Kenshin crouched at the edge of
the bamboo forest with Kanzaki and two other men, waiting. One of the men fidgeted
impatiently, but stilled quickly after one glare from Kanzaki. There were about
a dozen others spread out in the surrounding perimeter, all of them waiting for
the scouts to come back and report. To his experienced senses, the members of
the assault team with him were still much too loud.
One would just have to hope there
was no one in the camp who had as keen senses as he.
A strong gust of wind swept over
the bamboo forest they were hiding in, and the sprawling big limbs made an
eerie groaning, creaking noise as they bent with the gust. It was the kind of
noise that sent a flutter through your stomach and even experienced men
shivered nervously. More than one surreptitiously checked the ground and the
hanging limbs for snakes. Any snakes found in a bamboo forest were almost
certain to be deadly poisonous, and some have been known to drop from above
onto unsuspecting victims.
Kenshin waited in utter stillness,
muscles relaxed to ward off stiffness. He was used to this, the waiting. Back
when he still worked as an assassin, there were many occasions when he had to
wait for hours in the dark for the targeted victims to pass or for an
opportunity to present itself.
But this calm before the fight was
time for something else to him. Time to slip into the killer inside him.
He breathed evenly, measuredly.
There was no outward sign, but inside, he was changing.
There were no place for doubts and
hesitation in the battle-field. No matter how much he doubted the worth of his
actions, once he was in the middle of it, nothing would be allowed to distract
him.
Clear the heart and mind of all distractions.
He imagined a smooth sheet of ice
and willed it into existence. It was cold and impenetrable, without cracks and
breaking points. Behind the frozen wall, the flame that fueled his will burned,
a powerful source of strength. But the heat of the flame did not reach the ice.
He opened his eyes and watched the
world with a gaze gone cold and impassive. All emotions and thoughts extraneous
to the bare existence of the killer were subdued and hidden away behind the
wall. Senses fully turned outward opened up, the world becoming crystal-clear
with his whole existence focusing on the now and with nothing within to
side-track it.
The killer only lived in the
present.
His ears picked up the faint
rustle of feet on wet grass a minute before their two scouts crept back and
whispered their report.
“Six guards in front, six on each side.
At least eight archers patrolling outside the second floor balcony.”
The other scout confirmed the
report.
“There was what looked like a
storage building at the back yard, but there were four men guarding the
entrance. The captives might be kept in there.”
The first one added, “The guards
seemed to be a little bit too relaxed. Half of them were half asleep.”
“Good, that’ll just make things
easier for us.”
“But if they are really soldiers,
they have horrible discipline…”
Kanzaki raised his hand to stall
further argument. “We know for sure that Sakamoto Ryoma is in there, so we’re
going in. Stick to the plan, but keep alert for traps.”
He gave Kenshin a side-ways
glance, eyes lingering to seek something on Kenshin’s face. Kenshin gave him a
slight nod. He was ready for his part.
Kanzaki
raised his arm and gave a sharp flick forward. Tiny sparks lit the darkness,
blossoming into blazing brightness as oil-soaked cloths caught fire. Ten bows
raised as one and fire-tipped arrows streaked across the clearing and thudded
into beams and awnings, piercing through shoji and into the rooms inside.
Startled cries resounded inside as the fire began to spread. The archers on the
second floor loosed a flurry of arrows that flew widely off targets. They could
not see the attackers in the shadows of the forest, but their own bodies were
outlined perfectly by the dancing flames. The next barrage of fire arrows took
out nearly half the archers, their burning bodies tumbling down the railing to
fall shrieking to the ground.
The moment the men surged forward
towards the house, Kenshin launched into a sprint, but he ran in a different
direction. Keeping at the edge of the forest, he circled around as far back the
building as he can. Near the back, the bamboo forest grew right up against the
high wall. He swiftly climbed up one of the huge old bamboos. The supple limbs
bent under his weight, but he was light enough to get away with it. Lodging his
feet firmly on two different branches, he looked down at the back yard of the
building right under him.
The storage building was quite
large, and it was indeed guarded by four soldiers armed with rifles and swords.
They were restless, nervously craning their neck in a futile effort to better
see what was happening up front. From here, the sounds of battle could barely
be heard, but the reddish glow of fire could be seen against the dark sky.
Kenshin could hear them arguing whether or not to go and help their friends.
Mental shields firmly in place,
Kenshin assessed them with cold eyes. He needed to kill them without them
alerting the rest, which mean no gun-shots.
They were completely unprepared.
Kenshin’s fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword.
This would be easy.
Let the killing begin.
One guard barely had the chance to
look up, mouth opening in shock, then Kenshin’s sheathed katana smashed into
his head, the sheer momentum of a eight-meter fall cracking his head open,
brain tissues and blood bursting out of the ruined skull. Kenshin landed
precisely balanced, the end of his saya hitting the ground and his right hand
whipping the slim blade out before he even turned.
There was no need to see. He knew
precisely where all three were.
Blue lightning carved the air to
rip into one soldier’s side, the bloodied blade coming out halfway across his
stomach. The man gaped at his wound, gun still unprimed, no longer a threat.
Kenshin slid one step to the right, reversing his grip on the hilt, then drove
his katana into a soldier still gawking at the gory remains of the first one
dead. His eyes flickered to Kenshin’s at the last moment, rifle falling to the
ground as he tried to grasp the steel imbedded in his stomach.
Heavy footsteps on dirt, a
shifting of air behind him informing him exactly where the last soldier was.
His left hand shot up, the end of the saya hitting the fourth soldier below the
jaw. The man’s head snapped up, staggering backward, but he did not let go of
the rifle, finger too ready on the trigger. If he died, last minute convulsions
could still set it off.
There was no hesitation. Kenshin
surged in range, then his katana disappeared in a flurry of motions. The
soldier was still falling, mouth open as he tried to say something, anything
against his killer. Then his head slid off his shoulders, severed from the
neck. His body and head tumbled to the ground at the same time as his right
arm, cut off at the elbow joint, the now useless rifle clattering loose from
fingers slack in death.
No gun-shots. Not even a scream.
Kenshin stood among the corpses,
cocking his head to listen for shouts that would tell him that he was
discovered. Nothing aside from increasing furore at the front. Kanzaki and the
others were wrecking merry hell with the other guards.
He leapt past the bodies, pressed
himself beside the storage door and cautiously nudged it open. Darkness yawned
behind the entrance, darker shapes of storage boxes and sacks in the corners.
But a weak, yellow light flickered from an open staircase in the middle,
leading downwards.
Underground rooms? More guards.
Kenshin ran across soundlessly and
knelt beside the opening, peering down to see the wooden staircase turning to
the left after about five meters down. Two torches guttering on sconches on the
wall cast a weak flickering light on the darkness, barely enough to illuminate
the steps. He strained to hear anything from down there that indicated he had
been discovered. Nothing. But he did not survive this long without learning a
few hard lessons.
Kenshin took a breath then
deliberately closed out all other sounds. The dim sound of fighting outside,
the even fainter cracklings of fire consuming timbers, the whisper of winds
against the bamboo leaves…all faded into the background, only the barest of
awareness left to alert him of any unusual movements.
He concentrated all his senses
downstairs, opening himself as he had been taught to do.
The sound came faster than he had expected.
The space was not very big down there, the stairs did not go down deep. The
tunnel of the stairway channeled the sound up like a funnel, that was why the
sound came so easily.
Two distinct breathing, faster
than normal, but still unhurried. They had not heard him, those who tried to
hide their own breathing would not sound so natural. However, they were on
alert.
A soft, clinking sound of
ceramics, duller scrapings of woods. Were they drinking down there? No clanks
of metal, no distinctive rattling of blade against metal guards. Whatever
weapons the guards had down there, they were not ready to be used.
Decision made, he descended the
steps on silent feet, hugging the left wall. He had barely gone halfway down
when running steps alerted him of other dangers.
The
half-open door to the storage crashed open and two soldiers burst in panting.
They saw him and one of them immediately rushed him, screaming. His katana was
drawn up high in the air, a stance that exposed his chest. Kenshin leapt up
closer instead of backing up, fouling his expectation, and his katana thrust
right up against his open front. The blade slid easily and precisely into the
man’s heart, his saya swinging up to block aside the now powerless blow.
One hard
kick against the chest, and the body fell back instead of sagging against him.
The other soldier behind him had waited until the way to the narrow staircase
was clear, and he was smart enough to use thrust motion instead of over-the-head
blow.
But
compared to Okita Souji’s lightning quick Sankyoku,
this thrust was far too slow. Kenshin clearly saw the path of the attack and
side-step easily to avoid the blow. No hiratsuki
here either. The soldier half-staggered from the failed attack. The space was
too cramped for his own attack, so Kenshin dropped the saya and in one swift
motion grabbed the back of the man’s neck and shoved him hard forward. The man
gave a frightened yell and half crashed, half tumbled down the steps, colliding
hard against the wall. He slumped boneless, neck slumping at an odd angle.
Kenshin was already rushing down the stairs, leaping two and three steps at a
time.
Confused
calls from downstairs steered him right towards his target. He took in the
situation with a glance. There were indeed only two guards, and although they
had drawn out their swords, they were not yet prepared for battle. A
lattice-work of wooden beams separated a holding cell from the small
underground area. One guard was fumbling with the rope holding the cell door
closed, the other one had taken a torch and was holding it in front of him,
squinting past the glare to see up the stairs. Bad mistake. The torch light
destroyed his night-vision and he did not see the lithe form leaping down the
stairs until too late.
Five steps away from the floor,
Kenshin launched into a flying leap, katana lashing out in a wide swipe that
tore out the torch-bearing guard’s throat. The man crashed back against the
wall as Kenshin landed on top of the table, feet wide apart to balance against
the table’s rocking. Sake bottles and wooden cups went flying across the
surface as his right feet swept back, a half-turn that presented his left side
to the second guard. A flash of steel and his reversed blade had thrust back
parallel to the ground, straight into the man’s stomach. The sound of smashed
crockery merged with man’s choked cry as he slid off the impaling blade.
Threats taken care of, he leapt
off the table and kicked the wooden cell door open. His own night vision had
weakened but he could see another person inside the dark cell, most probably
another guard, and he had no time to waste before the other person got smart
and decided to use the prisoner as hostage.
The door crashed against the side
frame and he rushed inside, now seeing the design of the man’s garb and
recognizing a Bakufu official. The man had not even drawn his katana yet.
Kenshin’s blade swiped out to slash the man in the neck.
A blur of movement came from his
right and his heart stopped in his chest as another figure interposed itself in
the line of attack.
“YAMERO!”
He knew the voice. Kenshin cried
out and faster than he could think, his body reacted violently, remembering another
event ingrained into his very soul. Too late to stop, too much momentum, but at
the last moment he wrenched his sword arm up brutally. The katana blade
whistled past both men’s kneeling figure, the sharp end of it grazing across
the blocking man’s top-knot. The blade slammed into the wooden bars of the
prison, cutting a one-meter swath through three of the bars until the force was
spent, the lethal steel embedded halfway in the fist-thick bars.
Kenshin stood there gasping
heavily, eyes wide in terror, mind half in and out of remembrance.
The man who had protected the
other person took a deep breath. Then another. Finally, he spoke in a
deliberately light tone. “Well. It seems your skill is just as good as before.
Kenshin.”
Kenshin wrenched his katana out of
the wood, fingers clammy and trembling on the hilt. His body was still shaking
from the after-effect of that near miss.
“Sakamoto-san!” He fought to keep
the fear out of his voice. “Are you all right?”
The man grinned at him
unabashedly. “As soon as I get out of this damn cell, I will be.”
Kenshin took several deep breaths.
The overwhelming terror had begun to recede and anger borne out of fright came
bubbling up. “DON’T… Don’t DO that
to me! Next time, I may not be able to stop!”
“Suma-nai. But I can’t let you
kill him. Kaishuu, daijobu?” This last was directed towards the man behind him.
“I’m fine. You’re the one who
almost got decapitated, Ryoma.” The reply was delivered in a dry tone. “Mattaku…
it’s just like something you’d do.”
Kenshin looked back and forth,
noting the familiarity between the two men. Why would Sakamoto Ryoma protect a
government official? Was Ieda-san right in saying he had a hand in every sides?
What was he supposed to do with it?
“Sakamoto-san, he is…?”
Sakamoto stood up, brushing
himself. Kenshin realized that he was not tied up.
“Katsu Kaishuu - an old friend of
mine. He knows I’m going to be deadly bored in here, so he came down to drink a
little sake with me.” A few overturned bottles of sake on the floor testified
to Sakamoto’s words. “And maybe even make sure that nothing… unfortunate…
happens to me while I’m out of sight?” Sakamoto’s grin drew a snort from the
older man, although a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.
“But isn’t he…”
Ryoma looked back and forth
between Kenshin and Katsu, then grinned. “Nah, you’ve just taken Kaishuu
hostage and forced the guards to release me.
The Bakufu couldn’t possibly expect a scholar like him to stop us. He’s
lousy with swords.”
Katsu Kaishuu gave a second,
louder snort at that. “As if I have a chance in hell against two swordsmen like
you two.”
“See? He’s alright.”
Kenshin nodded hesitantly at that.
“Then hurry. We have to get out of here fast.”
A loud boom from above rattled
their little underground cell and dirt dusted down from above. Katsu cocked his
head up and remarked to Sakamoto calmly, “He’s right, Ryoma. It’s time for you
to go. Your friends up there are wreaking havoc, and I’d much prefer a lower
rate of fatality.” He gave a rather pointed look at the two guards lying on
their pools of blood outside the cell door.
“Yosh! Let me get my swords.”
Sakamoto swept out of the cell door and picked up the set of daisho placed near
the guards’ table.
“Matta-na. Kaishuu. Take care of
yourself. Just put all the blame on me.”
Katsu made a vague shooing motion.
“Go on, get out of here. You bring troubles wherever you go.” Despite the
caustic words, there was no animosity in his voice.
Kenshin bounced on his feet
impatiently, straining for any sounds from above. “Sakamoto-san, come on!”
Not waiting for the other man to
catch up, Kenshin ran up the stairs. Despite half his expectation, no other
soldiers rushed down to attack them. The storage room was empty, but the
darkness was half-lit by a harsh crimson glare. From the open doorway, he could
see the main building burning viciously. The dancing flames licked up the sides
of the building and reflected off the overcast sky, lighting the underbelly of
the clouds a sullen crimson.
Sakamoto stopped behind him and
stared along with him. “Aren’t you people overdoing it?” he gasped.
Kenshin bit off a curse. “I didn’t
think… Let’s go. The faster we leave, the better.” As he and Sakamoto ran
across the empty courtyard, he nervously eyed the fiery sparks that rose off
the burning building, blown haphazard by the wind. If those sparks catch on somewhere else… the next house’s not that far
away!
As they approached the front,
sounds of fighting increased until they turned a corner and the battle was suddenly
all around them. A locked pair stumbled past them, oblivious to everybody else
as they fought for their lives. There were about fifteen other people all
around the front yard, shouting and cursing as they struggled against each
other. It seemed to be the whole of the soldiers, no one even bothered to try
to put out the fire.
Kenshin skirted the edge of the
melee, eyes darting to find Kanzaki. He could hear Sakamoto right behind him. A
soldier blocked in front of him, thrusting his spear forward. Kenshin swiftly
turned side-ways - the spear-head missing him by an inch – and changed from a
run into a leap in one step. Less than an arm’s length now, and his katana
angled in a low horizontal swipe, biting into the soldier’s mid-section before
the man could react. Not slowing, Kenshin’s momentum tore his blade out of the
falling body, ignoring the man’s dying gasp.
He finally caught sight of Kanzaki
near the middle of the battle. A rush of footsteps to his right behind him, a
glimpse of rushing body, and his katana rose up without thought into a block. A
jarring in his arm, loud clang of steel meeting steel, and his raised eyes met
a sweaty face of an older soldier, grimacing as he pushed hard against his
katana. The man was stronger, but Kenshin never intended to battle him strength
for strength. He held the two-handed block for only a moment, then suddenly
dipped down the tip of his sword. The man lurched forward, mouth open in
surprise, then the hilt of Kenshin’s katana slammed into his nose, the force
aided by his forward fall. The soldier staggered backward, hand rising
automatically to his face, and Kenshin took a side step and slashed hard for
his throat.
Somehow the man managed to half-blocked
his blow and was only nicked in the throat. But his desperate block tangled his
legs and he crashed to the ground with a yell. Kenshin did not waste any time,
immediately reversing his grip and plunging his sword down into the man’s
chest. The tip of the tempered steel slid smoothly into flesh, his hands
feeling the impact of the blade hitting the ground behind the man’s chest – and
something happened.
One instant he impassively watched
the man gurgled against the steel blade lodged in his lungs, and in another
instant, the dying man’s terrified face was suddenly interposed with another
man’s face, a man already dead by his hands more than a year ago. Kiyosato Akira. His steady breath
abruptly caught in his throat and horror clawed through his ice-numbed mind.
The hand that wrenched the blade
out in an unsteady jerk was trembling, and so he did not pull it out cleanly.
It caught on the man’s ribs and callously jerked the body aside. As sudden as
the vision had come, it disappeared, leaving only a stranger lying on the dirt,
chest rattling with the final exhalation of breath. But the eyes that stared at
nothing in death seemed to sear into his memory, gouging another layer into the
already existing scar in his mind.
“Are you all right?”
Kenshin started, looking up into
Sakamoto’s concerned eyes. He looked away jerkily, not understanding what had
happened, why it happened, and not wanting to deal with it now.
“…it’s nothing. Please come with
me.”
As they ran across the courtyard,
three men rushed around a corner of the building. Kenshin had had his katana
poised to kill before he recognized the men.
“Himura-san!” One of them shouted.
“Come over here, we’re leaving this way!”
Kenshin dropped back to guard
their rear as they ran towards a small gate in the side-wall. They had almost
reached it when the soldiers nearby finally noticed them and disengaged to
block them off. Biting off a curse, Kenshin rounded back, shouting at Sakamoto
behind him, “Keep going!” Then he had no more time to think as the soldiers
swarmed around them. Ringing sound of steel meeting steel and a grunt right
behind him indicated that Sakamoto had not taken his advice. Growling, he
resolved to have some choice words for the other man. He knew the older man was
more than capable of taking care of himself, but it was still too risky.
There was the faintest sound at
the edge of his hearing, something that did not fit with the general mayhem
around him. Kenshin stiffened, hastily concentrating his senses to track that
anomaly. A Bakufu soldier took advantage of his momentary distraction and
slammed against him with a roar. Kenshin deflected his blow, his ears finally
catching more of those sounds. Right above him.
Beside him, Sakamoto dispatched
his opponent and roared, “Who’s there?!” He yanked out a fallen spear and
hurled it at the branches above.
A sharp sound of ringing metal,
and the spear plummeted to the ground. Kenshin backed away from another swing,
crouching and soaring up in one powerful bound that took the man under the
throat. He yanked out his sword, letting the man fall without another glance,
already spinning towards the trees.
Lowering his stance, he leveled
his sword close to the ground and turned in one full circle, sweeping the
broken pieces of branches and gravels from the ground. His second turn brought
the flat of his blade against several pieces of stones that flew towards the
trees as fast as if they were loose arrows.
The barrage spread out to cover a man’s
moving range, cutting through leaves and breaking branches with the force
behind them. A muffled cry sounded from above, and Kenshin caught a glimpse of
black shadow rushing between branches.
He instinctively moved to chase
after it – no doubt an omnitsu, though he had no idea whose – when several
distinctive, whistling sounds reached his ears, growing louder with
unbelievable speed. Heading right for him.
Sakamoto Ryoma was right behind
him, a few other Ishin Shishi nearby. He could not step away or they would be
hit.
In the split second left, he
barely managed to scream a warning – “ARROWS!” – then he stepped back and brought his katana into a white-gripped,
two-handed arching block. He stopped thinking altogether and relied completely
on instincts. It was the only way he could react fast enough.
The first arrow arrived before the
echo of his voice died down, a tip of light streaking through the night.
Kenshin’s body adjusted minutely to the angle and his katana carved a streak of
light in a smooth downward curve, the deceptively elegant move bearing all of
his strength. Wood and steel blade collided and the arrow shaft broke in two.
But...
His katana rang like a bell, the
incredible resonating force from the arrow impact traveling up his arms,
jarring his sword against his palms.
Bakana! Such strength...
No time to think. The second
streak of light pierced the air for him. Less than two feet...
His fingers spasmed around the
hilt, tightening despite the residual force. His katana dipped and curved up,
continuing the same circular motion. This time, he gritted his teeth and braced
himself for the impact.
He was not disappointed. The force
this second time round nearly tore the katana out of his fingers, forcing him
to step back and aside, sword thrown up and behind him to disperse the sheer
force of it. He let the tip hit the ground, sliding back another step and
whirling around in a circle, to bring the blade up again and slashing with all
his strength against the last arrow. The third arrow broke in two, but the
metal tip flew on to gash a line across his chest. Sharp pain bloomed, hot
droplets spattering his skin, and he staggered sideways to regain his
balance.
“Kenshin!”
He heard it at the same time as Sakamoto’s
shout. One more high-pitched shrill – he could almost feel the air being
shredded apart by the sheer speed and strength of this one.
Everything happened all at once. He
heard Sakamoto curse behind him, but the man was already throwing himself to
the right, halfway out of the arrow’s angle. A scuffle, frightened cries, as
the other men scrambled to get away, but he knew they were too late.
He could feel blood on his palms,
skin broken from the friction, blood slicking his hold on his katana. He could
not block this one. His duty was to protect Sakamoto Ryoma, but Sakamoto Ryoma
was out of the way.
He sprang aside and the arrow
whizzed past shoulder-high, the wind of its passing almost sharp enough to cut
skin. An agonized scream and a wet, dull thud from behind him and he knew that
the arrow had found a target.
He spun back towards the forest,
all of him strung up tight and prepared for the next attack, but there were no
more arrows. Sakamoto’s sound came behind him, sounds of frantic efforts. The
omnitsu was long gone, but the archer had to be somewhere nearby. Kenshin cast
his sight all around, looking for possible clear lines of shots through the
bamboo forest. There were none, but then he looked up at the small hill behind
the forest. And stopped.
There was a man on the top of the
hill, sitting astride a horse, a silhouette outlined against the brighter sky.
He could just barely see the figures, but his eyes were sharp enough to see the
smooth double curves of a long bow on the man’s hands.
He stared transfixed. The sheer
distance... it was impossible. Yet, even as he watched, the man lifted the bow
over his head in what looked like a languid salute to him.
Bastard...
He fumed impotently as he watched
the archer turned his horse around and disappeared down the hill.
“Kuso...”
He turned
around, seeing Sakamoto kneeling on the ground, his arms bloody. He was gazing
down at a man lying across his lap, body already slack in death. A large hole
on his chest still bled, but the arrow itself had pierced clean through his
chest and out the back. Kenshin turned and saw it embedded point-first in the
ground, eight feet away. The arrow was over a meter long, its shaft as thick as
his thumb.
He felt a chill ran up his back.
Even after going clean through a man’s body, the force behind the arrow was
still strong enough to let it travel another eight feet. Not that he needed any
more testaments of the archer’s strength, with his bloody palms already a vivid
reminder.
But that was not all. The hill was
almost forty meters away, with winds and thick clouds hampering aim. And the
four arrows had arrived within a bare second of each other, which meant that
the archer had a rate of fire of less than one second for each shot. There was
no one he knew of who could accomplish something close to this. He had not even
thought that it was possible.
What kind of enemy are we facing...?
He shook his head and knelt in
front of Sakamoto, unflinching eyes dropping to look at the man cradled in his
arms. The face seemed to stare at him accusingly. That was one more person he
failed to protect. But no time for that now. He pulled his gaze away.
“Sakamoto-san.”
The other man nodded, his face
bleak. He closed the dead man’s staring eyes then rose. Together, they ran past
the gate, the rest of them circled around him for protection.
They did not stop running until
they had reached the top of the overlooking hill. Sakamoto stopped at the place
where the archer had stood and looked back at the burning house. The sky was
lit with hellish red light and fiery sparks glittered as they were carried by
the wind to fall like burning snow. Sounds of fighting still drifted over the
night air, but it was receding, replaced instead with strident clangs of
night-watches and panicked shouts as the residents of the sleepy town finally
woke up to the fire alarm.
“K’so.” Kenshin looked at
Sakamoto. His face was taut with pain, and the words were pushed out of gritted
teeth, as if they hurt. “We are all the same people, all children of Yamato.
Why do we keep on fighting and killing each other like this? Don’t they know
there are predators waiting out there to jump on us once we’ve weaken
ourselves?”
Kenshin looked away from him, gazing up at the still burning sky. Unbidden, the face of that soldier that he had mistaken for Kiyosato rose up in his mind. How many men he had killed today had wives and fiancée waiting for them to come back? How many would wait vainly for their loved ones to come back? How many parents would mourn the deaths of their sons? He closed his eyes briefly, a dull burning pain starting to eat through his impassivity. He looked down at Sakamoto Ryoma, still staring at the dying fire and grieving for lives lost – and there were so many things filling his mind, so many things that he wanted to say.
But the only thing he said was,
“It’s time to go.”
***
Across the other side of the hill,
a rider on a horse trotted leisurely down the mountain road. Behind them, the
final wisps of smoke were just disappearing over the curve of the hill. The man
was in no hurry, allowing his mount to pick its own pace. A six-foot horse bow
and a half-empty quiver of arrows hung over the side.
Suddenly he tilted his head and
called out to the forest to his right. “Are you hurt?”
A soft female voice replied him,
“It’s a scratch, Hyou-sama. Nothing serious. Where’s Sasaki?”
“He’s out hunting.” The man
motioned towards the forest. “He’d been hungry – he preferred his meat fresh. I
don’t want him too near the battle, I can’t allow him to join in. Yet.”
“Soudesu-ka.” A pause.
“Thank you for your help, Hyou-sama, but I believe I could have escaped by
myself.”
Hyou lifted his head at that, the
weak moonlight falling on a lean, angular face. He looked to be around late
twenties, with the sun-browned and weathered look of a man used to living
outdoors. His straight black hair was worn swept back from his face and
forehead, almost reaching his waist. Tall, with a strong enough build, though
he did not look nearly as powerful as his feat with the long bow had revealed.
A handsome enough man, in a hard
sort of way, until one saw his eyes. And forgot to notice anything else about
him.
A pair of cat-green eyes, cold,
and intense enough to bore holes into the watcher’s eyes. They were merciless
predator’s eyes, giving away the lie to the mask of civility he wore like a
camouflage skin.
He smiled then, and there was
reserved danger behind the lazy smirk. “I’ve told you not to get too close,
Shurei.”
A wary silence, then the kunoichi
replied in a cautious voice. “I apologize sincerely. I’d thought that the
confusion would mask my approach. And…” Her voice dropped, deepened with
emotions. “…and I…need to see him,
Hyou-sama. He was so *close*…”
Hyou gave his horse a gentle kick,
urging it to walk faster. “If I hadn’t fired those arrows, he would have killed you. Or caught you.”
“He can’t have…”
“You’re
underestimating him, Shurei,” Hyou cut in, his voice still idle but the hard
authority veiled underneath silenced the woman. “I know he got you on more than
one places. I can hear how you move. I can smell
your blood… And those are just a secondary attack using stones, not the blade
itself.”
He
smirked. “If he’d concentrated his attention on you, you would be dead. You’re
not on the same level with him, Shurei. The only way you could get to him would
be with good planning, or by trickeries.”
Silence as the woman considered
this. She would get it, or she would not. In either case, it was no longer of
interest to him. He had far more interesting things to think about. Like a
certain young swordsman who had blocked his arrows…
His eyes gleamed with an almost
feral pleasure. It had been a while since someone had been able to do that. The
last one who had broken his arrows, he had spent four months hunting him
down. The man was not so lucky the
second time round.
A deep, spine-tingling sensation
ran up his body, a prelude to a hunt. First the man with the eyes of a wolf who
reeked of blood, and now this one.
Coming to Kyoto had not been a
mistake after all.
***
NOTES:
1. The
reference to Sankyoku and Hiratsuki : if you’ve read chapter 3 then you’d understand
what I meant ^_^. But to put it simply, Okita’s special move ‘Sankyoku’ uses
front thrusts that can be turned immediately into a side-slash – hiratsuki. The
3 thrusts themselves are so quick they’re perceived almost as one thrust.
2. OK, the
arrow thing ^_^. How powerful can an arrow go and how far is the distance? Bow
and arrow was the chief weapon of Japanese fighting man for centuries. One
particular bow type that they used was the war bow called the ‘daikyu’, used by
warriors on horseback or on foot. It was a longbow with length ranging anywhere
from 7 feet 4 inches to 8 feet, although ancient records also showed 9 feet
bows. The bow Hyou is using is this 9 ft type, and it requires hellacious
strength to use properly ^_^. OK, I may have exaggerated on its range and
strength (I tried to find real figures on them, but you try and find
information on ancient Japanese bow in bookstores >_<…) , but who is it
that introduced a 4-floor tall giant into RK’s world, and a tiny man who could
jump the height of a waterfall for his Ryu-Tsui-Sen? For this, I wave the flag
of ‘Watsuki’s Law of Physics’ as my defender ;p But if anybody had any better
information on Japanese bows, please do tell me! I would love to use the
correct information.
3. Japanese
words:
-
Yamato = the kingdom of Yamato was an old name for Japan
-
Soudesu-ka = is that so
-
Omnitsu/Kunoichi = same meaning as ninja, kunoichi is
specifically a ‘female’ ninja (thanks to Nodoka-san ^_^)