Flame of Recca, Volume 28
Summary by Sumeragi
<Hell or Heaven>
Hiruko returns after his battle with Mikagami. He is truly
impressed by the skill of those in Hokage. Talking to Aoi, he
finds out that Hokage has three of the disks and that Kirito has
taken one of their disks. During their talk, Aoi gets an ICQ from
‘SP’, which says that Kadotsu has been killed from
being engulfed in flames. Aoi correctly guesses that Kurei has
entered SODOM (the missing corpses were a pretty obvious clue).
Else where in Hell or Heaven, Mori Kouran has felt the presence of Kurei. Renge promises to kill Kurei for him.
<Research Laboratory>
Kagerou tries to convince her new canine friend to return to the
mountains since staying with her will put the guy in danger, but
the little thing loves Kagerou too much. Domon shows up, excited
to be with someone at last. They show their disks. Domon says
that Fuuko has hers, but Kagerou isn’t too sure of that.
Before they continue the line of thought, a scream comes from the
forest. A little old lady is being attacked by robots, which
Domon handle easily. She practically hugs Domon for thanks …
and face it, with half a brain, the reader can tell it is Kirito
in an older form. And she gives a similar tale of escaping a
capsule within a lab that she told Fuuko. She even does the
‘you could be the bad guys’ scare, which Domon falls
for. She leads them to the Parathenon. There, Kagerou identifies
her as Kirito, to the confusion of Domon. Kirito flashes an evil
smile and reintroduces herself as Kirito of the Shishiten. She
shows the disk she stole from Fuuko, and then the disk so just
now stole from Domon. Before Kirito runs off, Kagerou shows her
two disks saying that she switched Domon disk with a fake (a
music CD of hers). Kirito runs off furious. Domon and Kagerou
chase her knowing that with a hurt pride, she wouldn’t run
away. Kagerou hands Domon his disk, telling him to not lose it
this time. Domon, in his utmost intelligence, starts waving his
disk around to bait Kirito. Kirito easily grabs it and puts it
into her mouth saying she’ll chomp it to bits if he attacks.
Kagerou comes from behind and chops her neck, causing the disk to
shatter in her mouth. Domon is at first furious with Kagerou, but
it turns out the second disk was the fake and Kirito had stolen
the real disk in the first place. Anyhow, they now have three
disks. After waking, Kirito is furious. She begins to call her
madougu.
<??????>
In an unnamed location, Mikagami finds a statue of Mori that has
some unknown purpose. Finding no enemies there, he moves onward.
<Parathenon>
Kirito’s madougu is Shiguma, an alien looking type thing.
Kagerou notices that the thing seems to be alive, but not quite.
Shiguma attacks Domon, biting him in the arm. Kirito then has it
show its real power, and lasers go off all around SODOM.
Satisfied with seeing Kagerou’s and Domon’s victorious
faces wiped clean, Kirito runs off with Shiguma. Domon is rather
pissed at Kirito, now.
<Marie’s Castle>
After leaving the unnamed location, Mikagami ends up at
Marie’s Castle. There, a woman offers some rest and tea to
the ‘warrior’.
<??????>
After getting out of the forest (and barely missing a fight with
Kadotsu), Kaoru went to the Parathenon. Seeing only blood stains
from a fight, he went on and is now in the unnamed building.
There, Kagerou and Domon meet up with him. Looking at the statue,
they try to figure out its purpose. Domon thinks it’s some
kind of robot while Kaoru thinks it’s a pedestal that will
help them ‘power up’. Fortunately Kagerou is there to
explain that the panel of slots in front of the statue must be
for the CDs they’re spending their energy on getting. Domon
flashes the three disks he has a hold of, saying there’s
only two left. Poor Kaoru is crushed since he has yet to get one.
The three decide to split up to check the last two buildings,
Marie’s Castle and the Storehouse, to find more disks.
<Hell or Heaven>
Kirito returns to learn that Kadotsu is dead. Hiruko mentions his
praise for Hokage, but Kirito thinks they’re all fools. Aoi
happily mentions that they did get the disks back from her.
Kirito gets a hip pain when she starts to rant. Aoi admonishes
her for using that form when it causes such pain. Kirito says
that this is the form Shiguma likes most, thus she has to use it.
She transforms back to her middle age and leaves to her room.
<Marie’s Castle>
Domon got this location through a game of ‘paper, rock,
scissors’. He meets up with the same lady as Mikagami before
him. She is Marie (surprise!), the mistress of the house. She
offers Domon tea. Using the logic that she is in SODOM, Domon
reasons that she most be one of the enemy. As she pours the tea,
she mentions another boy came to visit (who Domon guesses as
Mikagami), but he left after a cup. Domon asks if she poisoned
the drink. She picks up the cup and takes a slip of the tea,
saying there was no ill will. Domon is crushed for being so cruel
to a lovely lady who may have only wanted some company. He gladly
gulps down the drink. Marie then welcomes him inside her
house…which is filled with torture devises a many. Domon
then sees Mikagami (who Marie has named ‘John’) chained
to a statue. He runs over to help the embarrassed Mikagami, but a
big guy from above jumps down to attack Domon. Marie whips
‘Pochi’ (‘Spot’ is the equivalent in English)
for being a bad boy. Domon asks Mikagami how he got there.
Mikagami says he was careless. He saw her drink the tea and
assumed it wasn’t drugged, but in fact the rim of the cup
was wetted with the poison except for the spot she drank from.
Marie laughs and points at Domon saying he should be collapsing
soon. But Domon is fine…with lipstick still on his lips
because he drank from the same spot she did. While Marie assumes
Domon saw through her trick, Mikagami knows that he was saved
because Domon is the type who goes for indirect kisses.
Domon runs outside the building for the fight. He handles Pochi pretty well, with some beating, but nothing he can’t handle. He thinks about wasting his time fighting in his younger teenage years, and wishes he ould go back to a normal life. Mor or less, Pochi is knocked aside. But then Marie uses her madougu: a whip that prevents the captured person from moving. She calls to Pochi for him to cut off Domon legs. It’s a tense moment until Recca cuts in and sends Pochi flying.
<??????>
Originally Kagerou was going to join Kaoru (at least according to
the ‘paper, rock, scissors’ game), but with Kirito
still out there, she may try to steal the disks again. Kagerou
wants to put them into the slots before that can happen. Kagerou
puts in the first disks, and when the statue breaks, she’s
worried that she may have guessed wrong or that there is a
certain numbering system to use. But as she continues to put in
disks, she realizes that the statue is following the
transformation of Mori from human to madougu. She holds up the
fourth disk to put in, wondering if Recca made it to Domon.
<Marie’s Castle>
Recca and Domon have a little, ‘so you’re alive’
chat and then Recca gets down to business. He asks for Marie to
show the disk. She tells him truthfully that there isn’t a
disk in the building. So, Recca starts to walk off leaving the
place to Domon. Marie orders Pochi to kill Recca, but
Madoka’s shield gets in the way of Pochi’s ax. Calling
Homura, Recca knocks Pochi towards Domon who also punches the
muscle mass. Pochi is going to be napping for awhile. Marie tries
her whip on Recca, but Nadare easily burns up the straps of the
madougu. Marie falls to the ground, begging for more beating. The
two guys free Mikagami, teasing ‘John’ all the time. In
his place, Marie is chained to the statue wishing they
hadn’t left her all alone.
<Storehouse>
While Domon was enjoying some tea, Kaoru was chowing down some
food from the storehouse’s preserves. With the downstairs
all checked out (and bodies of guard littering the area), Kaoru
goes upstairs to look for the disk.
<??????>
Fuuko enters the building and meets with Kagerou, who explains to
the girl that they got her disk back from Kirito. Kagerou tells
her where everyone is.
<Storehouse>
Kaoru finds an odd kind of guy working on a computer in the
middle of a large room. Kaoru asks him if there’s a disk in
the building, but the guy just looks at Kaoru, notices the Kougan
Anki, decides it wasn’t interesting enough, and tells Kaoru
to leave. Kaoru refuses. Furious, the scientist calls on Zeto to
take care of Kaoru since he is disturbing his concentration. Zeto
calls upon several zombies, instantly making Kaoru wonder if this
is a storehouse from zombies. As he fights, Kaoru overhears the
scientist mumbling about the mysterious powers behind the madougu
and more importantly, about ‘trading the madougus for the
disk’. The plan is currently to stall/kill Kaoru, thus
making the others of Hokage, who have more interesting madougu,
to come. Kaoru, however, manages to knock Zeto down and go to the
computer desk. The scientist is furious at Zeto, yelling at him
for letting the boy through. Kaoru says Zeto won’t be
getting up anytime soon since he was one hurt person. The
scientist corrects Kaoru saying that Zeto is but a zombie. This
surprises Kaoru since Zeto was talking to him during the fight.
The scientist is in control of them since he holds medicine that
keeps the zombies in one piece (the cells of Mori are too
volatile in people). As Zeto gets back up to fight, Kaoru decides
he can’t fight the zombies any more.
Wandering through the building, Fuuko looks for ‘Kaorin’.
Zeto asks Kaoru as to why he isn’t fighting anymore. Kaoru tells him that he can’t fight them since they are just fighting for their lives. He doesn’t know what he can do (to help them, that is). Zeto tells him not to pity them since he could not understand their pain. A zombie suddenly dissolves and the scientist yells out ‘isn’t it time for your medicine’ to Zeto. Zeto gets desperately violent on Kaoru. Just then, Fuuko comes in to lend a hand. The scientist is excited by her appearance and orders the zombies to kill her and get the Fuujin. Fuuko, with her powerful voice, makes everyone to stop in their tracks. She had been listening to the whole story. While she knows they (Hokage) cannot save everyone, she’s decided that the scientist is in need of punishment. When Zeto is about to order the zombies to attack Fuuko, Kaoru tells him about the zombies they met in the Sealed Earth. To the end, they wanted to be human again. Kaoru tells Zeto that he can be human. Fuuko gets in a few punches with the scientist until he pulls a gun. He first shoots her in the arm and then aims for ‘the worthless’ Zeto. Kaoru pushes Zeto aside and takes the bullet instead. Zeto asks why. Kaoru replies that the zombies pointed them the way out of the Sealed Earth, and that’s why he is alive today. And that’s why he can save others today. And so, Zeto figures out that he too can ‘be human’ while in this zombie form. He calls for all the zombies to retreat. Giving Kaoru the last disk, he tells the boy to not worry about them and to go. The zombies will no longer take the drugs since there’s a life of misery with the medicine or a better life as a human. Kaoru and Fuuko leave the building with the words ‘live, stay alive’ from Zeto on their minds.