Disclaimer: I do NOT own Battle Arena Toshinden, it's characters nor any of it's contents.
Warnings/Author notes: The complete story contains extreme and graphic violence, rape, and yaoi. If any of these bother you please do not continue (In the future I may go back and write a tamer version, time will tell). You have been formally warned. I would appreciate any critiques, comments, and encouragement you have to offer on this one.
~PRELUDE~
Shinjo Sho... My dearest Sho... What have I done to you?
It would be easier for the both of us if I could have hated you...
If I had been the one to kill you and I destroyed the Byakko...
But at least, you wouldn't be drowning in my sins.
"Amoh." Sho sat up looking at the mercenary. "Amoh..." He knew that Amoh couldn't have gone to sleep that fast, and if he had then shame on him. "Amoh?"
"Yes." Amoh didn't bother to open his eyes laying stiff as granite on the thin futon. He hadn't wanted to answer but he knew if he ignored Sho, he would watch him through the night. "You know you should be sleeping, don't you?"
"What's the Himitsu Kessha?" Sho ignored his question, far from being ready to give in to his subtle way of demanding him to sleep.
"Why are we talking about this now?"
"Because you're not telling me something."
Amoh opened his eyes and turned to Sho, his own violet eyes meeting with Sho's ruby. Those gems were full of concern and worry with no sign of sleep behind them. "I don't know what the organization is about." He had been trying to figure it out but they were so damned exclusive. Whoever their 'Uranus' was kept things closed off from outsiders. "I haven't even decided if I want to take the offer."
"I don't want you to."
"It could be the only way to discover what they are up to." Amoh sat up, unable to stand lounging while Sho was still up. "Come on now... you need sleep."
"Then let me help you."
"You know you need to look after the boys."
"They aren't children anymore."
"You know what I mean."
"And you know what I mean." Crawling forward Sho laid at Amoh's side, pulling him down to the futon. "Eiji and Kayin are more than capable of looking after themselves, each other, and the swords." He hadn't forgotten the legendary swords, Byakko and Excalibur, that each had received from Sho and Amoh respectively. "Grant me that much."
"I wasn't saying you hadn't trained them well enough." He threw an arm around Sho's waist, expecting for him to growl from the implication though it never came. "Why are you letting this one bother you so much?"
"Don't you think it odd that someone hires you to infiltrate a secret organization who then offers you a job to dispose of an assassin?" It seemed like a set up to Sho and though Amoh had walked into many and emerged victorious this one felt dangerous.
"Which is why I need to figure out what it is the Himitsu Kessha want. What it is they think I have."
"You're a mercenary whose name is feared far and wide, maybe they want you out of the way so that they proceed with some bigger scheme without fear."
"Then I want to know what that scheme is and what I can do to stop it."
"By exposing yourself?" Sho sat up. "You don't even know anything about them. No one outside of the organization knows. Why, with this job are you telling me to hold off? You let me help you with the others."
"This one is different." Amoh worried that perhaps the Himitsu Kessha had learned of Sho and Eiji, the last of the Yamato-keepers of the Byakko katana. He suspected the organization responsible for the brutal massacre of the Yamato clan that had left Sho in shock.
No child deserved to live through anything like that, to have to fight for their life, and in Sho's case the life of his newly born brother. He could still remember the expression on Sho's face when he found him caked in blood rocking his mewling brother and Byakko in his arms. It was obvious even now that Sho still retained scars from the attack.
"What's different?" Sho snapped obviously unhappy with the quiet that settled between them.
If he told Sho, it would be dragging bad memories to the surface but if he didn't, Sho would become upset and feel shafted. "I have reason to believe they were the ones who attacked your clan years ago..." Sho's nails bit into his arm, a reflex that Amoh had gotten use to and easily ignored. "I'm not sure what it was they wanted... If it was Byakko or you..." He suspected it was both since Sho had survived the ordeal and even killed many of the assassins as he fled. "I will be needing you, but not now."
"When?"
"Soon enough." Amoh sat up and kissed Sho's brow. "Now come on, back to bed." He lifted his blanket, tugged Sho closer into his side then shifted him to lay on his futon with him and covered them both.
"Fine." Sho nuzzled into Amoh, finding instant comfort in his arms smothered in the spice of his skin. "I love you..."
Amoh stroked Sho's blood-auburn locks, hugging him close. "I love you too." He felt Sho's head tilt back nudging at his chin, a silent request for a kiss, and with a slight smirk he shifted his head to offer his lips to the younger man.
How Sho managed to stay so sweet and loving despite it all was an amazement to Amoh. Sho possessed a frightening strength yet here, within Amoh's arms, he was delicate and soft. For all purposes, Sho was his wife... Eiji and Kayin their sons. An awkward but complete family he wouldn't trade for the world.
"You've made me soft." He whispered against Sho's lips.
"Only at night... only in my arms..." Sho stole a deeper kiss, savoring the unique flavor of Amoh's lips and tongue. Rolling his bronzed lover back, Sho straddled him and slid his arms around Amoh's neck. "Outside of us, you are still that dark and powerful warrior," he traced his fingers over the scar that ran through Amoh's left eye and brow. "Is it so bad that you have found a gentle hand with me? A fatherly look for Kayin and Eiji?"
"No, it's not." He reached up curling his fingers through Sho's hair, stroking the silky strands again. "I want you to do me a favor."
Sho cocked his head to the side. "What's that?"
"Stop laying that futon out." He motioned to the one that was meant to be Sho's with a faint smirk. "You never use it."
He looked to the neglected futon. "Because I'm forever crawling into yours but-"
"No buts." He shook his head. "You belong here in my arms."
Sho melted into Amoh and tucked his head against Amoh's neck. "I won't pull it out again. You have my word."
Sho squinted against the blaze of the summer sun, lounging just outside of the training hall. He'd lost track of how long he been sitting in the shade of the eaves of the hall but, judging by the little birds that had come to rest on his feet, it must have been a long while. It was odd and uncomfortable for him to be so lethargic but Kayin and Eiji both had been difficult that morning, berating him for letting Amoh go off on his own without talking to them. Though he tried to quietly reason with them, they made that impossible and forced him to end it with a swift smack to the backs of their heads then forcing them each to hold a boulder from his Zen garden on their shoulders while squatting in the sun.
"Sshoooo..." Eiji was shaking and sweating, unable to finish his words. The boulder had gotten hotter and pressed him even deeper into his squat.
Kayin wasn't fairing any better, having dropped so low his head was about to hit the ground. He picked up where Eiji dropped off unable to take it anymore. "C-c-c-can... w-w-we... ss-st-st-stop...?"
Peering over at the two he considered the request then looked at the clock. Assuming it was right they'd been holding their boulders for well over seven hours. That should have been long enough for them to learn their lessons. "Hm..." Ever the stern parent, Sho took his time answering them. "I... suppose so."
Both boulders fell, crashing to the ground with a resounding thud followed by a soft wail from Kayin who was fighting to lift his back up. He hadn't been able to straighten his back up to deposit his own so he opted for simply sliding it forward over his head. Unfortunately it had fallen onto a cluster of his long golden locks trapping him in place unable to lift it.
"Eiji! Oh my God! Pick it up! Pick it up!" He dropped into the sand trying to push the edge up so that he could get free. Sweaty hands slipped over the polished stone and Kayin kept falling. "Eiji!"
Eiji rushed to Kayin's aid, trying to pull the boulder up but ran into the same problem. Sweaty hands were useless against the stone, slipping over it to drop Eiji back on his ass in the sand. For a moment Sho simply looked at them wondering if both had suddenly gone stupid on him, but then it was just too funny and he burst into maniacal laughter. Both Eiji and Kayin looked at Sho, with a note of confusion bleeding through their panic, wondering what he thought was so amusing.
"I can't believe you two... really..." Sho rose from his seat and sauntered over to them calmly. He carefully gripped the rock with one hand and rolled it off of Kayin's hair without so much as grunting or breathing differently.
"How did you-?" Eiji looked at Sho wide-eyed. He and Kayin had been struggling under the weight of those things and here his brother had managed to lift it without any strain. "That was so cool..."
Sho shook his head. How easily that not-so-subtle complex reared its head when Eiji observed some feat of Sho's that surpassed his own, even when his failure to best his brother was simply due to his own bouts of improperly thinking the situation through. "We'll pretend like the two of you didn't just do that and move on." He could already feel the headache forming and quickly massaged it from his temples.
"It's just that..." Eiji looked at Kayin who fell quiet. "No one said anything to us. We didn't even get to see him off, then the other day you come in and say 'Oh yeah, Amoh has left. Don't know when he'll be back.'"
"That was not what I was talking about." Sho sighed not wanting to thinking about the past four days alone with them. Even after all of these years of raising them both and training them, he still struggled with them. They were growing up so fast and he was eager to send them off on their own and be alone with Amoh without constantly worrying over how to keep them busy. As much affection as he held for them, there were just more and more frequent days of irritation with them around. Between Eiji's habit of misinterpreting his words and Kayin's growing awkwardness it was draining having them around all the time. Not as rewarding as when they had been much smaller and Kayin had mistakenly called Sho 'Kaa-san.' Little ones were easy to handle but not wild adults with nothing better to do.
"I'll just consider your punishment your training and exercise for today and leave you with the rest to spend however you like, just..." Sho paused trying to think of a polite way of saying it to avoid them whining later. "Just don't bother me." It was the best that he could come up with.
"So we can go hang out with Emi?" Eiji raised a brow inquisitively, a hand already firmly gripping Kayin's hand to drag him off. Kayin cringe a bit but remained quiet.
Looking at them for a moment, Sho wondered if he should tell Kayin that Eiji had started talking to Emi not because he wanted to date but to get her advice on how to best approach the blonde with his affection. He thought better of it and sighed staring back off into the yard. "Go." He was feeling like too much of a parent.
"We'll be back in time for dinner!" Eiji dragged Kayin away, grumbling softly and sighing.
Returning to this seat over looking his Zen garden, he thought of just laying back and waiting for birds to gather again. Ah, but they had made a mess of his garden, not that he hadn't planned on changing the design but that was besides the point. He couldn't stand to look at it if it was it was in disarray and so messy. It would be a good distraction, hopefully take his mind off of Amoh and return his patience to him.
He retrieved first his soft broom to smooth out the sands and shift the rocks where he wanted them as he went. It was quiet and peacefully so as he prepped the space, switching his broom out for his rake and beginning the swirls on designs in the sand. It felt good and his mind slowly began to clear, casting away the worry and upset that had knotted his thoughts. If he didn't have these moments of complete clarity he'd have lost his mind ages ago.
Slowly his eyes closed and he walked the sand canvas in blind and calm steps, drawing out the swirls and zigzags he wanted to undulate through the sparkling sand. How it did shimmer so softly, almost sparkling in the sun, and the sounds that lapped their way to his ears as the bamboo carved out his work of art were like a sweet, whispered poem. So, so much better now and as he rose from the sand floor, stepping up onto one of the stones, he opened his eyes and gazed downward. That was so much better.
"Are you Sho?" The voice was a deep rumble, chillingly cold and yet having an underlying natural warmth. "Shinjo Sho?"
"I am." Sho turned, blood-red eyes meeting with emerald then drifting to study the man.
He was a tower of muscle, standing well over Sho by-at the very least-a foot, wrapped in battle worn tanned skin. An older man and yet still retaining a youth-like and handsome face, it was his eyes that gave away his age and told of years of discipline. The most striking feature however was his hair, a shimmering shoulder-length curtain of white strands as though he had been born that way. Despite his obvious strength and intimidating look of anger, there was something terribly sad about this man. "I've come on behalf of Amoh."
The thick voice snapped Sho away from his inquisitive study of the man and he immediately took a defensive stance. "And who are you that Amoh would send as his messenger boy."
An annoyed grunt of a growl caught in his throat as he walked forward closing the distance just enough so that he wouldn't have to raise his voice to be certain the red-haired man heard him. "I'm no boy, child. I do this as a favor to fellow assassin. If I hadn't been passing through this village I wouldn't have been so generous."
"You say that as though you are an equal to Amoh."
"They don't call me the 'Fearsome Demon Warrior' for nothing."
Sho instantly recognized the title. "Gaia?" Amoh had spoke very briefly of the man ages before, speaking of some sort of connection he had to the Himitsu Kessha, and he almost wished his memory had been good enough to remember what was said of the man. "And what did he want you to tell me?" If this truly were Gaia and he did have a message from his beloved, he'd let him live to pass through the gate he had to cross to enter the grounds.
"He said, 'Track the pharaoh.'" Gaia assumed it to be some code though what it meant was beyond him and he clearly cared little to figure it out. "Now if you will excuse me, I've more important things to attend to..." He turned away just as Sho opened his mouth to speak, waving his would-be words away. "Never mind it. I understand that you've no reason to trust me but the next time we meet, you can try speaking a bit more properly to me."
The code still made Sho huff, being a blatant jab at statement he had made ages ago about the Egyptian assassin, though he understood it to mean that Amoh had gone into hiding and wanted his input. He'd have to leave soon if he expected to pick up on where Amoh was lurking, but there was an itch he just had to scratch before it got worse.
"Gaia." The Demon Warrior stopped and turned an ear to Sho while keeping his eyes forward. "Maybe you'll indulge me with a fight too, when we next meet?"
He smirked with an amused chuckle. "We'll see..."
For a brief moment after watching Gaia leave, Sho thought to go Hunt down Eiji and Kayin to let them know he was going. Would they nod and go on about their business or fuss and demand to tag along? He didn't trust them not to anger him so he thought better of it. It wasn't as though he had announced the other times that he left.
"They'll get over it..."