Having defeated the Gamemaster Amanuma, Yusuke and the others at least reach Sensui's location. All at once, Gourmet Makihara begins to attack. However, his true identity was that of elder Toguro! Burning with rage, Kurama defeated elder Toguro behind a smokescreen.

Kurama: You are not worthy even of death.

There is no time remaining before the tunnel to the Demon Realm opens completely!

Spirit Realm Detectives -
A Fated One-on-One Battle

Toguro continues to scream, confused as to why Kurama won't die. Kurama says this tree won't release its prey until it dies, but since Toguro keeps regenerating, he is unable to die. The tree wraps multiple branches around him, as Kurama says Toguro will battle his illusion for eternity.

Yusuke reminds Sensui that he said he'd release Kuwabara, once Makihara was defeated. Sensui says he'll keep his promise... or rather, he's kept it already. Everyone then notices that the boat is empty, and Kuwabara is back on dry land.

As they rush over to him, Kurama asks what just happened. Kuwabara says he wasn't sure what it was, but some strange hand grabbed him, and the next thing he knew, he was here. Hiei then notices something, and everyone sees a large shadow come down off the wall, head over the lake, and then stop beneath them. Whatever it is, it seems to have a mouth, and a pair of eyes.

The mouth opens, and everyone falls into a strange space. The shadow moves back onto the wall, but spits Yusuke back out.

As he gets up, he sees Itsuki sink into the ground. Itsuki tells Sensui to leave them to him. Sensui jumps over to Yusuke, and Yusuke asks why he gave Kuwabara back, just to take him away again. Sensui says he has no intention of exposing his friends to danger directly. He just wanted the two of them to be alone.

Outside, Botan wonders what could be going on in the cave, but Genkai tells her making a fuss won't help -she should just try relaxing a little. Inside, Koenma makes his way towards Yusuke, using the lights Kurama left. Meanwhile, in a strange space...

...Kurama, Hiei, Kuwabara and Mitarai arrive in it. Kurama says this is subspace, but before he can go into any more details, Kuwabara asks if they could untie him. Hiei says that it appears they've been swallowed by an Uraotoko (Reverse Man). He explains to Kuwabara and Mitarai that a Reverse Man is a planar demon, that lives between dimensions. Kurama thinks someone must have tamed it, at which point Itsuki appears. He refers to it as his pet, and that he is a Gatekeeper. Everyone realizes that Itsuki isn't a human, but a demon.

Gatekeeper: a demon who possesses "shadow hands" that can freely travel through dimensions. They are one of the few species that are able to make lower order demons from other dimensions their servants.

Before Hiei or Kurama can ask any more questions, Kuwabara tells Itsuki he doesn't care what he is -it's time to fight! Itsuki tells him not to be hasty, as he doesn't intend to fight them. Kuwabara asks him why he brought them here, and he says he wants them to observe the fight between Sensui and Urameshi. Their positions may be different, but they are both drawn to a single man, and take action together with him.

He says observing their battle is their duty to them. Kuwabara doesn't understand him, but asks him what he likes so much about Sensui. Itsuki says he likes everything about him: his strengths, weaknesses, purity and sorrow. Everything to do with the air of humanity about Sensui captivated him. When he first came across Shinobu Sensui, they were enemies. At that time, many demons knew of him, and also knew that no demon had ever seen Sensui and come away alive. He killed every demon he defeated.

However, Itsuki says he was the exception. Sensui hunted him down, and he ran, but Sensui fired off an energy projectile, which defeated him. Sensui then asked him if he had any last words before he died.

Itsuki said that he wished he could live for one more day. Sensui asked why, and Itsuki said that tomorrow, the series finale of a TV drama that he enjoyed watching would be on. Sensui laughed and told him he watched that show every week too.

Back in the present, Itsuki explains it was that joke that did it -the slightest bit of humanity that he put into words surprised Sensui, for the first time ever. After that, they talked for a while, and Sensui learnt that there were all kinds of demons out there, and not all of them were evil. Itsuki says that Sensui looked different when they talked, compared to his expression when he was fighting. He had a face of innocence. Itsuki says he felt that he had obtained both a time bomb and a lover at the same time.

Kuwabara thinks this story is getting more and more suspicious. Kurama tells Itsuki that he should have been able to stop Sensui before he came to be like he is now. Itsuki tells him he doesn't get it -he only wanted to look on as Sensui got hurt and fell further into corruption. He says it's like ink dripping onto a sheet of white paper, the paper absorbs the ink, and turns black right before your eyes. That's what it was like with Sensui.

Watching Sensui's reactions as he continued to see the ugly parts of humanity was most ideal. Because of his purity, he couldn't rationalize it away, nor could he close his eyes to it. So it just wounded him, and he became more despondent. Every time it happened, he became stronger. Kuwabara thinks Itsuki is the one at the root of Sensui's evil, but Itsuki says it wasn't like that -he didn't coax Sensui along. He says he was his shadow, watching over him as he changed, and he only ever helped him do what he wanted. He'd like to continue to do so.

Kurama says it if were possible, he'd like to kill him right here. Itsuki tells him he knows he can't do that here. If they kill him, they'll never leave the belly of his Reverse Man. He says all they'll do is watch their battle, and the eyes to the Reverse Man open up.

Sensui asks Yusuke if he's noticed it yet. He says that as he continued being a spirit detective, he could tell some part of his heart was going rotten. But he didn't feel like making the effort to stop it. He started realizing that the eroded portions were who he really was. As he fought, he began more and more to search for a purpose. He tells Yusuke he'll become like that someday, too. Yusuke tells him he really does seem to have gone rotten.

Sensui says he doesn't even care about the hole connecting to the Demon Realm any more. Whether the A class and S class demons come into the Human Realm or not no longer matters to him. It doesn't have anything to do with him personally, the most important thing to him now is that he is about to fight Yusuke. He feels the whole reason he tried to create this tunnel was so he could fight him. He starts laughing, so Yusuke gets fed up and suddenly rushes forward.

Sensui tries to kick him, but Yusuke dodges it. He then lands a punch right into Sensui's face. As Sensui gets sent back, Yusuke asks him if he's an idiot, blowing his own horn like that. He asks why he didn't just pick a fight with him from the start.

Sensui tells him how nice it must be for him, to be so simple. He creates a projectile in the palm of his hand, and says that supposing Yusuke's power is at 10, his own would be between 6 and 7. Yusuke's speed, resilience and stamina are all greater than his own. But he still won't be able to beat him. Kuwabara wonders what he's going on about, and thinks he must be trying to psych-out Yusuke. Kurama tells him that Sensui is fully sure of himself.

Itsuki says that's right, and it has been a long time since he's seen Sensui enjoy himself this much. Kuwabara tells him to stop spouting gibberish, and then tells Urameshi to not let Sensui get to his head.

Sensui tells Yusuke he is better than him, yet he can't win. Yusuke calls him sick in the head, and runs forward. He tries to attack Sensui, but Sensui is able to block every single one of his punches with just one hand.

Sensui leaps back, and then kicks off a wall to propel himself forwards. Yusuke is heading straight at him, but he then makes his projectile vanish, and instead attacks with a kick. Yusuke is able to block the first one...

...but gets hit by the second, which sends him crashing into a wall. He falls and gets back up, and accuses Sensui of lying -if his speed is meant to be greater, how did none of his punches land?

Sensui says this is reason number one why Yusuke can't win: he can more or less read all of his attacks. It's been his career to fight demons, from the time he was a little boy. Whilst he took Yusuke's punch earlier, he turned his head, so he didn't take any serious damage. He says what you could call his fighting intuition moves him even faster than his reflexes, allowing him to avoid any fatal injuries.

Yusuke tells him when it comes to the number of fights they've been in, he hasn't got him beat. He runs forward again, but this time leaps right over Sensui. He turns around and does a punch, but hits the ground in front of Sensui.

This causes rocks and dust to go everywhere, but Sensui thinks he sees Yusuke dropping down from above. However it's actually just a rock, and when he turns around, Yusuke is waiting for him.

He hits Sensui with lots of punches, eventually sending him into a wall. He drops down into the water.

Kuwabara calls that attack the internal organ killer, something he knows -he couldn't eat for a week when Yusuke used it on him before. Yusuke tells Sensui to come back up, and he soon reveals himself. He steps out of the water, and his shirt has been destroyed. Everyone sees how heavily scarred Sensui's body is.

Kuwabara says that Sensui wasn't kidding about all of those battles, but Sensui tells him he has the wrong idea. These are the scars he brought upon himself during his training. Not one of these scars was given to him by an opponent. Yusuke thinks Sensui is well-built, as it felt like he was hitting a thick tire when he was punching him. Sensui says that now, the real fun begins.

At last, the fight between Yusuke and Sensui is underway. However, we haven't even begun to see Sensui's true abilities.


NEXT EPISODE PREVIEW

(Kuwabara is speaking)

What is this guy, some monster? After receiving that kind of an attack from Urameshi, he hasn't taken any damage at all! What's worse, this bastard tells Urameshi that there's no way he can win the fight! Tsch, if you're going to babble, you can do it after Urameshi's punches have turned your lights out! Next time: Yusuke's Tough Battle! A Decisive Difference. Don't you go get beaten by that blowhard!