Usui, a mazoku, and Kunzite, who made the Pledge of Immortality with him…

“You’re going to suck out our life energy?  Why?  For what reason?”

The only way to defeat Kunzite is to destroy his Pledge Talisman.  There isn’t any other way!  There isn’t!

And the ice surrounding Kunzite shattered!

Inside Kunzite’s green stone tower, a search was going on.  Books were pulled from shelves.  Priceless bric-a-brac was carelessly swept from its niches.  Misao even climbed a ladder to investigate the ceiling.

Aoshi flung a statuette to the floor.  It smashed into a thousand pieces.

“Was that it de gozaru ka?” Kenshin asked.

“No, it only looked like it might be,” the chimaera replied.

“But we don’t know what the Pledge Talisman looks like,” objected Misao.

“Use your head,” said Kaoru.  “A treasure can be hidden right out in the open.”

“Yeah,” Yahiko agreed.  “Sometimes that’s the best place to hide one ’cuz nobody believes it’s a treasure.”

Kaoru’s eyes found something out of place among the room’s books and sorcerous paraphernalia.  It was the portrait of a youth – or was it a young woman? The gray uniform-like tunic suggested masculinity, but there was something feminine about the delicate features and the wavy red hair pulled back in a loose ponytail.

Misao stuck her head down through a trapdoor she had found in the ceiling.  “Kaoru-san, come here!” she called.

“Mou!”  Kaoru stared down a long passage lined with statues of demons, their eyes glowing like red jewels.

“It’s really suspicious, isn’t it?” the younger girl asked.

“You think one of them is the Pledge Talisman de gozaru ka?” asked Kenshin.

“They might be ordinary statues,” Aoshi mused, “but where better to hide the Pledge Talisman than in a row of identical objects?  Right, Kaoru Kamiya?”

Kaoru extended her bokken.

Wind which blows across eternity,
Gather in my hand
And become my strength!

Aoshi knocked Misao to the floor, covering her with his body.  Kenshin did the same with Yahiko.

Blam Gush!

A horizontal tornado blasted down the corridor with such force that it pulverized the statues.  Bits of stone flew everywhere.

“Be more careful!” Aoshi snapped.  “What if that had been a trap?”

“You’re wasting your time.”  Kunzite appeared at the end of the dark corridor, his white cloak and silver hair gleaming faintly in the dim light.  “You can search this tower all you want and never find the PledgeTalisman.”

“Misao!” Kaoru cried.

Ra Tilt!

It was a long shot, trying to sever any link Kunzite might have to the Astral plane, since he couldn’t be affected by any attack on his physical body.  But apparently the sorcerer’s immortality wasn’t astral in origin.  “It didn’t work!” wailed Misao.

“Hn,” Kunzite made a contemptuous noise and extended his hands.

Shadow Wave

Three spears of solidified darkness, like slivers of black glass, struck Misao’s shadow and quivered in the stone floor.  Suddenly she couldn’t move.  “She’s been hit!” Aoshi yelled.  “Misao!”

Kaoru knew very well how to counter shadow magic.  She pointed her bokken at the princess.

Lighting!

Brilliant light filled the corridor, shining from all directions and banishing every bit of shadow.  Without shadows, the binding on Misao couldn’t exist.  She dropped to her knees.

A battle was too dangerous in the confined space of the corridor.  They had to get out of there quickly.  Kaoru slammed the point of her bokken into the floor.

Behvis Bring!

A hole opened up beneath them.  They all fell, endlessly…

Kunzite laughed softly to himself.  “Such power… I want it,” he whispered.  “A little longer… just be patient a little longer… my Zoisite…”

Kaoru and her friends found themselves in a subterranean chamber, next to a pool of slimy-looking water.

“Kunzite’s spirit must be shielded on the Astral plane,” Kaoru explained, “so until we destroy the Pledge Talisman the Ra-Tilt won’t work on him.”

“And that’s my strongest spell, too,” Misao sighed.

“I guess findin’ the talisman’s our only chance,” Yahiko muttered.

There was a splash from the pool nearby.  “What was that?” Kaoru asked.  “Did you hear something?”

There was another splash, and two eyestalks appeared above the surface of the water.  Then more eyestalks.  Four gigantic slugs reared up out of the water.  One extended its head and engulfed Kaoru in a wet, slimy embrace.

“Get it off me!” she screamed.  “Get it off!”  She flailed about wildly with her bokken, hitting nothing.  “Kenshin!”

“Kaoru-dono!  Shikkarishite de gozaru yo!”  Kenshin grasped Kaoru’s arms – and a sphere of dark energy formed around the two of them, and then faded.  Only the slug remained behind.

“What’s going on?” cried Misao.  “Don’t leave me here all alone with those things!”

“I’ll show you slimeballs Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu!” Yahiko shouted.

Aoshi found his marble body a decided disadvantage, as two of the slugs were trying to drag him to the bottom of the pool.

Kenshin raised his head and looked around.  He and Kaoru were in an elegantly decorated parlor, the finest room he had yet seen in Kunzite’s ruined tower.  But he had little time to spend admiring the furnishings.  Kaoru was trembling in his arms, whimpering – very unlike the brave and fiery-tempered girl he knew.  “Chichi-ue… help… I hate slugs!” she sobbed.

Kenshin caught a red glow in the shadows – the kanji veiling Usui’s eyes! “Kaoru-dono!”

She caught the urgency in his tone and looked up.  “Are the slugs gone?”

“Aa.  But something worse is here de gozaru yo.”

Usui motioned them toward a small table.  “Hear me out and you need not fear to sit with me,” he offered.

“Hear you out?” Kaoru repeated.

Usui gestured again.  “Won’t you join me?”

Fireball!

“I got them all!” crowed Misao.

“Don’t slugs smell yummy when you burn ’em to a crisp?” asked Yahiko.

“That’s escargot,” Aoshi corrected him.  “Come on, we can’t sit around here.  We have to find the Pledge Talisman as soon as possible… look out!”  He sprang toward Misao – not Misao, but a huge spider looming behind her.

The creature spat a flood of silk at him, wrapping him up securely.  “Aoshi-sama!” Misao screamed, just before it bound her in the same manner.  An instant later, there were three bundles in a silent room…

“What I want to do is collect people with power,” Usui said.  “That’s why the Sorcerers’ Guild of Atlas City caught my attention.  Since you arrived, I thought it prudent to invite you in as well.  The name of Kaoru Kamiya is well known among the mazoku… as is the name of the Battousai.”  Kenshin’s eyes hardened slightly.  “If you wish, you can make the Pledge of Immortality with me as Kunzite did.  Escape the death which plagues foolish humans and avoid their meaningless fate.  Join us and all your wishes will be granted… I swear upon the bindings of my eyes.”

“Sessha…” Kenshin began, but Kaoru interrupted him.

“You must take a lot of pleasure in pitying our ’meaningless fate,’” she said.  With a flip of her finger, she sent the delicate porcelain cup flying.  It shattered against the green stone floor.

Flow Break!

The room’s elegant furnishings blurred and faded, replaced by ruin and wreckage.  Kaoru and Kenshin broke into a run.

“It is good that Kaoru-dono did not make the Pledge of Immortality de gozaru yo,” Kenshin told her.

“Oh, one of my teachers told me, a long time ago, that we have souls because we die, and if you become immortal you start treating people like, oh, animals or chess pieces or something.  Looks like he was right.  Besides, anything a mazoku gives you’s going to turn out bad.  Now come on, let’s find that Pledge Talisman.”

They found themselves in a chamber floored with crystal.  Dim shapes like bodies could be seen entombed in the floor, and the center of the room was taken up by a pool of some liquid that glowed faintly greenish-white.  The rest of the light came from an object on a dais at the far end.  Cautiously Kenshin approached it.

“Careful,” Kaoru told him.  “This looks like it might be Kunzite’s laboratory.”

“Kaoru-dono!”

She ran to Kenshin’s side.  The light came from a crystal sarcophagus, in which lay the body of the same youth whose portrait she had seen downstairs.  He wore a gray tunic and trews like Kunzite’s, and his wavy red hair was pulled loosely back from a face as delicate as a girl’s.  “Is this it?” Kaoru whispered. 

“Welcome,” Kunzite intoned.  “I never expected you to make it this far.  It seems I’ve underestimated you.”

“I understand now,” Kaoru murmured.  “Why you want life energy so badly, and why you’re researching immortality.  It’s to restore him, isn’t it?”  She nodded toward the glowing tomb.

“That’s right.”  He knelt beside the motionless figure.  “It’s all for Zoisite.  My beloved.  Does that shock you?”

Kaoru sweatdropped.  “Not really…”

“Zoisite was my apprentice, but soon became… far more.  His smile… when he smiled, it was as if nothing else mattered.  We lived every day in perfect happiness, and paid no attention to those two old fools trying to create their perfect mechanical women.  But then…”

A beast-man lay on the table, a construct of human and magically augmented animal flesh, awaiting only the spark of life, to be supplied by the thunderstorm raging outside the tower.  Zoisite guided the rod that would channel life-giving energy into the creature.  Lightning struck the rod at the top of the tower…

And something went horribly wrong!  There was too much energy!  The creature exploded, the rod blew apart in Zoisite’s hand!  The force of the blast picked Kunzite up and flung him across the room.  He picked himself up, bleeding, ears ringing, vision going in and out of focus, and rushed to his beloved’s side, only to find that Zoisite hadn’t been as fortunate.  He must have died instantly.

“I had lost my Zoisite,” Kunzite went on, “and I was dying from my own injuries.  But just then…”

A shadow appeared to his fading sight, a shadow with glowing kanji where its eyes should have been.  “Are you Death?” he whispered.

The shadow laughed.  “I am Usui of the mazoku.”

“I will do anything to get Zoisite back,” Kunzite explained.  “I have taken possession of eternity to undo that failed experiment.”  Three silk-wrapped bodies bobbed to the surface of the pool.  The liquid glowed brighter, and light raced through lines in the floor to form a glowing magical diagram around Zoisite’s sarcophagus.

“Yahiko!” Kaoru cried.  “Misao!  Aoshi!”

“I actually have my colleague Jinnai to thank for this device,” Kunzite gloated.  “At one time he built a golem that was powered by the life energy of young women.  I’ve improved on his work, of course.”  The light from the crystal coffin grew brighter.  “Soon now.  Soon the time will come for my Zoisite to be reborn!”  He channeled more power into the spell.  “Arise, Zoisite!”

A sound echoed in the room – horribly wrong, like a mechanical imitation of a heartbeat.  The three bodies sank to the bottom of the pool.

“Sorry about your boyfriend,” Kaoru said, “but we’re taking our friends back!”

Diem Wing!

A blast of wind flung Kunzite into the wall.

Zelas Goto!

A towering blob appeared from nowhere and wrapped Kunzite in its tentacles.

The sorcerer was unfazed by Kaoru’s attack.  “Summoning a jellyfish – an unusual technique,” he murmured as though he were criticizing a student’s work.

“Just don’t ask where I learned it,” Kaoru replied.  “Kenshin!  Get the others!”

“Hai, Kaoru-dono!” 

“And find the Pledge Talisman while you’re at it!” she added.

Kenshin face-faulted.  “Kaoru-dono, that’s too much!”

“I know,” she replied, suddenly serious.  “But you have to do it while I buy us time.”  She pointed her bokken at Kunzite.

Freeze…

She never finished the incantation.  Two words from Kunzite interrupted her.

Vaal Flare

Fire exploded from Kunzite’s hands.  It vaporized Kaoru’s summoned jellyfish and sent Kaoru and Kenshin flying across the chamber.  “I won’t let you interfere with me any longer.”  He gestured and a spear of white energy blasted from his hands.

“He’s so powerful!” gasped Kaoru.

Laughing, Kunzite walked past her as though her efforts to stop him no longer mattered.  Usui materialized behind him.  “You fool, why don’t you finish them?” he demanded.

“I don’t recall promising to follow your commands!” Kunzite snapped.

“Know your place, human!” Usui retorted.  One of the chamber’s crystal pillars shattered and a shard speared through Kunzite’s hand.

Contemptuously the sorcerer tossed the fragment aside.  “A pledge is a pledge.”

Kaoru stared, eyes wide.  She remembered…

“You can search this tower all you want and never find the Pledge Talisman,” Kunzite had said.

“I swear upon the bindings of my eyes,” Usui had told her.

“Kenshin!” Kaoru whispered.  “Can you move?”

“Aa.”

She whispered something in his ear.  He nodded.  His violet eyes narrowed and hardened.

“Now awaken, my Zoisite!” Kunzite incanted.

In the sarcophagus, Zoisite stirred.

“Hurry!  Hurry!  Hurry!” Kunzite chanted.

“Kunzite!”  Kaoru stepped closer to him and raised her bokken.  “A final challenge!”

“Sounds interesting,” he smirked.

Flare Lance!

Kunzite spread his arms wide and invoked a barrier.

Balus Wall!

At that instant, Kaoru leaped.  Kunzite managed to block her flame – but the wall, designed as a barrier against magical energies, did not keep out physical attacks.  He looked up just in time to counter a strike from her bokken.  “Clever,” he praised.  “Using the Flare Lance as a distraction to hit me from behind.”  Then he glanced over at his mazoku partner.  “Usui!  Move!”

“Kenshin!” cried Kaoru.”

“Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu – Ryuu Sou Sen!”  Not the Sword of Light, but Kenshin’s sakabatou flashed from its saya – and the gleaming blade sliced through the bandage covering Usui’s eyes.  The glowing characters went dark and the cloth dropped soundlessly to the floor, lying there like something small and dead.

Usui cried out in agony and covered his eyes with his hands.  Kunzite echoed his scream, clutching at his throat and dropping to his knees.

Kenshin, taking advantage of his adversaries’ incapacity, leaped into the pool and snatched the silk-shrouded bodies of Misao, Yahiko and Aoshi.

“Zoisite,” Kunzite moaned.  He dragged himself across the floor toward the crystal coffin.

“Just as I thought,” Kaoru said to herself.  “Usui’s bandage was the Pledge Talisman.”

At Kunzite’s touch, the coffin opened.  Glowing water poured onto the floor – the same water that was in the pool, providing the link to transfer his victims’ life force into Zoisite’s body.  Slowly, Zoisite opened his eyes.  He stood up, staring blankly ahead, without soul or awareness.

Kunzite gazed up at him adoringly.  “Zoisite,” he murmured.  “You’ve finally come back to me.”

Kaoru shook her head.  “No.  His body’s being animated by the life energy you stole.  He’s nothing but a puppet.”

“Zoisite!” cried the stricken sorcerer.

Usui, his eyeless vision unimpaired by the loss of his talisman, pointed his spear at Kaoru.  He found his attack blocked by the gleaming blade of a slightly shorter-than-normal sword.

“Stop that,” ordered Gorou Fujita.

“You!” the mazoku exclaimed.

“For your own sake, don’t interfere, Usui-san.”

Zoisite’s lips moved, forming soundless words.  “Kill me, please.”

“Zoisite,” Kunzite wept.  “Forgive me, Zoisite.”  For the last time he clasped his beloved in his arms and began his final incantation.

Source of all power,
crimson flame burning bright,
gather in my hand and become an inferno…

“Everybody – RUN!” Kaoru screamed.  They all dashed for the exit just as Kunzite quietly spoke his last words.

Burst Flare

They barely made it out before the tower exploded.

“Was the Pledge of Immortality really what he wanted de gozaru ka?” Kenshin asked.

“Who knows?” Kaoru replied.  “Mazoku are like that.  They’ll give you what you think you want, but it always turns out badly.”

“I’ll say it turned out badly!”  Amagi shook his fist at her.  “You let him burn up his tower and all his secrets!”

“Think of the precious knowledge lost!” raged Jinnai.  “You guys are useless!  I’m not going to pay you!  Not one zeni!”

“Me either!” Amagi screeched.

“You two should watch what you say,” Aoshi reminded them in a voice like ice-cold marble.  “Not only did we prove you weren’t behind the magical beast attack, but we saved your lives.”

“And got ourselves cocooned doing it!” Misao added.

“That doesn’t matter!” Jinnai yelled.   “Not when all Kunzite’s research was lost!”

“So where are we goin’ next?” Yahiko asked.

“Oh, let’s just start walking and think of that later!”replied Kaoru with a wave of her hand.  “Cheer up, Aoshi.  Even if Kunzite didn’t have a Claire Bible manuscript, we’ll turn one up for you one of these days.”

“Don’t try to comfort me.”  In spite of the sunny day, Aoshi Shinomori was determined to hang onto his icy gloom.

NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.

For some reason the description of the immortality research in the source episode reminded me of Galaxy Express 999, so I put in a little nod to Tochiro.  And nothing a mazoku gives you is going to turn out well anyway.

The same with the life-energy-stealing pool.  There’s something similar in Karasutengu Kabuto (which is underrated and fun), and since I was already using Jinnai…

A few diversions coming before the next major story arc.  We’ll be taking a side trip from Slayers canon and venturing into some odd territory.

There is, of course, method to all the madness – but our heroes won’t know that until they meet a few more players.  Why, they haven’t even figured out who the mysterious policeman is!