Warning: mention of violence.

He dreamt of the sunset, as every morning of each day of his life.

He saw the sun hiding into the sea as the day was getting colder and the stars appeared in the dark sky. He could smell the breeze of the sea; he could hear the people humming near the beach. He could see the plains, the strait, and the ocean. He felt a warm embrace in his entire body, as a shadow appeared before him.

A gentle person, who cried bitter tears of blood from eyes as soft as twilight, which was wounded beyond repair, and muttered some strange words about death and honor, embraced him without any shame.

Tsugaru heard his name called from beyond his dreams and he woke up quickly.

"My Lord! Please wake up! The explorers are fighting with the bandits of the Bakemono clan!"

The samurai just shook his head. He stood hurriedly and nodded.

"Tell the ashigaru and the samurai that are not guarding the gates to wake up; I want them all ready as soon as possible to crush the bandits at once"

"Yes Tsugaru-sama!"

The blonde warrior dressed himself, putting each piece of his clothes and his polished armor in place; the tabi, his zori, the hakama, the hitatare, the metallic pieces, and at last, the mask with fake fangs and the helmet with his own sign engraved in the front; a medallion representing a snowflake. He took his katana and his wakizashi and went out his house. The bells of Gizo-Suru rang, piercing the air of sunrise with their clear voices; the entire fortified village that lied between a lake and an iron quarry woke up, and soon the ashigaru and his personal guard stood in front of the gates.

He took his bow and his arrows, and mounted his horse as soon as he went outside his house. When he arrived to the gates, he looked at his man, each one of them focused and prepared for battle. They asked him wordlessly about his commands.

Tsugaru looked to his assistant, who gave him a map showing the location of the caves that served as a refuge for the bandits.

"Men, we will go into the forest now and we will finish the threat of the Bakemono bandit clan. We will kill the bandits without mercy, just as they killed our own people!"

He raised his sword as his men shouted. Then, he charged along his personal guard into the forest, the ashigaru followed closer.

The samurai felt the closeness of battle and emptied his mind.

Except that, this time, he could not forget his ever-present dream.

When the men arrived to the cave, the explorers were fighting against a brutal yet drunk force of grubby outlaws. The giant idiots could stop the offensive of the explorers, but when the guard of the Heiwajima army came, they were at a serious disadvantage.

Tsugaru prepared an arrow in his bow and fired; one bandit fell, he fired once again, killing another outlaw as the explorers left the cave, most of them wounded. The sloppy and dull battle style of the Bakemono men could not make anything against the prepared and sober samurai of the Heiwajima army; the warriors prepared their arrows and fired before any of the ashigaru unitscame in sight; the personal guards of the blue-eyed lord shoot again, silently and deadly.

All of a sudden, the silver rain of arrows became a brilliant spectacle of blades falling as leaves from the sky; all the samurai ran towards the cave, their swords exposed, cutting and killing with the mercy of death itself, yet soft and soundless like the murmurs of dreams. There was harmony for a moment, when Tsugaru saw the blood flowers of violence flourish and die in front of his eyes. He did not felt any pleasure from the killing, but he knew that, behind any poetic or martial meaning, death was the only god that could bring peace to the land of the Great Forge.

The rider dismounted and ran silently into the cave behind his men; he cut through the bandits who still lived as wind itself, hushed and accurate. His movements were fast, and he left behind his men quickly as is blade slashed vital points and made deep incisions in the bodies of the drunken men who stood between him and the bandit leader.

The repugnant smell of the fat, disgusting man, made him lose his battle focus. His mind was abruptly filled with the repulsion that man provoked in him. The bandit king stroked the ground with his bloodstained mace and laughed at the sight of the brilliant katana of the blonde samurai.

"Heee-ree you are-e bastard! You and your…schtupid clan… ¡COME AND FIGHT WITH MEH BLUE EYED WHORE!"

Tsugaru smiled meekly beneath his mask and remembered the old proverb, "You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger". He sighed and made a short bow before his foe.

"With pleasure, Bakemono-san"

He gave a dash forward, swinging his sword to hack the bandit´s arm; but the drunken man was fast, and he evaded the brilliant blade. Tsugaru moved his sword up, and left a gap in his defense; he felt the blunt edge of the mace hit his sword and his helmet, making his mask fall and his eyes lose focus. The bandit king laughed stridently and raised his mace once again; but he flinched when he saw the blue eyes of the samurai burning in the furnace of resolve.

When he felt his mask fell, Tsugaru could sense the famous anger burst of his brethren running into his mind; but he controlled it and used it as a fire to ignite his soul and recover his pace. He looked into the eyes of the simpleton, who draw back slowly, almost scared, just to laugh again and charge against the samurai. The blonde warrior bended his knees in a outlandish reverence, seeing the mace going up in the air; his sword traced an arch upwards, cutting through the abdomen of the criminal, exposing his flesh for all to see.

"You live as a dog…" Whispered the blue-eyed man.

Using the force of his own movements, Tsugaru turned around swiftly, so his sword hit the back of the head of the brutal king in a single blow. Once single and clean movement separated the head from the body, as the brilliant trace of the sword went upward, creating a short-lived silver line. The head fell at the feet of the samurai, and the blood stained his armor.

"…and you die like one"

The few men who saw the decapitation of their leader ran out of fear, just to find death at the hands of the samurai or the ashigaru. The brave Heiwajima soldiers finished with the threat, and took the bodies of the fallen to bury them in the holy grounds of the cemetery at Gizo-suru. Tsugaru cleaned his katana with a piece of cloth that he had in one of the spaces of his armor. He looked at his men and saw the faces of the wounded of the dead. He could smell the blood of his comrades as well as the blood of his foes.

"Take each bandit corpse and bury it near here, or else the carrion eaters will bring the attention of the enemy to this place"

The men who stood near him obeyed with a nod and told the other samurai and the ashigaru to do so. He recovered his mask and walked into the exit, but then, one of the light-feet soldiers called his name.

"Tsugaru-sama! Please come here! There´s one man who is not a bandit!"

He blinked in surprise. He had no idea about someone being prisoner of the Bakemono clan. He walked besides the man who called for him, and look at the body he had in his arms.

It was a man, almost a boy, naked and bruised. His white skin was covered in an endless sea of wounds and burning marks: His mouth was dry, his eyes were half closed, his thighs and his hips were brutally vandalized by the marks of slaps and bites; there was something in his most intimate parts that was covered in dry blood. This man was certainly not a bandit, but some sort of slave, yet his muscles and the scars in his arms spoke of some sort of battle prowess.

He saw that the man had raven-colored hair, a fragile body and marks of recent battle; his half-lidded eyes were pink, there was just one person in the whole country that could look n such a strange way. Someone whom Tsugaru had met before in his own house. A man who loved to manipulate and deceive honorable men: Orihara Saike, whose blade could not save him from the bandits, as it seemed.

The truthful ashigaru looked at his master and told him.

"He is still alive, weak and wounded…do we kill him, my Lord?"

For the first time in all his years as a warrior, he doubted. He could kill his enemy, finish with one of the threats that the shinobi clan put in his path. But, at the same time, he could not forgive himself if he ordered the execution of an agonizing, raped man.

"No" He said, "don´t kill him here. Take him and carry him near me, maybe he has some important information about all of this matter"

The light-feet nodded and took the naked man in his shoulders and covered him with one of the mattress used for the wounded. Tsugaru mounted his horse and reunited his men to return into Gizo-Suru, even if he was behind all of them, at the side of the man who took care of his foe.

His thought drifted from time to time to the wounded man that survived the attack. When he arrived home, he told his companion to let the agonizing man in his house. There, he changed his clothes and looked at the destroyed body of the shinobi carefully.

His body was tattered, his pale cheeks were marked by two trails of tears and blood, and his pink eyes looked watery and dark, making the pink color look like a strange mix of purple, pink and yellow.

Also he was whispering for death to come, lost in some sort of life-revolving hallucination.

"A gentle person, who cries bitter tears of blood from eyes as soft as twilight, which is wounded beyond repair, and mutters some strange words about death…."

Tsugaru said lowly, just as his eternal dream.

He was the person of his dream; a great question revealed before him; the ever-present omen printed in his mind was one of his enemies. He could kill him or he could save him. A great confusion, even greater than the one he experimented back in the entrance of the cave, consumed him as he looked to the sky beyond the window.

The samurai sighed deeply and focused on his principles and the turmoil in his heart disappeared. He thought about honor, wisdom and compassion, and he realized that his enemy had not only his body shattered, but also his soul frayed.

He touched the injured forehead of his enemy, he kissed his knuckles.

And decided to heal him completely.

For some strange reason, i feel proud of myself after writing this chapter, even if i feel that is really bad.

Thanks for your support! I hope you liked the epicness of Samurai!Tsugaru as much as i enjoyed writing it!