Blade of the Immortal is done by Hiroaki Samura, and distributed in North America by Dark Horse Comics (Studio Proteus).
BoI is the story of an immortal former samurai who must kill one thousand evil men before he can die (just a brief one line description in case you don't know what it's about. Doesn't do it justice though. I suggest you get it, read it, breathe it, live it... well, okay, don't live it. That could be bad, but you get the idea).
As an aside, I've wanted to do a story with Manji in it for a while, but the ideas just weren't there. Closest I got was 2 crossovers.
Idea 1. A Ranma 1/2 cross, where Manji is looking for his last kill, but he wants it to be someone especially evil. Enter Happosai. Rest of the Ranma crew gets dragged into the picture somehow. 'Nuff said.
Idea 2. Rurouni Kenshin cross. Kenshin meets another man on his way back to Kyoto. A man who also wants to kill Shishi-o, and who remembers Kenshin from back when he was the Hitokiri ten years before in Kyoto. They talk/trade stories/whatever....
Just couldn't get much beyond the initial ideas though, then this came across me in between lectures, and I scribbled it down.
999 Down, and One to Go
He waits in the dark, and thinks on the past. A sickle slides out of the left sleeve of his kimono and sticks into the rough wooden floor. There is time, maybe an hour and a half before it's over, he thinks as he looks at the moon streaming in from the window.
He lays his weapons out before himself carefully, a ritual he has done many imes before, but which would end tonight. In his hands were two swords (let form be damned): a regular Japanese katana in his right, and a Chinese sword in his left. The swords fit into his hands perfectly; his fingers seemed perpetually curled in anger from holding weapons for too much of his too-long life.
The swords raised memories, all of his many weapons did. Curiously, it was his Chinese sword which raised more spectres than the other. Curious, for he was obviously Japanese, and curious because it was probably his newest weapon. Memories of Magatsu, one of the hordes of men he killed, and a follower of Anotsu. Magatsu wasn't totally evil though; Magatsu was so close (oh! so close) to what he himself was. In the end, that only meant that Magatsu didn't count towards his goal of one thousand.
The sword brought back memories of Rin, She had an innocence of sorts which never left her; an innocence which he never possessed, but would (and did) kill to protect. Oh, how she wanted her grandfather's sword, and she cried, and she looked so much like his sister it hurt his throat and broke his heart....
Machi, these thoughts always led back to her. Oh! my sister, if only, if only... he thought. I tried once, I tried to give up the sword, but all it did was get you killed. So now, he accepted his destiny as a killer, but one with a purpose. This time, he would kill a thousand evil men, to make up for those he killed before.
It was hard though, so, so hard. Who was evil, after all? How to judge? And then there were those who protected the evil men, those he had to go through to fill his quota. How many, not innocent, but definately not evil men did he have to kill just to get his one thousand?
That would all end tonight though. He kept a notebook, with names and numbers. The book had nine hundred and ninety-nine names. After tonight, there would be one thousand. He heard the voices coming and smiled. It would be over soon.
Soon, Manji would be free of the Kessen-chu; soon, a man who wore a sauvastika on the back of his kimono would be able to die once more.
-Finis-
As I said, just something I scribbled down between classes. Comments anyone?
P.S. I'll try and get Ice Cream finished this week(end) instead of writing little short things like this (but things like this generally don't take too long, and occur when I really wouldn't be able to work on Ice Cream anyway, and I think that's enough with the excuses, so I'll just say ta-ta).
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