Prologue : I see you in my dreams...
Night...
Moonlight
glinted off the tip of the upraised katana, the silvery light contrasting with
the dark crimson blood running down the blade, a bare instant before it slashed
down in an inhumanly swift arc. A scream echoed off the narrow alley, the last
one to join the other dying shrieks that chilled the air before. A new spurt of
liquid splashed off the already stained walls, streaming down to join the
others painting the walls scarlet.
Unreal, the silent
observer thought, so much blood, running
like rainwater. As if Kyoto itself is bleeding from all the killings. But then,
Kyoto had probably seen enough over the years to wash it with blood several
times over.
A slight lone
figure stood in the thick shadows of the narrow alley, as still as the broken
bodies sprawled and slumped around him. Ruby droplets slowly slid down the
katana he held pointing downwards. He lightly stepped across the crumpled forms
of his victims, careful to avoid the pooling wetness in which they lay.
A sudden
scream once again pierced the air, higher in pitch, full of despair and
heart-crushing grief. The samurai stopped in his path, his high ponytail
snapping back as he whipped his head up. A young woman stood near the far
entrance of the alleyway, bowed nearly double over one of the figures lying on
the ground, her hands covering her mouth and part of her face. "Anata," she screamed, "husband, no! NO!!"
The observer started. *Anata.* A delicately beautiful face floated in his
mind's image, eyes young and old at the
same time like pools of darkness pulling at him, to drown in the depths of
their sorrow...
...beloved...
The samurai
in the alleyway started walking again, outwardly impassive. Only the observer
saw how his fingers clenched and unclenched over the hilt of the katana, a
barely noticeable tremor running through them.
Just as he
was about to step out of the alley, the young woman looked up from her crouch
near her dead husband. Her face, ravaged by tears and grief twisted into a
demon mask of hatred. A small dagger appeared tightly clutched between her
hands. "Murderer," she screamed at the passing samurai, "give me
back my husband, you murderer!" She lunged wildly at him from her
crouching position, dagger angled up to stab his chest.
A sharp clang
of steel against steel rang sharply in the night air, followed a moment later
by a loud clatter as the dagger fell to the pavement a few yards away. The
katana had intercepted the dagger in a blur of motion, too fast for the woman
to see clearly. She knelt on the ground where the force of the blow had thrown
her, holding her bleeding fingers. All at once, the insane fury seemed to leave
her and she slumped to the ground like a broken doll, a wordless keen starting
on the back of her throat.
The samurai
looked at her for a moment more before carefully wiping his blade on a piece of
cloth and sheathing it. Turning around he started down the street soundlessly.
Just before he turned around a corner, the woman lifted her head up and
shrieked at him, "You will pay for this, murderer! Everyone you've killed,
we will haunt you for the rest of your miserable life, *Hitokiri
Battousai*!!" Finished, her hands once again wound themselves around a
metal hilt, this time the wakizashi of her dead husband.
For the observer, time seemed to suddenly slow
down. *No!* His silent scream seemed to spur the samurai to leapt into action,
sprinting back the way he came, hand outstretched towards the woman. Too
late, he realized with sickening
certainty. I'm too late, as always.
The sound of
steel stabbing into flesh was too familiar to both the samurai and the
observer, but somehow this time it was different. Red bloomed around the cold
steel imbedded in her chest, staining the delicate blossoms of her kimono. The
fall of her body seemed too slow, echoing another fall from memory, another
woman with white blossoms on her kimono.
The samurai
stood over the woman's still body, breathing heavily as he had not when he had
cut down the men in the alley. His hand was still stretched in front of him,
uselessly. His chest hurt, another echo of memory from the past, of pristine
snow stained red with heart's blood. Slowly, he knelt down on one knee, gently
turning over the slender body twisted around the short sword. The woman's face
turned up towards him and the light of the moon fell squarely on her still
white face.
Delicate
face, beautiful still in repose deeper than sleep, long thick lashes covering
endless pools of night, closed forever by his own hand. A thin rivulet of blood
trickled down her pale lips, lips as soft as silk. A face as familiar as his
own, indelibly imprinted in his memory as the scars on his cheeks.
The pain in
his heart wrenched it to pieces, each shard twisting more painfully than any
sword cut. He gasped for breath like a dying man, his hands slick with *her*
blood. No amount of water would ever wash this sin away. The samurai and the
observer both mouthed the name of the woman... Tomoe
He woke up
with his hand reaching for her, his dark eyes stark with tearless pain. He
grasped only empty air, as he had countless times before. Cold pain seemed to
sear his left cheek, drawing an instinctive reaction as he lowered his hand to
touch it. His fingers grazed the scarred flesh, and he froze. Slowly,the
fingers curled into a trembling fist, and he deliberately let his fist thumped
to the thin mattress.
The young man
with a name that inspired fear into both enemies and allies, the legendary
executioner of Kyoto, spent the rest of the night gazing up the ceiling,
listening to his heart tearing his soul
apart with a single name.
Tomoe.
***
On to Chapter 1 : Vision From the Past