The jug of sake hit the oaken table with a flat thump even his own ears barely registered, clouded green eyes looking up at the effeminate man sitting across from him.

"Your kidding." He stated through the alcohol in his veins, clogging up his mental acuity. The other simply stared, unmoving for the most part, only glancing about with pale brown eyes sharply by comparison and offering no repetition of his words.

Nearby the wane moonlight danced across a pool of water- a koi pond, of all things, given the slumdog neighborhood. Shaggy black hair stirred as he shook his head negatively toward the question, leaning back and dragging the jug with him.

His only warnings came from the inevitable whistle of a cutting-blade pushing through the air and the slightest narrowing of those brown eyes.

His chair legs collapsed away with a single, heavy snick, and he found himself sliding to the floor on his side. In response to this mysterious assault he clutched the jug to his chest as if it were his first born son, wrapping it up tight with one arm and shielding it from harm.

"You have a strange sense of priorities, Potter." The other man said softly, rising from his cross-legged position and looking into the shadows where his backup had crept forth.

The now-identified Potter whispered something in response, too quietly to hear.

"Those are your last words?" asked the other, raising a hand to wait for a confirmation before he finished the execution of his target.

Potter turned those murky green eyes up to look at him- only they weren't quite so muddied up somehow, and actually seemed to reflect the pale light of the moon in the flat disks of his pupils.

"That they are." He answered, dragging the jug up to his lips once more. The other man slashed his hand down at roughly the same point that another whistle noise emerged around the run-down shack they had concluded their business within.

Thick and hot blood splashed the side of Potter's face as the other man gurgled faintly, his own brown eyes widened in disbelief as the head tilted down to look at the black tip hanging from the front of his ribcage.

It did not stay there for long.

The two men in the shadows rushed forward after their initial shock at the unseen assault, now intending to at least finish off their target before whatever happened to them happened to them.

Potter would remember that, in this era, the samurai spiritual code of Bushido was inherent in anyone stupid enough to draw a sword, himself included these days depending on his sobriety, and that just because a weapon could emerge from nowhere and kill their commander, the mook's beneath him would not flee from this mystical display of talent as they once had before.

He made sure to gut them together to finish the misery, then stirred from the blood soaked floor and kicked the nearest body part off his legs to rise and take over the seat of the former effeminate male.

Two or three pulls off his jug later and he remembered that it was just as much illegal to murder someone now as it had been where he came from, especially so if they had the governments say-so to put you down in the first place and you still happened to deny their desire.

"Huh. Guess that puts it at... five, now."


Thick rain drops ran down into his hair like sludge, carrying with them the cheap tar often used to hold the tiles down. As a result and more than once he had been rapped smartly over the head when too-much tar was finally pulled free.

He made sure to wander closer to the open after that whenever it happened, but by the time he got to another block he was usually retreating back toward the edge of the vendors and vicarious shops trying to offer him everything from tea to towels, wooden masks to fishing rods, and the more savory-smelling pork hanging over a wood stove fire.

As he didn't have so much as a modern yen or whatever the hell they called the coins in this time to his name, he was forced to ignore anything that might have proven useful and wander on, slipping in and out of paying customers as his stomach groaned piteously.

Sake was good for dulling his emotions, but it rarely filled the stomach for very long, and what gold jewelry he had scavenged off of the corpses was too valuable to depreciate by selling for a single days meal, no matter how much his stomach disagreed; he remembered that lesson well.

Their swords, now, that might fetch him something if he could ever find the right owner in this myriad of shops.

Another tile hit him on the side of the head, and for one furious moment as he stared at the ground, coming to a complete halt, he felt a clarity of anger ignite within his mind telling him to just burn it and any other loose tiles to the ground.

He indulged in the emotion for another satisfying moment or two before pushing past it with another sip of his jug- the amazement he felt over replenishing the supply over and over again long gone.

After a few more moments the fire was quenched and he kept going, blinking around for some sign of advertising or someone offering weapons for sale.


Fifteen minutes passed in the downpour before he found a dingy looking tent. He mumbled through the local mandarin as his eyes squinted, taking in the message slowly, and after close to a minute he nodded and stepped through the open flaps.

If he had thought that his own appearance was run-down and depressing, he found that of the man inside even worse off, and if Mad-eye Moody ever possessed a Japanese ancestor, it must have been the man slung into the multitude of overlapping cloth cushions like a make-shift chair.

Both legs were cut off beneath the thighs, and of his arms, only one was still fully attached and capable of touching the wares on display with three of original four fingers and thumb.

A patch over one eye barely covered a still-visible scar overflowing from the eyebrow down to the cheek, and most of his teeth were missing. Neither ear was still attached, though the flesh where they should have been was heavily scarred as well.

Just the mere sight of this living ruin made him want to turn around and back away, and he had done a decent degree of maiming himself.

"What can I do for you?" the merchant requested haltingly, more whistling than anything else around his sunken lips, but the spell in place understood the meaning well enough to explain to him.

Potter reached into his muddied cloak and slowly pulled out first one and than the other of the two blades there, offering them hilt-first and pinching the weapon by the flat sides as he set them down on the table.

The ruined salesmen examined each sword from the end of the hilt and the fine, diamond-weaved pattern of cloth wrapped and tied tightly in place, to the smooth and polished edge with only a few chips marring the surface at the tips.

He set them down with the rest of his assorted weaponry and fished around inside of the cloths holding him up, rummaging until the always welcome clink of coins occurred. Deft fingers pried the sack open and drew out a carefully measured handful of slightly grime coated coins.

Potter took them without a second glance or concern over how much of a loss he had just suffered- another lesson hard learned from his ignorance in the beginning.

He pocketed the coins and flicked his head in an imitation of a half-bow, the only such honor he ever bothered to give and only then toward merchants like this who would accept his trade and give him the means of continual survival.

He turned and stepped out under the minimal roof keeping the rain from reaching the canvas tent beneath and looked out upon the heavy rain as if it were a personal pain just to walk out into it, and to sate that misery he brought the sake jug back to his lips for a long pull before he sighed and began to back-trace his steps toward a meat dealer.


Some days later and he had heard no rumor of the police searching for another murderer, which in and of itself was strange. He had killed at least twice before since arrival here four months ago, and after each encounter within days more so than hours someone had stumbled over the body and started screaming like a maniac.

After that, yes, within hours the local police-samurai were on the investigation and look-out for anyone crossing through the districts. He was exceptionally lucky that his first time, his wand hadn't broken in the skirmish before he could cast a permanent non-sticking spell to his robes, insuring the blood dripped off like water and left little stain behind, but that luck hadn't lasted through his second incident.

He had bought the saki jug just to dull his nerves and calm down between the two encounters, and having already conjured up the cheap gold for it, he drew the line at depriving actual paying customers of the rich fluid and set about with the refilling charm instead when it drew near to empty.

After that his magic ran out, more or less, when his wand was cut in two while brandishing it and summoning the other mans katana. The outburst of magic and flame as the holly and phoenix feather construct was neatly split down the middle did something permanent to the weapon, however.

He could still summon it wandlessly from where-ever he had it stored at for the time, and some months after the initial screw up the effect didn't seem to be fading anytime soon. He usually kept it around somewhere out of sight when he stopped for the time and used it like he had last for a quick and efficient death sentence.


Blade of the Immortal!Harry. I intended this to be my Crossover entry a few months ago on Dark Lord Potter, but scrapped it in favor of Sirius Interruptions and Curse of Hamunaptra.