair and crazed eyes that Kenshin fought was no stranger to him after all. He remembered who the man was.

The man's name was Enishi Yukishiro, all grown up. The younger brother of Kenshin's ex-wife, Tomoe.

Since Tomoe was Kenshin's ex-wife, that made Enishi his brother-in-law. A brother-in-law with a century-old grudge regarding Kenshin's (accidental) murder of Tomoe Himura (nee Yukishiro).

"...Tell me, Battousai. Is my sister smiling down on you from heaven?" so said Tomoe's brother, Enishi.

Enishi had somehow ended up in the Heisei Era and got himself mixed up in Kenshin's current affairs. Himura could've almost sworn that his brother-in-law had died back in the Bakumatsu.

The younger brother of Tomoe was one of many unsettled debts Kenshin left when he died fighting against Makoto Shishio back at Mount Hiei.

In their first meeting in a hundred years, Enishi even gave Kenshin the same wound that ultimately killed Tomoe.

Meanwhile, as Himura neared where he previously defeated the martial artist, the cross-shaped scar on his cheek flared with a twinge of pain. No, actually the cuts felt as painful and fresh to him as the first time they were made.

The scar somehow ached even more than the much deeper laceration on his chest that still hadn't fully healed.

Like a paper cut that microscopically tore through skin and thousands of nerve endings like a jagged handsaw.

As though Enishi's very presence had reactivated Tomoe's curse on him. The curse of the cross-shaped scar.

***

At the helipad of the Okushiri Military Base...

"Get the HELL out of THERE! Sadojima Houji!" beckoned Yahiko as he sheathed his sakabatou while Botan herself swooped down from above then behind him.

He further chided, "That strike wasn't enough to take you down, right? No, you still have the Chojin's powers inside you, you dirty rat. Of course that wasn't enough!"

"You're being too loud, Yahiko! You're bothering the military people!" was what Botan resisted herself from saying, inwardly reminding the Kaoru inside her, 'He's supposed to be loud, you silly goose! The Chojin and his forces are invading Okushiri, remember? If not Hokkaido altogether!'

The aforementioned military base had long ago been put on high alert ever since supernatural beings started attacking different parts of the island at once.

Many of their deployed teams didn't return to the base hours after deployment.

"Stand aside, kid!" one of the soldiers said, who in Yahiko's eyes should've looked more shocked at seeing the seeming U.F.O. land in the middle of their base. "Civilians aren't allowed in here. This is now official military business!"

Another private attempted to grab hold of Myojin, only for him to slip his grasp. The teenaged version of Yahiko willed his ghostly self to become incorporeal.

The Jieitai or JSDF (Japanese Self-Defense Forces) then surrounded what was left of Daiji's solidified reiatsu structure, their guns cocked and ready to go.

What remained of Matsudaira's seal broke apart like a hatching egg.

And from there came forth the Onmyouji (Occult Priest) in all his glory, wearing a mix of a business suit with an occultist robe serving as his overcoat. The true right-hand man of the Overfiend.

With purple glowing eyes and a miasmic aura that flowed all over his body like thick black and crimson smoke from a smoldering flame, Houji spoke in askance.

"Why do you want to fight me, Myojin Yahiko? Do you bear a grudge against me? Do you hate me from the bottom of your heart?"

Yahiko was taken aback by the question. "W-What...?"

"Right now, you have no such hate in your heart," said Houji the Onmyouji. "You're fighting out of a sense of duty to your friends. To your idol, Himura Battousai. Otherwise, you'd have no such quarrel against me."

Or perhaps Sadojima was merely acting as the representative speaker to one other person.

Perhaps Myojin was actually talking to the Chojin (Overfiend) himself. The mastermind behind all these resurrected baddies from the Meiji Era to the Heisei Era.

Just who the hell was the Chojin anyway? Was he Makoto Shishio? Or someone else entirely?

The Onmyouji's ghoulish shikigami (familiars) with their tattered robes and sharp scythes flew at the gathered soldiers, who fired at them to no avail.

"STOP!" screamed both Yahiko and Botan at the familiars prior to the massacre that was about to take place.

None of the military men stood a chance against these supernatural beings.

***

Back in Hokkaido, far away from Okushiri, at the foot of Mt. Kannon...

Kenshin witnessed Enishi's strength firsthand.

The Chinese warrior had become so powerful he drove Himura Battousai himself from the forests of Okushiri all the way to a whole separate mountain range in Hokkaido, miles away from the island.

By pure willpower and hatred, Enishi grew strong enough to give pause to even the powered-up version of Battousai that had his own magical Demon Sword.

The Overfiend had indeed prepared for every last contingency. He was every bit as cunning as Youko Kurama himself.

Earlier, Kenshin's chest actually got hit by Enishi Yukishiro's ultimate attack, the Kofuku Zetsu Tou Sei or Kofuku Zettousei (Crouching Tiger Severing Sword Rush), as a counter to the Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki (Heavens Gliding Dragon Flash).

Kenshin was also distracted by the fact that Tomoe's brother managed to find him a century later to enact his rightful revenge. His Jinchu.

That was why he was defeated by a technique Enishi must've trained over and over again to counter all sorts of battoujutsu strikes, including the ultimate one devised for the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.

Luckily, instead of doing the follow-up strike that would've also missed, Kenshin had the foresight to do a more powerful version of the Dou Ryu Sen on the ground that was enhanced by the vortex created by the succession technique.

This last-minute creative counter was what initially buried Enishi right into the heart of Mt. Kannon.

Regardless, Kenshin arrived back at his earlier starting point.

By Himura's estimation, only he or maybe Yusuke could take Yukishiro out one-on-one. Enishi should not be allowed to join forces with the rest of the Shin Ju.

***

Yahiko manifested his neutralizing reiki and kenki all over the military base with a sparkling blue and yellow light that blended together and formed a green glow. This then warded off the raggedy evil spirits that served as the Onmyouji's shikigami.

It was his own form of spirit pressure. His spirit energy interacted with his swordsman presence in a way that sealed or canceled out the spiritual power of his opponents.

Botan, in turn, flickered back and forth between her original shinigami (death goddess) form and Kaoru Kamiya's form as she saved the soldiers from being reaped by Houji's soul reapers by using her floating boat oar like a bokken (wooden sword) or naginata (glaive).

The two Kamiya Kasshin Ryu practitioners made short work of the familiars before they could take one life of the JSDF military corps.

"Please evacuate from here. You're no match against them," explained Botan to one of the soldiers before swatting multiple weakened shikigami away with her weaponized boat paddle.

One of Myojin's shikigami-dissipating swings swiped mere inches away from Houji's face, creating a thin cut over the bridge of his nose.

"Swinging a sword mindlessly at someone out of hatred is just violence. Kenshin taught me that," said Yahiko. "My duty as the Son of Tokyo Samurai is to defeat you. That is all. I'll even stake my life on it."

Sadojima smirked. "So be it. Samurai-san."

From behind Houji teleported the ever-reliable Gatekeeper Itsuki.

Yahiko turned towards the blue-haired shinigami and told her, "Quick, call Boke (Moron) and tell him to come here right now."

"Boke...?" trailed off Botan.

"KUWABARA! Kuwabara Kazuma! We need him here now! If he needs healing, heal him up as well! He and his space sword are the only ones who can take on that green-haired yoga guy and his goddamn portals!"

"All right! I'll call him! Jeez," said Botan, who turned on her communicator.

"Language, Yahiko!" reprimanded the Kaoru inside her in turn.

Afterwards, Itsuki summoned a multitude of warp gates, this time rectangular and doorway-shaped instead of circular and hole-shaped.

Inside each dimensional door was either the corpse (as well as ashes) or unconscious body of the many different Shin Juppon Gatana members.

It was through these gates that the Occult Priest blasted his purple beams of negative energy. Before, they served as destructive pillars of neon plasma. Now, they were probably used to give the killed or otherwise heavily injured Shin Ju another lease on life.

"Oh no," said Botan. "Not again. He's not going to revive all the New Ten again, is he? Jeez, we just defeated those goons! Learn how to stay down and give up!"

The shining eyes of Houji the Onmyouji then dimmed and faded away, replaced with his actual normal eyes.

"Ah, you returned. The snotty little brat. How does it feel to go back to zero after all the effort you've spent killing the Shin Ju? Like Sisyphus and his rock, right?"

The boisterous nature of the Chojin's conduit had returned. Houji was seemingly awakened from his brief slumber earlier, when he actually sounded "cool" and "aloof" for a hot minute.

"Hey," said Yahiko. "What happened to you earlier? You weren't the one talking, were you?"

Houji raised an eyebrow at that. "What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb. It was the Chojin who talked to us back then, right?" asked Myojin. "Tell it to me straight: The Chojin is Shishio Makoto, isn't he? Of course, he is! Who else would start a war against the Spirit World with a team called the New Ten Swords? No one but him!"

The necromancer chuckled. "That's a... secret."

With a grunt, the samurai teen jumped and attacked the Chojin's right-hand man with a downward slash from the Jodan-no-Kamae (Fire Stance), which was then blocked by Houji's scythe.

They crossed blades, their different energies clashing against each other as arcs of lightning ripped through everywhere like light-filled cracks that broke through reality itself.

Houji's lack of formal training with his weapon was rendered moot due to his seemingly oceanic flow of negative energy that gave his simple block the weight of the world. Or at least the huge water pressure of the ocean depths.

However, regardless, the beams of purple plasma emanating from the dark priest flickered and wavered as it interacted with the reiatsu of Yahiko.

"That's it! You can do it, Yahiko!" said the Kaoru within Botan. "Show them why I consider you the number one pupil of the Kamiya Kasshin School!"

"Can you really do it, boy?" asked Houji, smirking. "Can you seal away the overflowing, overwhelming power of the Chojin himself? The Living Sin?"

The dimensional doors leading to the Shin Ju were then shut down. Or rather, slashed shut.

Gatekeeper Itsuki chuckled, his slashed eye that doubled as a dimensional portal opening. "He's here."

Sure enough, in one of the doors, the jaki beam was slashed in twain, the negative energy cut down by the spiritual might of the Jigen Tou.

It was from this door that Kazuma Kuwabara emerged, the transparent ghost of a recovering Sanosuke Sagara beside hiim.

"You called, Jo-chan (Missy)?" said Sano.

"YOSHA! (HELL YEAH!) Let's get this party started, samurai boy!" shouted Kazuma, the rambunctious teenager with bleached orange hair similarly styled like his best friend Yusuke Urameshi's hair.

***

And so there he was. Buried deep underneath Mt. Kannon itself like Son Goku the Monkey King from the literary masterpiece, "Journey to the West".

The rumbling inside the grumbling mountain roared deeper and harder. Like it was about to explode and turn into a volcano.

"...BATTOUSAI!" screamed Tomoe Yukishiro's little brother Enishi from underneath Kannon Mountain, spewing hot fire along with the brimstone and magma he was surrounded in.

His spectacles had long ago been lost or burned to smoke and ash by molten rock. The rest of his outfit remained intact though, probably protected by his body's significant aura.

Yukishiro crawled out of the hot magma pits of hell, or at least the otherwise dormant mountain in an explosion of fire, smoke, molten rock, and lava flow that scarred and burned the surrounding forest.

The singes and burns on Enishi's (literally) piping hot body, however, started healing right before Kenshin's eyes.

Not quite at the level of instantaneous regeneration as the Elder Toguro, but quick enough to survive a trip down a volcano and live to tell the tale. Still too quick compared to a normal mortal though.

Besides which, he wasn't supposed to only be burned from the fires of a river of magma anyway. It must've taken thousands of degrees of heat to even leave him slightly scalded at all.

His humongous amount of spirit energy kept him from suffering life-threatening injury. The same way Hiei or Yusuke would've survived such a predicament.

The red-hot blade of the Chinese-styled warrior didn't quite reach its melting point but it cooled down from the sheer blast of miasmic spirit energy from him.

If allowed to run rampant like the rest of the Ten Swords, Yukishiro could very well murder every last one of them. The Reikai Tantei, the Kenshingumi, and the Oniwabanshu.

All of them could die. This high-level martial artist could do what at least 8 of the 10 Shin Ju couldn't. He was a one-man army. He was like their Hajime Saito. A true wild card of sorts.

Kenshin foresaw it all through the Youtou Shinnoken.

The last thing Yahiko and the rest of the Reikai Senshi (Spirit World Warriors) needed right now while battling the Onmyouji and the Chojin's wealth of negative energy was a spanner in the works like Enishi.

***

The powers of most of the reincarnations or ghosts from the Meiji Era—most of Kenshin's comrades—were a result of how their spirit energy interacted with their swordsman energy or fighting spirit, creating what was known as reiatsu.

With Daiji Matsudaira (Aoshi Shinomori's reincarnation), it was the Quest-Class manifestation of objects and materials from his spirit energy.

With Natsuki Shinkai (Yutaro Tsukayama's reincarnation), it was the ability to manipulate kinetic momentum or acceleration, usually in the form of reflection or deflection.

With Likka Ikumi (Misao Makimachi's reincarnation), it was her skill to manifest her thoughts into reality, creating visual mirages or even holographic illusions seen by all.

With Sanosuke Sagara's soul, it was his pure fighting spirit that allowed his ghost to approach Regent-Class regeneration abilities, stamina, and pure brute force that allowed him to affect the physical plain like a rampaging poltergeist.

With Kaoru Kamiya's soul, it was a mix between Botan's soul reaper powers and Kaoru's past swordsmanship skills that allowed them to heal, boost, replenish, bind, manipulate, or otherwise enhance the spirit energy within them or of those around them.

With Kenshin Himura's soul, he became one with the Demon Sword, a demon-slaying blade that could arguably injure or kill a god. His own reiki, kenki, and reiatsu interacted with anyone who wielded his blade in ways that raised their very power levels.

Finally, with Yahiko Myojin's soul, his unique brand of spirit energy interacted with other spirit energy (whether it was human or demonic) in a way that suppressed or neutralized them into nothingness.

Yahiko's unique powers worked like how an acid and a base reacted quantitatively with each other when mixed until the acidity of the acid disappeared. Or how Hiei's Jaou-En-Satsu Kokuryuha was cancelled out by Shinobu Sensui's polar opposite power of Sei Kou Ki (Saint Light Ki).

Their reiatsu was different from the reiki and youki used by Yusuke Urameshi and their comrades due to the use of other forms of reiki within the Meiji Era reincarnations and the use of classic shinigami warrior techniques among the revived spirits.

Reiatsu was more comparable to something like Sensui's Saint Light Ki or Yusuke mixing his reiki and youki together to form something approaching Sei Kou Ki instead of either pure reiki or youki. Even jaki.

It was through these souls—these seeds of hope—that Koenma Daio intended to defeat the Chojin and his unnatural powers that defied death and the natural order of the Spirit World.

***

Kurama's board full of chess pieces were in their proper places, which kept the Chojin in check. They were practically on the verge of a checkmate, even.

The pawns were positioned to divide and conquer the Shin Juppon Gatana, with each Reikai Senshi paired up to their appropriate members.

Their source of power, Houji, had his borrowed negative energy suppressed by Yahiko. Their means of transportation, Itsuki, got sealed off by the Reikai's own Kuwabara and his Dimensional Sword.

Botan was there to heal and replenish reiki as well as assist Myojin tactics-wise care of Kaoru. Sanosuke himself was gradually recovering his spirit energy and fighting spirit for good measure as "Jo-chan" or the shinigami she fused with nursed his flickering body back to health.

Kuwabara regained his second wind even, which allowed him to not only create portals but to close or destroy them with his twin Dimension Swords.

This kept the annoying Gatekeeper from transporting jaki to the injured/dead Shin Ju or even getting the recovered members to help Houji out.

Even with his use of Sensui's seven personalities and the new powers it brought him, Kazuma kept him at bay.

As for the shikigami that served as the Onmyouji's infantry, Sanosuke punched them out with the "FUTAE NO KIWAMI! (DUAL EXTREME!)" while riding shotgun on Botan's oar.

So why did Myojin feel like something was amiss? Like he had a bad feeling about everything? Like something terrible was about to happen?

A new enemy descended from an unseen sky portal that Kuwabara noticed, slashed apart, and closed too late.

"Huh!?" was Yahiko's reaction to the new arrival. This distracted him even as he ended up on the verge of disarming the untrained Houji. "Who is that? Is it another replacement Shin Ju?"

Kuwabara said, "We've already confirmed that Toguro Ani and Kuronue replaced Suzaku and Udo Jine! It's not one of the New Ten! Must be one of the Dai Shin Kan instead!"

Sanosuke's jaw dropped. "No way...!" which made Botan and Kaoru ask in unison, "Who is that supposed to be, Sano?"

Kazuma jumped into action, intending to slash a portal and kick the newcomer into it, only for his Jigen Tou's energy to start unraveling before his eyes.

The woman in courtesan clothes smiled as she floated down using her umbrella as a parachute (like goddamn Mary Poppins, Botan realized), crimson energy emanating from her pale white skin.

"Ah, it's all coming together now." Houji cackled. "Welcome back, Komagata Yumi. Get rid of these insects for me, if you would please."

And so Makoto Shishio's personal courtesan and lover arrived, dressed in her classic Meiji Era garb but this time there was a hole in her chest where her heart used to be.

The very place where Shishio stabbed her in order to do a surprise attack on Battousai Himura.

Also, she had long fangs inside her mouth.

"Inner Blood Turmoil," Yumi said as she sapped Kuwabara of all his spirit energy using the Kyuuketsuki Kakuto Ryu (Vampire Martial Arts) that Rando stole from her.

"SHIT! Now even Shishio's girlfriend has superpowers too?!" said Sanosuke, remembering the woman whom he did a bridal carry with as they traversed Shishio's Mt. Hiei stronghold.

"...BLOOD WIND!" she screamed, releasing a red energy-sapping tornado at the Reikai Senshi.

***

Originally, Kenshin was barely able to defeat Enishi and get back in time and save Sanosuke Sagara, Kazuma Kuwabara, and Hajime Saito from the nefarious machinations of Karasu, Feng Xinhai, Usui Uonuma, and Gatekeeper Itsuki at Mt. Kamui.

But now that his detour was over, he had to get back to his original business.

He had to. Or else Enishi would undo everything they'd done so far to suppress the New Ten Swords from conquering the island of Okushiri as well as Hokkaido.

"Sessha (This one) wonders why even though I thought I'd never met you before, you seemed to know everything about me de gozaru (that you did)."

"'Sessha'? 'De gozaru'?" Enishi repeated the words with a snarl and a dismissive snort. "Are you kidding me, Battousai? Why is the most fearsome hitokiri of the Bakumatsu acting like a gentle fool with flowery samurai language? Enough of your lies!"

"This one never thought to see you again after a hundred years. I was sure you were already dead," confessed Kenshin.

"I did die. But I live again. Reincarnated in a new era," said Enishi. "I willed this weak new body I was reborn into to become even stronger than I already was before you died in the hands of Shishio Makoto."

'So he survived the Bakumatsu after all,' thought Kenshin, who believed that Enishi had died of starvation as a little boy in the ensuing revolution.

"Now I will enact the revenge that I was robbed of a hundred years ago! If you've been dispensing Tenchu (Heavenly Retribution) in your time as a hitokiri, then this is Jinchu (Earthly Retribution) for all your sins! Prepare yourself, Battousai! ZETSUGI...!"

From there, he didn't even give Himura the chance to breathe or any breathing room as he attacked, attacked, an attacked some more.

Tomoe's little brother had grown ridiculously strong. As though he'd been training the last hundred years for this one moment. Empowered purely by hate.

However, one way or another, Kenshin was able to contain Yukishiro's growing threat long enough to assist Saito's rescue or allow the Kenshingumi to go through their mission of taking out Houji.

Himura figured out how his Wattoujutsu (a mixture of Japanese swordsmanship and Chinese kung fu) worked after only seeing a couple of techniques from it.

The Demon Sword's blade then shone with an ethereal light before Kenshin's form changed altogether.

From a 30-year-old man, his body returned to his more youthful 15- to-16-year-old self.

The form he had before he developed the cross-shaped scars. When he was still known as the Hitokiri Battousai. This way, he could engage Enishi the same way he did against any other opponent.

Free of bias. Free of shame or guilt.

"SHUUGEKI TOU SEI! (KICKING SWORD RUSH!)"

This technique of Enishí's involved hitting his opponent from below then kicking the blunt side of his sword at the last second to maximize damage.

Thusly, Kenshin answered the technique back with his own, "SOU RYU SEN! (TWIN DRAGON FLASH!)"

"KAISHI TOU SEI! (BAYONET SWORD RUSH!)"

As for the Bayonet Sword Rush, it was a follow-up whirling counterattack or riposte involving Enishi putting the hilt of his sword against his opponent's sword to add momentum to his pivoting swing.

However, Kenshin had a similar counterstrike technique like that as well in the form of "RYU KAN SEN! (DRAGON WRAP FLASH!)"

"SHO HA TOU SEI! (PALM BREAK SWORD RUSH!)"

From the Jodan Stance, Enishi swept his sword starting from over his head down to the ground. Afterwards, he then placed the palm of his hand on the sword's blunt side to push it forward at full force.

The answer to this move that resembled the Dragon Hammer Flash was the "RYU SHO SEN! (RISING DRAGON FLASH!)", which was the natural Ryu Tsui Sen counter that doubled as a two-handed sword block wherein the sword was held by its handle and tip with either hand.

"CHOU TEN TOU SEI! (UP-AND-DOWN SWORD RUSH!)"

This was Wattoujutsu's version of the Ryu Sho Sen. It allowed Enishi to leap upwards using his sword as his pole vault then attack from the air by pulling his sword towards him by its hilt cord immediately after jumping.

Kenshin drew out the fearsome technique with a feinted Ryu Tsui Sen only to do the "RYU KAN SEN ARASHI! (DRAGON WRAP FLASH STORM!) at the last second, the multi-hit forward somersault sword strikes catching Yukishiro off-guard.

"Ugh!" Enishi landed bad on his ankle, his knees buckling from the force of the centrifugal strikes, the chainsaw-like windmill of strikes drawing a fine mist and squall of blood. "Damn you, Battousai...!"

Kenshin cut Enishi's cursing short with a jarring punch to his jaw.

Battousai Himura had a Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu answer to every one of the white-haired young man's Wattoujutsu techniques. He took advantage of Enishi's barrage of hateful, unfocused strikes with clinical precision.

The fact that Himura didn't realize who exactly he was fighting against until the last second helped him figure out the proper counters to Enishi's Wattoujutsu early on and even bury him right inside the Kamui Mountain itself. Albeit temporarily.

Kenshin imagined he'd have a harder time with the kung fu master swordsman were he distracted by his guilt for killing Tomoe and knowing Enishi's identity from the start.

"Is that all you've got, Battousai?" demanded the scuffed-up, bleeding-from-the-mouth Enishi, who spat away blood as his veins—no, his very nerves themselves—hypertrophied or thickened enough to become visible underneath his skin with vascular density.

This was his Kyokei Myaku (Nerves of Insanity) in action.

***

It was bedlam at the Military Base of Okushiri.

Ten things were happening at once, and barely anyone could keep up.

More soldiers were deployed to rescue the fallen and suppress the invaders.

They waged war against the Onmyouji's shikigami, even though many of them couldn't even see the grim reaper familiars.

They had to use their special thermal goggles to detect and shoot the enemy, but neither bullets nor grenades worked on them.

Botan had more luck dissipating the strange creatures into the ether, but that was because it was part of her job description as a soul reaper.

She did double duty in casting her healing and reiki-replenishing spells on Yahiko, Sanosuke, and Kuwabara while at the same time defeating her share of scythe-wielding reapers created from wayward earthbound spirits infected with the Chojin's jaki.

Also, the bodies were really hitting the floor now. Not due to the Kenshingumi (they were basically all ghosts) or their Reikai Tantei comrade falling into a dead faint.

It was because the vampire (or perhaps succubus) Yumi bit the necks and absorbed the blood of all the nearest JSDF soldiers to power her Kyuuketsuki Kakuto Ryu.

As for Gatekeeper Itsuki, he and Kuwabara were having a portal contest of sorts. He kept making portals while Kazuma kept slicing them apart.

Regardless, it took much longer for Yahiko to seal the power of the Chojin, the borrowed ocean of jaki overflowing with immense pressure from within gleeful Sadojima.

"TSUI GAMI...!? (HAMMER OF GOD...!?)"

Myojin's attempt at the sword-breaking, jaki-neutralizing Hammer of God was thwarted with a simple yet shuddering one-handed scythe swipe that belied Houji's actual physical strength.

"So you intend to beat me at this level of strength?" asked a smug Sadojima before releasing a pillar of jaki that made Yahiko kneel before him, as though bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Yahiko felt like he had plunged deep underwater, drowning in negative energy as the oceanic water pressure increased further and further the deeper he went.

Myojin grunted, grit his teeth, and rose up against the harsh and dense waves of pure jaki that bore down on him in waves, his green aura of reiatsu resisting the crushing force of the Overfiend's distant yet overbearing presence.

Like a black sun whose dark rays and heat reached the earth all the way from space despite being millions of miles away.

It was a tug of war between the Chojin's power boosts and Yahiko's neutralization skill.

Thanks to Botan and Kaoru, the ghost of Sanosuke had healed up and reenergized himself with reiki enough to summon his signature Zanbatou (Horse-Chopping Sword) again at long last.

He had more bandages than usual, half of which were spirit seals from Botan that kept his ectoplasm from escaping his ghostly form.

"ZANBATOU ATE! (ZANBATOU DISTANCE HIT!)"

Sanosuke's Zanbatou Ate, based on Anji Yukyuzan's Tou Ate (Bladed Distance Hit), created a landslide aimed at Houji, who shielded himself with his shikigami ghouls.

"ZANKUU ZANBATOU ATE! (ZANBATOU VACUUM DISTANCE HIT!) "

As for his Zankuu Zanbatou Ate, Sanosuke aimed it at the ensuing Blood Wind air funnel that the courtesan in revealing clothing fired off at him.

The last thing Sano expected was to use that 12-foot longsword against Shishio's lover, the non-fighter known as Yumi.

***

Enishi did a low split-legged crouch, only to charge with an onslaught of strikes instead of doing another Zettousei when he saw Kenshin sink his stance low in kind instead of taking his bait and attacking with the Hirameki.

"SENRAN TOU SEI! (WAR SWORD RUSH!)"

"RYU SOU SEN! (DRAGON NEST FLASH!)"

Sparks flew everywhere as though they were in a steel mill or foundry as they parried and attacked each other with impunity, their swords crossing and chipping at their edges.

Blood and ectoplasm stained the ground soon afterward from both combatants.

Enishi moved faster than Kenshin could react. Like an unswattable fly. Or perhaps a whole swarm of flies. Locusts. Bees. Wasps, even. A plague of wasps. His twitch muscles able to react to attacks or counterattacks by lightning-fast reflexes.

It was like dealing with Soujiro Seta's Shukuchi all over again. Himura couldn't even predict Enishi's strikes by reading his sakki (bloodlust) because he was exuding hatred and killer instinct at all times. At every waking moment.

Like the polar opposite of the Heaven Sword. It was no different to deal with someone who lacked bloodlust compared to someone who always exuded bloodlust. There was no sudden spike of killer instinct you could use to read an opponent's moves.

This forced Kenshin to take the initiative and jump high into the air in order to become the aggressor for a change, even if only to draw out a counterstrike that he could then counter.

"RYU TSUI SEN! (DRAGON HAMMER FLASH!)"

Yukishiro countered by also leaping vertically before Kenshin could drop him with the Dragon Hammer Flash. Afterwards, at the point where his jump force was equal to Earth's gravity, he jumped even further, thus essentially doing a double jump or what was known to basketball players as an airwalk.

"SHIKKU TOU SEI! (SLASHER SWORD RUSH!)"

Kenshin's youtou (demon sword) and Enishi's watou (Chinese-style katana) clashed hard against each other, their impactful vibrations strong enough to shatter steel. However, their mystical swords forged from spirit energy and the life force of their very souls both held true.

However, Battousai or no Battousai, the scarless Kenshin realized he had to take Yukishiro out before his own feelings of despair, depression, shame, and remorse got the better of him.

For even now, he felt like he deserved to get hit by every last strike from Enishi for the sin of accidentally killing his ex-wife in an attempt to rescue her from her kidnapper.

"KUZU RYU SEN! (NINE-HEADED DRAGON FLASH!)"

"UGH!"

Like water crushing rock over time, the constant barrage of counters from earlier finally took its toll on Enishi, leading to several lapses of attention that the Battousai took advantage of to great effect.

Kenshin's persistence paid off, with that last multi-hit attack finally landing on his nerve-filled brother-in-law.

He then prepared to do a supersonic noutoujutsu (sword-sheathing technique). The same one he used to disable the super sensitive hearing of Usui Uonuma's Shingan.

"RYU MEI...! (DRAGON CRY...!)"

Kenshin stopped short of doing his high-pitched sheathing technique when he saw a familiar young woman with jet-black hair, doe eyes, a white kimono, and purple shawl appear out of the half-burnt forest.

She brought with her a nostalgic, heartbreaking scent.

"T-Tomoe...?!" stuttered Kenshin before Enishi's Watou ended up stabbing him right in his chest, on the same wound made by the Zettousei that got him earlier.

The pair of scars on his left cheek reappeared. Bleeding with fresh blood (or, in his case, ectoplasm).

***

Back at the Okushiri Military Base...

The Blood Wind dissipated from the strength of Sanosuke's vacuum slash, but Yumi herself blocked the wind pressure with her open, glowing-red umbrella serving as her shield.

Ah, yes. The Blood Wind.

The double-edged, energy-sapping red tornado created from the heat of the spirit energy it stole and the coldness of an injured body that was losing blood.

However, this woman somehow managed to do Blood Winds without the need to be injured. Or perhaps the hole in her chest served as her injury?

Sagara originally thought it was one of Rando's ultimate moves, only to remember something about him stealing techniques. So this energy-sapping technique was actually her move, wasn't it?

Regardless, what was a desperation move for Rando was a normal move for her. It all made sense now. Or at least that part did.

"How the hell did you get superpowers too, lady?" Sano demanded to Yumi. "You even went so far as to change yourself into a vampire! You really are something else!"

"Stop acting so friendly around me, you boorish lout," said Komagata to Sagara with half-lidded eyes, parrying his probing zanbatou stab from more than 12 feet away with her closed umbrella that doubled as her sword. "You should've stayed as a ghost in the Spirit World. You'll regret crossing paths with us again after a hundred years, Sagara Sanosuke."

Sano left his cumbersome giant sword behind, charged unimpeded, and backhanded the woman. "Nothing personal, Neechan. We can't let you or your psycho boyfriend run amok again in this era either."

"...Bastard! You dare hit a lady?! Youki Duantoutai! (Spirit Guillotine!)" Yumi reeled from the slap that caught her by surprise but then kept Sanosuke at bay with the Spirit Guillotines.

"...Son of a bitch! Rando stole that move from you too?!" said Yahiko before breaking the paper-thin waves of demon energy with "Men (Head)" strikes from the Fire Stance and flying skyward with the God in Heaven technique.

"Not exactly," Yumi chatted with a nonchalant smirk. "I stole some of Rando's moves myself in exchange for the moves he stole from me. Tit-for-tat."

As for Sanosuke, his follow-up attempt at chopping Komagata in half with his 12-foot sword led to it getting blasted full of huge holes care of Itsuki. This made the zanbatou look like a macroscopic slice of grey Swiss cheese.

The scattershot blasts responsible for Sano's predicament originated from a gun attached to Itsuki's right arm. It shot out miniature black holes the size of pinholes but had event horizons the size of bowling balls or bigger. They ate up any type of matter nearest them.

It was a (literal) handgun with black holes as its bullets that the Gatekeeper developed through the help of Shinobu Sensui's Kazuya personality.

Itsuki's Black Hole Gun also ate up chunks of Sano's ghostly flesh whole.

"GUUAAAHH!"

The Gatekeeper had taken advantage of Sanosuke's moment of hesitation in killing Yumi. Sano remembered mid-swing how she had originally died by Shishio's hand and then had her corpse burn along with his in a sudden unintended funeral pyre.

Meanwhile, as the flying Myojin attacked Yumi from above, Botan attacked from below. She flew on her oar mere inches from the ground before getting off her ride and using her forward momentum to smash her paddle right into the vampire. She then let the more athletic Kaoru inside her do the rest.

Using jaki and youki together, the succubus imbued her foldable fan and her closed umbrella with enough blood-red energy to stop the oar cold with a cross-block. She then unfurled her umbrella in time to also prevent Yahiko's Ryu Tsui Sen from hitting her noggin.

From this close proximity, she then used her Inner Blood Turmoil to absorb her attackers' spirit energy unto herself, sapping the two of their reiki and making their souls flicker and fade.

Neither the living nor the dead were safe from this vampire queen.

***

"GOU TSUI TOU SEI! (FALLING BLADE SWORD RUSH!)" screamed Enishi after impaling the distracted Kenshin in the chest.

The Falling Blade Sword Rush allowed the white-haired martial artist to pin Battousai at last, lifting him high up and over his head with his sword and upper-body strength.

"At last. At long last. You're going to die, Battousai! You scum! You criminal! You took away everything from me! Now I will return the favor and take away everything from you! This is my Jinchu!"

The Guardian of the Youtou Shinnoken grunted and coughed, his eyes unable to tear themselves away at the visage and silhouette of his ex-wife Tomoe Yukishiro.

Red tears streamed down his cheeks and bloodstained scar.

"T-Tomoe? I-Is that really you?" he mumbled in disbelief, as though not even noticing Enishi's watou inside of him.

He was no longer Hitokiri Battousai (Battousai the Manslayer). Instead, he transformed back to Rurouni Kenshin (Kenshin the Vagabond).

"Tomoe" then told Enishi with an old man's deep voice, "My apologies. This is the best help I can give you for now. That damn Okashira stole all of the jaki that the Chojin gave me and sealed me and my precious Iwanbos away with it, turning the energy into solidified reiatsu."

"You did splendidly, Gein," said Enishi, who smiled for once. He couldn't face the reanimated corpse of his elder sister eye-to-eye, though. "Now please take that puppet away. I don't want you to soil my sister's memory with it."

Kenshin went pale. He'd been duped by one of Gein's puppets. However, his trickery paid off. He didn't feel like hurting Tomoe's little brother any longer.

"Did you know what I went through to get to this moment, Battousai? As an orphaned boy, I ate human flesh in the battlefield to survive. I was adopted by a rich couple, only for me to kill them because I hated how happy they were. I ended up becoming an arms dealer using their wealth for good measure. I then found out you already died, which sapped me of my will to live. Only to be reborn in this era after I found out you became the Demon Sword's guardian."

Enishi dragged Kenshin's bloody (or ectoplasmic) body all over the forest at the foot of Mt. Kannon, savoring the moment before pulling his sword out and stomping on the Battousai's bleeding wound for good measure.

"I'm not sure whether I should wield your damn sword myself or just destroy you along with that sword. Oh well. It doesn't matter. You could die a thousand deaths and it won't bring back my sister. Even after I died, I couldn't find her anymore. I've lost her forever. All that's left is to make you feel the despair I felt when you stole her away from me."

***

Back at the Okushiri Military Base...

Chaos continued. Fires broke out everywhere. The wind howled like wolves to the moon. The base crumbled and turned into shambles. It was Hell on Earth.

Hell in Hokkaido.

Komagata's Inner Blood Turmoil created her own version of reiatsu—her youki mixed with the Kenshingumi's reiki, the blood of the soldiers she fed on, and the Chojin's jaki—before releasing that pent-up energy towards Yahiko in the form of the "BLOOD FIRE WAVE!" projectile.

However, thinking fast on her feet, Botan purified the surplus of jaki around them then used it to replenish the reiki she and Myojin lost from being in contact with Yumi.

'Wow. She's doing the thing! The same thing Urameshi did when he got hold of the Meikai's crystal ball thingy,' thought Kuwabara. 'She's purifying jaki into reiki!'

Again, Botan used spirit bandages that doubled as spiritual energy seals, acting more like a priestess than Hinageshi the Shrine Maiden or Houji the Onmyouji.

"Nice one, Tanuki-chan!" said Yahiko. "I mean, thank you, Botan."

Botan smiled at the samurai boy. "You're welcome. Now go get 'em."

'This woman is seriously getting on my nerves,' thought Yumi while eyeing the ferry-girl whose astral body housed two souls instead of just one.

A rejuvenated Myojin then did the sword-breaking "TSUI GAMI!" to neutralize the Blood Fire Wave and the pinhole-sized black holes that Itsuki's sneaky Kazuya personality shot right into his heart and head with the Black Hole Gun.

The samurai kid kept moving forward, practically swimming in the thick of "it", with "it" being the Chojin's ocean of jaki.

Meanwhile, Houji frowned, his arms crossed. 'This goddamn brat! For Chojin's sake, he sure is persistent.'

He thought that the Chojin allowing him more access to his boundless negative energy—enough jaki to, quite frankly, revive the long-dead kingdom of Meikai (Nether World)—was sufficient to neutralize the neutralizer.

However, Houji's jaki output remained relatively low and it even started dwindling.

Like opening your water main at full capacity yet still ending up with less water than you expected when filling up your bathtub. Defying the very will of the Overfiend himself.

'The boy is starting to get better control of his neutralization powers, isn't he?' the Onmyouji thought, tapping his scythe's handle to the ground impatiently.

To Yumi and Itsuki, he only had one command. "Kill him."

Yumi then made it rain blood like the Battousai would back in the Bakumatsu.

A literal rain of blood poured down on them, but each droplet contained razor-sharp scalpels. A bloody rain that cut you apart in order to induce a thicker bloodbath afterwards. It pelted the ground like suppressive fire from a machine gun.

She aptly named the technique, "Bloody Rain."

It was the bloodsucker's way of creating the energy-absorbing Blood Wind without having to sacrifice all the plasma that she had already drained from her other victims.

"I don't know who you are, lady, but you leave that boy alone!" said Kuwabara, who finally had time to intervene.

***

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the island...

Yusuke Urameshi had actually been in a punching match with Toguro Ototo all this time.

Right in the middle of Okushiri Island, in fact. Along the Tsurikake River.

Instead of playing with the percentages of his power, the Younger Toguro instead went all out from the start, displaying 100% of his full strength.

'His B-Level strength,' was Yusuke's unsaid sentiment. He recalled how easily he manhandled the A-Level Rando earlier now that he wasn't faced with any distractions or dirty tactics.

So dealing with Toguro should be a cakewalk now, right?

In kind, Urameshi himself released his first pair of Spirit Cuffs. Just like the good ol' days, they ended up in a slugfest that turned the peaceful river into roiling rapids from the shockwaves of their punches.

"You've struggled in every encounter you've faced with the Chojin's forces so far yet won every time," said the Younger Toguro. "Why is that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, man," said Yusuke before blasting the gigantic hulking grey behemoth before him with the "SHOT GUN!" technique, bombarding him with the purest of reiki bullets.

The vascular and muscular Toguro pressed on, healing the missing pieces of his flesh instantly like his older brother would.

An impressive feat a power level or two ago. To Yusuke, it had somehow become old hat. Any S-Level worth their salt should be able to regenerate fast enough as long as they had an abundance of spirit or demon energy inside them.

"I took on Rando, Souther (Xinhai), Suzaku, the blind guy (Usui), and the rest of the Chojin's New Ten Swords fair and square. All I'm doing now is killing time and keeping you from ruining Kurama's plans to take your new gang out. Right until your big bad boss, the Chojin, shows up."

Toguro's eyes narrowed behind his shades. 'His reiki is... overflowing. It almost reminds me of the Chojin's own jaki. Immeasurable.'

Yusuke dodged the Shi Dan (Finger Flip Bullets) by reflex even though he had a feeling he could survive direct hits from Toguro's unnaturally strong finger flicks at this point in time.

It was a B-Level against an S-Level (albeit one who was holding his strength back), after all.

The Shi Dan were even more powerful than the strongest human punches, capable of blasting through concrete, but against Urameshi's wealth of spirit energy, he doubted that they'd even penetrate his skin.

Even with his powers sealed, he teetered from being a high A-Level to a low S-Level.

'Are you hiding your present power level, Toguro? Is your 100% form not your full power?' Urameshi thought.

There was just no way that the likes of Rando, Xinhai, Usui, Saito, or Suzaku would end up stronger than the Toguro Ototo himself.

Then again, while it took Toguro 50 years to reach B-Level, it took only 10 years for Sensui to reach S-Level. Meanwhile, it took less than 3 years for Yusuke to surpass them both and take on a centuries-old S-Level archdemon, Yomi, to the brink of defeat.

To Toguro, Urameshi asked, "What happened to you deciding to stay in Hell for 100 million years to atone for all the crimes you've committed? Were you plucked from Hell by the Chojin and forced to work for him? Answer me, Toguro!"

"...We're not so different, you and I."

"OH, COME ON! Not this tired cliché again!" the teenaged living warhead told off the demonized human strongman in between bone-crushing punches.

He didn't want to hear such things from someone much weaker than him.

***

The veiny (actually nervy) Enishi got talkative all of a sudden, Kenshin realized.

His life story was as unfortunate as the vagabond expected. Maybe even more so. So he even killed a family after he was given a new lease in life? How much of a monster had he become?

This was a lot for Himura to take in. He could barely breathe right now; much less digest Yukishiro's words.

Meanwhile, Enishi snarled in remembrance of the things he'd been through. The people he killed. The opportunities of happiness he turned his back on in favor of a century-old grudge.

The innocents he murdered in order to harden his heart enough to take on a monster like the Battousai. When he died, he resisted the reincarnation cycle for so long, hoping against hope he'd find Himura's soul in the afterlife and drag him to Hell along with him, torturing him for a million years.

However, his chance had finally arrived only a few decades ago. He reentered the reincarnation cycle and avoided becoming an insect or a slug, getting instead the body of a Chinese boy with his memories of the past as a Japanese man intact somehow.

He then trained his body in martial arts, went to prison more than a few times, became a career criminal, and climbed the ranks of organized Chinese crime known as The Triad (what the Shanghai Arms Dealers eventually developed into a hundred years down the line).

In fact, until a few couple of years ago, Enishi occupied the position of Dragon Head that his protégé, Feng Xinhai, currently had. He had a Chinese name himself, but he long ago abandoned that identity in order to completely become Enishi Yukishiro.

He dedicated himself into becoming what he was in his past life and more.

It was because the Chojin himself reawakened his soul's past memories for the purpose of taking down Kenshin Himura.

Under the guidance of the Chojin and his reformed Shin Juppon Gatana, he even learned how to use his spiritual powers on top of reviving the lost martial arts of Wattoujutsu. He studied the Japanese language.

He began slaying demons himself by helping fund technology that linked the Demon World to the Human World with the money he made by being the Triad Dragon Head.

And now, while serving under Tenro the Demon-Slayer's Yakuza Family as one of his enforcers, he finally crossed paths with the man who stole his happiness a hundred years ago.

His revenge, his Jinchu, was literally a hundred years in the making.

"I will kill you now and then the rest of your friends afterwards. I'll break apart the Demon Sword or steal it for myself. Become its new master. From there, in the Spirit World, I will also hunt your ghost and kill you again until all memory of you is erased. Suffer like I did. Suffer for eternity, Battousai!"

Something stirred inside Kenshin when he heard those words. It was one thing for Enishi to swear to kill him. However, what did the rest of his comrades have to do with his revenge? Was he really going to kill the Kenshingumi or even the Reikai Tantei and the Oniwabanshu all in the name of his Jinchu?

Just as Enishi prepared to finish Himura off, a shinigami flew between them like a bolt from the blue.

The woman who sported a black kimono and raven hair zeroed in not on Enishi and Kenshin but instead on the Tomoe puppet of the Puppet Master.

'Ah, I remember her,' thought the Guardian of the Demon Sword. He met that death goddess before while assisting the training of Sanosuke and Yahiko when they first arrived in the Human World.

From his limited interactions with the shinigami, Kenshin surmised that she mainly did research work for Koenma Daio, not unlike the child inspector Sayaka.

'Ayame, was it? She's the shinigami that Kurama assigned to the Southeast Quadrant of Okushiri. Did she follow us all the way here?'

***

Yusuke wanted to end the fight with Toguro using one gigaton punch or one Chou Rei-Gan (Mega Spirit Gun), but he held back. Kept his cool.

He wanted to bet on a "maybe". As in, "Maybe Toguro is holding back and is about to show me something more amazing than 100% of his power".

Otherwise, Urameshi would've already blasted Toguro back to Hell where he belonged and had a 100 million year sentence to serve. From there, the teenager would've waited for the Chojin or someone to arrive and force him use 100% of his power instead.

Finishing this fight early presented too much of a risk. Like eating an unripe fruit or something. Besides which, if Yusuke went all out, he'd wipe out several mountain ranges and riverbanks off of the map.

But maybe he was risking hundreds of thousands of lives over his own selfish whims.

'Fine. I'll push a little harder, then.'

The ensuing "REI-KOU-DAN! (SPIRIT WAVE BULLET!)" that fissured the surrounding ground and threatened to break the world in half was mostly absorbed by Younger Toguro's beefy body.

Toguro's 100% form before might instead be his 000.1% now. Maybe he'd been training all this time in Hell. Training from Hell.

Or maybe this was all wishful thinking on Urameshi's part now that he had outgrown his boogeyman from his past.

Yusuke put his hip into his last punch, manhandling the "ultimate" form of Toguro that earlier on threw him around like a rag doll the first time they fought.

"You want to rise to your greatest potential, but unfortunately you've already been there and done that and more. You've become too powerful," Toguro said after fixing his twisted neck that had his head staring straight behind him.

"You're not somehow begging for mercy, are you?" asked Yusuke as he hit another bone-crushing uppercut to Toguro's jaw.

"...Nothing challenges you anymore, but you don't want to sever your attachment to this world of weaklings."

Toguro flexed and did a full-powered tackling punch with enough force to move or even obliterate mountains. Alas, this version of Yusuke ate mountains for breakfast ever since achieving S-Level during his fight against Sensui.

This was nothing to him. Drop a building on him, and he'd wonder if it was raining.

He hated to think in such a way, but to him fighting Toguro now was akin to fighting Kuwabara. It didn't help that the behemoth fought straightforwardly and without trickery, unlike Xinhai and Rando.

"You honestly sound pathetic now, Toguro. What happened to you? Keiko can hit harder than that. Put your hips into it!"

But nothing major really happened to Toguro after dying back in the Ankoku Bujutsukai (Dark Martial Arts Tournament). It was Urameshi who had changed.

Any of the current roster of Roku Youkai (Six Demons) could take him on and turn him into roadkill, to be honest.

Toguro's form doubled or even tripled in size. He was now doing his "100% of 100%" technique that had him stake his very soul's life force in order to unleash his fullest potential.

However, his fullest potential ended up just B-Plus in the end. Not even at A-Level.

'Quit messing around and go 1,000% power or something already, Toguro!' Yusuke inwardly begged. But that never happened. He kept dealing with a Toguro who could barely make him flinch.

"In order to continue to live the lie you call your life, you're someone strong pretending to be weak so you could fit in with the rest of the weaklings."

"Stop yammering! I'm more impressed with your big mouth than any of your punches!"

Yusuke did his signature finger gun pose and focused his ocean of reiki at a single point of his index finger, gathering all that limitless energy into one concentrated shot.

"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?"

"Jeez. Shut up already."

Yusuke sighed. If Toguro really was going to unleash a new superpower on him, he would've done so by now. Meanwhile, he himself hadn't even worked up a sweat.

Was this some sort of long-con, "Sun Tzu's Art of War" deal? Was Toguro hiding his power level like he always had, using only a small percentage of his potential? Or was this indeed his limits after his defeat in the Dark Tournament?

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I have been a little careless in my fights lately. However, in the end, I kept winning anyway. So who cares? It's my curse, I know. REI-GAN!"

***

Back at the foot of Mt. Kannon...

Ayame the Shinigami grabbed hold of the corpse puppet of Gein and cut off its spiritual connection with the mad scientist using her reaper powers.

She then said to Enishi, "There's no way your sister is smiling down on you in heaven! Not while you're doing something as terrible as this, stalking Himura-san for decades! A whole century!"

Enishi scowled at the impudent ferry-girl. How dare she say such things to him.

"What do you know? How can you possibly know the pain I've been through? The pain that my sister and her fiancé suffered from? You're nothing but a stranger! You have nothing to do with me!"

Kenshin tried standing up, but Enishi kicked his chest wound and pinned him down with a foot stomp. "And as for you, stay down! I'm not done with you yet!"

Yukishiro was about to punch Koenma's ferry-girl away when she chanted an incantation that led to the body double of his sister Tomoe to frown at him and cry tears of blood.

"Don't you hear it? Don't you hear the cries of despair of your dearly departed sister Tomoe from a hundred years ago? The last thing she wants to see is you suffering or making everyone suffer along with you!"

Enishi shook and shuddered before he himself screamed in anguish, screaming until his throat became ragged. Clutching his chest at that baleful look that rocked him to his very core.

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! Enough of your lies, Reikai! I don't believe any of them for a second!

However, he couldn't for the life of him kill even a puppet of his sister. Any young woman who reminded him of his sister, he couldn't bring himself to kill.

He damn well tried to though, his hatred rising. His cognitive dissonance assuring him these were all lies. That his sister had wanted to kill Battousai all along to avenge her fiancé's death.

That the rumor of how Battousai pledged to not kill ever since he killed Enishi's sister was just a rumor.

That Enishi hadn't wasted his multiple chances at a new lease on life for nothing.

He slashed the Tomoe corpse puppet apart with the Sho Ha Tou Sei, his own tears flowing down as he did so. Nauseated by the act, he moved away and puked soon after.

Even though she wasn't the real Tomoe.

'I have to do this. I have to destroy all their lies!'

He had waited for so long and come so far. In the end, it should still matter, right? If it didn't matter then what was the point of all this?

It was all Battousai's fault. He was the one who ruined his life. He was the one who forced him to suffer like this. Everything was perfect until he came along.

Even in the afterlife, Himura haunted him.

"Himura Battousai must die! Suffer! Die a thousand deaths! A million deaths! I won't rest until he has suffered as much as I have and MORE!"

Yukishiro prepared to do his ultimate attack on Kenshin, only for Ayame to get in his way.

This looked mighty familiar.

He hesitated for a whole second in cleaving the shinigami in half. Here was another woman the same age as his sister. Everywhere he looked, such maidens like her kept reminding him of what he had lost.

A second was an eternity in a fight, though.

Kenshin rose up and blocked Enishi's ensuing sword strike even though, unbeknownst to him, his brother-in-law intended to miss Ayame by a mile anyway.

Himura's heart swelled at doing so. Here and now, the vagabond was able to do the sword block that he failed to do against Shishio.

Had he done the same block against his hitokiri successor, would he have survived their mutually assured destruction? Had he not given up back then and decided to fight on, would he have been able to come back to Tokyo with the rest of the Kenshingumi? With Miss Kaoru?

Kenshin really wished he had fought on instead of giving up and dying along with Shishio. That he did.

"...I will fight to the end to protect those I hold dear! That is my truth!"

Himura's resolve in defeating Enishi finally hardened after wavering for so long, his cross-shaped scar seemingly glowing with a red bioluminescent light.

The crouching tiger faced off against the unhidden dragon one more time.

"KOFUKU ZETTOUSEI! (CROUCHING TIGER SEVERING SWORD RUSH!)"

"AMAKAKERU RYU NO HIRAMEKI! (HEAVENS GLIDING DRAGON FLASH!)"

Last time, the tiger was able to cut deep wounds into the flying serpent even though it was driven deep underground by sharp dragon claws.

Would the tiger finish what it had started? Or would the dragon have something hidden behind its upward flight into the heavens?

***

Kazuma attempted to create a portal to serve as a shield over Yahiko, only for Itsuki to seal that portal with Kazuya's Black Hole Gun, the twin rips in space-time canceling each other out.

However, Kuwabara expected the maneuver and teleported right in front of Itsuki in order to slash apart the firearm at pointblank range with the Jigen Tou.

"Motherfucker...!" shouted the foul-mouthed Kazuya possessing Itsuki's body, grasping his damaged handgun.

Itsuki then awoke Sensui's George personality in order to gain access to a hyperdimensional gun vault filled with Tommy guns, pistols, Desert Eagles, mini guns, shotguns, AK-47 rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and bazookas.

He had actually restocked his gun collection by stealing many of the armaments and ammunition available in the very military base they were invading right then and there. Knowing full well that ordinary guns were more useful against living, flesh-and-blood beings like Kuwabara versus the solidified souls of shinigami and ghosts from the past.

In retrospect, this made Houji's efforts to shoot Yahiko, a ghost, with a gun moot. However, Itsuki at least had a backup plan.

"I'll kill you all!" said Hitoshi. "I will purify the Human World by getting rid of all the humans!" His shtick was that he wished for human extinction.

However, before he could use one magazine or clip from his guns, he got pummeled to submission by a revived Sanosuke Sagara.

Botan had healed up the wounds of Sano's ghost yet again with purified jaki turned into reiki. He then got the jump on the green-haired youkai through brute strength instead of fancy teleportation techniques.

'Her again?' thought Houji, noticing how Battousai's woman served the same function as he did with the rest of the Shin Ju. 'That Reikai shinigami is making this mission of ours needlessly difficult.'

Furthermore, every attempt Itsuki made to get away from Sagara was blocked by Kuwabara, who himself punched the demon back into portals of his own that redirected him towards Sano's waiting fists and "FUTAE NO KIWAMI!"

"All right, enough of this!" declared Yumi, who shifted from targeting Yahiko to focusing her Spirit Guillotines and Blood Fire Waves at the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu kendoist turned shinigami Botan/Kaoru Kamiya.

Kaoru assisted Botan in deploying evasive maneuvers against the succubus, with her using the reiki-imbued boat paddle to bat and parry away the projectiles headed towards her before flying away from the bloodsucker.

She then ended up blocking the scythe of the unskilled but jaki-empowered Houji, which kept her from taking flight and escaping. "Keep still like a good girl."

Finally, a black hole appeared where her chest used to be. It was actually a dimensional rift that sucked the ferry-girl's ghostly flesh and ectoplasm away.

Gatekeeper Itsuki then closed the portal that mortally wounded Botan/Kaoru with a wave of his hand.

The ferry-girl's jaw opened, clenched, and froze at a silent scream, her red eyes rolling upwards until only her eye whites were visible.

"KAORUUU! BOTAAAAAN! NOOOO!" said Yahiko with an anguished, bloodcurdling shriek of his own.

Itsuki's mouth curved upwards in curiosity. 'What will you do now, Samurai-san? Is this enough to break you into pieces like what happened to my dearest Shinobu (Sensui) when he saw the Black Chapter Tapes?'

***

Back at the foot of Mt. Kannon...

As Enishi Yukishiro's heart wavered, Kenshin Himura's resolve hardened. Tempered by his will to protect those around him.

The Kofuku Zetsu Tou Sei should've countered the Heavens Gliding Dragon Flash by avoiding the first slash completely and countering the second slash with a well-time riposte, unfazed or even aided by the void created by the first slash.

The Zettousei was seemingly designed to break apart or deconstruct the Hirameki, as demonstrated earlier by Kenshin barely surviving it the first time it was used.

It should've halved the effectiveness of the second slash, but by Kenshin drawing the sword low and removing the ground-based leverage of his crouch, Enishi stood no chance.

Kenshin's much faster and stronger Heavens Gliding Dragon Flash hit low to weaken Enishi's strong crouch then hit high with the multiplied centrifugal force of the follow-up second strike of his ougi, the Crouching Tiger Severing Sword Rush buckling under pressure.

Enishi's counter was ultimately overpowered by the much stronger and better applied succession technique.

However, like before, even after his counter was countered by a more experienced, worldlier version of Battousai guarding a powerful demonic sword, he still kept standing.

Sure, Yukishiro shook like a leaf and heaved belabored breaths because his double-edged, hypertrophied Nerves of Insanity multiplied his pain to the point where an ordinary man would've blacked out in a dead faint.

But he wouldn't go down. He refused to go down. He'd rather die than go down.

Whether he was thrown into magma inside a mountain or cut down to oblivion with the Legendary Youtou Shinnoken (Demon Sword: The True Blade), his willpower continued to defy fate and destiny itself.

He braced himself for Battousai to deliver the finishing blow, relying on his twitch reflexes and his thick pulsating nerves that were practically on fire at this point to launch another counter.

Instead, Kenshin told him, "You didn't really mean to raise your sword at Miss Ayame, did you? Cutting down the fake Tomoe puppet to you was like ripping your heart out."

He spat, "What of it, Battousai?! That's just a puppet I tore apart, not my real sister! My sister that you killed!"

"It doesn't matter if the puppet was fake or not. Ripping her apart hurt you at your core. The pain you felt is real."

"DAMN YOU TO HELL! Push me any further, and I'll do the same to the shinigami!"

Himura replied, "Even though you've murdered others because you couldn't stand how happy they were, you hesitated in killing Ayame-dono. She reminded you too much of Tomoe to go through with it, didn't she?"

"DON'T YOU DARE SAY HER NAME, BASTARD! Her murderer has no right to do so!"

"...In the end, what stopped you was your sister. So I ask you the same question you asked me. Is your sister smiling down on you from heaven?"

Delirious, he started having visions.

Visions of his sister taking care of him when he was sick with the flu, sleeping at his bedside. Cooking for him. Taking care of him. Serving as the only family and mother figure that he ever knew.

His revenge against Kenshin was all he had left. All that mattered. His only reason for being, since Battousai robbed him of the original reason for his being. Without this one goal, he'd be nothing.

He could do anything as long as his sister was smiling back at him.

He closed his eyes. All he could see—the face he claimed was a lie made by the Spirit World—was his sister frowning at him with sad eyes full of pity.

The things he'd ignored earlier that bothered him also started making sense.

Why his sister threw herself in between Battousai and the leader of the Yaminobu.

Why his sister stayed with Battousai for so long and even became his wife (being a deep cover agent wasn't enough to explain that away).

Why Battousai vowed never to kill after "easily" killing so many people for such a long time.

'He did that because he felt guilty after killing my sister! And everyone around him! He's a criminal who's celebrated as a hero because he killed during a war when it's 'legal' to do so!'

He opened his eyes. The image of his unhappy, melancholic sister coalesced into Shinigami Ayame's face while bearing the same grim expression with her mouth.

He fell to his knees and broke down bawling. A broken man.

It wasn't the strike from a mystical demonic blade or the most powerful technique of a ghostly guardian from the Bakumatsu that brought him down to his knees.

No. It was him realizing his sister's disapproval of his Jinchu that unraveled his single-minded determination to kill Kenshin and/or make him suffer for an eternity and a day.

Only sheer willpower kept Enishi standing. So when Kenshin broke even that, he had nothing left.

His will to fight went away. All that was left was anguish, despair, and hopelessness.

"Neesan... Neesan...! (Big sis... Big sis...!)"

What was he supposed to do now?

***

To Be Continued...

The main event is about to start, and it's a doozy. Tenro will finally make his appearance to complete the Okushiri Arc!

Ciao, Abdiel

#kenshin himura #yukishiro enishi #jinchu #hiei #yusuke urameshi #usui uonuma #toguro ototo #toguro #jaganshi hiei #yuyu hakusho #幽☆遊☆白書 #rurouni kenshin #るろうに剣心 #demon sword #youtou shinnoken #妖刀真の剣

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is6621 · 6 years ago

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VSCO and Gen Z: There’s More to the Story by Hannah Fay

Last week I presented on VSCO as a platform for brands to reach Generation Z in a way that feels more organic than traditional social media channels. It gets much of its appeal from a lack of ads, a sense of authenticity, and a reputation as a place of refuge from the pressures of more evaluative platforms like Instagram and Facebook. I was surprised to find that most of the class was generally unfamiliar with the app (other than name recognition)! Below I’ll talk about some of the points that I didn’t get to during my presentation and address some of the questions the class asked a little bit more in-depth.

USING VSCO

During the questions portion, I got asked a lot about the mechanics of the app. Here’s an example of the steps a user might take to edit and post a picture (see replies as well). You’ll notice that not even close to all of the options available are used -- this is where VSCO’s appeal for photo-editing comes in. A seemingly endless array of tools like “white balance,” “shadows tint,” “grain,” and “vignette” enable users to create an infinite amount of filter combinations even before taking the presets (or VSCO-developed filters) into account. A certain amount of the presets come free to use upon downloading the app, and some can be purchased in-app (more on that later). They’re designed, according to CEO & Co-Founder Joe Flory, to recreate the look and feel of real film, lending a sense of authenticity that Generation Z can appreciate.

This is where VSCO can differentiate itself from Instagram, and why the two are able to coexist. Instagram simply does not offer the scope of editing tools that VSCO does -- users will often edit a photo on VSCO and later export it to post on Instagram. For users like this, VSCO is the artistic medium, and Instagram is the means for social connection. This is something that the company’s creators would be OK with, seeing themselves as running a creative company -- not a social company. I’ve also included some screenshots below to illustrate what the user sees in-feed in lieu of a display of likes/reposts. While the user could admittedly count the number of likes and republishes their image receives by hand, this is not the primary focus of the app.

HOW THEY MONETIZE

The app is free to download and free to use for all. Most editing tools are available for free, along with a healthy amount of presets (aka filters). The branded filters I’ll discuss more below are also available for free. And, again, VSCO does not allow ads on their platform. So how in the world do they make money? In the past, essentially the only way was to sell filters. A “shop” icon leads the user to a store offering packs of filters in sets of 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 for prices ranging from $0.99 to $3.99. But this was difficult in that the purchases were one-time and therefore a somewhat limited source of revenue.

Enter VSCO X, the company’s subscription service rolled out as an invite-only exclusive in late 2016. It’s since then expanded to be available to all users, and is mainly responsible for the company’s 91% growth in revenue in 2017. For $20 a year, the 1 million plus members of VSCO X get unlimited access to all filters and presets, including some created to emulate the look of Fuji and Kodak film, and including some that cannot be purchased separately in-app. Users can access additional editing tools for color balance, and can utilize VSCO’s Sens technology to edit videos with all available filters and tools. Check the video here (or the replies) for an idea of just how extensive the filter library really is.

Why does VSCO X appeal specifically to Gen Z? For this generation more than any other, their online presence is as much an expression of self as their physical presence. The ability to get their photos to appear exactly as they’d like with relative ease matters. Also important is the fact that the influencers Gen Z knows and loves use VSCO for their own editing. They’re already well accustomed to paying for services like Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, and more on a monthly basis. Although $20 sounds like a lot, it translates to roughly $1.60 per month. That’s much less than other common subscription services seen now as a necessity -- so what’s the harm in one more?

BRANDS THAT USE VSCO

I mentioned in my presentation that brands could work with VSCO in two main ways: one, they could collaborate on branded filters and collections, or two, they could use the VSCO Connect Beta to be matched with content creators.

Nike, Levi’s, and Oakley are some of the best-known brands that debuted their own VSCO filters. When said presets are released, users receive an in-app popup inviting them to download for free and giving a little background information on why the brand has chosen to work with VSCO and what the filter represents. For example, Nike’s TECH preset was released “to celebrate the release of the new Nike Tech Pack,” and invites the user to share their own photos using the TECH preset and #techpack hashtag. As for all branded presets, photos tagged in this way are added to a grid or collection of other user generated images. VSCO further aids the brand by inviting the user to view said collection via a linked post in their normal feed. Generation Z would, in general, form an affinity for brands that interact with them in this way: “How cool is it that Levi’s (or Oakley, or Krochet Kids, or Nike…) provided me with a brand new filter, for free, that fits my aesthetic perfectly?”

Chobani, Strava, Nike (again), and Timberland, on the other hand, are some of the better-known brands that worked with the VSCO Connect Beta. As discussed in class, any company that wanted to take part in the service was asked to submit a brief creative summary stating the goals of the campaign and/or brand and the vision to be realized. VSCO would then have their AI technology (called AVA) step in to scan millions of profiles and match companies with five or so content creators that align with company vision. At this point, companies can select one of the five to produce content in about four weeks’ time. The finished product resembles user-generated content more heavily, lending brands a sense of authenticity that Gen Z appreciates. Gen Z will also be happy to know that the brand is giving lesser-known content creators not signed with agencies a chance to further their careers -- marketing with a cause.

MORE ABOUT AVA

The biggest rising star of VSCO is their AI technology, AVA. AVA does more than simply recognize that an image is of a dog or a tree or a slice of cake. According to VSCO co-founders, AVA can assess the mood of the photo, and what feelings it might evoke. How does it manage to do this? Its technology rests upon four years of human “tagging” data, during which time human VSCO employees rated photos on how it made them feel, what it reminded them of, and what they thought about it. Still, AVA is not left to her own devices, so to speak, now that the main tagging project is over. Employees at VSCO continue to screen her results and in case she gets something “wrong.” This data further hones AVA’s ability to view art and photography in a way somewhat more abstract than the average AI technology.

This explains why the technology had become the backbone of the VSCO Connect process. Chances are, a company does not care about finding a content creator that only photographs shoes or flowers or pine trees. It’s far more likely that a company might say they want their upcoming ad campaign to be bright, clean, and upbeat -- AVA can discern which creators are best at capturing those feelings much more quickly and efficiently than the human eye.

CITATIONS

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magnavalon · 7 years ago

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The fourth volume of Ryuuou no Oshigoto! (The Ryuo’s Work is Never Done!) is the moment Yaichi’s disciples finally make a name for themselves: participating in one of the most prestigious female shogi tournaments, Ai and Ten-chan’s overwhelming talent is about to take the world by storm.

The volume begins with a short phone call between Ai and Ginko.

“It’s really rare, isn’t it? For you to call me over the phone.”

“So, what is it? If it’s something worthless, I’m hanging up.”

“E, err… that is…”

“It’s about, Master’s ————…”

“Goodbye.”

“W, wait! Please don’t hang up!”

“The thing that I want to present him is —————!”

“….!”

With the story taking place during the summer holiday and Yaichi’s birthday on August 1, it’s pretty easy to figure out what they are talking about here, but we’ll find out more later on.

“Wow! Ai, look, we can see Mount Fuji from here!”

“Come on, Ai. It’s Mount Fuji, you know? It’s so beautiful, right?”

“…”

“Should we take some commemorative photos, maybe?” “Master.”

“Hm?”

“I’m trying to focus right now, so please be quiet.”

“S, sorry…”

The story of this volume mainly takes place in Tokyo, where the MyNavi Women’s Open shogi tournament is being held. MyNavi Women’s Open is not just any other tournament; it is a chance for any female pro to challenge Ginko’s “Jyoou” (lit. “queen”) title, and for amateurs or training group members to become a female pro. The tournament is being held in three stages: the challenge matches, the preliminary stage, and the main tournament. The catch here is that if someone manages to win even once in the main tournament, she will be promoted into a rank 2-kyu female pro instantly.

As he is traveling with both of his disciples and Keika in a bullet train to Tokyo, Yaichi starts giving a piece of advice to both Ai and Ten-chan for their first tournament: remember not to violate the rules. While seemingly obviously, Yaichi notes that there are several occasions where players forgot to look at the clock and ran out of time; this is especially important since the tournament they are participating in only allots 15 minutes of time and 30 seconds when it runs out. Ten-chan took his advice lightly, while Ai still looks nervous—understandable for her first tournament.

Keika then steps in and gave the girls another advice to not take the amateurs lightly. She explains that among the amateurs, there are training group members like them who may even be in a higher rank like C1 or B. While reaching C1 technically allows someone to become a rank 3-kyu female pro, it’s ultimately just a provisional license since they will have to re-enter the training group if they can’t manage to reach rank 2-kyu in two years. This is why reaching MyNavi Women’s Open main tournament stage and winning even once to claim the permanent female professional status is a really charming offer.

Finally reaching the tournament venue, Yaichi told the girls to go ahead while he goes to the toilet. As he forgets where the venue hall is, though, a familiar figure greets him as if she has been waiting for him for thousands of years.

“I found you~♥”

“Yaichi.”

“Have you thought about ‘that thing’? Will you tell me your answer already?”

“Y, you… Why are you here!? Shouldn’t you be out on the preliminary stage…!?”

“Tell me your answer, now.”

“I’m asking you, why are you here!? Answer me!!”

“……………”

“Sixth sense?”

“I just thought that Yaichi’s probably here. I simply sensed our fate.”

“Fate? Definitely sounds like nonsense…”

“I don’t give a fuck about that, so just give your answer. Now. Now now now now now now—”

The girl is Ika Sainokami, the “Piece-dealing Thunder” (Sabaki no Ikazuchi). Ika is a 17-year old female pro who holds the Joryuu Teii (lit. “female throne”) title. She is affectionately called “Ika-chan” by her fans, but Yaichi remarks that she is more akin to a Mononoke-like monster. As her nickname suggests, Ika is a Ranging Rook specialist like Mitsuru Oishi.

“…How many times do I have to say this? If it’s about ‘that’, I refuse.”

“Anyway, you are going to play in the next preliminary right? Just focus on that.”

“Even if I keep winning here, the person I’ll be fighting against in the end is Ginko, right? That’s just plain boring. Boring boring boring boring boring—”

“Say that after you win against Anedeshi.”

“No way.”

“After all, I can’t play seriously if my opponent is a weakling.”

Despite her seemingly careless remark, Yaichi knew they were not merely empty words. Ika is the type of player who shows more of her true ability the stronger her opponent is, and holds overwhelming talent on a completely different level than Ginko. Being a female pro title holder, Ika is given a chance to participate in the regular professional shogi tournaments (unlike Ginko who can’t participate because she is an apprentice school member), which are broadcast live nationwide. In these tournaments, Ika effortlessly massacres professional players on a weekly basis without using even a minute of her allocated time. Yaichi understood more than anyone else that the girl who who holds the greatest shogi talent in the whole world is Ika—not Ginko or any of his disciples. But of course he can’t say that out loud.

“…Anyway, my answer is still no. Forever.”

“Then if I defeat Ginko and become the Joou, will you give me a yes? I will play seriously if so.”

“Maybe you’ll face my disciples before that.”

“Disciples?”

“Both of them are grade schoolers, but they are strong. Their talent is above yours.”

“UHIII!”

Hearing Yaichi’s bluffing remark, Ika started laughing furiously, and Yaichi took the chance to run away.

Yaichi finally reaches the venue hall and met up with both his disciples and Keika. After reminding them to keep their focus, fifteen minutes passes and the first round of the challenge matches starts. Spectating the match with Ten-chan’s bodyguard Akira, Yaichi comments how all three of the girls are being matched up with female pros. Ten-chan utilizes off-board tactics by provoking her opponent and implements the move that Keika used to defeat her last time, making her opponent surrender after losing all her allocated time already in the early game. Meanwhile, Ai delivers relentless attacks while barely using any time and quickly defeats her opponent. On the other hand, Keika ends up losing in the first round.

After a while, the challenge matches finally reaches the fourth round, and Yaichi is invited to provide a commentary on his disciples’ matches alongside female reporter Kugui, who also happens to be the same one responsible for his match against Natagiri last time and his match against Ayumu in the first volume. Kugui is actually Machi Kugui, the Yamashiro Ouka title holder who always appears in the Kansousen extra story provided at the end of each volume alongside fellow female title holder Ryou Tsukiyomizaka, but Yaichi hasn’t realized this yet at the time.

After some questionable reports which felt more like Machi interrogating Yaichi about his disciples and spreading rumors about his lolicon tendencies, Ai and Ten-chan won their fourth match and was surrounded by a lot of reporters. Ten-chan became very popular due to her talent and smuggish attitude, while Ai innocently revealed that she is a live-in disciple and that Yaichi frequently holds research groups with grade schoolers in his house. Before long, the reporters switched their focus from Yaichi’s two disciples to his status as a lolicon.

Right after the interview, Yaichi returns to the venue hall and spectates the final match of the revival round, in which Keika faces off against a 3-kyu female pro who Ten-chan previously defeated. Keika’s opponent utilizes Bishop Exchange Fourth File Rook and drove her into a corner; but right before Keika lost, she made a mistake of returning her dragon to a bishop when mating Keika’s king which lead to Keika winning the match by default and earning the right to participate in the preliminary stage. By the way, the mistake that Keika’s opponent made is based on a real match which also happened in MyNavi.

Keika later meets up with her old friend Sen Kouzui, who has now become a rank 3-kyu female pro and will have the chance to face up against her in the preliminary stage two weeks from now. Kouzui is currently 27-year old, which is the age limit to re-enter the training group. Since she has been unable to rise up to rank 2-kyu because of her losing streak, once she loses her provisional female pro status, she will never be able to become a female pro again which makes this tournament her only redeeming chance. Understanding that their next confrontation is going to be the most important one for both of their life, Keika braces herself for the chance to face Kouzui in the upcoming preliminary stage.

The next day, Yaichi brought the JS-ken who came along to Tokyo for a visit to Hatonomori Shrine. Leaving them in Keika’s care after the visit, Yaichi made his way to Hotel New Awaji to provide live commentary for the Kitei title match between the current title holder Taishi Shinokubo and the Meijin, broadcasted on Niconico. Coincidentally, the match’s witness is none other than Yaichi’s master 9-dan Kousuke Kiyotaki, while the record keeper is apprentice school member 1-dan Sota Kunugi.

Yaichi is accompanied by female pro Tamayo Rokuroba, or “Tamayon”, who is famous for her cute looks and big breasts. By the way, Tamayo is known as the “research group crusher” because any research group she enters doesn’t last long. As he starts doing the live commentary, Yaichi understood the reason why she earned that nickname: her huge asset is a huge obstacle for any man to properly play shogi with her. Of course, the best part is when the listeners send mails to the live broadcast.

“Then, I will read the first letter. It’s a female listener from Osaka.”

“R… Right.”

“Kuzuryuu-sensei, Rokuroba-san, thanks for your hard work in today’s Niconico live broadcast. It’s really fun to look at the two of you talking, you two hit it off really well.” ….Sensei? She said we hit it off really well, you know?”

“A, ahaha. She really said that…”

“Fufu~♥ I will read the next mail. ‘I have a question for Kuzuryuu-sensei.'”

“Yes, what is it?”

“‘Sensei, it seems you recently took a grade schooler as a disciple. Around the Kansai Shogi Association, Sensei has also been spotted carelessly flirting with several grade schoolers. However, watching this Niconico broadcast, it looks like Sensei is also fond of well-endowed women like Rokuroba-san. So in the end, which one does Sensei really like? Boobs? Or loli? This may be a difficult question, but you can answer as much as you want, so please answer this question. Thank you.”

“…….”

“Err… Kuzuryuu-sensei? What does he mean by loli—”

“It, it’s a misunderstanding! By grade schooler, he meant that! My, my disciple and her friends… And since my disciple is the daughter of the owner of the inn where my title match was held, I couldn’t refuse to take her as my disciple, it’s not like I love grade schoolers or something like that!”

“So that’s the truth, right?”

“Yes, it is!”

“T, then… about me…”

“Eh?’

“N, nothing! It’s nothing!! P, please forget about it!!”

“…….Thank God. ♥”

Meanwhile, Keika took the JS-ken to a nearby restaurant for lunch. As they were enjoying some food, Ai discovers that they could actually view the match Yaichi is doing a commentary on through the smartphone and found out he has been flirting with Tamayo (the moment Ai witnessed the broadcast, Tamayo was spoonfeeding Yaichi puddings). Storming the live broadcast along with the rest of JS-ken (right after Tamayo invited Yaichi to have a research group together), Ai introduces herself as Yaichi’s disciple, Char starts eating snacks on Yaichi’s lap, and Ten-chan lashes out on the audience which causes the viewers to keep rising. Things start heating up even more when Ai and Ten-chan provide better readings for the match, leaving Tamayo dumbfounded.

The match between the Kitei and the Meijin ends with Meijin’s victory as he claims the title from his opponent. This result causes Yaichi to feel pressured by the fact that Meijin is going to aim for his title next. However, Char tries to cheer him up… by kissing him in the cheek.

As the live broadcast’s comment section is spammed with the words “REPORTED”, the live broadcast reaches over three million viewers before it finally ends, as Yaichi’s popularity as a lolicon king becomes a national news along with Meijin’s new title acquisition.

The following day, Yaichi went to the boutique “Brahms no Shoukei” along with Ginko to have a research group with Ayumu. The boutique which exclusively sells fashion items from the brand “Schneewittchen” (“Snow White” in German) is owned by Ayumu’s master and female pro Rina Shakando. Rina holds the Joryuu Myoseki (lit. “female master”) for about twenty years, is qualified for four lifetime titles, and once held all female titles at the same time, which earned her the nickname “Eternal Queen”. Her beauty has overcome the concept of age, and despite being born with one foot paralyzed, it doesn’t prevent her to devote her whole life to shogi.

Before letting Yaichi hold a research group with Ayumu, Rina asks him to spectate one match between her and Ginko. Rina plays Fourth File Rook against Ginko’s Static Rook Anaguma which surprises Yaichi; a matchup that is rarely seen nowadays due to how Static Rook Anaguma has an overwhelming advantage. Despite that, Rina still manages to win against Ginko, showing just how powerful she is. Rina however implies that there is a simpler reason why Ginko lost.

Yaichi starts doing a research group with Ayumu right after reaching the second floor by playing blindfolded shogi and spends five hours for their research. With him being scheduled to fight against Meijin to claim the right to challenge Yaichi for Ryuuou title, Ayumu has been researching with Yaichi to prepare the necessary countermeasures; he notes that despite Meijin’s peerless performance up until now, the last Kitei title match demonstrated that Meijin has seemingly lost his edge as the moves he went for in that match wasn’t actually the best possible move.

Yaichi later consults Rina about his two disciples which may become female pros sooner or later and what it truly means to be a female pro. Rina explains the female pros’ miserable standings in the world of professional shogi attributed to the difference in ability between men and women; but despite the fact that they lack talent or that people keep scorning at them, they still keep on struggling in order to become stronger—that is what being a female pro means. Rina’s utmost faith in Ginko’s ability to become the first female to become a regular professional shogi player in history and demolish the segregation between male and female shogi players amazes Yaichi.

As he inquires her about Ika, Rina expresses her recognition of her monstrous talent in the form of the “ultimate egoism”—a complete lack of empathy in other people as long as she can become stronger; however, Rina agrees with Yaichi’s notion that even if Ika will become stronger in shogi, it’s a fact that she is fundamentally crooked as a human being and her standing on the top of the shogi world will completely degrade into merely a game where all form of respect is thrown aside for the sake of victory.

In the middle of their talk, Ginko enters the room while wearing a dress. Rina explains that she and Ginko have made a promise that in exchange for her covering Ginko’s traveling expenses, Rina regularly has Ginko dress in the clothes from her fashion brand which was named after Ginko’s “Snow White of Naniwa” nickname. Yaichi later takes Ginko home in the way that looks like a date to any onlooker, as they play blindfolded shogi while holding hands in the bullet train.

The day of the preliminary stage finally comes: August 1. As Yaichi is amazed by the amount of individual sponsorship money his disciples have earned from their recent popularity, Ginko drags him to the commentary spot since they are going to be responsible for the preliminary stage’s live commentary. Ginko implies that her decision to take on the job of accompanying him is her birthday present for Yaichi. Yaichi asks her not to touch upon the subject of his birthday in front of his disciples, since he wants to help them to focus on the tournament before he is occupied by the Ryuuou title defense match in the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, in the participant waiting room, Tamayo greets Ai and Ten-chan with a smile. However, her words come out as a surprise to the two of them.

“Long time no see. Are you two doing well?”

“You two are really famous now, aren’t you? I thought you’ve got nervous from all the attention, but it seems I didn’t have to worry.”

“After all, the audience who came to watch the two of you don’t really give a single fuck about shogi.”

“Isn’t that right? People would rather watch a match between two female pros if they really want to watch shogi. That’s why, all the people who spent their money to see the two of you playing shogi don’t really care about shogi. They simply want to see cute grade schoolers try their best in playing shogi. So there is no problem whether you lose or play badly. Right?”

Tamayo’s provocation towards Ai and Ten-chan feels more like a threat; but the girls don’t even budge.

“Who are you?”

“……..!!”

“Ah, Ai-chan… It’s that person. See, the one from when Master was doing the commentary on Niconico…”

“Ah, that female pro, huh. The one who sucks at endgames.”

“D, don’t say that, Ai-chan… That’s a rude thing to say to a female pro…

We can just tell her that over the shogi board, anyway. Right?”

“You’ve got a point. If things keep proceeding smoothly, I’ll be fighting this person in the finals, so I’ll make her understand then. Her lack of talent, that is.

But, since she went out of her way to give us an advice, I’ll give this female pro an advice too.

We became the youngest in the history of MyNavi to advance to this preliminary stage. In other words, our talent towers far above yours. That’s why, it’s fine even if you end up losing to grade schoolers, you know? No need to feel down, okay?”

“…You brat.”

The preliminary stage begins with Ai’s match against a rank 1-kyu female pro; Ai’s cute figure sitting in seiza on her favorite cat cushion earns the audience’s attention. Meanwhile, Yaichi and Ginko notice that a participant is missing, which turns out to be Ika. Revealing herself to be among the audience because she wants to watch Yaichi’s commentary instead.

“I… Ika!? What are you doing!?”

“I heard Yaichi’s doing a live commentary, so I came.”

“You are a participant for God’s sake, so attend the match already!!”

“If I attend the match, I won’t be able to see Yaichi anyway. So before the match, I want to hear your answer about ‘that’.”

“Answer? …What are you talking about?”

“This doesn’t concern you, silver-haired hag. , Just shut up, talentless small fry.”

“…”

“Aha. Ginko, you mad? It’s just a joke.”

“Oh well, it’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll finish up the match first. Get your answer ready, okay? ♥”

“It’s been over five minutes since the match started. You barely have any allocated time left, you know?”

“No biggie, no biggie~♪ ….Ah, right, right.”

“Hm?”

“Tell your disciples this. I am eagerly waiting for them in the finals… that.”

“……………”

As Ika makes her way to her match, Ai performs in top gear as she wipes the floor clean with her opponent by utilizing the Cheerful Central Rook she learned from Oishi. On the other hand, Ten-chan also shows her proficiency in utilizing the Bishop Exchange Sitting Silver and scores a victory too.

During the break, Ginko drags Yaichi and questions him about what Ika meant by “answer”. Yaichi explains that he and Ika started knowing each other from playing online shogi together in middle school. Yaichi admits that since Ika was able to play equally against him who was an apprentice school member at that time, it never occured to him that she was a girl, let alone a female pro. Since Yaichi had temporarily quit playing online shogi during the 3-dan league, it was only until he became a shogi pro and started living alone that he met her in person.

After meeting Yaichi and deeming that it was “fate”, she kept on challenging Yaichi for practice matches whenever he came to Tokyo, which they usually did in a cafe’s private room or a karaoke box. After Yaichi became a Ryuuou, Ika confessed to him and asked to become his girlfriend so she can play a lot of shogi with him, which he naturally rejected. Anyway, Ai joined the conversation between Yaichi and Ginko at this point before he continued the explanation and found out Ai is going to face Ika in her block’s preliminary finals.

Saying that “she doesn’t need anything else if she has Yaichi”, Ika threw away all of her belongings to a nearby pond. Ever since then, she had engaged in stalker-like behavior which culminated in the occasion where she infiltrated Yaichi’s apartment and wait for him in front of the shogi board while naked. Seeking help from his master, Ika has stopped meeting him ever since then… until the day of the challenge match. After listening to her master’s story, Ai solidifies her resolve to defeat Ika and stop her from bothering Yaichi.

Ten-chan faces off against Tamayo in the final round of her block. Tamayo provokes her by intentionally opening the game with Double Wing Attack which Ten-chan had used to win in the previous round. Meanwhile, Keika who encounters her friend in the finals is “invited” to play Ranging Rook by her opponent’s move, which she responds by unwaveringly moving her rook.

Ai and Ika’s match begins with an unconventional move on Ika’s side; instead of moving her rook, Ika advances her edge pawn and then proceeds to exchange her bishop. She starts moving her rook right after that, placing it right in the same file as Ai’s rook, initiating the Direct Opposing Rook strategy. Ginko remarks how this move is Ika’s love letter for Yaichi to show that she’s got more talent than his disciple. Ika continues by utilizing her signature off-board tactics and showcases her piece-dealing proficiency.

However, Ai answers Yaichi’s complete faith in her by refusing to give up against Ika. In order to defeat the egoistic beast who looks down on others and only cares about getting herself stronger, Ai fearlessly stand against Ika.

“I am the Ryuuou’s first disciple!! I shall not bow down to you!!”

“Aha!”

“Ahaha! Well… I see.”

“So you… can see it too!!”

“HIHIHI! HIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHI!!”

“Like this like this like this like this like this like this like this like this like this—”

“It’s so hoooooooooot——————!!”

As the battle turns into a speed shogi showdown, Ika begins to lose her pace as she becomes unable to keep up with Ai’s moves. Before long, her allocated time keeps running out faster than Ai’s and she runs out of moves. The match ends with Ai’s victory, as Ika recognizes Ai’s strength. By the way, this match is based on the 25th Ryuuou title tournament match between Tadashi Oishi and Akira Inaba.

Ten-chan and Tamayo’s match has also ended with Ten-chan emerging as the winner. Admitting her loss, Tamayo admits that she understand the extent of her own ability, and that she had also thought that no matter how much of an effort she puts in, she will never be able to reach the top; but even so, Tamayo proclaims that she will never give up and defeat Ten-chan in years to come when she becomes stronger.

On the other hand, Keika and Kouzui’s match has almost reached its conclusion, with Keika in massive lead. Kouzui hardly has any more chance to win ever since the very first move, since she discarded her favored strategy to force Keika to play Ranging Rook. With her feelings of regret completely affecting her performance, the match is sealed from the start.

“It would have been better if I could play my favored strategy for my very last match… Even though I had wanted to play it just a moment ago… I ended up choosing a different move.”

“…”

“Kei-chan.

There was not a single thing fun for me ever since I became a female pro. Even though I managed to become the female pro I have always dreamed of, it was nothing other than hell beyond the training group… Isn’t it natural? I’m always facing a lot of stronger people compared to when I was an amateur.”

“…”

“Unable to win against my senior female pros, and not even against amateurs… The last two years were painful. To tell you the truth, I actually felt a bit relieved right now. I thought, I don’t have to suffer anymore now…”

“…”

“Sen-chan…

But even so, I still want to become a female pro.”

Even if I am weak, even if only hell awaits me… As long as a glimmer of possibility remains, I will chase after my dreams without ever giving up. Don’t you also think that way, Sen-chan?”

“….Yeah.

The shogi that I played today is filled with nothing but regret… But you know? I has never once regretted it! The fact that I ever aimed to become a female pro!”

Following that match, Kouzui takes on the qualification of a shogi instructor and returns to her hometown to teach shogi to the children there.

After pulling the lottery to decide the brackets for MyNavi’s main tournament stage, Keika is matched against Rina for her first match, which left her dumbfounded.

“…Oops…”

“…Keika-san… Of all people…”

“Well, it’s already a great thing that all three of them managed to enter the main tournament.”

“You don’t look too happy about that, though.”

“No, I’m really happy, you know? I’m happy, but… Beyond that, I felt a bit disappointed, like, it feels like I couldn’t do anything for my disciple…

But, I guess she doesn’t really need my help anymore! Ika letting her guard down aside, she already became strong enough to win against a title holder without handicap, after all. Haha.”

“Yeah.”

“Uh… At least deny it a bit, will you…”

“…To not even understand why that little dragon managed to become stronger all of a sudden, you really fail as a master.”

“Eh?”

Yaichi finds out the reason soon enough, when both Ai and Ten-chan stand on the podium together to deliver a certain message.

“Hinatsuru-san and Yashajin-san, we heard you two are going to present today’s victory to a certain someone, is that true?”

“Yes!”

Ai takes out a letter from her pocket, and starts reading it out loud.

Dear Master.

We wish you a happy 17th birthday!

Ever since I came to Master’s house, four months have passed. The cherry blossoms were blooming at that time, but today is summer break already. Time really flies by.

Ever since I became Master’s disciple, everyday feels like a dream to me.

I was taught lots about shogi.

We cooked together.

We walked around Osaka and Kobe together.

I made lots of friends through shogi, and we had a stay-over at Master’s house… I also got scolded a lot, but it still made me happy… Every part of it, is Ai’s treasure.

But even when I received all of this, I still couldn’t give anything in return. Because I really love everything Master has given to me…

And Master is a Ryuuou, the greatest person in the shogi world who has everything from talent to money. Master is also very popular with women. That’s why—

That’s why I have decided, together with Ai-chan.

That we want to present ourselves who have gotten stronger for Master’s birthday; that we will definitely win in this preliminary stage.

After all,

if we doesn’t become strong… Master won’t be able to rest easy. Master won’t be able to focus on the upcoming Ryuuou title match, so—

Master, you always say this, right? A shogi player is always online when they face the shogi board. That’s why someone has to become stronger by themselves.

I believe that is true. It’s impossible to fight alongside someone else.

However—it’s possible to fight for the sake of someone else.

In both the challenge match and the preliminary stage, I was fighting for Master’s sake.

For the sake of my beloved master.

For the sake of granting happiness to my beloved master.

For the sake of granting a piece of mind to my master who I love the most in this whole world… If it was only for my own sake, I definitely would have lost.

Master… Happy birthday.

I am sorry for not being able to give you any present besides this.

I am going to work hard in order to be able to give you an even better present on your next birthday.

And the next one, and the one after that, and forever more—! Ai wants to present it to you, Master.

That’s why… Please… Please keep on being Ai’s master forever.

After having finished reading her letter, Ai takes Ten-chan’s hand and tells her to read hers:

…I am playing shogi for my own sake. Not for anyone else, but for myself. It’s always been so, and it will stay that way.

But today… I played for your sake.

J, just for today, okay!?

Ginko kicks Yaichi’s head right after Ten-chan finished her speech, and the moment he regains consciousness, both of his disciples are standing in front of him. And the moment he sees them… Yaichi hugs both of them.

Embracing the gallant and pure feelings of his disciples, Yaichi resolves to repay those feelings with his own victory. No matter how strong of an adversary comes against him, the Ryuuou shall prevail and win—for the sake of his beloved disciples who have fought for his sake.

Two weeks after MyNavi’s preliminary stage concluded, Yaichi attends the match between Ayumu and Meijin which is going to decide who will challenge him for the 30th Ryuuou title. This match is based on the legendary fourth game between Yoshiharu Habu and Akira Watanabe for the 60th Ouza title, in which Habu persevered from a losing situation by making an enigmatic move which led the game into a draw through “sennichite“. Meijin did the exact same thing, and managed to avoid his loss against Ayumu.

In the rematch, based on the sixth game between Habu and challenger Taichi Nakamura for the 61st Ouza title, Meijin displays his overwhelming ability and drives Ayumu into corner until he only have four major pieces to drop. Unable to protect his king, Ayumu refuses to give up and fights until the very end. After 203 moves, Ayumu applied a lip balm to his lips and admitted defeat. Yaichi is left to wonder if he can really defeat such an enigma known as the Meijin.

Yaichi and Ai prepare to leave their house for Yaichi’s Ryuuou title defense match against Meijin in the epilogue. The center stage of the first game lies beyond the ocean: Hawaii!

Ryuuou no Oshigoto!’s fourth volume is considerably packed with a lot more matches compared to the previous books, and it serves to build the tension up for the climax of the Ryuuou title defense match. Still, the theme of “true repayment towards one’s master” touched upon in the first volume still made its way to this volume which, along with Ai’s character development so far, managed to make the speech scene so endearing to read.

You can check out the first and second volume’s summary here, or the third volume’s here. Also, a reminder that you can purchase the official light novels in English here.

Ryuuou no Oshigoto! Volume 4: The First Tournament and a Birthday Present The fourth volume of Ryuuou no Oshigoto! (The Ryuo’s Work is Never Done!) is the moment Yaichi's disciples finally make a name for themselves: participating in one of the most prestigious female shogi tournaments, Ai and Ten-chan's overwhelming talent is about to take the world by storm.

#Ryuuou no Oshigoto!

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ladystylestores · 4 years ago

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The Coronavirus Cost Of Your July 4th Barbecue

BuzzFeed News has reporters around the world bringing you trustworthy stories about the impact of the coronavirus. To help keep this news free, become a member.

After months of stress, Americans have been looking forward to the pre–COVID-19 pleasures of a (socially distanced) 4th of July. How about a cookout? It’s a traditional, low-key summer celebration — but amid the nation’s growing outbreak, even a simple home-cooked meal comes at an exorbitant price.

A BuzzFeed News investigation reveals the extent to which the virus — and the nation’s inadequate response to it — has infected, sickened, and even killed workers up and down the nation’s food supply chains as they work to keep our refrigerators full.

Take a typical summer feast: tangy ribs, a side of creamy pasta salad, and a slice of freshly baked apple pie. If you shop at a Walmart Supercenter, in, say, Massachusetts, the apples you’d buy would have been picked by workers in Washington state’s Yakima Valley, who live in a crowded labor camp with few protections in place. The fruit would then be sorted into boxes in an Allan Bros. packhouse, which for weeks failed to follow federal COVID-19 safety guidelines — even after employees started falling ill.

The ribs would have been sliced and packed by employees at a pork processing plant — like the Tyson Foods facility in Indiana that stayed open for weeks, even as the virus spread through its staff.

The pasta would have been stacked by grocery clerks whose employer was slow to close down for a deep cleaning after workers got sick, and to inform the local health department and customers of the growing outbreak.

From those three workplaces alone — the Allan Bros. packhouse in Yakima Valley, the Tyson plant in Indiana, and the Walmart in Massachusetts — around 1,100 workers have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least four have died, according to a BuzzFeed News review.

Worried about putting themselves and restaurant staffers at risk, many Americans have turned to home cooking as a safer, more ethical option. But what may seem safer for consumers can still be deadly for the low-paid, often immigrant workers who make up America’s sprawling food supply chain. Across the country, from fields to packhouses to slaughterhouses to grocery stores, companies failed to require masks, build protective barriers, or arrange testing until after outbreaks had spread through the workforce. Some workers in this chain still do not get sick pay, forcing them to choose between spreading the virus or missing out on paychecks — between feeding your family and exposing their own.

“I’d just like to see them keep us safe,” Dennis Medbourn, a worker at the Tyson plant in Logansport, Indiana, where three coworkers he knew have died from COVID-19 complications, told BuzzFeed News. “We’re working a lot of hours, too, to try to make up for the meat shortage.”

Courtesy Eklund Family

Yok Yen Lee (left), who died of the coronavirus, is seen with her daughter, Elaine Eklund.

One grocery worker, Yok Yen Lee, a door greeter at the Walmart in Quincy, Massachusetts, continued to report to work up until days before she died from COVID-19.

“She was really hardworking,” her daughter, Elaine Eklund, told BuzzFeed News. “She absolutely loved that job. She wanted to do that job for her whole life.”

The paths through which food reaches Americans’ plates originate on farms and in factories in small cities and rural towns before making their way across the 50 states. The networks are intricately interrelated, which means that the people who live in those areas and work in those jobs, along with the friends and relatives they come into contact with, shoulder a disproportionate share of the risk to keep the nation fed. An apple picker at a FirstFruits Farms orchard in Yakima Valley appears to have caught the virus from her husband who worked at a Tyson beef plant in the area, according to Erik Nicholson, vice president of United Farm Workers. FirstFruits didn’t respond to a detailed request for comment.

Since the start of the pandemic, around 29,000 workers at grocery stores, meatpacking plants, and other food processing facilities have been infected nationwide, and at least 225 have died, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. This is almost certainly an undercount: Many companies have declined to order widespread testing, even at workplaces where employees are falling ill. As a result, the full scope of infections among frontline food workers may never be known.

“What this pandemic is making very clear is that some of our most underpaid, marginalized, and exploited workers are, in fact, our most essential,” said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who co-sponsored a bill with other Senate colleagues in June to provide protections for the country’s agricultural workers. “Every plate of food reflects a disturbing reality: Food-supply workers — from farmworkers to grocery store clerks — are risking their lives every day to keep us fed, often in unsafe conditions, and far too often making starvation wages.”

“If they don’t work, they don’t get paid — and if they don’t get paid, they don’t eat.”

Apples

Bobby Doherty for BuzzFeed News

“If they don’t work, they don’t get paid — and if they don’t get paid, they don’t eat.”

On April 30, Angelina Lara felt an itch in her throat.

For seven months, she’d worked as a fruit packer for Allan Bros., one of at least 18 produce companies in Yakima Valley, a fertile agricultural zone that rolls east across central Washington from the mighty Cascade mountain range. Lara, 48, grew up in Southern California but moved to the city of Yakima in 2005, following relatives who had come for the jobs at the valley’s plentiful packhouses. Around a third of the local jobs there are in agriculture, more than the next two industries combined. Apples are one of the main businesses in town, and the fruit is at the center of the Yakima city seal. Central Washington accounts for 60% of the nation’s apple production.

Over the years, Lara worked at numerous packhouses, including a previous stint at Allan Bros. She returned to the company last year for a job that paid $13.50 an hour, more than the $12 minimum wage she made previously. Inside a squat warehouse on Highway 12 in the foothills of Mount Rainier, Lara and her fellow day shift employees washed and sorted apples, which are packed and shipped year-round in the region. Around 300 workers clock in for the day shift, standing along a brisk conveyor belt about 2 feet apart, sorting apples, like the organic Fuji variety sold at Walmarts across the country, and separating out fruit that’s been spoiled or infested with worms. (The night shift handles seasonal fruit, such as cherries.)

It’s hard, tiring work, Lara said, and “it’s impossible to be 6 feet apart because at times the line moves so fast that you need somebody to help you with all the apples.”

Elaine Thompson / AP

In this photo taken Oct. 15, 2019, workers sort Granny Smith apples to ready them for shipping in a packing plant in Yakima, Washington.

As COVID-19 was spreading across the state and the country in March and April, Allan Bros. added plexiglass barriers to the office area where management and administrators worked. “But the same was not put in the warehouse,” said Shauri Tello, who moved from Mexico to Yakima when she was 15 and began working in the fruit industry shortly after she graduated high school at age 18, two years ago.

The company hadn’t yet begun providing workers with masks, so some workers brought their own from home, according to four employees and a memo from health officials who inspected the site on May 8.

Lara didn’t immediately assume the itch in her throat meant she’d caught the coronavirus. At the time, she didn’t know if anyone at work had been infected, she said. Still, she stayed home from work the next day as a precaution. Within 24 hours, she had developed a fever. Then she began to have trouble breathing. Lara has asthma, but this was worse than any asthma attack she had ever had. “I was home alone, so I started panicking,” she said. At the hospital, she said, she paid for the COVID-19 test herself — $152 — and it came back positive.

Lara informed Allan Bros. that, under doctor’s orders, she would stay home and quarantine for two weeks. She and another worker who tested positive said that company officials told them that their leave would be unpaid.

She asked her supervisor to “let [her] coworkers know so they can take precautions,” Lara said. “They never did it. Nobody even knew I was sick.”

Three of her coworkers corroborated that claim, saying that management didn’t tell them about any cases at the plant in April and early May. In an emailed statement in response to questions, Allan Bros. denied failing to inform employees about cases until May but declined to specify when it began doing so.

Today, Yakima County has the highest rate of per capita COVID-19 cases in the Pacific Northwest — about 1 for every 34 people. In central Washington — as in other areas such as California’s Imperial and San Joaquin valleys — the agricultural industry is experiencing a reckoning; the methods for packing produce and housing migrant workers that have been maximized for efficiency have created the ideal conditions for the spread of a devastating virus.

Elaine Thompson / AP

A sign outside Yakima, Washington, declares the city the “Palm Springs of Washington,” on Wednesday, June 17, 2020

“When farmers were designing farmworker housing and warehouses in which fruit is sorted, they were in no way considering pandemics,” said Dr. Malcolm Butler, the officer for the combined health district of Chelan and Douglas counties, which lie north of Yakima and are home to some 20 agriculture companies. “They built an industry and fed the world, and unfortunately social distancing is not possible. It’s very challenging and extensive to retool an entire industry at the drop of a hat.”

By late April, the virus had been quietly spreading among apple pickers and packers in central Washington for weeks. The scope of the outbreak remained unknown, in part because many companies were reluctant to arrange comprehensive testing. But even the available case numbers at the time revealed that the region’s fruit workers were facing a mounting threat.

Two weeks before Lara got sick, on April 13, three apple pickers at the Stemilt Growers farm in Douglas County, 70 miles north of the Allan Bros. facilities, developed coughs, according to a court statement from Stemilt’s human resources director, Zach Williams. These three were among the thousands who entered the country on temporary work visas, known as H-2A, for jobs at the region’s farms. While packhouses are largely staffed with local residents who have lived in Washington for years, field work is mostly done by seasonal laborers who ride buses up from Mexico for gigs that can last upward of six months.

Elaine Thompson / AP

A supervisor looks up at a worker pulling honey crisp apples off trees during a thinning operation at an orchard in Yakima, Washington on Tuesday, June 16, 2020.

Sixty-nine of those workers were housed at Stemilt’s “North District” housing facility, Williams stated. They slept on bunk beds in rooms shared with as many as three others. They also shared a kitchen, a laundry room, and several bathrooms. In the mornings, they piled into vans that carried 14 of them at a time to the orchards.

The company began implementing new procedures to protect workers from COVID-19 as early as March 13, after a worker at a different Stemilt housing facility tested positive. In a memo to employees, Stemilt said that vans and common areas across the company would be sanitized every night and throughout the day.

Those measures weren’t enough.

While the three North District workers were awaiting their test results in mid April, three others at the camp began showing similar symptoms. Ultimately, all six tested positive, according to Williams’ statement. Over the next few days, Stemilt coordinated with local health officials to begin testing all the workers from the North District camp, as well as the eight local crew leaders who worked with them. All the crew leaders tested negative, but 44 of the 69 guest workers ultimately tested positive. When Stemilt conducted another round of testing on April 22, nine more workers tested positive. Most of the cases were asymptomatic. No one was hospitalized.

The state’s Employment Security Department said it expects 27,000 H-2A jobs in 2020. Stemilt declined to comment for this story.

Stemilt was the exception — not in terms of its explosion of cases, but because it looked for them at all. Though local officials in nearby Yakima County offered to organize free testing at all produce industry workplaces, only one fruit company, Columbia Reach Pack, had taken them up on it by late May, according to local health department documents. At most fruit companies in the region, workers only got tested if they showed symptoms or were exposed to a confirmed case, and then called health authorities. Still, by the third week of May, more than 300 fruit workers in the region had tested positive, and health officials identified outbreaks — a workplace infection rate of at least 5% — at seven of the county’s 18 produce companies.

Allan Bros., where Lara worked, was one of the companies that declined to test its workers. Danielle Vincent, a spokesperson for Allan Bros., denied that the county offered to test all its workers — though other companies confirmed the offer, and government documents show that local health officials were “Awaiting Response” from Allan Bros. on an inquiry about whether the company “Want[s] Employee Testing.”

Though 19 of 515 employees at its packhouse had been diagnosed by May 21, the company did not schedule widespread testing, according to local health department records. Workers had to decide whether to risk going to work and getting sick, or staying home and not getting paid.

“The fear of every worker that I know is that they may come down with the virus. And if they don’t work, they don’t get paid — and if they don’t get paid, they don’t eat,” said Erik Nicholson, national vice president of United Farm Workers.

Evan Abell / AP

Workers from Columbia Reach Pack continue to strike in front of the business on River Road on Tuesday, June 2, 2020, in Yakima, Washington.

COVID-19 exacerbates long-standing power disparities between farmworkers, some of whom are undocumented, and their employers, noted Beth Lyon, a law professor and founder of Cornell University’s Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic.

And while the country has deemed them “essential” during a pandemic, most farmworkers can be fired at will, making many hesitant to advocate for safety measures.

This is particularly true of guest workers, whose visas are directly tied to their employer. “If they speak up for health protections like masks or social distancing, they are likely to lose not only their livelihood but also their housing” and their permission to be in the United States, Lyon told BuzzFeed News.

Local officials and farm owners attribute some of their slow reactions to the pandemic to the lack of direction at the federal level. That’s led the industry to “take care of itself” said Butler, the Chelan–Douglas Health District officer.

“The difficulty we’ve had was that there was absolutely no guidance on what was the right way to house H-2A workers,” he said.

Sean Gilbert, who leads Gilbert Orchards, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s changing position on masks left his company in a conundrum. In March — as the country’s leading top public health agency told citizens not to use masks and to save them for healthcare professionals — orchard and packhouse operators donated a few thousand N95 masks they had gathered for fire season to local hospitals. Weeks later, when the CDC changed its guidance, those businesses were left scrambling, facing stiff competition and spiking prices for face coverings as the rest of the world competed for mask shipments.

Gilbert, whose operation includes 4,000 acres of orchards and 1,200 workers during peak season, noted that apples are a “labor-intensive business” with small margins. As a result of social distancing measures, the packhouse could only prepare 10,000 boxes of apples per shift from late March to the end of May, rather than the typical 12,000.

“Keeping people apart means that people can’t hand off things in a process,” he told BuzzFeed News, “and it slows the process down.” He added that protective equipment and hazard pay add a further squeeze on Gilbert Orchards’ economics. “COVID has fundamentally changed how we do business.”

Yet he didn’t see the need to allow health officials to test all his employees. Gilbert Orchards — where at least 26 of the 350 or so employees in the packhouse, shipping, and administrative departments have been diagnosed — declined Yakima County’s offer to arrange testing at the facility and instead suggested its workers take advantage of the free testing sites local officials had set up around the valley.

Gilbert said part of his reasoning was fear of upsetting his employees. “I turned down their offer to bring in a National Guard unit to quarantine our facility while they escorted people to and from testing tents,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I felt that requiring that of all employees would have been potentially traumatic.”

Evan Abell / AP

A committee of Allan Bros. workers exits the company’s office after turning in a signed agreement to return to work, Thursday, May 28, 2020, in Naches, Washington, after a strike to protest what they consider unsafe working conditions at several fruit warehouses during the COVID-19 outbreak.

If guest workers are among the most vulnerable employees in the produce industry, workers who live year-round in central Washington are only slightly more secure.

Lara’s diagnosis, she said, threw her family into a precarious financial position. Her husband, who works at the same warehouse, and her two sons, who work as nursing assistants, tested negative but stayed home as a precaution in case they subsequently caught the virus from her. The household of four went without a paycheck for two weeks. Lara qualified for unemployment insurance because she’d been diagnosed, and her husband and sons may be eligible for family leave benefits — but whatever government money they’d receive wouldn’t come soon enough to meet the bills coming due. The family burned through years’ worth of savings in a matter of days, she said.

Back at Allan Bros., meanwhile, workers in the packhouse said the company still hadn’t distributed masks, and as the cases mounted, many were growing angry.

On May 7, dozens of Allan Bros. workers went on strike over conditions they said were unsafe; in the days that followed, around 500 workers from six other fruit companies joined them. When Lara’s quarantine ended, she took a spot in the line of workers holding signs by the road, chanting through colorful cloth masks. Local lawyers and union representatives estimated that the labor action was one of the largest they’d seen among agriculture workers in Yakima, reminiscent of the marches César Chávez attended in the county in the 1980s.

Nearly every day, at each of the seven strike locations, the workers encountered local white residents driving by, shouting at them to get back to work, said Cristina Ortega, an activist who participated in the strikes. She recalled those drivers saying things like “If you don’t like it, get out.” On another occasion, a man shouted out his car window that he was going to “come back and shoot you all,” according to a Yakima County Sheriff’s Office incident report and written witness statements. When deputies later caught him returning to the scene, he told them that Allan Bros. “treats those people very well and they should not be protesting,” according to the incident report. The man was arrested and charged with malicious harassment.

The backlash against the striking workers reflected a long-standing resistance to Yakima’s growing Latinx population for some. Latinx residents accounted for 15% of the city’s population in 1980, 30% in 2000, and 50% in 2018. Still, no Latinx candidate had been elected to office in the city until 2015, after a federal judge ruled that the city’s previous system of at-large council seats violated the Voting Rights Act. In 2016, a majority of the county’s residents cast their ballots for Donald Trump.

Three weeks into the strike, Lara finally went back to work. Allan Bros. had installed protective barriers in the packhouse, offered a $1-an-hour pay raise, and started providing masks, according to Lara and three coworkers. Though she has been cleared of infection, she still has trouble breathing and sleeps sitting up most nights. She said her doctor told her it might be months before she feels normal again.

She considers herself fortunate, she said. One of her coworkers, 60-year-old David Cruz, got sick a few days after she did. His wife and daughter tested positive too, Lara said. He had worked at the plant for 12 years, most recently putting together boxes on the upper level of the warehouse. When Lara saw him on breaks, he was “always positive, getting along with everybody,” she said. On one of the last days of work before the pandemic hit, Cruz told Lara about his plans to visit his mother in Mexico for the first time in years. “He was very happy he was going to see her,” Lara recalled. “He was planning for June or July.”

He died on May 31. His coworkers collected $4,000 to give to his wife. The mood at the packhouse has been somber since.

“Wow. It spread out really, really quick.”

Pork Ribs

Bobby Doherty for BuzzFeed News

“Wow. It spread out really, really quick.”

Every morning at the Tyson pork plant in Logansport, Indiana, a low-slung town of 18,000 that’s located at the intersection of three highways and surrounded by livestock ranches, farmers deliver the hogs to the kill floor, known colloquially as the “hot side.”

There, the pigs move through pens, into a machine that stuns them, and then onto a conveyor belt that carries them to the knife that slits their throats. On a normal day, Tyson’s kill floor processes five hogs every 16 seconds, according to Dennis Medbourn, a 52-year-old worker who sets the speed on the machines. Workers stand elbow to elbow along the production line, peel the hog’s skin off, cut through its center, remove its guts, and hang its carcass on a hook that takes it to the plant’s refrigerated “cold side.” The movements are strenuous and repetitive; to try to prevent injuries, ergonomic monitors — their official job title — walk up and down the line checking on the welfare of workers.

An ergonomic monitor on the hot side, a 16-year Tyson veteran who requested anonymity out of fear of losing his job, began seeing his coworkers wearing cloth masks they brought from home in early April.

Darron Cummings / AP

An employee leaving the Tyson Fresh Meats plant in Logansport, Indiana on Thursday, April 23, 2020.

Outbreaks were beginning to pop up at meatpacking plants around the country. Tyson had instituted temperature checks at Logansport but hadn’t yet installed plexiglass barriers or distributed any protective equipment — even though another Tyson pork plant, in Columbus Junction, Iowa, had closed on April 6, leaving the company all the more reliant on its other five hog slaughterhouses.

“That’s when everybody was thinking, Man, why don’t they close our plant?” said Medbourn. “You’d hear people coughing and stuff. People weren’t showing up for work more than usual.”

Tyson declined to comment on whether its Logansport plant increased production during that period, but a spokesperson, Liz Cronston, said, “The level of production at which we determine to operate in our facilities is dependent on ensuring team member safety.”

The company has maintained that its response to the pandemic was swifter than most. Cronston noted that Tyson began seeking masks for workers even before the CDC recommended their use, and it was one of the first companies to proactively test all employees for COVID-19. “If we learned a team member had tested positive for the virus, we notified co-workers who had been in close contact,” she said. “Our priority and focus have been the protection of our team members and their communities.”

The ergonomic monitor tried to maintain a few feet of distance when he checked on workers — but the long, open-tiered plant was loud with the whirring of electric saws, the rumble of conveyor belts, and the echoing clangs of metal. He sometimes had to lean in close to talk and hear, he said. He interacted with around 200 workers each day. Tyson began requiring employees to wear masks in mid-April.

On April 23, with rising case numbers at several facilities, Tyson organized COVID-19 testing for all 2,200 of its workers in Logansport.

The monitor and others on his shift filed into a big white tent in the parking lot, “all pushed together to get out from the rain” as nurses swabbed their noses, he said.

A few days later, he got a call informing him of his result: He had COVID-19 — one of 890 Tyson workers to test positive by the end of April in Logansport, a staggering 40% of the plant’s workforce. Like most of them, the monitor showed no symptoms at the time of diagnosis, although he did recall feeling unusually tired the previous week. He shuddered at the thought that he may have infected the people he saw every day.

“I wouldn’t have suspected if I didn’t get tested,” he said. “I was really freaked out. Just, like, wow. It spread out really, really quick.”

Tyson closed its Logansport plant for two weeks starting on April 25. All six of its pork plants have had outbreaks of at least 200 cases, and five have temporarily closed. At one point, four of the country’s five largest known outbreaks in meatpacking plants were at Tyson sites. To date, around 8,500 Tyson workers have tested positive, more than the company’s three biggest industry competitors combined, according to data compiled by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.

But Tyson’s standing at the top of this list isn’t necessarily because its plants are more dangerous than those of its rivals, but because the company has been more committed to determining how many of its employees have been infected, even though revealing those numbers almost guarantees a plant’s closure. The other big meat companies — JBS, Smithfield Foods, and Cargill — haven’t conducted comprehensive testing at most facilities, even as meat processing plants became widely known as incubators for the virus.

“We believe it’s imperative that we share our experience addressing this pandemic because safety is not a point of competitive advantage,” said Cronston, Tyson’s spokesperson. “Results from these tests have allowed us to find team members who have the virus but don’t have symptoms and would not otherwise have been identified.”

For Tyson, JBS, Smithfield, and Cargill, closing a plant sends a ripple effect across both ends of the supply line. The four companies produce around 85% of the meat sold in the US, churning out pork, beef, and poultry in massive facilities staffed by the thousands of employees needed to reach output goals. The concentration of meat production into a few dozen mega-plants has led to lower prices but has also left the system vulnerable to major disruption, adding further pressure on workers to help keep the plants going.

Tyson is the largest buyer for many farmers around the country and one of the largest suppliers for many groceries, including Walmart. A plant closure can lead to lost wages for livestock sellers at the start of the chain and barren meat shelves for consumers at the end. “Our plants must remain operational,” CEO John Tyson wrote in a full-page ad in the Washington Post and New York Times in late April, noting the company’s “responsibility to feed our country.” The Trump administration codified that idea into law with its April 28 executive order granting meatpacking corporations immunity from legal liability for sick workers.

As Tyson got ready to reopen the Logansport plant, it notified employees through an automated text service that starting May 6, “If eligible to work, you will be required to work all scheduled hours in order to receive the guarantee pay.” Workers would receive a $30 “daily show up bonus” for all shifts through the end of May, another text stated. A May 8 text told employees that if they had been “symptom free for the last 72 hours without the use of any medication you can report to Tyson” — though the message didn’t include CDC’s additional recommendation that those diagnosed should only stop isolating at least 10 days from the onset of symptoms. One worker, a loin cutter in the cold side, told BuzzFeed News that he didn’t feel symptoms until 12 days after he tested positive, just as his two weeks of paid quarantine time was ending, leaving him temporarily without a paycheck as he applied for short-term disability to cover additional time off.

Michael Conroy / AP

Workers line up to enter the Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Logansport, Indiana on Thursday, May 7, 2020.

Tyson maintains that its policy has been clear: “Any team member who has tested positive will remain on sick leave until they’ve satisfied official health requirements for return to work,” Cronston said.

But some Logansport workers vented their frustrations on a private Facebook group called “Tyson Talk,” expressing dismay at the company’s plan to reopen even while nearly half of its workforce was under quarantine. They also shared health updates; on May 5, a group member wrote in both English and Spanish that someone from the slaughter side had died from the virus.

In fact, at least three workers at the Logansport plant have died of the coronavirus, according to local health officials and a union steward at the plant.

Tyson officials refused to confirm the number of workers who died. “We’re deeply saddened by the loss of any team member,” Cronston said. “We don’t have a number to share.”

Tyson also declined to provide an update on the number of confirmed cases at the plant since the 890 reported in April, but local health officials estimated that “over 1,000” of the plant’s workers have tested positive.

Cass County, where Logansport is located, has nearly triple the rate of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people compared to the rate of the next highest Indiana county, and Tyson’s pork processing facility is one of the area’s largest employers. Tyson was “absolutely the hot spot” for COVID-19 in the county, said Serenity Alter, the administrator for the Cass County Health Department.

The Tyson plant reopened on May 6. The company ramped up production as quickly as its workers could return, accelerating from half-capacity to nearly full capacity within two weeks. It provided face shields, built plexiglass barriers in the cafeteria, and expanded its cleaning staff.

“All you can do is wear one of these masks and wash your hands,” a Tyson senior manager in Texas said of the risk that meatpacking workers face during the pandemic. “I gotta assume most of the people in our facility have been around or interacted with someone who was positive.”

Michael Conroy / AP

Workers are seen leaving the Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Logansport carrying various types of personal protective equipment, on Thursday, May 7, 2020.

Two months removed from the Logansport plant’s mass testing, some workers are still infected with the virus, though Tyson won’t say how many are now out sick.

“We currently have very few cases,” Cronston said. “We are aware of no positive cases of any team member currently working in our facility.”

When he returned from his quarantine, the ergonomic monitor wore a mask and kept several feet of distance from the coworkers he checked on. At the facility last month, he and others walked past a daily reminder of the cost of producing pork through the pandemic: A memorial of wreaths and photos in the common area honored the three workers who have died from the virus. It stayed up until the middle of June.

“We weren’t prepared to lose her this suddenly.”

Pasta

Bobby Doherty for BuzzFeed News

“We weren’t prepared to lose her this suddenly.”

While fruit pickers and meat-packers labor out of view of consumers, grocery clerks serve at the public-facing end point of the supply chain, the final set of hands to touch your food before you do. As grocery stores became all the more critical to keeping people fed during lockdown, their safety protocols soon concerned not just the workers who spend their days there but the customers passing through.

In March, as the US declared a state of emergency, panicked shoppers flocked to supermarkets to hoard toilet paper, flour, and pasta; in stores around the country, shelves began to empty. Some lined up in the early morning for a first crack at the inventory. Many didn’t wear masks.

It didn’t take long for the virus to reach the Walmart Supercenter in Worcester, Massachusetts, which has an online inventory that includes Tyson pork ribs and Fuji apples from Rainier Fruit, Allan Bros.’ distributor. (A spokesperson for Walmart said that Tyson pork ribs are not on the store’s shelves at this time.) On April 27, the store posted on Facebook that it would close on April 30 for a single “day of deep cleaning and sanitizing” before reopening early the next morning. Some shoppers from the postindustrial city around 50 miles from Boston were horrified.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Shopping carts are left outside the Walmart Superstore in Worcester, Massachusetts, temporarily closed by an order from the city after numerous employees tested positive for the coronavirus, on April 30, 2020.

“How do you ‘deep clean’ in one day??” a commenter wrote.

But while shoppers had the option of staying away from the store, some of Walmart’s workers felt they did not. Despite the widespread testing shortages at the time, the company’s COVID-19 emergency leave policy didn’t offer additional paid time off to staffers unless they tested positive or were subject to mandatory quarantine — a policy that advocates said is too narrow as it doesn’t clearly cover workers who feel ill, are immunocompromised, or need to care for a sick relative.

By the end of April, Walmart knew that a growing number of employees in Worcester — as well as in another store in Quincy, an hour’s drive away — had contracted the virus, which was quickly spreading through the state. Although the company had released a plan detailing how they’d keep workers safe a month prior, the stores weren’t providing staffers or local public health departments with enough information about sick workers, records show.

“We have had consistent problems with Walmart,” Quincy’s health commissioner, Ruth Jones, wrote on April 28 to the Massachusetts attorney general’s office. “They have a cluster of Covid cases among employees and have not been cooperative in giving us contact information or in following proper quarantine and isolation guidelines.”

Yok Yen Lee, a 69-year-old door greeter at the Quincy store, was so fearful of contracting the coronavirus that she used most of her accumulated paid time off in March and early April when case numbers in the US began to skyrocket, her daughter, Elaine Eklund, told BuzzFeed News. Shortly after Lee returned to work in mid-April, she began to feel sick but assumed she’d caught a cold from spending her eight-hour shift standing outside in near-freezing temperatures. On April 11, the Quincy Health Department contacted Walmart to inform the store that one of Lee’s coworkers had tested positive for the coronavirus. Although Walmart had waived its normal attendance policy in March, Lee continued to clock in, afraid of losing her job if she took more days off, Eklund said.

Walmart’s website says it began requiring employees to wear masks on April 17. But one current Quincy checkout employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing their job, said management told employees in April that masks weren’t necessary. Sometimes there would be 500 people in the store and no social distancing in the employee back rooms, according to the employee. “It was like corona was a myth,” they said. A Walmart spokesperson declined to comment on these specific allegations.

Lee had worked at the store for about 15 years, after emigrating from China in 1979 and working a series of retail jobs. Colleagues described her as a joyous woman who doled out hugs and danced spontaneously but also showed a tough side when it came to dealing with rude customers.

Lee told at least one colleague, the checkout employee, that she had a slight cough. She had attempted to apply for extended leave, but found the process, which was managed by a third-party administrator, exceedingly complicated as she primarily spoke Cantonese, Eklund said. On April 19, Lee didn’t feel well at work and went home early. The next day, she had a fever and couldn’t get out of bed. Paramedics, with the help of a maintenance worker, cut the lock to her door and rushed her to a hospital, where she was intubated. Her request for extended leave from Walmart was approved on April 28, as she lay bedridden in the ICU, Eklund recalled.

She would have turned 70 last week. Instead, she died on May 3 — one of at least 22 Walmart employees killed by COVID-19 nationwide, according to United for Respect, a labor advocacy group. Lee left behind a daughter and two grandchildren, including one who was born in December.

“She never even got a real family picture with her grandson,” Eklund said. “We were starting to become a complete family. We weren’t prepared to lose her this suddenly.”

Only after Lee died did the Quincy Walmart close its doors. It soon emerged that 33 other employees there had contracted the virus.

The Worcester Walmart became one of the largest clusters in the state, with 82 employees ultimately diagnosed with COVID-19. It was also one of the largest outbreaks at any grocery retailer in the country.

By the time the store posted on Facebook about the daylong cleaning in late April, local officials were investigating the situation. Public health inspectors obtained an internal company list showing that nearly two dozen employees had tested positive for the coronavirus before the store closed, 20 within a one-week time period, Walter Bird Jr., a city spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News.

They also reviewed a photo of a sign instructing staffers to work their scheduled shifts during that April 30 cleaning: They were expected to help “clean, sanitize and stock” the store alongside a third-party cleaning service so it would be ready to open the next morning.

Obtained by BuzzFeed News

A sign posted on the door of the Walmart Supercenter in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The city of Worcester issued a cease-and-desist order that day, “forcing the store to close immediately,” Bird said. It was the first time any US Walmart was closed by the government. The store didn’t reopen until May 5, after the company agreed to test all of the store’s nearly 400 employees.

The outbreaks in the Quincy and Worcester Walmarts were caused by “dangerous working conditions” present at other branches, as well, according to a complaint recently filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration by United for Respect, which surveyed stores nationwide. The complaint claimed that Walmart didn’t provide sufficient paid sick leave to its employees, “thereby pressuring people to go to work even if they have symptoms or have been exposed to the virus.”

The complaint also alleged that Walmart didn’t enforce social distancing and had failed to quickly close stores for cleaning and disinfecting after employees were exposed or diagnosed — as was the case in Worcester and Quincy — allowing the virus to spread further among employees and the public.

All these failures violated state and federal guidance for employers, the complaint alleged.

“Communities across the country have suffered from coronavirus cases, and with more than 1.5 million associates in the United States, and stores, clubs and other facilities located within 10 miles of 90 percent of the U.S. population, Walmart is not immune to the impact of COVID-19,” said Phillip Keene, a Walmart spokesperson. The corporation has worked “to find an appropriate balance between supporting our associates and serving our customers” during the pandemic, he said, by following deep cleaning, sanitizing, and social distancing protocols guided by the CDC. Associates are given health screenings and temperature checks prior to their shifts, for example, and employees who appear ill are asked to return home. Walmart has instructed managers since March to inform associates when one of their coworkers falls ill, Keene said.

There are no laws mandating that retailers report coronavirus cases, leaving it up to stores to decide how best to handle outbreaks. In May, a delegation of state lawmakers led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, demanding more information about how the retail giant would make changes to prevent future outbreaks and protect workers.

In its response, Walmart deflected responsibility, saying it may be “impossible to track the source of anyone’s infection.”

“Walmart’s response is unacceptable,” Warren said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “Nearly 100 Walmart workers in Massachusetts got sick with coronavirus and one died due to an outbreak at the store but the company refused to answer questions on what happened and what changes it is making to keep our residents safe at work.”

One recent afternoon in June, as protesters filled streets across the country, a line of masked shoppers stretched outside the Worcester Walmart as the store limited capacity to around 20% below its usual level. Shelves were stocked with pasta again, apples were piled into abundant mounds, and pork ribs lay beside long rows of fresh meat. Fruit farms, meatpacking plants, and grocery stores were open for business in every corner of America. The food supply chain kept on humming. ●

Courtesy Eklund Family

Yok Yen Lee, seen her carrying her granddaughter in 2018, was never able to take a full family photo with her new grandson who was born in December, according to daughter Elaine Eklund. Lee died in May of COVID-19.

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