Answering a request from Prince Okina, who’s been the target of an assassination, we’ve become involved in an uproar involving the Seyruun royal family.  The one behind all this seems to be Okina’s brother Anji.  But for some reason, two mazoku have shown up as well!  It’s pretty clear that the mazoku are behind the whole business!  But one of them sealed my power and I can’t use my special techniques!  What am I going to do?

“Take care now!” called Prince Okina.  “If anything happens, we’ll be sure to send word!”

“Will this Gensai-sensei really be able to cure Kaoru-dono de gozaru ka?” Kenshin wondered.

“It’ll be all right,” Misao reassured him.  “Even though he retired long ago, he’s supposed to still be in good health and his skill hasn’t diminished.”

“Supposed to be?” Aoshi raised one skeptical eyebrow.  “Is that all we know?”

“Jiiya says that no one knows more about breaking curses,” Misao replied.

And that was why Kaoru Kamiya, accompanied only by her student Yahiko Myoujin, was riding out of Seyruun toward the great mountains that guarded the city from the unfavorable influences of the northeast.

“We don’t know what Kaiou and the others will try next,” Aoshi had told her.  “So please find a cure and get back here quickly.  It will be a lot more difficult to fight two mazoku without your skills.”

“Is it all right for you to go alone de gozaru ka?” Kenshin had asked.  “Sessha should accompany Kaoru-dono…”

“No, Kenshin,” Kaoru had protested.  “It’s even more important that you stay here and protect Okina.  If you think I’ll be in any danger, I can take Yahiko.  Don’t worry!  As soon as I get back to normal, I’ll come straight back here.  Till then, you three guard Okina and watch out for those mazoku!”

Yahiko’s stomach growled, interrupting Kaoru’s memories.  “Oi, Busu, I’m hungry.”

Kaoru snapped back to the present.  “Okay.  That’s right, no point in being depressed.  The cure for this situation is food!  Let’s eat, drink, be merry and enjoy the trip!”

“Kaoru Kamiya has been eliminated,” Hyoko reported.  “I have sealed her powers, and there are only two ways she can regain them.  Either she must defeat me – which she cannot do without a more powerful technique than she possesses, or at least than she is willing to use – or she must partake of the Elixir of Life.”

“The location of the Elixir is lost even to the mazoku,” Kaiou commented.  “Is there any chance she could find it?”

“There was a clue to its whereabouts once, but that has also been lost.  Even if she were to find a copy of the riddle, wiser sages than she have been unable to unravel its secret.”

“Still, it’s best to make sure she never has the opportunity.  Kujiranami!”

A mazoku appeared.  Human in shape, it was as tall as a tree, with a massive body topped by an absurdly small head.  One arm ended in a metal cylinder.  “Yes, Kaiou-san?”

“Go and make sure Kaoru Kamiya does not regain her powers before our master permits.”

The mazoku winked out of existence.

“Can I please have some flour and salt?”

The shopkeeper peered over her counter at the little girl and her even smaller sister.  “Buying supplies for your grandfather again, Ayame-chan?”

The older girl nodded.  “That candy looks yummy too!”

“Yummy!” echoed her small shadow.

“Well then, take a piece for yourself – and one for you too, Suzume-chan.  My treat, because you’re such good girls.”

“Thank you!”  Ayame bowed.  “Can we take one for Yuutarou-niichan too?”

“Of course, dear.”

The two little girls were walking home, Suzume licking her sweet, when a young woman approached them.  She was dressed as a kendoka and had her hair tied up with an indigo ribbon.  “Excuse me, do you girls know where Gensai Oguni-sensei lives?”

“I’m sorry I’m not able to get up,” the old man apologized.

“Jiichan threw his back out,” Ayame explained.

“He was taking a bath!” Suzume added.

Kaoru sweatdropped.

“Anyway,” Gensai added, “whatever your problem is, between me and my pupil Yuutarou-kun, we can take care of you.  So what is it?  You don’t look like you have a broken leg, so… is it a tapeworm?  Or are you expecting a little stranger?”

“WHAT?!!!”

“Most of my patients these days have ordinary problems,” the old man explained when Kaoru had calmed down.  “I haven’t seen a case of sealed powers since… oh, it must be about six years now, right, Yuutarou-kun?  The young woman with the big… well, never mind that.  Anyway, Yuutarou knows how to mix the potion, right, lad?”

The doctor’s cat-eyed young apprentice looked up from the cauldron he was tending.  “To unbind sealed power, take a potion of oppay fruit, kohma tail, rateeth powder, and… Gensai-sensei, I can’t read your writing here.”

The doctor squinted at it.  “Aondora.”

“This’ll cure Kaoru?” Yahiko demanded.

“It works for most cases of magical sealing,” Gensai-sensei explained.

“And what if it doesn’t?”

“Of course it’ll work!” Ayame declared.  “Jiiya’s cures are the best!”

Suzume nodded agreement.

“And I’m the next best!” announced Yuutarou with an air of great confidence.

“I don’t like that guy,” Yahiko muttered.

“Now, Kaoru-san, just lie down there.”  Yuutarou pointed to a futon placed in the center of a magical circle.  “Drink the potion, and I’ll recite the releasing incantation.”

Kaoru eyed the cup suspiciously, but swallowed the vile-tasting stuff anyway. 

“On kirikyara harara futaranbaswoha,” intoned Yuutarou.

O Power of Light and Earth and Wind,
Break now this evil spell.
Flow...

But just before the young healer could pronounce the final word of his incantation, the clinic exploded!

In an instant, Kaoru threw her body over Gensai-sensei.  Yuutarou did the same with the little girls – as did Yahiko, so the two boys’ heads collided painfully.

“Don’t get in my way!” snapped Yuutarou.

“That’s my line!” Yahiko retorted.

“Kaoru Kamiya!” boomed a voice overhead.

“Nani?  Kaoru looked around.  So did everyone else.

An enormous being stood in midair, directly over the ruins of the clinic.  His legs were thick as treetrunks and as tall as Kaoru’s entire body.  The rest of him was in proportion – except for his head, which was of normal size and looked absurdly small atop that mountainous frame.  His right arm ended in a metal cylinder that gave off smoke and a sulfurous odor.

“Great.  Another mazoku.”  Kaoru sighed.   “Mou!  What do you want?”

“I am Kujiranami,” the mazoku boomed.  “Kaiou sent me.”

“Kaiou?  I should have known.”  Kaoru drew her bokken.  “But you messed up this time.  Seyruun’s back that way.”  She pointed.  “I’m not with Okina now.”

Kujiranami chuckled, a low, rumbling sound.  “There’s no mistake, Kaoru Kamiya.  I am here to take your life!”  The metal cylinder on the end of his arm morphed into an immense, jagged blade.

“Is that so?” Kaoru retorted.

Fireball!

A weak puff of smoke emerged from her bokken and dissipated.  Kaoru blinked at it.

“I thought you said that stuff would cure her!” Yahiko bore down on Yuutarou.

“I didn’t quite finish the incantation!” Yuutarou fired back.  “Besides, the more powerful the being who did the original sealing, the less effective the cure will be.  If a really powerful mazoku sealed her powers, it might not work.”

“You should have said that in the first place!”

“Well, in that case,” Kaoru said to the mazoku, “I’ll have to use what I have.”

Smoke and flame belched from the cylinder on the end of the monster’s arm.  It shot forth a black sphere.  Kaoru jumped out of the way, and the ground shook as the sphere landed where she had been standing.

“That ain’t magic!” yelled Yahiko.

“It’s an iron ball,” Yuutarou murmured in wonder.  “That thing on his arm spits out iron balls!”

Kaoru sweatdropped.  The thing took a lumbering step toward her.  If that thing hits me, I’m done for!  But it’s slow…  She darted toward it.

Kujiranami fired at her again.  The iron ball narrowly missed her, and the force of its impact sent her flying.  She struck the ground hard and didn’t move.  The mazoku started toward her again.  Its weapon began to shift shape, turning into a massive axe.  “Now die,” he murmured.

“Kaoru!” Yahiko screamed.

Dizzy and gasping, Kaoru got to her feet.  The monster’s axe morphed back into the metal cylinder.

“You can still stand?” Kujiranami demanded.

Kaoru drew her bokken and took up a defensive stance.  “I won’t give up my dreams till the very end, even in the face of your power – or Kaiou’s!”

Kujiranami leveled the barrel at her head.

“Why do want to kill me anyway?” Kaoru asked.

“Don’t you know?  Because you’re a threat!”

“How am I a threat?”

“What’s the use of telling a dead woman?”

“I don’t think so.”  The air around Kaoru’s bokken shimmered – not the bright aura of her magical techniques, but a barely perceptible distortion, like the heat-shimmer above a fire.  “You think that because you’re a mazoku, only a spiritual attack or a magical weapon like the Sword of Light can hurt you.  You’re wrong.  A human who channels all his will into the thing in his hand can damage you, even if the thing is an ordinary sword, or a fishing rod, or a bokken.  This is the essence of Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu.”  She leaped.  And in the split second before the monster could bring its weapon to line up on her again, she struck.  Her bokken came down, not on mazoku flesh, but on the iron of the cylinder itself.  Cracks spread from the impact point.  An instant later, the cylinder blew up.

Yahiko watched, round-eyed with amazement.  That’s the essence of Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu? he marveled.

“What?” cried Kaoru.  “You can’t make any more of that potion?”

“All the ingredients were destroyed along with the clinic,” Gensai-sensei explained.  “In any case, since your abilities were sealed by a very powerful mazoku, it would probably take the Elixir of Life to unbind them.”

Kaoru sighed.  “Even if such a thing exists…”

“What is the Elixir of Life anyway?” Yahiko asked.

“It’s a legendary substance that can lift all curses,” Yuutarou replied.  “Supposedly it can cure all diseases, extend life indefinitely, and even bring people back from the dead.  But nobody knows what it is or how to make it.”

A legendary substance that can lift all curses, Kaoru thought.  If that’s true, it could not only cure me – it could cure Aoshi too!

“Jiichan, what’s this?”  Ayame and Suzume ran up, carrying a box.  “We were looking for any food that wasn’t ruined, and we found this in the storehouse.  There’s nothing in it but an old book full of scribbles and a funny-looking rock.”

Gensai took it.  “This is… I’d forgotten I had this.”  He chuckled.  “I bought this years ago, from a passing trader – it’s supposed to be a clue to the whereabouts of the Elixir of Life.”

“Elixir of Life,” Yahiko repeated.  “You mean the stuff you were talkin’ about a minute ago?”

“That’s right, Yahiko-kun.  This book supposedly tells where the Elixir is, but I’ve never been able to unravel the riddle.”

“How can that book tell us anything?” the boy scoffed.  “That ain’t writin’ – it’s just little wiggly worms!”

Yuutarou peered at the book.  “It’s in a very old language known only to scholars,” he explained.  “The beginning of it is a warning that the Elixir has to be kept out of the hands of those who would use it for profit and power.  And then it gives the riddle:

Where heavenly current flows upward
There is the ocean of Suwa.
The four dragons climb to the moon.
When God crosses,
It leads to the tiger’s mouth.
Even when lost in darkness with no light
From the place pointed out by the hand of Cephied
The path to the base of the great mountain will be opened.

I don’t know what it means, though.”

“Four dragons… tiger’s mouth… the path to the base of the great mountain… it sounds like the kind of high-flown nonsense alchemists write to hide that they’re really talking about stuff like sulfur and manure,” Kaoru said, wrinkling her nose. 

Yuutarou grinned.  “It kind of does, doesn’t it?”  Then he frowned.  “But it doesn’t really feel the same – it really feels straightforward, not like an alchemical text at all.  I wonder if they aren’t talking about something real…”

“The ocean of Suwa,” repeated Gensai-sensei.  “That’s real enough.  There’s a lake called Suwa northeast of here.  The villages around it are well known for their kite-flying festivals, because the updrafts from the lake can carry huge kites higher than anywhere else.”

Yahiko pounded his fist on his palm.  “The heavenly current flows upward!  But what does the next bit mean – the four dragons that climb to the moon?”

“I don’t know,” Kaoru replied.  “But we can probably find out if we go to Suwa!”

A mazoku in the robes of a priest-mage knelt before Kaiou. 

“What makes you think you can succeed where Kujiranami failed, Rosario?” Kaiou demanded.

“I know where Kaoru Kamiya is going!” smirked the dark-haired monster.  “With my superior intelligence, I can solve the riddle ahead of her, and prevent her from reaching the Elixir of Life!”

NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.

Dropping Martina left me with a very large plot hole – and I’ve never liked the way the Slayers Next handles Lina’s loss and regaining of her powers anyway.  The TV series leaves out a lot and is kind of confusing as a result; there are fewer gaps in the novels, but the continuity is somewhat different.  So I grabbed a storyline out of Kenshin’s much-maligned third season and wrote it the way I wanted.

The feng shui elements of Seyruun’s site are my own invention (based on Kyoto’s).

Gensai just sort of wrote himself as a dirty old man – I don’t know why.  Mistaking Kaoru for a girl in trouble seemed wildly funny.  (Amazing nobody ever did it with Slayers; it would be even more hilarious with Lina.)  But the original had a line about Runan having had a patient with a similar problem six years earlier, so, in thinking who it could have been, I decided to throw in another reference to “Okon the White Serpent.”  Ohohohoho!

Yuutarou’s Flow Break is combined with an onmyodo incantation to collapse a spiritual barrier.

Part of the “essence of Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu” actually comes from a Slayers short, “The Thing He Sees Beyond the Point of His Sword,” translated at http://qp-diana.hp.infoseek.co.jp/Translation/spinoff4.html.  There’s more than one way to take down a mazoku!  But it seemed to fit here.