Clairvoyance

Plot: Kenshiro and his companions have finally found peace, but in a world that's forever changing, peace did not live long. When the village that Kenshiro has recently visited is attacked by a group of bandits, he finds himself seeking out old allies to help with a new journey; bring a young disabled woman home. However, his new companion is far from normal and brings a long new danger.

Chapter One: Norcross

It was the same old scene, nothing but parched dirt, half buried rubble, the hot scorching sun, and harsh wind that sometimes made sand cut the flesh of the creature that dared to walk against it. It was a scene that Kenshiro was all too familiar with and the urge to press on to find some kind of life was what kept him going.

He wasn't entirely sure how long he had been walking for. Sweat drizzled down his face and left wet marks under his arms, chest, and back. He had taken the bandages that he had wrapped around his right forearm to wrap over his head to protect it from the sun. Somewhere along his journey he had found an old blanket buried in the sand. He had cut a hole in it to create a makeshift poncho to protect what little of his skin wasn't already covered by his clothing.

Every so often, the heat bouncing back from the ground got to Ken, and today seemed to be one of those days. With each step he took, it felt like his legs weighed a hundred pounds each that sunk deeper into the sand. No matter how tired he became, he knew that he had to keep going, Lin and Bat were hoping for a visit in the future and he still had little Ryu that he had left with Balga to return too so that he may become a student of the formidable Hokuto Shinken martial arts style. There was still so much that he had left to do, he couldn't just give up now.

Then it was like a miracle happened, through the blistering heat wave, off in the distance, Kenshiro could see the outline of what looked like to be a village, and a rather large and established one. He stopped to take a moment to try to convince his mind that he wasn't imaging things, and it felt like the only way that he was going to convince his mind was to move forward. It felt like it took him forever, but he finally reached the village. His presence seemed large to those that took up residence, and they all stopped and stared to take in his appearance.

It was clear that he was exhausted, overly exhausted. His cheeks were flushed bright red, and sweat started to show on his dusty poncho. He stood with his shoulders slumped a bit forward his breathing picked up as he suddenly realized just how tired and hot he was from the sun. Before he could say anything, he caught movement from the corner of his eye, a man was approaching. His clothing was a little more put together, but still frayed and dirty in certain spots. The lime green t-shirt was old and worn out but politely covered by a brown pullover shirt with the middle open. The man's jeans were torn at the knees and frayed at the bottom and his right shoe had a hole on the top. He reached out and took Kenshiro's arm gently, tugging it upward to help the martial artist to stand straighter.

"The name's Mika, I'm the village doctor." The man started as he ushered Ken off into the shade. "Come on into my office before you pass out from a heat stroke."

Ken went willingly, following him into a building that had been damaged in the war, but has since slowly been repaired. They both stepped down a few feet below the street and underneath the overhead of the door. Mika pulled back the draping cloth over the door and allowed Kenshiro to enter first. He ducked down to fit through the doorway and reached out for the table that was immediately on the right to prevent himself from meeting violently with the floor. He didn't realize just how tired his body actually was until he was offered to the opportunity to sit.

"Over here," Mika instructed him to sit on an old twin sized bed, and there Kenshiro dropped himself heavily. Mika waited a moment for his patient to collect himself before he went right in with a vital examination. He had been a doctor before the war and was just about ready to start his own practice when the first set of bombs hit. Although it wasn't really difficult for him to start something when he realized that he survived. Almost every settlement was looking for a good or decent doctor to help their people, Mika was just lucky that he was able to settle into a village that was so far from any other civilization that they were virtually untouched by the bandits running rampant out in the Wasteland.

"We don't get a lot of visitors here," said Mika as he lifted a pair of old stethoscopes with the right ear bud broken off. "So, when it happens people generally don't know how to react." When Kenshiro didn't make a sound or a comment, Mika continued. "You're going to be fine, just some heat exhaustion. I do suggest that you take a break from wherever it is that you're going."

"Nowhere," Ken answered stoically, "All I need is some water, if you have any to spare."

Mika took a moment to look him over. He was young, extremely fit, and looked like a man that wasn't going to take a doctor's order. So he sighed defeatedly and stood up with his knees cracking. He crossed the room to an open doorway where he then disappeared for several minutes. When he reappeared, he held an old war canister with a beat-up military green strap.

"Here," Mika handed the object over, "It's not much, so you'll need to conserve it and hope that it makes you to the next village."

"Thank you." Kenshiro placed the canister by his side, "I don't have much in return."

Mika waved his hand and leaned against the door-frame. "Don't worry about it, a lot of folks here don't have much so I generally don't charge unless I gotta break out the good stuff."

Ken smirked and nodded. In a world that was so mean, it was nice to find those little candles in the dark. It didn't happen often, but when it did those were the people that stuck with Kenshiro and reminded him what he fought for.

Just as Ken was about to stand up to head back out on his journey, the distant sound of revving engines got close that was quickly accompanied by the howling of bandits. Kenshiro knew all too well what that meant, especially if he didn't get out there and take care of the situation. He took a moment to glance at Mika as he stood, the good doctor's face had fallen and become pale.

Then he stammered on his words, "how… how is this possible? Bandits had never come here before."

"What's the name of this village?"

"Norcross."

"Never heard of it.

"Exactly." Mika rushed out to see what was happening. He peered out just in time to see several cars, probably about ten or twenty of them, ride straight into town, most of the skidding out and covering a lot of the fleeing residents in dirt and dust. He quickly looked around to assess the problem, but knew that if anyone was going to be killed or injured, he wasn't going to have to capabilities to assess and help every single victim.

That was when his eyes had fallen upon a child that had lost their grip on their mother's hand and fell in the middle of the street. The red-headed little girl with dark freckles looked up, her mother screaming in slow motion. The sound to a revving up engine and squealing tires caused the young human to look forward to see a crazed man with a mohawk cladded with leather-like spandex and tattoos floored his vehicle in her direction. She knew that she should be getting up, but all of her muscles froze, paralyzed with fear.

Mika knew that he was never going to reach her, but he made the attempt anyway. He climbed out of the little ditch that his office sat in, but stumbled what he thought was over his own feet when in fact he had been shoved to the side for his safety. In a blur of dark blue, Kenshiro was on the young child in a blink of an eye. He scooped her up and quickly leapt out of the way of the speeding vehicle. The driver seemed startled that he didn't feel the familiar bone crushing vibration under his tires, so he slammed on his brakes. His car came to a screeching halt. He threw it into park and stood up in his seat, peering over. To his dismay, he didn't find a body in the street, nor did he find any kind of sign of roadkill anywhere. So his eyes went to the side of the street where he quickly spotted Kenshiro putting the child down so that she could cling to her mother for dear life.

"Oh thank you! Thank you so much for saving my little girl."

The bandit became immediately annoyed, "hey! You!" Kenshiro looked over his shoulder to see the criminal pointing a spiked club at him. "Who said that you could ruin my fun?"

"Taking innocent lives isn't fun," Kenshiro barked back, his eyes glaring.

The bandit was taken aback a little bit from the look in his enemy's eyes, it was almost as if he could feel the daggers digging into his skin. He shook it off however and jumped over the door of his vehicle landing with a soft 'thud' and a dust cloud to complete it. He growled, his body stiff as he stalked towards Ken. "You're going to regret this, pal."

Except nothing but a louder engine revving took over and caught everyone's attention. Approaching the village was a much larger car with a float like stage built on the back of it. Sitting upon the stage was a large metal throne with a man sitting quite comfortably. Next to him was something that Kenshiro had never seen before in all of his travels.

At his side, on their knees, was a young woman, most likely a few years younger than Ken. She had ashen white hair and porcelain skin. Her clothing was that of a slave, dirty, somewhat revealing and held in place by a tan rope tied around her waist. Her arms and legs were covered in bruises that made it apparent that she wasn't treated kindly. This young woman was shackled to the stage by heavy thick iron chains and given her state Kenshiro could tell that it was taking every ounce of strength that this woman had not to drop on her face.

Her beauty reminded Kenshiro of Yuria…

Anger began to well inside of Kenshiro's chest and without realizing it, he was clenching his fists and grinding his teeth. He needed to keep himself in check to assess the situation that presented itself. Right now he was severely outnumbered – not like that mattered to him – and he needed to keep in mind the people of this village and the poor young woman up on the vehicle stage. He knew that saving them all was the best answer, and he knew he could do it; but that didn't mean that he wanted to rush in head first like he used too. Over the years Kenshiro has learned that the only way to fight violence was with violence, but if he could somehow spare innocent people from involving themselves in that lifestyle he'd find and execute any other possible solution. He only wished that he could have thought and done that for Bat and Lin.

So Ken stayed put, and decided to wait it out to see what would happen.

The man sitting in the moving throne was larger but not the largest that the martial artist had seen. Strapped to his golden shoulder pads was a dark purple cape that draped down onto the floor. His eyes looked sunken into his large head, but comparatively the size of his head didn't match the size of his muscular body. Hanging on side of his throne was a crossbow nestled into a holster, on the other side, closest to his enslaved woman, was a large spiked club. With the way that this large and oddly small headed bandit had his hands placed, it seemed that he favored the crossbow as his primary weapon. All the men that had so violently entered the village had now started to congregate closer to their leader. Most of them had evil chuckles while the rest seemed content with contorting their faces with evil smirks.

"My name is Zoron!" the leader bellowed out, finally getting to his feet. Kenshiro couldn't help but turn his eyes toward the innocent woman at his feet, who seemed to flinch at his movement. "And your village, supplies, and women, all belong to me!" Zoron then started to laugh manically.

An audible gasp came from all the villagers, families clutching at each other, and children hiding. It was clear to Ken that this village had been segregated for so long that none of them knew how to respond in this situation. How this tiny place managed it, he wasn't sure, but he applauded them for keeping themselves a secret. And it only made him want to hurry up and defeat these pathetic excuses of human beings.

"I'll give you three chances." Kenshiro's voice was deafening.

Zoron stopped, "huh?" His eyes scanned the crowd, to find the source of the defiant soul who had a death wish. None of the townsfolk seemed too particularly threatening, until his eyes laid upon Kenshiro. Zoron raised an eyebrow. "What did you just say?"

Kenshiro held up three fingers. "You get three chances to leave and that's all."

"Ha! You're hilarious!"

"Three."

"Man, you must have a death wish pal!"

Kenshiro lowered his first finger. "Two."

"You and what army is going to defeat the Zoron Bandits!?" Zoron bellowed, his arms outstretched, he chuckled again. "You're going to die here."

This time, Kenshiro paused before tucking his second finger into a fist. "One."

It was like a command, members of the Zoron Bandits rushed at Keshiro, raising their clubs and lifting their crossbows to try to beat him to death. It was a fight that he had seen several times before and a battle that he's won countless times. Kenshiro dodged the first bandit that reached him, his hand chopping at the back of his head. Then he started to move through the crowd, channeling his energy through his attacks and battle shouts as his fists and fingers hit the vital points of his enemies. When he reached the end of the first wave, Keshiro named out the devastating blow.

"Honsha Bakuretsu Ken! Spilling Wheel Exploding Fist!" During the callout, the heads and bodies of his enemies began to implode, staining the ground with their innards. The violent end to human life caused the villagers to gasp, some covering their eyes and hiding their children from the massacre. But for some it was like a train wreck, they just couldn't look away.

Zoron however looked at the gruesome sight with widened eyes and an open jaw. How this man's simple touch could make people imploded was beyond his comprehension. That made him angry. He growled audibly then turned towards his slave to grab onto the chain around her throat and yanked her forward. She choked and stumbled, dropping to his feet as Zoron leaned in and shouted over her.

"You said that there was no one here to protect this damn village!"

The young woman flinched, "I'm sorry!" she shouted. "I didn't see him!"

Zoron raised his hand to strike her with his club. "I'm not taking that excuse this time!"

With the same speed as before, Kenshiro charged toward Zoron's vehicle to leap and kick the club right out of his hand. Zoron stumbled back nearly stepping off of the board. Though he put enough space between him and his slave for Kenshiro to place himself right in between them. "Don't touch her," spat Kenshiro his eyes glaring.

If there was one thing that Zoron hated the most, it was someone that he felt was lesser than him to be glaring in his direction. It irked him and made his blood boil. He could almost feel his face turning red from rage. He gritted his teeth and stammered on his words trying to insult the man that just massacred more than half of his men. If he didn't end this soon, he was sure that he was going to be next.

"Die!" Zoron quickly raised his crossbow. Up against a man with this type of skill, Zoron knew that in order to win, he needed to use all the weapons that he had available to him. So he fired before anyone else could move.

In a blink of an eye, Kenshiro caught the arrow between two of his fingers just mere inches from his face then immediately turned it around to launch the arrow back to his owner, where it dug directly into his left eye. Zoron screamed and stumbled back, tumbling off of his grand stage. He could feel the warm liquid coming down his face. He used his hands to try to clean up the mess but it was no avail. It felt almost as if every time he touched a spot near his wound the arrow would embed deeper into his eye. He screamed again in agony. His men came to his side, some of them wanted to keep fighting, while the rest of the loaded their boss into the next available car then spun off. Leaving behind the moat vehicle along with Zoron's precious cargo.

Kenshiro waited till the dust cloud of their wheels faded away. When he knew that it was safe, he turned to kneel down to inspect the woman that was left behind. Now that Kenshiro was up close, he could really get a look at the woman's injuries. However, it wasn't the injuries that caught his attention, it was her eyes. He didn't notice it before, he was too far away, but her eyes had a thick white clouded haze over them; she was blind.

The woman knew that there was someone before her, but she wasn't sure if it was her savior or her captor. Quietly, she spoke, "w-who's there?"

"My name is Kenshiro," he raised his hands to gently take the shackle around her throat into his grasp. "You can call me Ken. Now, try hard not to move, I'm going to remove your shackles." After getting a nod of approval, Ken took in a deep breath through his nose and out slowly from his mouth. He did this several times as his body relaxed. "Hm!" His muscles tightened with the hard yank to the shackles. They metal easily split into two freeing her throat. She took in a deeper breath as her body relaxed. Kenshiro allowed her to rub at the newly freed spot that had become irritated, bruised, and rubbed raw from the metal. When she was finished, he worked on removing the shackles on her wrists and ankles to reveal that they were in just as bad of a shape as her throat.

"Can you walk?"

"I…I don't think so."

"Hey," Kenshiro looked over to see that Mika had approached, "bring her into my clinic, I'll take a look at her."

Kenshiro nodded, then turned back to the freed slave. "I'm going to pick you up, is that alright?" She nodded her head so Kenshiro leaned forward to gently scoop her into his arms. As he lifted her, he could feel just how thin she was. He almost felt like he was carrying a glass doll.

The moment that she moved, the woman grabbed onto the closest thing that she could to secure herself, Ken's shirt. And he allowed it. He could only imagine how uncomfortable she must be. She was in an area that she potentially didn't know, injured, and most likely lived all of her life cowering and chained to be constantly at a man's foot. He moved slow for her, to allow her to gather her bearings. Her hands came up to grasp as the open jean vest, her thumb brushing against his chest as she did so. Then it wandered to find a part of the famous scar on his chest.

"You… you really are Kenshiro," she said in disbelief, "I've been waiting for you."