After the flashback: Monster Arm Hazel piles into the SI, who fight back but take a pounding from the huge arm's power. Hazel completely loses it, morphing into his cat-demon form, roaring and snarling as he lashes out at the ikkou. He throws off Gojyo and Hakkai's attacks and charges at Sanzo, who aims but finds he's out of ammo; HG&G stare stunned as MA Hazel barrels toward their unarmed leader--
and a huge firebolt comes from nowhere to plow MA Hazel into a mesa, which collapses into dust. Who do we know that can throw huge firebolts? Might it be that tall redhead on the flying dragon? Yup: Lirin-sama has kept her promise, and the Kou-tachi is here to help the Sanzo-ikkou dust Hazel. =)
Sanzo, reloading, demands to know what Kou & Co. are doing here. The prince retorts that they shouldn't think he's become their ally; that man is an enemy to all demons, and he'll gladly finish him off if the SI is just going to stand there. ==Hazel picks him/itself up and steps out of the dust cloud; Doku and Yaone decide they oughtn't get involved, while Lirin cheerily yells back that Sanzo ought to let her brother handle it. Sanzo cocks his pistol and says "screw that." Lirin's surprised, but the ikkou strides forward, Gojyo calling up to the 'tachi "sorry guys, but we'll settle this" and Goku adding that they have a promise to keep. Kougaiji gravely surveys the scene, including the heap of dust and clothing that's all that remains of the late Gatti Nenehawk [[may he rest in peace]], and intuits what's happened here. Lirin asks what's going on, but her brother tells her to let them be. --The grim, battered ikkou line up to face the advancing Hazel--who, as he becomes visible, has his human face and form back, and looks dazed and exhausted. I remembered everything, he says.
The Kou-tachi watches over the scene; there's such calm sympathy in the prince's face. Hazel looks as if he's walked through hell barefoot. I killed my master, he says; I became a monster and killed
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