A dramatic flash of lightning blazed across the heavens and as if weeping for the fate of the sacrificial maiden a heavy downpour began to fall. Zumu far from discreet with his killings had no need to be. With such a monstrous chimeric beast few would dare challenge him and as long as the countries ninja were distracted by the looming threat of international incident, their gaze was firmly plastered elsewhere.

Sensing that meeting the beast in human form would be a grave mistake, Di had already begun his transformation. In the fragments of time his body took to shift into it's true state Di thought of Kirei. The boy had some truly amazing resilience both mental and physical. In the space of a few weeks he had witnessed a divine beast ascend from the ocean followed straight after by two much less divine beasts, taken on a new persona to fight criminals and saved the lives of over 50 people at Di's last count.

It was easy to lose sight of the fact that Kirei was merely a youth not yet thirteen summers old. His desire to go see the carnival for it's own sake had been the one youthful allowance the boy had allowed in his otherwise very adult life. It was not that Kirei was jaded – far from it the young ninja had an optimism that was almost completely gone in Kiri's older ninjas. Di didn't think it would shatter either, during their work on the Kabuki Killer case Kirei had borne witness to some brutal murders. Kirei didn't even flinch when Di had mentioned tracking down Yatagarasu. Indeed the boy seemed to view it as a challenge.

What could Kirei have been if he lived in the days when dragon and humans more freely intermingled. There was a time back when Di's father was still young when this was the case. Great Empires rose and fell far grander than anything in the modern era. Humans did not possess chakra and thus relied on grand armies led by great heroes with unparalleled martial skill. Back then many supernatural creatures that were far more discreet in the modern era walked openly and made contracts with sorcerers (for this was the only way mages could gain power in those days). Would Kirei have become a general himself leading the jade dynasty of benevolence against the azure tyrants? Or would he have become an imperial investigator like Di Renji the man whom Di admired and took his name from?

In this day and age Kirei's ability to use chakra well had made him a ninja. But that raised the question. Where did this talent come from? Di wished he could ask his uncle Huixing but the dragon who had stayed to watch humanity after the others had left had died several centuries ago and his soul was missing somewhere in the wheel of reincarnation.

The moment like all moments passed and Di was forced back into action. Bounding across the ground he brought his tail round slamming into the nue like beasts side causing it to howl. While the girl was (for a moment) saved the ravages of the creature the beasts gaze found Di's eyes and suddenly his world became searing agony as the pain of burning coals shot through his joints.

For all Di's reading the dragon had very little practical experience with genjutsu and the techniques phantom pain seared through his body.

(575 words)

What was real? What was illusion. The great sage Zhangzi had once dreamt of being a butterfly. In this state he had flitted across the fields and meadows tasting the sweet nectar that flowed from the flowers below. Upon waking and returning to his mortal state Zhangzi had wondered aloud wheter or not he was really a man dreaming of being a butterfly or whether he was actually a butterfly dreaming of being a man.

Even as Di's mind flicked back to his studies on this and many other topics the Nue like beast advanced with it's heavy paws outstretched to throttle the life out of him. Di had read in Buddhist sutras that maya – the very fabric that made up the reality of Samsara was illusory in nature. This aether was in constant flux making it transient and therefore promoting the needless suffering that accompanied existence.

The Nues paws were now wrapped tight around Di's throat constricting him in their killer grip. Di himself did not subscribe to the tenets of Buddhism practising instead the ancient Shendaoist religion of ancestor worship and veneration of the gods . But maybe he could take some advice from what he had learned from their teaching to escape his situation. Straining with all his might Di put the best of his efforts into ripping the Nue's arms from his windpipe. Unfortunatley for Di even with his dragonic strength it was not enough and the weakness that flowed from his burning muscles made his efforts seem futile.

Good.

As Di strained he reached a point where he had almost passed out. He had nothing left to give and so Di stopped struggling. At this point the pain stopped as well. The genjutsu which had ravaged his mind slipped away like water and Di's entire perception focused on nothing but the eternal unchanging self that was his Buddha nature. It was far from true enlightenment and he would not gain the merits of becoming a Buddha or Bodhisattva from such a base technique. But it was Zen.

Zen was known as the lowest form of enlightenment due to it being transitory. Indeed many fell into a short period of Zen at least once in their lives without realising it. The easiest way to do this was to do as Di had done and push oneself beyond one's limits till all distractions faded away. In such a state one was often capable of feats that were nearly superhuman in nature. Or in this case super dragon which was, when one considered it, a somewhat terrifying concept.

Di's punch hit the Nue in the chest like a jackhammer. Ribs snapped as the creature flew backwards through the air to smash into the ground – a puppet with it's strings cut. Unfortunately for Di that was about all he could muster as his moment of Zen passed and he did much the same as the Nue had only with less broken bones. With the dragon and the nue both down the final showdown was set for the conflict between the wicked ringmaster and the masked vigilante of Kirigakure. The carnival of chaos was crumbling could the cowled crusader capture the crazed criminal conman?

(534 words , 1109 total)

Much like Kirei Di was really feeling the brunt of his injuries. The entire ordeal had possibly put him closer to death than he had ever been before. Back in his old life nothing like this had ever happened. In many ways this was what he had desired – adventure , danger and the chance to make a positive change in the world. And knowing how it would have turned out he wouldn't even dream of taking any other course. That didn't stop the bruises around his neck where the nue had almost asphyxiated him from stinging like the hangman’s rope or the adrenaline in his veins from having soured to the point of wanting to throw up.

The carnival being a genjutsu was something that had also shocked him. Di hadn't seen that coming at all. As a detective he needed to question more – criminals would do everything they could to deceive each of his senses. Even under normal circumstances there were countless tricks that one could perform in order to fool onlookers and those who came for more methodical investigations later on. With the addition of genjutsu which actively messed with the senses in ways that could be not immediately apparent the difficulty of correctly identifying this increased tenfold.

As part of his training in dealing with crimes in the modern age he would have to delve into more esoteric avenues of study. The nature of truth and logic would become important in a way that it had never been before in the world of men. Another question that burned at Di's mind was whether or not Zumu was entirely relying on the Nue for the illusion or if he was somehow responsible for it himself? Even if Zumu only contributed some of the effort into the deception it did not alter the fact that to Di's understanding humans could perform illusions to this scale, something that was formerly the domain of tanuki, kitsune and various other tricksters.

Di would have to investigate this further. One thing was for certain though – the world was a much more unpredictable place now. Married with their unparalleled creativity humanity’s magical talents were going to make the work of crime-solving involving to say the least.

Feeling the weight of Zumu on his shoulders Di nodded his goodbye to Kirei. It would be far better for the Kiri authorities to receive Zumu from a detective in his early twenties than a young boy no matter how skilled. Around Di people stood like scarecrows who had just awakened from a daze. Hopefully there we no long term effects from this mental invasion. Di was certain that he wouldn't have any persistent issues the moment of Zen he had achieved was more than enough to drive the tampering out. Others might not be so lucky and those with a poor sense of self might find the next few weeks something of a trying time. Well Di wasn't a medical expert so there was little he could do here.

Time to go.

Exit

(505 words, 1614 words total)