Fanfic / Blood and Revolution

“Shinomori Aoshi. I attacked him.” Kenshin closed his eyes a moment, then looked up at Hiko. “What have you made of this one, master?” he demanded. One hand drifted to his bloodstained chest. He’d been stabbed...

“A dragon.” Hiko flashed a fang, then fished the sakabatou out of the grass and threw it toward him.

— 1879

Blood and Revolution is an anime crossover mostly-softcore (until later installments) yaoi RP Fan Fic by Ankh-Ascendant and Silvershadowfire, with a focus on Rurouni Kenshin and involving major characters from Yu-Gi-Oh!, along with more characters of varying importance from about 20 other series.

The formula:

1. Take some of the most badass characters from Rurouni Kenshin, just after the end of the series.
2. Say that Kenshin's school of Implausible Fencing Powers is passed down through a line of vampires.
3. Pick up the story with the night Kenshin is turned and slips his master's control.
4. See what happens for the next 200 years.

It starts with building relationships, wanders through having adventures, spends some time with families, takes some time for fighting for nonhuman rights, and builds up to the fate of the world.

Due to the text formatting being an intrinsic part of it, it's only available in its original location on Google Docs. (And despite the flippant titles, it doesn't actually go into comedic or light-hearted territory very often. )

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This fan fic provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc:
  • The first chapter ends with a gloss over of Saitou trying to recruit Hiko with "let's assume everyone survives".
  • Koenma tells Kenshin he may call on them again, which goes nowhere.
  • Saitou's control-collar on Aoshi seems to've disappeared over a time jump.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: It's pretty common for otherwise stoic characters to express affection for each other by running fingers through the others' hair or rubbing their heads.
• After the End: All of the future chapters have taken the world in a (post-)apocalyptic direction.
• A God I Am Not:
  • Saitou doesn't like to admit or be reminded that he didn't have any choice about eventually giving up his humanity and becoming a kami.
  • Kenshin after his long meditation and time in Hell is effectively the god of the Mountain Kingdom he founded, but good luck getting him to acknowledge or admit it
• The Alcatraz / Extranormal Prison: The youkai prison in 1942 is on an uninhabited island in the north, mostly underground, with layers and layers of locked doors, and then surrounded by a holy energy barrier.
• And I Must Scream: Saitou and the rest of Kurama's victims are kept alive long, long after they should be dead while he experiments on them. This includes things like having their organs hanging on demon trees that are eating them.
• And Then John Was a Zombie:
  • Aoshi intentionally turns Seth, one of the foremost anti-youkai activists, into a vampire when he recognizes him in a battle.
  • Duo was a KaibaCorp anti-youkai soldier, before being kidnapped and turned by Atem and Seth.
• Animated Tattoo: Aoshi, eventually, has a snake tattoo that moves around on his body and acts alive, and his flower tattoos gradually begin to move as well.
• A Protagonist Shall Lead Them: Saitou tried this with the Youkai Council, uniting the youkai to eventually integrate them with society. After the second time it crumbles around his ears he gives up.
• Artistic Licence Medicine: Averted where practical; most medical stuff happens implied or offscreen, but if a character doesn't have self healing abilities, they're stuck with normal medicine or a trip to the south of Japan to see the lake kami Rune.
• Ascended Demon: Bakura changes to a protective spirit when he falls in love with a mortal.
• Badass Normal:
  • Saitou deals with the government, youkai, vampires, demons, and kami, all while refusing to be given any supernatural upgrades. He remains a normal human, with the only allowance made for the result of Aoshi's Impossible Task.
  • Minor shout-out goes to Seto and Seth Kaiba, too, who succeed against the youkai based on KaibaCorp's technology, political power, and their own determination.
• Barrier Maiden: The Earthkami's human form, once awakened, is literally the soul of the Earth collected in one mortal form; if he comes to harm, the Earth will die.
• Berserk Button:
  • Harming Kenshin's family is enough to sometimes test his Thou Shall Not Kill vow.
  • Likewise, harming Bakura's family, or - especially dangerous - trying to take Yukito's "babies". Punishments range from stabbing, to blizzards, to a cursed life.
  • Pulling Kenshin's hair. He finds it really rude.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Kenshin, Yukito, Ryou, Rune, Shun - they're all kind and gentle, but they all have snapping points that make them very dangerous.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • Kaworu. It's subtle, but it's also clear that he isn't human and doesn't follow human morality.
  • The Bakurae. Yukito gets special note; Ryou goes off the deep end after the apocalypse, but Yuki has been an odd case of a sweet and kind sociopath from day one.
  • Kami in general, and the Earthkami in particular, are more or less Above Good and Evil and more concerned with their respective spheres of influence than with human morality.
• Bomb Throwing Anarchist: Aoshi, in 2015, when he kills most of the Diet. Albeit not quite literally (as there are no bombs involved).
• Break the Cutie:
  • In backstory for Yukito. Apparently he was born with his chaos powers active and he traumatized himself out of using them by bringing his nightmares to life. It also explains why he has vision bad enough to wear glasses - not being able to see let him hide from them.
  • Likewise implied in Touya's past, as he's a young teenager walking the world alone with the ghost of his mother and his father and sister nowhere to be seen.
  • Atem and Seth capture a young bunny-youkai Momiji explicitly to torture.
• Break the Haughty:
  • The universe tries to teach Saitou a lesson, several times. None of them seem to stick for long.
  • Seto gets one at the hands of Rune. Seto's overconfident in Bakura's protection and his own righteousness, and starts making demands of the kami. Rune - a lake god - curses him with Ranma-esque genderbending.
• Cat Ninja: Aoshi's Animal Motif, as decided by Saitou, is a panther, and he lives up to it with his vampire cat eyes and chaos-demon cat tail and panther-shapeshifting.
• Claimed by the Supernatural:
  • Vampires Kenshin and Aoshi mark Saitou as their prey with bites.
  • Likewise vampire Seth accidentally claims Mokuba as his prey when he can't control his instincts.
  • Bakura puts a magic tattoo-like mark on Seto to claim him.
  • Bakura puts a different tattoo on Aoshi that claims him for the chaos goddess.
  • Aoshi's Animated Tattoo snake bites people to mark them as vessels of Orochi.
• Combat Pragmatist: Modern Aoshi is more than pragmatic enough just to shoot people, despite being a vampire and master swordsman. In fact he keeps guns in his bedroom.
  • Kenshin, Saitou, and Hiko, not so much. Atem might be that pragmatic but never does it.
• Cool Sword: Well, considering the main characters are from Rurouni Kenshin...
  • Named Weapons: Most youkai swords, including Mamosei ^* Kenshin's, Ookami no Hantei ^* Saitou's, originally, and Unmeiga & Yuumeiga ^* Aoshi's, along with Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha's canon examples: Tessaiga, Tenseiga, and Bakusaiga.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Mamosei, Yuumeiga. Mamosei is shown to cut through steel and Yuumeiga is explicitly given the power to cut "anything".
  • Ancestral Weapon: Ookami no Hantei is passed down through the Kaiba family.
  • Empathic Weapon: Mamosei? Maybe? Or maybe Kenshin's just a little nuts.
    • Cargo Ship: Saitou even refers to Mamosei as Kenshin's 'wife'.
    • Confirmed after a hundred years of Kenshin's companionship allows Mamosei to become a sword youkai in his own right.
  • Loyal Phlebotinum: Mamosei - the transformation from blade to reverse-blade depends on Kenshin's will alone, no matter who holds it.
  • Evil Weapon: Unmeiga is powered up by "evil actions".
  • Take Up My Sword / It Was a Gift: Ookami no Hantei for Eiji and later Mokuba. The Take Up My Sword comes into play in that Saitou is no longer human, and Ookami no Hantei can only be wielded by humans, even if he is not in his death throes before a Big Bad, and he is passing it on to someone who can still use it.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: Toutousai from Inuyasha crafted all of them except Sesshoumaru's.
• Curse: Bakura lays curses on Saitou, and much later to Aoshi. Rune also does to Seto.
  • Curse That Cures: One of those curses ends up being a key to a part of an Impossible Task. Saitou's is modified to restore his youth.
• Cynical Mentor / Sink or Swim Mentor : Hiko tends to have a policy of noninterference, even though there wouldn't be anything to (not) interfere in if he hadn't gone changing people into vampires.
  • Along with some Broken Pedestal to go along with it, since he consistently refuses to be a decent person with Saitou (whom he refers to as Kenshin's pet) and espouses killing Aoshi... At least he only talks and doesn't usually interfere unless it's to teach Kenshin a lesson.
  • Then again, Kenshin does keep sending his family off to be trained in the Hiten by Hiko. Maybe Kenshin has a blind spot where he's concerned.
• Disappointed in You: Kenshin toward Atem, Saitou, and / or Aoshi on occasions, particularly after Aoshi massacres the government. It's also his best method of getting Kenji and Atem to do chores.
• Distracted by the Sexy:
  • In Yuki's ealier appearances, before he has complete control of his power, walking into the room makes most people stop thinking about anything else.
  • Saitou has also been known to be distracted by Hyoga's muscles and the fact that he's normally wet.
• Doorstop Baby: Atem is left behind as a baby, though at least he is given to his real father.
  • Alongside Missing Mom. Kitsune apparently aren't very maternal.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Kenji get unceremoniously killed off by an unnamed side character.
• Emotion Eater: The Bakurae feed on lust, and chaos-demon Aoshi feeds on violence.
• Empowered Badass Normal:
  • Saitou, when, 100 years after he naturally died, he transitions into his new state as an ancestor kami.
  • Kenshin, at the beginning, was just a master swordsman. Then Hiko made him a vampire.
    • And then he made Aoshi a vampire...
• Extra Parent Conception: At least two of Yuki's children have more than two biological parents: Yue, whose fathers are Bakura and Ryou, and Mamoru, whose fathers are Saitou and Kenshin.
• Faking the Dead: Seto claims Seth is dead after an unsuccessful assault by KaibaCorp. In this case, Seto can't bear the idea that he is a youkai, so he either believes or wants to believe that Seth is a monster and the real one is dead. He makes it publicly known that he was dead rather than say he was turned.
  • And a second time: Bakura tells Seto, who is both obsessed and would consider it a Mercy Kill - he was willing to make a Deal with the Devil to kill him - that he killed Seth so that he can rest easy and drop it.
• Fantastic Racism: Japan's, and particularly KaibaCorp's, views toward youkai ever since they wouldn't intercede in some petty squabble is somewhere between "racist" and "Holocaust".
  • Villain Has a Point: Youkai are mostly dangerous, and a lot of them do seem to feed on humans in some way or another... Granted the unilateral arrests and experimentation is going a bit far.
• Flight
  • Yue was born with wings. He later teaches Bakura to fly after Kaworu teaches him how angels do it.
  • Kenshin can also fly by 'running along the clouds' after he gains his dragon's soul.
• Gaia's Vengeance: The kami D raises an army of dissatisfied youkai to wage war on humans because they are damaging to the natural world and he thinks they aren't worthy of living there.
• Gender Bender:
  • Chaos magic and / or incubus abilities mean both Bakura and Yukito can change physical sex at will. It's not even clear if Yukito was born as a male or female. Ryou's magical genetics are too diluted to do so.
  • Seto gets cursed with genderbending for pissing off a kami. In his case it's controlled by water, a la Ranma.
• God in Human Form: The Earthkami, Darien Shields, is a literal god living a human life.
• God Needs Prayer Badly: I the present day, Rune is slowly fading after a few decades of isolation from the humans who used to pray for his healing. Additionally, Saitou and other ancestor kami gain their power from the clan members revering them. Their power grows as the worship base does.
• Good is Not Nice: Saitou - you'd be hard to find a more lawful, incorruptible, and well-intentioned person in a position of power, but man is he a Jerkass. And Hiko isn't so nice eiether.
• Good Is Not Soft: Kenshin is genuinely kind and nice, but he doesn't always show mercy to his enemies.
• Gorgeous Garment Generation:
  • Hana either has a seamstress hidden away somewhere, or she spontaneously generates her wide variety of costumes. As she's a living doll, probably the latter.
  • Aoshi uses his new chaos magic to create a silk kimono with a dragon motif for Kenshin out of his ragged gi and hakama, and it becomes a regular thing.
• Grand Theft Me: Seto is kidnapped and Seth assumes his identity for a year.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Kaworu does this sometimes, usually to teach Yue some kind of obscure angel lesson. Or because it's fun.
• Healing Factor: Vampires heal quickly, especially if they get some blood. Normal youkai can survive normally-mortal wounds. Shapeshifters can heal themselves instantly by changing form.
• Heroic BSoD: Kenshin breaks down a few times when he does something against his own moral code. It's not even always killing someone.
• Hot-Blooded:
  • Kenji throws himself into things without a lot of thought... but with more than a dash of Leeroy Jenkins.
  • Atem was also more prone to action than thought when he was young, but training from Aoshi helped him grow out of it.
    • My Blood Runs Hot: Kenshin literally has hot (and spicy) blood.
• Human Pet:
  • Saitou, Kaji, and Rei serve this purpose at times for one or more ryu-youkai/vampires; they're Claimed by the Supernatural with special prey-bites, binding them to their vampires, and they act as portable lunch and daytime bodyguards. Hiko openly refers to them as pets.
  • Rei is more literally and happily Atem and Seth's pet.
  • Pegasus is both pet and The Jeeves to Shiroe. Being as he is the original ryu-youkai and became such to be Shiroe's pet, this means that there's some pet-ception going on: dragons keep ryu-youkai, ryu-youkai keep humans.
• Hybrid Power: Played completely straight with Yukito, a half-incubus and half Yuki-onna. You just don't realize how powerful he is because he's just really nice.
  • Half-Human Hybrid / Dhampyr: Kenji, who also gets an understated case of the above. He's supposed to be very powerful, but he's too down-to-earth to use it.
  • Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: Yukito is half incubus and half yuki-onna, with no human involved.
  • Heinz Hybrid:
    • Ryou - his mother was Yukito (half incubus, half yuki-onna), and his father was a human-possessed-by-a-ghost. Well, technically, his father was a ghost in a human's body...
    • Yuugi and Atem - their father was Kenji, a Dhampyr, and their mother was a kitsune hanyou.
    • Yue's genetics are impossible to determine. Short form: somehow he ended up as an angel, because screw genetics.
• I Love You, Vampire Son: Master-little one relationships are both mentorly and sexual. The cases when they become romantic (Kenshin and Aoshi, Seth and Rei) are the exceptions.
• Immortality Hurts: Saitou can't die... but he has no healing factor at all.
• Immortal Life Is Cheap: Vampires in particular can be revived after death, so they tend to die as a cheap Berserk Button for others.
  • Eventually subverted by Kenji’s permanent death.
• Impossible Task: Saving Saitou from old age. Aoshi and Kenshin had to cure his lung cancer, restore his youth, and give him immortality before he would accept it. He never intended for them to be able to do it, he just wanted to give them something hopeless so they'd stop trying.
• Inhumanable Alien Rights: In Japan, youkai and nonhumans have no rights and are subject to Fantastic Racism, despite the efforts of Saitou.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: Yukito is half yuki-onna; when he gets very frightened, he turns into a cloud of snow or ice.
• I See Dead People:
  • Touya's primary ability, aside from his unusual resistance to chaos, is seeing spirits.
  • Ryou also has this ability, thanks to his sort of but not quite ghost father.
• Jerkass: Hiko, full stop. Also Saitou and Bakura to (slightly) lesser degrees.
• Jerk Ass Has A Point:
  • Hiko is a jerkass, but he also knows the rules they're supposed to be living by, and his leniency with Kenshin does turn out to have consequences.
  • And Saitou's methods are frustrating and his personality is irritating, but he's almost always right.
  • Bakura in his original and most jerky appearance was trying to save his baby, and preferably its mother.
• The Juggernaut:
  • In 1942, Saitou assassinates the generals and isn't put down even by bullets.
  • Inuyasha, when he doesn't have Tessaiga, is literally unstoppable. Sesshoumaru and Hiko fought him for two days to hold him back.
  • Aoshi, when he is feeling violent, is basically a force of nature. He can kill hundreds without slowing down.
  • Ryu-youkai in general just keep going despite their wounds; it's because they know they'll heal as soon as they get some blood in them, so it makes sense for them to end the fight as quickly as possible, even if it's bloody for them.
• Killer Rabbit: Yukito and Ryou. Both are quiet, calm, and sweet, but both are able to drain life energy to the point of death.
• Large Ham: Atem is overdramatic at times, Hyoga often, and Rei lives and breathes it.
• Levitating Lotus Position: Kenshin at the Mountain Home while trying to avoid losing control of his power. He also acts as a Living Battery for the mountain's defenses.
• Love Redeems:
  • Bakura, on finding a mortal soulmate he admits to loving, loses his status as a chaos demon.
  • A more subtle example: the love and unwavering faith of his child changed his nature to suit expectations, making him kinder and more protective. Not metaphorically, either - chaos is malleable.
• Mangst: Kenshin, Saitou, Aoshi, Atem, Seto… No one wants to be open with their feelings.
• Manipulative Bastard: Saitou seems to lie, or at least withhold information, more easily than he tells the truth, which gets him into trouble with everyone from his lovers to his bosses to the people he's trying to help.
  • Also Seth - his specialty is manipulation opposite Seto's force. Up to the level, post-apocalypse and to Atem, of Man Behind the Man.
  • Atem also goes for the Manipulative Bastard level of pulling people's strings, but sometimes falters at Smug Snake as his sadism distracts him.
• Massively Multiplayer Crossover: The main series is Rurouni Kenshin, but there are major characters from Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cardcaptor Sakura, Saint Seiya, Dragon Knights, Saiyuki, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. There are also secondary characters from Inuyasha, Free!, Trinity Blood, YuYu Hakusho, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, minor characters from Sailor Moon, Pet Shop of Horrors, Log Horizon, Hellsing, The Vision of Escaflowne, Record of Lodoss War, and Fruits Basket, as well as Jigoku Shoujo cameos.
  • Canon Welding: Several are implied to have their canons be more or less intact, but in the same universe, including Rourouni Kenshin and Inuyasha. Yu Yu Hakusho and Escaflowne seem to have elements of their backstories intact but the plot of the series left out.
  • Intercontinuity Crossover: Some characters are just lifted completely out of their canon universe and dropped into the Rurouni-Kenshin-with-youkai baseline, including Card Captor Sakura, Free, and Yu-Gi-Oh characters, completely repurposed.
  • Crossover Ship: Yukito and Jounouchi, Ryou and Touya. invoked
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Bakura kidnaps and imprisons Seto for a year. They do get together, though the latter is still a pragmatic jerk about it.
• Meaningful Rename: When Bakura's chaos mark is changing him Aoshi's True Name apparently changes; the kanji of his tattooed name changes from the canonical spelling, which reads "blue + violet", to reading "blue + death".
• Monster Progenitor:
  • Pegasus, the original ryu-youkai, was created from a human by Shiroe's magic.
  • Alucard, the original real vampire.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Saitou and Shun succeed in waking the Earthkami to stop D's army, which ends up causing the collapse of civilization.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In Year 10, it's mentioned that Kenshin came down from his meditating to defend the mountain against attack sometime during the time jump.
• One-Man Army: Many youkai, but Sesshoumaru, Kenshin, and Aoshi specifically, in very different ways.
  • Sesshoumaru has only to take his true form to beat back an attack from the government and KaibaCorp.
  • Kenshin has to channel his ki into maintaining a force field and boil magma, and still meditate on top of it, to keep his people safe from him in the apocalypse.
  • Another example for Kenshin: when he goes Wrathful Kami/Battousai mode and singlehandedly fights off a fleet invading Yamaguchi
  • Aoshi's attack on the cabinet and Diet leaves about 500 people dead with nothing but his swords and a handgun.
• Our Angels Are Different: Apparently angels are just randomly born to mortals once in a very great while. And they take a thousand years to mature before a god (any god) calls on them for service. And they develop more sets of wings as they grow older.
• Our Demons Are Different: Bakura and his people are called "demons", but are based on the Ancient Egyptian chaos goddess Isfet, and are functionally incubi but also more than that... and they're not necessarily going to be what they are forever.
• Our Mages Are Different: Most magic is apparently innate to youkai, demons, and nonhumans, but it does turn out that some there are actual mages, primarily of the "mages are like scholars" variety. Hakkai is a master of Ki Manipulation, and both Seth and Pegasus are classic spellcasters after they put in the study.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The vampires, or ryu-youkai as they call themselves, are not really related to European vampires, as Abel lampshades. They do drink blood, but in truth they're feeding on the life force / ki in the blood, not the blood itself. They can transcend the need to feed on blood at all and become psychic vampires. Also, sun is only a sedative to them, not a direct danger.
• Perception Filter: All kami escape the notice of regular people, sometimes whether they like it or not. Only people with a sincerely pure heart can normally see them, though they can make an effort to be seen by regular people.
• Person of Mass Destruction: The Japanese government originally treats youkai as potential weapons; when the majority refuse to be used, they become enemies.
• Playing with Syringes:
  • Yoko no Kurama is employed as a Mad Scientist during world War II.
  • Shiroe learned about humans by vivisecting his pet one, and tends to learn about living things and the natural world the same way.
• Physical God: Rune, D, the Earthkami, and all the other kami, including eventually Saitou, Shun, and Kenshin are gods with physical form.
• The Pollyanna: Yukito seems determined to be optimistic and kind, (almost) no matter what and to whom.
• Polyamory:
  • Kenshin, Aoshi, and Saitou are the canon OT3. With flavors of open relationships and Ethical Slut, since they all sleep with at least one other person and it's not considered cheating or a big deal.
  • Atem, Seth, and Rei are another longterm threesome, though on less equal footing (Rei is submissive and considers them his masters).
• Pro-Human Transhuman:
  • Despite being not human anymore, Kenshin still firmly believes in protecting both humans and youkai.
  • Despite ascending to becoming a kami, Saitou never loses his desire to protect those who need it, no matter their species.
• Psychic Link: All vampires are linked master-to-little-one; unfettered versions can communicate with anyone in their clan.
• Psychic Radar: Vampires can use their ki sense to locate people in the area and sometimes read more about them.
• Psycho Supporter: Aoshi is the amoral sidekick to Kenshin, who retains his vow not to kill, and Saitou, who still believes in the law. He does things they can't or won't, usually involving killing people.
• Put on a Bus: Jounouchi, Mokuba, Yuugi, Yukito's babies, and Kenji's girlfriend and unborn child, are written out for their own protection.
  • The Bus Came Back: For most of them, anyway. After the apocalypse is over, which hasn't actually been written yet.
• Sadist: Atem is a vicious little beast, particularly post-apocalypse.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Aoshi's outfits usually include a scarf from 1882 onward. Semi-justified, in that he's protecting his vulnerable throat.
• Separated at Birth: Atem and Yuugi are twins who don't meet until they're over a century old.
• Shadow Walker: Bakura teleports by stepping between shadows, with amusing results, since chaos magic interferes with his aim...
• Shout-Out:
  • Kenshin's Bag of Holding kimono (he stuffs a whole blanket in there, among other things) seems to be a call back to a scene in the anime - How did he fit a whole daikon radish in there?
  • Rei's scene where he’s making sound effects while sneaking around echoes a scene in the anime where he did the same thing while spying on Rin.
  • Aoshi's torture of Seto - locking him in his own mind for several months, leaving his body in a coma - is essentially identical to what Yami no Yuugi did in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series.
  • In Hiko’s fight with Aoshi, he uses a finishing move described as a massively powered slash "that could take down mountains", which he never even bothers teaching his students because they can’t match his strength. This seems to be the same move used by the original founder of the Hiten Mitsurugi in a short one-off written by the same author, and imply that Hiko is the founder of the school.
• Shown Their Work:
  • When Saitou and Shun visit the nature spirits in Toronto, they're clearly based on Iroquois legends of the Jogah. (Granted, with some geographical displacement.)
  • Most of the names Saitou uses are names the real person did, and he dies in the same year and in the same position.
  • Tsukumogami Shun, Hana, Mamosei are based on actual Japanese legends of objects and sometimes living things, like cats, that become youkai after existing for a hundred years.
  • The concept of kami having various aspects and needing to be appeased to be helpful to humans.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Aoshi to Seth. He does bluntly say that he turned him out of "spite" and doesn't seem especially interested in teaching him anything. He gets better, though. Also Hiko to Kenshin, generally - his noninterference policy is frustrating.
• Sliding scale of Immortality and Aging:
  • Long-Lived: Hanyou and most regular youkai and non-humans seem to fall into this category, mortals who will eventually age and die but who have extremely extended lifespans. This means that Inuyasha, Yuugi, Atem, Kenji, Jounouchi, and Ryou sit here.
  • The Ageless: Vampires, daiyoukai, dragons, tsukumogami, and most of the super-mortals fall into this, people who no longer age but can die of violence and misadventure. This list includes Kenshin, Aoshi, Hiko, Seth, Rei, Sesshoumaru, Shun, Hana, Kurama, Abel, and possibly Yukito.
  • Complete Immortality: Angels, kami, and chaos demons are both unaging and cannot die from normal means (although there is the God Needs Prayer Badly clause and they can 'lose their connection' to the place or idea they represent). This list includes Bakura, Rune, D, Kaworu, Folken, Yue, the Earthkami, eventually Saitou, Shun, Kenshin and Aoshi, and possibly Yukito.
  • Resurrective Immortality:
    • Vampires can be brought back to life after being killed, though it does require their master to be the one doing it and for it to be done before the next sunrise.
    • Kurama apparently has a spell which brings him back to life every time he's killed, by sacrificing one of his tails.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Basically every nonmortal or even nonhuman is living impossibly long and looks impossibly young.
  • Time Abyss: The Earthkami and Kaworu, and possibly most of the lesser kami, have been around since time immemorial. Sesshoumaru is currently only about a thousand years old, but both of his parents are Time Abyss, so he's presumably just a young one.
• Stalker with a Crush: Bakura has no concept of respecting boundaries, and decides to court his crush by being invisible and following him around constantly...
• Stronger with Age:
  • Youkai in general and ryu-youkai in particular grow stronger as they get older. In addition kitsune are explicitly stated to store 100 years of power in a tail.
  • Saitou was a relatively normal immortal human for a hundred years... and then he evolves into an ancestor kami. His powers in that grow, either as he gets older or just learns what he can do (same difference, in this case).
• Talking Sword:
  • Shun, a living kusari-fundo (chain weapon). Albeit he's in human shape most of the time.
  • Mamosei attains sentience and an upgrade from Empathic Weapon after 100 years.
• Tattooed Crook: Modern Aoshi gets mistaken for Yakuza because of his flower tattoos, which are actually memorials. (He's not yakuza, but is an assassin who sometimes contracts with them, so it's really a matter of semantics.)
• Teacher/Student Romance: It's implied that Masters and Little Ones have a pretty much inherently sexual relationship. Aoshi and his little ones, in particular, tend to get into offscreen orgies. Not to mention Aoshi and Kenshin, pretty much the original pairing. Theirs is more of an actual relationship not based on the sex, unlike most such pairings.
• Technical Pacifist: Kenshin and Kenji both use blunted blades and believe in not killing if at all possible, but have no problem battering people with their blunt instruments.
• Teleportation Misfire: The chaos - goddess Isfet likes to troll Her children by warping their teleport spells so they don't end up exactly where they want to be.
  Bakura: She won't kill you, but She'll put you into a position where you'll kill yourself.
• To Hell and Back:
  • Both Aoshi and Sesshoumaru go into Hell and come back out again. Aoshi also goes through Heaven, which he says was worse.
  • Later Aoshi goes back to find Seth but is trapped there - Kenshin follows in an ill advised rescue attempt, and they are both eventually rescued by a reluctant Sesshoumaru.
• To Serve Man:
  • Almost all nonhumans feed on humans in some way or another - the least-evolved by consuming their flesh, the more enlightened by passively absorbing the ki they generate.
  • Kenshin in the modern day considers and makes plans to create a youkai food supply company, incorporating blood into their dishes, to try to mitigate the inherent conflict of the need to eat and the need to not be eaten.
• The Trickster:
  • Bakura is a chaos demon, and Atem and Yuugi are both part kitsune; none of them are good at playing by the rules.
  • Kaworu likes to troll whole dimensions, if the side stories are to be believed. And he gets away with it.
• True Name: Bakura, Yukito, Ryou, and all of Yukito’s children all have ‘secret’ names in Egyptian that are considered their true names.
• Twincest: Yuugi and Atem have some sort of relationship, mostly implied.
• The Unmasqued World: As of the 1940s The Masquerade begins shattering, due to Japan recruiting youkai for warfare. Within Japan, it's a slow creep beginning several decades earlier, starting with Aoshi revealing his new vampire nature to Saitou.
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: KaibaCorp and the Japanese government are guilty of youkai experimentation and slaughter; this is a matter of some international tension. Some characters try to point this out to Seto, to little or no effect.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Kitsune are capable of shifting between human and fox forms, some tsukumogami can take human shapes, and chaos demons can shapeshift almost without limits.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Saitou when he assassinates the generals in 1942 to try to stop World War II.
  • D’s army-gathering to try to protect the Earth.
  • Aoshi when he destroys the government, arguably.
  • Atem, Seth, and Rei start out well-intentioned when they take over Osaka and the surrounding area after the End of the World.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Several people call out Aoshi after he massacred most of the Japanese government, with varying levels of violence.
  • Kenshin kills Aoshi to make a relatively minor point, knowing that Saitou will also be killed due to their connection. As soon as Aoshi is resurrected (thus returning Saitou to life), Saitou makes sure to call him out on it.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Chaos demons are influenced by others' opinions of them, because chaos is malleable. Bakura is turned "nice" by the expectations of his baby, and Aoshi develops feline traits like a cat tail because Saitou has been calling him a cat for so long.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!:
  • Kami have certain aspects; one of those aspects is “Wrathful”. It’s usually a Rage Breaking Point rather than a Hair-Trigger Temper, but if they get to that point, you need to get out of the vicinity, even if you’re their friend.
  • Kenshin when he finally hits his breaking point becomes Battousai, and no one want that.
• Zombie Advocate: Saitou, in particular, and later Seth, work within the system to advocate rights for youkai and nonhumans.

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