Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation by Chester Castañeda
As usual, Amakusa will be quoting the bible and Christian prayers a whole lot. He'll also be quoting William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. He's a... well-read kind of guy.
Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others) are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.
Chapter 21: The Tiger Scramble
'Wait, what in blazes am I doing? I'm leading the offense too much and letting them counterattack me!' Shogo Amakusa realized, deciding then and there to change tactics by backing off from the pair, searching for possible avenues of escape.
While the duo argued and made up, Shogo got to a running start and leaped over the heads of both Minoe and Yahiko to escape their counterstrike trap. Afterwards, he saw a whole constellation of stars explode before his eyes after giving Gan's skull-crushing bat an inadvertent kiss in midair.
The Savior of the Secret Christians fell back on earth with a wood-splintering thud, which left behind a person-shaped crater of sorts as he lay on his back, a spray of sweat, blood, spittle, and sawdust scattering across the ballroom floor.
"Gotcha!" Gan himself landed on his feet with shuddering twin foot stomps while following through his jumping and swatting movement. "Your fancy twirling and flipping can't do shit against me, Kumamoto!"
"Gan! Way to go! You saved my ass again! I owe you big time!" Yahiko cheered before turning towards the awestruck Minoe and holding the eye-patched man's free hand. "I owe you both. Let's bring down Amakusa once and for all to avenge the deaths of the police and your fellow Togakudan!"
Minoe's lone exposed eye lingered over Yahiko's face for a second too long. "M-Mochiron," he stuttered as he adjusted his wig and avoided eye contact.
"..."
Yahiko could've sworn he saw hints of wetness from the side of his fellow Sanbaka's face.
And so the Three Stooges ran towards the reclining Amakusa, with Gan ready to turn the Christian into a red stain on the ground while Yahiko and Minoe trailed by either side of him. To the Galloping Gan's consternation, the second impact of his iron bat hit nothing but floorboards and the ground underneath. Shogo had already scuttled away and stood up on shaky legs, his head pulsing like a second heartbeat.
"Shit! Yoshi-boy, don't just stand there! LOOK OUT!"
Yahiko spaced out in the middle of the chase, his eyes losing focus as the nine simultaneous strikes he suffered twice over from both Soujiro and Amakusa replayed itself in his mind, his wounds screaming at him to stop moving and collapse.
A second later (thankfully not a second too late), the boy woke up, and he barely had enough time to parry the thrust Amakusa threw at him, which gave him the idea to sheath the Christian's blade with his own iron saya by sliding the sakabatou over the katana's blunted side to guide the scabbard's path.
'If Minoe doesn't want you to die, then I'll have to defang you like the snake that you are so that the cops can arrest you without fearing anything!' Yahiko decided once the sheath covered three-fourths of Amakusa's weapon.
"W-What in the...?"
"Tsui Gami!"
At the same time, Gan was already barreling towards the trio of Amakusa, Yahiko, and Minoe after he plucked his kanabo out of the hole in the ground he had made.
Before the sixteen year old could break the sword in half by hammering the exposed part of the blade and using the sheathed part as leverage to snap it off, Amakusa dug his fingers deep into one of Yahiko's freshest wounds until blood spurted out anew.
"YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!"
In turn, every orifice of the boy shrieked, seemingly at the mercy of Shogo's desperation move. The rebel then thought on his feet, sheathed his sword all the way into Yahiko's scabbard, turned to face the charging Gan, and drew his sword to deliver a battoujutsu strike that hit the hooligan dead center on his sternum.
"GUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
"Yahiko-chi! Gan-chi!" Minoe arrived in the nick of time to partially deflect the blade's trajectory while Gan himself repositioned his bat to keep the blade from slashing his midsection too deeply.
"GAN! Amakusa, you bastard...!" Yahiko halted in mid-speech; the only sign of the rebel he saw was the strands of flowing red hair fluttering away from his line of sight. 'Holy shit, it's the Ryu Kan Sen! Duck!' his mind shouted at him.
Yahiko compelled his sweaty, bloody body to bow and move away before he got scalped, beheaded, slashed in half, or suffered any number of gruesome fates. He then looked behind him, saw Amakusa's blade mere inches above him, and plopped down on all fours. 'What happened?'
The Tokyoite had his answer as soon as his vision cleared and his eyes focused on the two combatants before him: Minoe and Amakusa. For his part, the shorter, eye-patched, and wig-wearing Togakudan grabbed hold of the shining blade with his bare hand and thrust the tip of his short sword near Shogo's throat. Meanwhile, Amakusa held an iron grip at Munenori's wrist and kept the blade from plunging down his jugular.
"I'm sorry about this," said Minoe.
"Why do you insist on saving him?" Shogo queried, uttering his question with nary a stutter. Minutes passed, but he said nothing more as he let his inquiry hang in the air.
"H-He has nothing to do with any of this," Minoe insisted, his one eye glimmering with moisture, his body tense, and his limbs trembling. "Let him go. Let him be. I beg of you."
Yahiko recalled his own experience of battling Kenshin for the first time during his genpuku; he realized that he probably looked like Minoe did right then.
"FUCK THIS SHIT!" a bleeding, hobbling, yet still rampaging Gan roared before interposing himself between the deadlocked pair, the blunt end of his iron bat producing a plume of expanding dust, shards of wood, rocks, plaster, and debris that shot out from the epicenter of the thug's strike to multiple directions. The force of the impact flung Amakusa, Yahiko, Minoe, and several of the Togakudan bodies across the room all at once.
Yahiko scrambled up to his feet while a fully flexed Gan brushed the bits of dirt and debris off of his bulging biceps. 'Wow. Am I seeing things, or are those muscles bulging a bit harder than before? Isn't he injured? Also, did he have a bomb attached to that tetsubo of his? I never realized how strong he is! I only thought he's some sort of bumbling buffoon.'
To Gan, Yahiko said, "This is the third time you saved my ass! Don't get too cocky though, you big...!"
The older man chopped the top of the teenager's head with his frying-pan-for-a-hand. Consequently, the boy's eyes rolled to the top of his sockets until only their whites were visible, his head bouncing around every which way.
"DAMN! What's the big idea, you oversized land whale? Whose side are you on? You're worse than Minoe!"
"You had Kumamoto beat several times in your fight, but you couldn't finish him off." Gan's mouth and brow ridges sunk so low, his face looked like melting wax.
Meanwhile, Amakusa and Minoe eyed each other as they rose up from their respective knockdowns. They contemplated their next move while also keeping Yahiko and Gan in the corner of their eyes.
"Y-Yeah? So what? You were the one who charged like a bull earlier! And, if you'd recall, you were also the guy who followed me to this mansion from the get go, not the other way around!" Yahiko replied, aghast at Gan's accusations, his intended apology for hurting him by inadvertently assisting Amakusa in doing a battoujutsu strike dying in his throat. 'Stupid Gan. What's his problem?'
"You were wearing non-decorative bandages the day I met you," Gan noted, and Yahiko gulped and stood stock-still. "I didn't say anything earlier when you kept running out of breath as we jogged all the way to the ballroom because you were so intent on helping out those trapped policemen, but the situation is getting way out of hand. You're in over your head, Yoshi-boy. Kumamoto got you good with that flashy technique of his. You're in no shape to fight him, aren't you?"
'He's at his limits? I was afraid the Kuzu Ryu Sen wasn't able to hit him completely, but my fears were for nothing.' Amakusa narrowed his eyes. 'So how was he able to still fight back, then? His moves are quite sharp for someone who's injured.'
"I've had three weeks to heal! I'm fine! We're wasting time," Yahiko waved Gan off and pushed him aside (or attempted to, because the thug wouldn't budge an inch) when he felt the brute grab hold of the sakabatou and its sheath, the studded club clanking hard on the floor. "Let go off my sword, Gan!"
Yahiko swung his leg towards Gan's crotch, only to yowl in pain as the monstrous muscleman trapped the boy's shin between two hardened thighs and squeezed it sore before it even reached any testicles. "You're not going anywhere. There's no sense in you having a relapse or something. Let me handle this. I got you covered, kiddo."
Amakusa took this strange incident as his cue to attack, with Minoe following close behind, when Gan relinquished his hold of Yahiko, sheathed the sakabatou, and threw the weapon right at Shogo's head.
By reflex, Amakusa turned his head to the side to keep away from the rotating projectile and utilized lateral movement to avoid letting Gan catch him unawares.
From behind Shogo, Minoe caught the blunt sword and halted his short sprint. The undersized, disheveled spy stared at the weapon and then at Gan, shrugging his shoulders and tilting his head in askance.
"Don't try any funny stuff on me, Kumamoto. I'll get to you soon," Gan declared as he picked up his kanabo and wagged his finger at Amakusa. "As for you, Patches, you're as annoying as Yoshi-boy. I don't think you've got the balls to fight, much less finish off, your idol. You're a liability too, so cool off and take Yoshi-boy with you!"
"B-Balls? E-Eh...?" a blushing Minoe stammered before Gan picked up the dawdling Yahiko by the collar and threw him at the eye-patched spy without so much as a warning.
"Huh?" Yahiko mumbled when he first realized his airborne state. He then screeched, "What the HELL?", which was the same sentiment Minoe shared as evidenced by his bugged-out right eye, loosened jaw, and upraised arms that dropped the two swords he held.
In any case, the teenaged boy was lucky that Akahori's secret agent had the presence of mind to let go of the weapons before they collided against each other.
'Soft. Why is it so soft here? What's that scent? It's intoxicating. It smells like flowers with a hint of... rust? No, blood,' thought Yahiko.
A high-pitched scream woke him up from his dreams of pillow fluffiness and bloody perfume.
'Uh oh.'
Minoe had opened his eyes in time to see a drooling Yahiko's face shoved right into the open flap of his kimono. From there, the Tokyo Samurai Descendant discovered how sharp the daintier man's fingernails were.
"Ow! Okay! I'm sorry, Minoe! But it was Gan who threw me at you, dammit!"
"Gan-chi, that was embarrassing! Don't ever do that to me again!" the eye-patched girly man bawled as he crawled away from underneath the Tokyoite and kicked him in the head for good measure. "IYAAA! I'll never get married now!" He buried his face in his bandaged hands.
"What? No! Dammit, Minoe! Stop acting like a... w-weirdo! I mean, sorry. I mean, uh... What am I apologizing for? This is all Gan's fault!" the scratched-up Yahiko rationalized, his mouth shaped like an upside-down wedge of lemon and his scrunched features sporting an unhealthy hint of blue.
Gan spoke again. "I'll be the one to fight that rebel for you, Yoshi-boy. After all, I owe you a lot for bailing me out from that cockfight dilemma we had earlier. This is my thanks, from one stranger to another. Have a happy life together, Yoshi-boy. Patches."
"DON'T SAY THINGS THAT PEOPLE MIGHT MISUNDERSTAND!" chorused Minoe and Yahiko.
'I don't even want to know,' a frowning Amakusa reckoned as he used the inane reprieve to rest and catch his breath, his cheeks flushed as he looked away.
"Is this what this is all about? That's all fine and dandy, but I want cash payment for your debt, you bum!" Yahiko's remark compelled everyone within earshot to lose their balance and fall prostrate to the ground in typical pratfall fashion.
After clearing his throat, Yahiko clarified, "I don't want you to fight my fights, Gan. My obligation to put Amakusa to rest is much more serious than yours anyway. There's no point in throwing your life away for a money debt. Minoe, give me my sword."
After hearing no response, Yahiko repeated himself and turned to face the smaller man. "This is my fight, Minoe."
"Gan-chi's right. You're not in the condition to fight right now. Amakusa-chi would've finished you off if I hadn't been there." Minoe took both the wakizashi and sakabatou on the floor and put them on his cloth belt. Yahiko tried swiping at his inherited weapon, but with one simple pinch of his wounds, he cringed and backed off.
"Help me clear the battlefield, please," Minoe said to Yahiko. The Togakudan's eye had a faraway look as it went through the motions of dragging the mortal remains of the spies to a more unobtrusive area of the ballroom. After looking back and forth between Gan and Minoe, the boy decided to follow suit; he had no choice at this point.
Just then, a recovered Shogo made a mad dash towards the stairs, but found his path blocked by the Gabby Gan's thrown iron mace as it hit the space mere inches away from his feet and turned the floor into an ankle-high trench.
Amakusa said, "I guess you're finally done with your melodramatic speech. It took you long enough."
As Gan ran towards Amakusa, the insurgent saw the phantom of another ghost from his past superimpose himself on the bullish brute's silhouette.
Earlier, Shogo imagined Gan to be the spirit and image of his mother's murderer, the samurai known as Nakahara. However, in light of the bandanna-wearing thug's antics, he reminded him more of the late Genemon, a follower of his that trained dogs to do his bidding. They had the same straightforward personality, at the very least.
"Oh, that's right. I haven't introduced myself to you, Kumamoto! I am the Great Gan. I am also known as the Soba King, the White Tiger, and the White Peril of Okinawa. But as for you, you may call me Daddy, for you are my bitch."
Amakusa sized up his brawny opponent with one look and began the fight with tentative thrusts of his sword. "You're an interesting fellow, Mister Gan. But please, don't force me to do something that you'll surely regret."
One hour and forty minutes after midnight, within the Shinshu Mansion's ballroom...
The goose flesh on the Hot and Bothered Gan's skin protruded like a dermatological disease as his heart pounded against his rib cage, demanding release. His breaths also came in pants and gasps.
Nonetheless, his toothy, face-wide smile remained. It was now or never; there was only one thing he could do. He only wished he knew what the hell it was.
A thrust opened a cut over Gan's shoulder, which woke him up. Presumably feeling braver, Amakusa hurtled himself at the ruffian, twirled around, and executed a whirling slash that the thug barely avoided by ducking.
Gan bluffed, "You've got to do better than this, Kumamoto. What's with those lame stabs? Anything less than the Shinsengumi's Hiratsuki is a disappointment." The boisterous brawler moved forward in order to fight toe-to-toe with the rebel, figuring that the length of the rebel's sword would be a detriment in a "trench battle" of sorts.
Why was he doing this again? Oh, right. Obligation. "Giri", in other words. It was such an old-fashioned term for someone who didn't even consider himself an old-fashioned guy. However, the spiky-haired boy who cramped his style the day before when he tried to score a free meal still helped bail him out of several debts regardless. He owed him. Literally.
Amakusa slashed away at Gan, not minding the lack of leverage that made his slices shallower. The rebel even doubled up on his stabs that connected right into the thug's thighs, shoulders, and feet.
Even though Gan couldn't exactly swing his bat with full force at such a close range either, he threw his own share of bombs using his fists and elbows while he lunged and clawed at his opponent's hands and forearms in order to break them.
"Why are you sticking your nose into other people's business? At least answer me that before something bad happens to you. The boy didn't even want you to fight me alone. Don't you realize what you've gotten yourself into?" asked Amakusa.
Gan wasn't born yesterday. He knew that he didn't need to do all this. Fuck "giri". Then again...
"Yoshi-boy is an okay guy. He would've put up a better fight against you were he not already injured when he came here. Even if he sucks at fighting, I'll be willing to fight for him. You know why? He made a lazy bum like me believe in something as annoying as fulfilling obligation. He made me remember how to be a responsible man," said Gan.
Gan covered up well against the Nikaido Heiho combinations, deflecting the horizontal, diagonal, and cross strikes with his blunt weapon thanks to his familiarity with the calligraphic style, but the ensuing "Battousai" moves were another matter altogether.
"Stop trying to act 'cool', Gan! Because you're not!" berated the ungrateful whelp that the Magnanimous Gan just saved while Patches kept a hold of his weird, toy katana with a reversed edge.
'Serves him right. I hope Patches never gives him back his stupid sword,' the Dashing Gan reflected.
With that said, the Courageous Gan's counterattack began right then and there, with him swiping his tetsubo in every which way with his right hand while landing a shuddering left hook straight into Kumamoto's ribs with a crunchy squelch.
'I've discovered your weak spot, haven't I?' Gan licked off the blood on his fist to make sure that it wasn't his own. Judging from the lack of a stinging sensation on his bandaged knuckles, it probably was Amakusa's. He clipped the rebel on the temple with the bat, which at last made him back off.
For the rest of the bout, Kumamoto favored his midsection while he got backed into a corner, his left elbow wedged permanently beside it like a shield of sorts as he switched stances between Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu and Nikaido Heiho. The Hardcore Gan smelled blood, so he thusly pressed on his attack with uppercuts and smothering kanabo swings from all angles.
"I bear you no ill will. I bear no one in this mansion save for Akahori ill will. You cannot beat me, though. Please realize your folly before it's too late. This is your final warning." Amakusa afterwards disappeared and reappeared into a multitude of transparent afterimages.
From there, the Befuddled Gan became a crimson fountain. What was the technique Amakusa used on him called? Dragon Nest Dodge? Flashing Dragon Flash? Nested Egg Farts? Whatever it was, the technique tore his body apart. Cut him down to size, as the saying went. He stayed up on his feet and moved forward anyway.
He could take the punishment, especially when he remained at such close proximity to his target in order to limit the effectiveness of Amakusa's sword strikes. "Come on, Kumamoto. Next time, make it hurt."
Amakusa (or rather, the Amakusas) obliged the Bold Gan's request by splitting into multiple afterimages and delivering a couple of body stabs, a swarm of combination slashes to all his vital points, a looping strike that could've left him jawless had he not dodged in time, a rising upward cut that would've vivisected him and exposed his innards had he not hid behind his metallic bat to buffer the blow in time, and a double thrust that sent him staggering.
Blood entered the ruffian's eye from a cut above his forehead, so his aim and depth-of-field perception became off. He blinked away the blood, cursing his luck. 'If it isn't one thing, then it's another.'
In an attempt to acquire some breathing room in the middle of that horrendous exchange, the Dedicated Gan swung his bat from below his waist and right up at Kumamoto's jaw, the insurgent's head visibly reeling from the shot.
However, the Secret Christian was able to walk right through the attack regardless and continue his charge. What was this man made of? Was all this pain worth repaying Gan's debt of honor to a stranger?
A creaky voice in the Gregarious Gan's head whispered in his ear, 'Come on, Sonny-boy! You're walking at him in straight lines, so he can pretty much do whatever he wants! Use more feints or you'll end up like one of those practice straw dummies that can't fight back, that you will!'
Ergo, because Gan was Gan, he elected to do the exact opposite of what the old man in his mind recommended, moving forward and swinging both his blunt weapon and his balled-up fist with reckless abandon, like a real man would. From behind them, Patches shrieked as Amakusa struck at will, slashing away to the left... No, to the right. Wait! That was a feint. Goddamn cheater was using a feint before he did!
The crater where Kumamoto stood a second ago released plumes of dust reminiscent of the smoke from a dying campfire. Moreover, Gan's forearm dripped with a hot, red fluid from the nasty cut he got for his troubles.
"Stop prancing around and fight like a man!" Fuck, where'd Amakusa go? The Magnificent Gan swung his studded bat for dear life as soon as the red-haired bastard appeared in his line of sight; the swings would've knocked the Christian revolutionary out cold had they hit.
Fuckity fuck. He hated assholes like him. Kumamoto talked the talk, but when it came to fight time, the rebel's testicles shrunk to the size of peas as he played patty-cake with his opponents. "If you have the guts to call yourself a force of nature, then the least you could do is stop running away!"
"Gan, he's too fast! Stop walking into his strikes!" some know-it-all stated the obvious.
"Gan-chi! You're going to bleed to death at this rate!" some wig-haired girly boy chimed in. Whose side were they on? Were they really cheering for that cowardly religious nut who wouldn't stand still? Well, fuck them both sweetly in the ass.
Amakusa had a weak belly thanks to all his earlier encounters, right? The surviving Togakudan told them as much. Why couldn't the Great Gan punch Kumamoto's midsection more than once, then? 'It's because he keeps running away. He's no fighter, but a dancer. A poser. A pretender. A false savior. A major disappointment.'
"Stop scurrying around like a headless chicken and fight me for real!" Gan's foot got stabbed for his remark, but he managed to fishhook the hole in Amakusa's hand and headbutt the religious fanatic. 'Wait. Why does he have a hole in his hand?'
'You're a disappointment. Leave my midst,' a titan that rose from the depths of Gan's consciousness and towered to the heavens rebuked. 'You have lost the right to bear my name.'
Something struck the Disorientated Gan from behind his neck, which made him lurch over and bleed all over the floor he couldn't feel his hands and the shining steel blade kept on coming and coming splatters of blood covering the brown stains that had been the dried blood of the other people Amakusa probably killed oh shit oh Buddha where were the strikes coming from oh fuck oh fucking shit was that his finger flying off or was it his toe...?
"Minoe! Damn you, you pirate wannabe! Give me back my sword, or I swear you'll be wearing two eye patches once I'm done with you!"
"NO! You'll get killed too, Yahiko-chi!"
'...Killed too? So I'm already dead?' To think that they'd continue to say such selfish things without caring about other people's feelings. The nerve of some people! At any rate, Gan then heard a whoosh followed by the muted clunk of a sheathed blade.
'Ah, who am I kidding? It's obvious who the real disappointment here is. What the hell gave me the idea that I even stood a chance against Mister Force of Nature? He's completely out of my league. This guy was born with a sword in his hand, from the looks of it!'
'Sonny-boy! Remember to use feints! Your fighting style will have you swinging and attacking regardless, so you might as well use fake attacks to fool your opponents into making mistakes de gozaru! Make them hesitate! Let them fight at your pace! If you can add that to your fairly straightforward repertoire, you'll have full control of the match, that you will!' Nobuhiro-something-or-another prattled inside Gan's mind.
Just as soon as the Gory Gan espied Minoe moving in to block a couple of Amakusa's whirling strikes, he struck his studded metal stick into the floor and dug a splintered and uneven ditch mere inches away from the spy. "Stay out of this, Patches."
"Gan-chi, please! Enough is enough!" Patches begged.
The Blushing Gan's heart skipped a beat upon seeing Minoe's gleaming eyes... well, eye... but he ignored the feeling the best he could. How could someone with a wig and one eye look so cute? 'No, no. Don't be stupid. That's a guy.'
Because he was sick and tired of hearing the voices of old men, girly boys, and amateur wannabe fighters buzzing in and out his head, he changed the proverbial dial, station, or whatever the nineteenth-century equivalent of "channel" was to something more suited to his tastes. 'What would Weasel-chan say?'
'Ah, Aoshi-sama, how I long for your... What? What am I doing here? Gan? Is that you? Ew! Why are you thinking about me at a time like this? Don't you dare fantasize about me, you gigantic, slimy, stinky, and perverted brute! Who knows what sick, twisted things your mind will do to your mental image of me? I better be dressed while you're imagining me, or I swear I'll make a skin coat out of you!'
'Weasel-chan is right! I've been fighting Kumamoto's fight. I'm letting him dictate the terms of the battle like some sort of dumbass. Who the hell does he think he is anyway? A god that descended to earth? Shit, this is the person whom people expected to save the world because some vaguely defined predictions written by a dead guy said so, which he may or may not have turned out to be self-fulfilling prophecies!'
The bandanna-wearing thug neutralized a rampaging Dou Ryu Sen headed straight towards him with his thundering Happa technique. 'I have to start using feints! Otherwise, I'm dead meat! Or better yet, let's create a distraction!' the Cunning Gan concluded before undoing his obi, slipping out of his pants, and wiggling his hairy butt at Kumamoto while farting.
"..." was the consensus reaction of everyone present and conscious to the hooligan's antics (save for Gan himself, of course).
"EEEEEEEEEEEEK!" Patches turned away and covered his exposed eye.
To Gan's credit, his actions really did stop the paling, blue-faced Amakusa in his tracks. It even froze Yoshi-boy and Patches too, he noticed. The trio afterwards retched and backed away from the Ingenious Gan. The distraction didn't last long, however.
"Ryu Tsui Sen Zan."
"AH! Let me put on my pants first! Stop thrusting that sword at me! Leave my butt alone! I DON'T SWING THAT WAY!" the Compromised Gan shouted with tears in his eyes at the cheating bastard he had for an adversary who attacked enemies before they were ready.
"Dammit, Gan. Don't make me cheer for Amakusa!"
"Gan-chi, you pervert!"
In the middle of the sticky drizzle filled with stabs, sweat, blood droplets, and mutilating near-hits that dyed his bandanna and fundoshi red, the Half-Naked Gan grabbed hold of Amakusa's blade and pulled him to the side, the sword turning into a bowl of scalding water in his imagination.
He looked at his searing fingers; they were all there. He sighed in relief as he smashed his tetsubo right onto Kumamoto's target-like chest. Another stab pushed Gan away, followed by slashes resembling the kanji for "eight" that gave him fish gills on the side of his ribs.
"Unlike your other so-called allies, are you prepared to kill me? Or are you just another fool rushing into places where even angels fear to tread?" Kumamoto asked, "unsheathing" his sword from Gan's grip, whirling, and disappearing from the ruffian's midst.
The sting from having a blade slide through his fingers until bone was exposed reminded Gan of punching scalding sand heated with a gigantic deep fryer atop an open bonfire.
'Wait a minute.'
The Grinning Gan answered Amakusa back by smashing the Christian's feet with a stomp and pouncing onto the tottering religious radical via a thudding shot to the liver that he'd been aiming for all throughout the fight. The thug himself remembered having the same discolored cracked toes and the black blots inside them when he was younger.
'He's just like me, that bastard.'
The Aggressive Gan landed his right hand before the rebel's upward slash reached its zenith, his fist producing a muffled crack over Amakusa's nose. When compared to punching a boulder or a brick, human cartilage were as soft as crackers.
While Amakusa choked in his own spit and blood, the Garrulous Gan took advantage of the situation and swung his bat in the opposite direction, hitting the other side of his opponent's midsection and forcing more blood and other unidentified bodily fluids to gush forth the luckless Kumamoto's mouth. A close stab at the ruffian's testicles had him back away, though.
Amakusa moved forward, only to retreat and fight his way out with Nikaido Heiho combinations in order to avoid the bat swing and uppercut to his body and head. The last strike... another Dragon Wrap Flash... was able to land, but the smile on Gan's face remained despite the spilled blood.
The Great Gan once fought the colossus from the depths of his nightmares with a broken arm in a bid to earn the right to bear his name. He lost, of course, but in light of what the uppity, hypocritical Kumamoto had been saying and doing all this time, he'd figured that the both of them weren't so different after all.
"I figured you out, Kumamoto. I may not look all that smart to you or anyone else, but even an imbecile like me can understand what you're all about."
"Whatever, dude! Put your pants back on!" called out Yoshi-boy, which totally ruined the mood of the moment.
One hour and fifty minutes past midnight, inside the Shinshushin Manor's body-strewn ballroom...
Gan remained on his feet. What was his reason for fighting? Strike after strike, wallop after wallop, bludgeon after bludgeon; he didn't let up for a second.
"You've figured me out? If you did, then you wouldn't be fighting me."
Something about Yahiko Myojin's burly companion bothered Amakusa, and he wasn't referring to the yakuza-like muscleman's lack of pants or his nonsensical claims of "figuring" him out like some sort of puzzle. Judging by how the boy and the spy halted in the middle of their attempted rescue of this "Gan" fellow, they probably noticed it too.
"I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I am a force of nature. You cannot beat typhoons and you cannot defeat earthquakes; you can only survive them."
Amakusa retaliated right after Gan put his trousers back on again. 'Is this idiot even taking this fight seriously?' The rebel rose to the ceiling and delivered a Ryu Tsui Sen right atop the buffoon's head.
"You're making that speech again? I admit that's a cool one-liner, bro. How does this sound, though? If lightning were to hit me, you'd have to take lightning to the hospital!"
Gan shrugged off the strike even as it opened a slit on his reddened (formerly white) bandanna. Amakusa wasn't imagining things; it was as though his strength had been severely sapped by the battles he'd gone through recently, his blade's sharpness had been dulled by the sheer amount of flesh it cut, or the small fry he'd been trying to cut into cubes so that he could move on to a bigger catch was made of iron.
"You act all high-and-mighty. You think you're some sort of god that will lead your people to salvation. People like you sicken me; you have everything fed to you with a silver spoon. You were born special. You don't have to earn anything in order to be called great; it's your destiny to be great."
Shogo hit a pectoral, but produced nothing more than a slight nick of a wound although Gan didn't bother dodging. 'No, not iron. Rubber. This muscle-head's body is as hard to cut as vulcanized rubber. Can it be that he's employing the same technique as...?'
The Christian rebel snarled, but instead he sucked on air and panted after receiving more hard shots to the body. Wait, why was he panting?
In between breaths, Amakusa answered back, "Peace of mind makes the body healthy, but jealousy is like a cancer. Remember this: Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. You are none of these three."
"You're good at making pretty speeches. Are you using your own words? Can you back them up?" Yet again, the insufferable grin of this irksome stranger remained. "You're calling me jealous? Maybe I am. Or maybe I was, but not anymore. From where I come from, I had to fight for the right to have a name. You were automatically presumed to be great."
Predictably, the devil-may-care Gan charged, swinging both fists and his metal bat, unmindful of the swelling of his shallow cuts and the flow of his deeper wounds. Amakusa abused the well-worn Ryu Sou Sen... the most effective technique in Shogo's arsenal best utilized against a swarm of enemies or a particularly durable foe... to the point that the ruffian could by then catch most of the vital-point-seeking slashes with his massive arms and elbows as well as his extra thick tetsubo, receiving minimal damage.
"I've heard your story. I heard it even before I came here to help Yoshi-boy out. You were supposed to be some sort of savior, right? The Son of God who'll rescue your people from an abusive government and a nation who doesn't give a damn about them and whatnot? The usual heroic stuff."
Amakusa took advantage of Gan's preoccupation with secondhand rumors by winding up his strike and delivering a Ryu Kan Sen blow to the black. He blanked out for a second and the next thing he knew, he was facing the floor. He felt up the inside of this throbbing mouth and spit a grainy object out; it was a split molar.
Shogo twisted his neck towards his talkative quarry and did his best to regain balance, his knees shaken and his head buzzing. A gash on the lower part of Gan's bulky neck signified to Amakusa that he hit his attack somewhat. "You don't know a thing about me. A little learning is a dangerous thing. A fool's attempt at knowledge only exposes his ignorance."
"I know enough. For you to be as fucked up as you are now, the people around you must've been feeding you all sorts of bullshit in regards to you being a god made flesh. Their expectations must've been sky high, weren't they? You hadn't even wiped off mommy's breast milk from your mouth yet, and they'd already expected you to move mountains and shit out gold!"
"Are you done talking?" A pointblank Hiryu Sen flew into Gan's jaw as a fist smashed into Amakusa's eye socket at the same time.
Gan ate up the multiple head-and-body strikes Shogo unleashed in order to deliver another nigh-beheading uppercut and a smash of the bat to the zealot's thigh. "Not really. Thing is, you'll be listening regardless. I'll make you listen."
A sweat-and-blood-drenched Amakusa attempted to counterattack with yet another Ryu Kan Sen, but his legs collapsed from underneath him while Gan went back to work punching, kicking, and hammering away at his twice-stabbed abdomen. Soon, his back was against the wall, and he saw nothing but bandaged fists and studded blunt objects hitting him over and over, occupying what little breathing room he had.
"No wonder you have a big enough ego to think you're a force of nature or the Savior of Japanese Christianity! You've gotten to the point where you think you're better than everyone else! However, that's actually the saddest part of your story."
Amakusa saw red, exploding with a Dou Ryu Sen that ripped the floor and Gan apart. He followed it up with countless slashes, strikes, parries, and ripostes that didn't have any specific names but wore down the implacable thug nonetheless. At the back of his mind, he saw a vision of his deceased father say, 'Shogo, you must become stronger. Like God himself!' amidst a whole army of sword-and-spear-wielding, petrified samurai.
"How old were you when you first learned those fancy moves of yours? Did you even have a childhood to speak of? Did your parents seriously expect you, a little kid, to turn into an unstoppable god of divine justice during a point in your life when you haven't even accomplished a damn thing yet?"
"SILENCE! THAT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" Shogo wheezed, his lungs deflating like popped balloons inside his body after he exhaled from the effort of leaping up and performing a Ryu Kan Sen Arashi that drove back the behemoth before him even as his brain thudded inside his skull with another blunt shot to the head.
Afterwards, he remembered his mother's last words to him before she died. 'Shogo, you are a child who will someday become the leader of men. Discard your feelings and become the guiding light that Shimabara needs.' All that time, Gan never stopped ripping his bat or fist into every part of Amakusa's black-and-blue torso.
"In many ways, you too had to fight to earn the right to your name. Your greatest enemy was the Amakusa Shogo... Oh, wait, sorry... the 'Second Coming of Amakusa Shiro' that your people thought you were. You failed to live up to your hype, didn't you? Even though you supposedly killed a thousand soldiers and policemen, countless other Kakure Kirishitan died in your watch. What a damn shame."
For Amakusa, the already dank atmosphere of the room full of freshly killed corpses seemingly transformed into swamp gas before his eyes as they watered in either grief or lack of oxygen. He drowned in air like a fish out of water, gasping for something he could hardly breathe. He recalled the cavalcade of soldiers marching towards him, their rifles at the ready as they surrounded him. His moment of truth.
"SHOGO-SAMA!" Minoe winked into existence in the midst of Gan and Amakusa, his reverse-edged short sword at the ready, but a simple backhand from the bandanna-wearing thug put a stop to his efforts at intervening and sent him crashing into the western-style double doors leading into the dining room.
"Sorry, Patches. This needs to happen."
Shogo's worn, half-closed eyes traveled towards Yahiko, who stood there while clutching his half-sheathed, reverse-bladed weapon, inching forward one step forward and two steps back as though he were dancing to a nonexistent drumbeat only he heard. 'So he got his toy sword back already.'
"Did you really think that you can carry the hopes and dreams of your people on your back without you getting crushed by their incredible weight? It must've been tough trying to live under the shadow of an unrealistic ideal that only existed in the deluded minds of your loved ones and followers!"
Amakusa's strained grunts were drowned out in the cacophony of pounded flesh, the clang of iron and steel, and his awareness fading from white to black. He moved as though submerged underwater, his bleeding lungs filled with shards of glass, and his heart poisoned with carbon dioxide. Each breath felt like a garrote-assisted suicide.
"It's time for your wakeup call, Kumamoto! Life doesn't work that way! You're no Son of God! You're just a Son of Man; a human being that's flawed and incapable of bearing the sins of the world by yourself."
'Sayo. Mother. Father. Uncle. Pray for me in Heaven. Body of Christ, save me...'
As Amakusa expected, the banal, simpleminded Gan stampeded like a raging bull once more, which served his purposes quite nicely. At the same time, he felt movement in the corner of his eyes; either Yahiko or Minoe had recovered from their shellshock. He didn't care which.
'The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.'
His flurry of slashes whistled into the air and sliced the cleft of Gan's chin; the only part of the muscular gangster within his striking range. He missed. He misjudged the distance. He overextended himself to compensate, which worsened his situation.
"That's the Elusive Tiger Feint, bitch!" came Gan's triumphant avowal as he swung his mighty metal bat with every last bit of strength left in his muscled body, the blow producing several muffled cracks from within the vulnerable Shogo that led him to expel bubbling blood, saliva, mucus, and vomit from his oral and nasal orifices a second time.
Nevertheless, Amakusa stayed up on his feet. He didn't stop fighting for one second. Even as his legs betrayed him like Judas Iscariot did to Jesus Christ and his strength left him as though he were the Samson who had his hair cut off by Delilah, he kept on swinging his lengthy blade to the bitter end.
Two hours past midnight, inside the Shinshushin Mansion's body-strewn ballroom...
Shogo Amakusa wouldn't go down. Why did he keep on fighting? Was he really that deluded or brainwashed into thinking he was the savior of his people? Slash after slash, cut after cut, slice after slice; he stood his ground as though the sky would fall if he didn't.
"Give up your god delusion right now. It's about time you stopped living your life according to the expectations of others!" Gan's own words struck a chord inside him; he wondered if he'd been lecturing Amakusa or himself all this time.
Inwardly, Gan gasped for dear life, his nostrils and lungs working overtime to wake his lightheaded self up as the world shuddered and lost its color before him.
Several times, his irises unfocused and rolled up to the top of his head until only his sclera became visible. How many years of his life did he lose in this one fight? That was presuming, of course, that he'd live to see another sunrise after it.
'No. I'm almost there. Kumamoto is the one running on fumes now.' Gan stopped for a moment to think. 'Wait, what does that mean, 'running on fumes'? A tired horse powered by his own farts? I think of the strangest things sometimes.'
Unable to jump any longer... his wings clipped and his strength sapped... the blue-faced Shogo wailed a hoarse battle cry as he again scraped the edge of his sword on the floor so that it'd serve as his leverage of sorts in order to pull off unsheathing techniques without using a scabbard.
Amakusa landed his strike, but he had to enter the Indomitable Gan's attacking range in order to do so. Lacking a saya to cover up his vulnerabilities, the Hidden Christian fell victim to the hooligan's sickening combinations and thudding straight right hands that felt like bricks.
The charismatic Kakure Kirishitan leader managed to execute back-to-back Ryu Kan Sen Tsumuji and Ryu Kan Sen Kogarashi that left a pair of nasty lacerations on Gan's back before succumbing to the pressure and punishment of the thug's cracking right uppercuts and battering tetsubo swings that forced the zealot to take a knee and curl up into a protective ball.
He flopped down to the ground a moment later, his scarlet face scuffed up and swelling beyond recognition. It was over. The Glorious Gan had won the war of attrition. He dropped on all fours, his fresh sheen of sweat making his injuries sting and sizzle like a Sunnyside up egg on a frying pan.
"Holy shit, Gan. Holy shit." Yahiko's hands went over his head, the sharp tufts of his hair jutting over his clenched fists, the strap for his inherited straw hat chafing him somewhat because he was too busy being flabbergasted to adjust it. "Are you okay? Also, just who the hell are you supposed to be? A former Shinsengumi member? A bodyguard for hire? A hitman? How'd you manage to beat Amakusa?"
"I'm fine, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm just another bum who happens to know a thing or two about manliness and brawling. I'm a man of many talents." Gan chuckled as he closed Yahiko's agape mouth from the chin up with his finger. He winced after his chuckling worsened his collection of cuts, lacerations, and bruises from Amakusa.
The Tokyo Samurai Descendant harrumphed. "Your feigned humility pisses me off. Cut that out."
"Guess what, Yoshi-boy? I've beaten a force of nature. Maybe I should take on a volcanic eruption or a hurricane next," the spent Gan said to the shell-shocked Yahiko while eyeing the person-sized hole Minoe left after he punched the spy's clock from today to next week.
It was Yahiko's turn to slump down on the ground along with his brawny food bandit companion whom he'd met the other day, his brain trying its best to digest the surprisingly powerful hooligan's words. 'The meat-bun-munching son of a bitch actually did it. What do you know?'
Yahiko moved his head in time to see Minoe standing over both him and Gan, the spy's short sword held with a reverse grip. Thanks to the lighting of the room, the front part of the turnip-banged, eye-patch-wearing man-child's body that faced the other two Sanbaka was covered in shadow. "Minoe."
"Sorry about hitting you earlier, Patches. Don't worry, I didn't kill your precious Kumamoto. I hope that counts for something and I also hope you're not too mad at me for kicking his ass. He deserved it," Gan said without looking at the Togakudan secret agent's face.
For the longest time, Minoe and Yahiko stared... glared... looked... at each other, both their right hands tightly gripping the handles of their respective weapons, when all of a sudden, Munenori pointed with his free hand and squeaked, "S-S-Shogo-sama... is a-alive?"
"Well, yeah. Didn't I just tell you, Patches? I only beat him within an inch... of... his... Holy fucking piss on a shit. Don't you know when to quit, Kumamoto?" Just opposite Minoe and right in front Gan stood the trembling yet defiant Shogo Amakusa.
The Christian insurgent snapped his eyes open so rapidly, it appeared as if his eyelids were ripped off.
"You can take on natural disasters now? No. You're mistaken. You've only survived so far. Let me show you what I'm truly capable of," Shogo declared before taking a glass orb that appeared like, for all intents and purposes, a snow globe from underneath his robes, tossed it up, and sliced it cleanly in half with his sword.
"With this Gadamer Gem, I shall ascend to a higher plane of existence and fulfill the expectations of my people. Repent and reflect on your own powerlessness. Rai Ryu Sen."
Because he was exhausted beyond belief, Amakusa was forced to use his ultimate attack, the Rai Ryu Sen. While Battousai was more battoujutsu-oriented and Seijuro Hiko the Thirteenth abused the Kuzu Ryu Sen to no end, the Dragon Lightning Flash served as Shogo's signature move, which was a technique he invented by combining the basic principles of Nikaido Heiho and Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu together. Hyoue Nishida himself favored the Ryu Kan Sen for some reason.
"What the fuck is a Gadamer?" Gan wondered aloud before witnessing an overwhelming blanket of white envelop everything in sight. His dilated pupils' enlarged aperture absorbed unto it every last light source within the room as reflected by Shogo's shining blade, which activated his eyes' light-sensitive cells and resulted in a flash of sorts that incapacitated him for about five seconds.
'Rai Ryu Sen...?' Unlike Gan, Yahiko shut his eyes in time to avoid taking the full brunt of the stunning Dragon Lightning Flash. An unmoving, wavy afterimage of Amakusa brandishing a glowing sword that was seemingly made of light persisted in his vision, as though it were burned right into his retinas. From behind the Tokyoite, Minoe covered his exposed eye and retreated to the corner.
Afterwards, something curious happened to the Myojin boy. His skin became warmer while rivulets of sweat dripped across his drenched and aching body even though for the better part of the last twenty minutes, Gan was the one exerting the most effort in bringing down Shogo. He opened his eyes, only to reel at what he saw.
An infinite hallway with flying clothes, a gigantic domino set that had already fallen save for the last piece, crossbows without arrows disappearing into one point, a single large spear, a silhouette of a man not doing the fandango, and tiles that alternated in different shades of purple and blue.
Upon closer inspection, Yahiko realized that the floating clothes were not clothes at all but a jumping horse with gigantic hooves, and the spear was actually held by a samurai, and the crossbows were wielded by archers who all looked like pieces of attire from afar. Yahiko smiled, laughed, and cried. Gan did the same once his own vision cleared, but in reverse order so that he'd retain his uniqueness.
The horse spoke, and both Gan and Yahiko realized it wasn't a horse at all, but a man with a shining sword. Amakusa the Shogo. Shogo the Amakusa. White Amakusa. Shiro Shogo Amakusa. Tokisada Amakusa Shiro Shogo Muto. Whoever he was, he soon spoke of words that made less sense to Gan and Yahiko than his name.
"Who has ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if you can't tell?"
"Spare me the speech. Haven't you learned your lesson yet, Kumamoto?" asked Gan.
"Despite what you've claimed, I will meet and exceed the expectations of my people. Unlike you, I won't become a disappointment," answered Amakusa.
Gan spat at the ground. "You rat bastard."
From thereon end, things started to get really strange.
The Holy Mighty One's feet rose from the ground as his bloodstained garments were bathed with immaculate brightness. He metamorphosed before the Three Stooges, his clothes transforming into a dazzling white that all the world's bleach couldn't provide and glowing tendrils of plasma that effused his katana with electricity and fire. Even the holes in his feet and hands burned bright with streaks of flame.
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men."
A halo of luminosity surrounded the Sacred Immortal's head while his hair floated in every which way as though he were underwater. Meanwhile, the center of his crucifix scar featured an ornate heart that produced two different colored rays of radiance; because his blood and sweat poured out of his chest like a forgiving spring of trust for his people, they were represented by shafts of red light from his right side and beams of white from his left side.
"The perfect and gifted should not be punished for their perfection or their giftedness. I am not ashamed of being great. It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. Therefore, I shall be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect."
On the left of the Exalted One was the Blessed Virgin Lady Magdalia, a woman of about twenty years of age with chestnut brown hair and hazel eyes (his precious sister, his queen, his source of perpetual strength, the sweetness of hope) dressed in lilac and peach, a single line of blood dripping from her serene smile. On the right side of the Anointed One was the martyr and saint known as Shozo Lorenzo, an apostle of Amakusa who epitomized supreme loyalty and devotion, the heroic Soldier of Christ and the unyielding defender of the faith.
"Hey, Yoshi-boy?" Gan ventured.
"Yeah?" Yahiko replied.
"I'm not the only one seeing all this crazy shit, right?" Gan specified.
"I'm afraid so," Yahiko confirmed. 'That aura of light surrounding Amakusa... Is that the full manifestation of his kenki? I can't believe what I'm seeing.'
"All right. Let's get this over with." Ignoring the moans, groans, and lamentations of his muscles, tendons, joints, skin, and bones, the Great Gan held aloft the hunk of metal he claimed to be his weapon and said, "I don't know what magic trick you did to look like a walking Bon Festival, but stop it. Act like a normal person. You're not god. You're not a natural disaster... so to speak. A 'god' doesn't get his ass kicked by some asshole with a metal bat. Go back to sleep."
"And I beheld Satan as he fell from Heaven like lightning."
The infinite hallway shattered like glass after the Amakusa the Most Holy disappeared and reappeared from behind Gan in one third of a second.
"Ryu Sou Sen Garami."
Gan gurgled while the breeze produced by the rebel's seeming teleportation ruffled the hair and clothes of Yahiko and Minoe.
"G-Gan?" Yahiko queried, a hard-to-swallow feeling of dread stuck in his esophagus, choking him with fear. "Are you all right?"
Minoe went as pallid as Rin Akahori usually was as he fell to his knees with a soft thud. "No... Please, no."
"Don't worry Patches! Yoshi-boy! I won't die even if you kill me!" Gan turned towards Yahiko and Minoe, a smile frozen on his face.
Gan guffawed, which made his fingers fall off one by one. He laughed even harder, which made his arms and parts of his thick body follow suit. He bellowed the heartiest cackle he could muster, which reduced him to falling chunks of bloody meat cubes.
It took a second for everyone in the room, including Gan's killer, to comprehend what had transpired. A second later, tears fell; the Sanbaka was no more, so henceforth came howling and gnashing of teeth.
"GAN!"
To be Continued...
Next: Guilt and regrets.
I'm taking several artistic liberties when it comes to "recycling" filler arc villains in this continuation fanfic, which is readily apparent by the way Amakusa's anime origin was slightly retconned for the purposes of this story's continuity.
Gan paraphrases the great Colin Mochrie from "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" fame with the narrative quip of "There was only one thing I could do." Meanwhile, the "If lightning were to hit me..." quote was taken from renowned boxing historian Bert Sugar's assessment of Margarito after the first Miguel Cotto versus Antonio Margarito fight.
Taas noo kahit kanino,
Abdiel