Hell’s Paradise – 12 – Welcome to Horai

Upon crossing the threshold of the gate to Horai, Sagiri, Yuzuriha and Senta are confronted by Mu Dan, AKA Jiujin Amoghavajra, the peony spirit and one of the Tensen. One look is all Yuzuriha needs to NOPE the fuck out of there, but she’s caught by Jiujin’s superior strength and speed.

As he monologues about all the fun ways he’s going to toy with her and the others before killing them, and Sagiri draws her sword to ask Jiujin to let her go, I was left lamenting that Yuzuriha was nerfed before we could ever see her at the top of her shinobi game.

Thankfully, that’s not the case, as Yuzuriha uses wood substitution to escape from the clutches of Jiujin’s formerly human homunculus-like “toys”, launches herself into the air, fires at least eight kunai into Jiujin’s back and throat, and beheads him with a graceful flourish. She kicks ass with style—a completely different style from Sagiri or even Gabimaru.

Before she does this, Jiujin informs them that unfortunately, there is no “Elixir of Life” to be found there. There is only tan, and if anyone other than a Tensen consumes it, they become trees like Houko and the villagers. Sagiri is crestfallen at the prospect of Gabimaru not being pardoned, but once she neutralizes Jiujin Yuzuriha tells her their survival is what matters most right now.

Yuzuriha’s indomitable optimism insists as long as they can stay alive, they can figure things out—but Jiujin won’t make staying alive easy. He regenerates like the Tensen before him, and even when Yuzuriha breaks out her poison slime prison, it only slows him down.

At no point is Jiujin really fighting with anything like his full strength or speed, which makes sense as he’s said he likes toying with humans, and if nothing else these humans are more special than most. For one thing, Yuzuriha and Sagiri both use their tao even if they haven’t mastered it.

Jiujin tells Sagiri that there’s no hope for her as her tao level is simply too low to be any threat to him, even if she did know how to use it. But like Gabimaru and Choubei, Sagiri is able to intuitively, spontaneously summon more tao through her breathing techniques. When she slashes him across the face, the wound doesn’t immediately heal.

As luck would have it, Sagiri’s tao is of a kind you could say Jiujin is particularly “allergic” to; it’s like poison to him. Now that the threat to him is increased, he whips out more of his abilities, like ninpo-like invisibility and briefly switching into a woman to use the other side of his yin-yang  tao.

Against any one of his opponents, that might be enough, but Sagiri, Yuzuriha, and Senta work as a well-oiled team, continually hacking at Jiujin and controlling his movements and position until Senta has him in a hold.

Sagiri is accurate enough to deliver a tao-infused slash across his midsection, where Houko says is the core of his tao. Jiujin goes down, doesn’t regenerate, and stops moving. Yuzuriha leans on Sagiri and declares a hard-won victory.

For the precious few minutes the trio are able to rest, Yuzuriha remains a ball of energy observing their opulent surroundings, while Sagiri hits the nail on the head by suggesting Senta has developed the sweets for Yuzuriha. He can’t deny it, but less than love or lust, it is admiration and envy for how free she lives her life.

Looking back on his upbringing, Senta wanted to be an artist, and grew into a good one, but his family wouldn’t let him pursue anything other than the life of a Yamada executioner and sword tester. He hated killing, and as he studied religions trying to justify all that killing, he rose in rank.

But he was still lying to himself about what he was. And while Yuzuriha lies to just about everyone about everything, she never lies to herself. She is always nothing more or less than Yuzuriha the kunoichi. Senta expects Sagiri to disapprove, but she can’t, because she has a similar soft spot for her prisoner.

Speaking of that prisoner, Fuchi read Sagiri’s notes on Gabimaru that stated he is heartless towards everyone and everything but a single person (Yui). However, his time on the island has changed him to the point he wants to repay Mei for saving him (twice now) by helping her to do or be what she wants.

Fuchi, unaware there is no Elixir of Life on the island, worries this new softness may prove a liability in Gabimaru’s mission. It may, but more importantly, after his battle the strain Gabimaru put on his body to defeat his opponent seems to catch up to him all at once, and he collapses like a sack of bricks with a blood fountain rising from his nose.

When Yuzuriha mentions that there are more flowers blooming around them than earlier, Senta shoves her and takes a projectile flower meant for her straight into his breast. He enters a dream state where a pile of heads from his hated duty are kicked away by Yuzuriha, who then opens an umbrella and dances in a rain of heads and blood while an elated Senta draws her.

Senta remarks that he doesn’t need to be too close to someone like Yuzuriha, but simply being allow to be by her side to watch her brings him sufficient happiness. You could call her his first and only true muse, but it’s too late for Senta. His backstory was a transparent death flag, and he has succumbed to the flowers to eventually become tan.

Jiujan re-emerges in their twisted colossal monster form, and with Senta out of commission, for the first time Yuzuriha can’t be optimistic. She tells Sagiri this is a monster too strong for them to defeat. But along comes Shion to bail them out at the last second. It’s too late for Senta, but not for Yuzuriha or Sagiri to keep living and figure things out.

Hell’s Paradise – 11 – Fruit of Weak, Seed of Strong

The Doshi believed he had destroyed Choubei’s throat and killed him, but Choubei is no longer entirely human, thanks in part (probably) to his brief stint in the pit of vines and flowers. His throat regenerates, and when the Doshi breaks his arms, they heal as well. More importantly, Choubei can now clearly see the Doshi’s source of power: his Tao.

All the Doshi can do is protest that this must be impossible, as Choubei’s Tao continues to grow with his understanding. He even asks how Choubei can take this sudden transformation in such stride. Choubei, of course, is no stranger to change, or pain. As long as he can protect Touma, he’s good. But Touma is worried…is Choubei really okay? Probably not!

Meanwhile at the riverbed, Gabimaru continues to hack and slash at monsters with Mei on his shoulder uttering iterations of “strong-weak, yes, strong-strong, no.” Then a Doshi arrives and scoops Mei up in his cape. Without thinking, or rather, thinking about his wife, Gabimaru repositions himself between the Doshi and Mei.

He doesn’t know why he did this, or why he “hasn’t been himself” since coming to this island, but for now he’s just going to go with it. Even if Mei isn’t human, he doesn’t want anyone to make her cry. If he did, his wife would surely be cross with him.

The Doshi reveals he’s with a second Doshi, one in command of the butterflies and the other the centipedes. They also speak of the final step in training in Tao mastery, which involves sexual congress, specifically with Mei. Only the Tensen possess both yin and yang, which is why they can switch between the sexes.

The two Doshi are only yang, while Mei, an imperfect Tensen who was cast out for being only yin, is meant to be their “training partner”. It’s clear Mei wants nothing to do with them. In fact, the Doshi dig their own graves by being so crass about their intentions. There’s still the matter of being able to accurately read their invisible attacks.

Thankfully for both convicts, it’s Fushi who cracks Mei’s word game: they must learn to embrace both the weak and the strong. So far they’ve only been going strong, which is ineffective when fighting against Tao. A switch goes off in Gabimaru’s head, with this realization synching up with his years of tireless training in what was Tao by any other name, or at least half of it.

Now that he embraces the weak, the yin, of Tao, he can not only sense it to the point he can dodge and negate the Doshis’ attacks, but also better understands how Sagiri can waver and move forward and fight at the same time. He and Gantetsusai defeat the two Doshi, just as Sagiri & Co. reach and walk through the gates of Horai, where they’re “welcomed” by the Tensen Mu Dan casualy beheading Houko.

While Gabimaru is confident he’s attained the same level as the Tensen with his embrace of both the strong and weak, it remains to be seen how long, if at all, Sagiri, Yuzuriha, and Senta will be able to hold out.