Warnings and Disclaimers: See Chapter 1

Notes:

- Height specifications for this fic: Kyuuzou is 5'9". Ayame is 5'4". Haruko 6'1". Shizuka 6' 0". Kanbei 6'2". (From the S7 silhouette image, it seems Kanbei is about half a head taller than Kyuuzou)

- Kazumi first appeared in Wolf Warriors

Vocab:
kouhai – junior
ne-sama – honorable term of address for older sister
aniki – honorable term of address for older brother.
Sibling terms can be used with non-relatives as a familiar form of address.

The silent samurai looked up at the owner of the hand he was holding. It was Third Sister. Where were they? Was she dead too? He remembered the last time he saw Ayame in person. That was five years ago, just after the war ended. The three surviving 'sisters' had been discharged from the Army of the Confederated Prefectures. They made their way back to Sensei to pay their respects. Kyuuzou and Ayame reached Mount Keian first. Haruko sent word that she would follow soon after, that she had other matters to attend to.

Big Sister came back to Mount Keian Dojo with a sad-faced 10 year old named Kazumi. Kyuuzou remembered her. She was the sole survivor of the slaughter in Hanatani Village four years ago. Second Sister had taken her to an orphanage in Sai'an.

Sensei then announced her retirement and made Haruko the new Sensei. Haruko would inherit Sensei's last disciple Yasue, a fourteen year old who joined Sensei's dojo after Kyuuzou left for the army.

Ayame planned to go visit her parents in her home city of Hokuhei. And as for what would follow next, she and some other female ex-samurai had ideas for a business venture. Kyuuzou had no concrete plans; unlike Ayame, he had no family to return to. And as for his home village, there was nothing left for him there except the pain of the past. The pain that had, however, grown duller as the hope for vengeance grew dimmer over the years. The world was vast and wide. What were the chances of ever meeting that nameless dark samurai again?

Third Sister asked Kyuuzou if he would like to go north with her, but he politely refused Ayame's offer to join her future startup company. He told Sensei and his seniors he would be heading south to Kougakyo to seek his fortune. Kougakyo was a bustling city built on the fortunes of the merchants who made their profits from the war. Almost everyone seemed to be headed that way. If there was any work to be found, it would be there.

Thus, the three students of Aikawa Sensei prepared to go their separate ways. But before they took their leave of each other, the fair-headed young man asked Ayame for a duel – a friendly match.

Of course Third Sister and Fourth 'Sister' had no intention of killing each other. But neither intended to give the other an easy victory. Kyuuzou had never beaten Ayame before. The last time they sparred was when she was 17 and he was 14, and then Third Sister left with Mizuho to join the army. Kyuuzou came to join Ayame's battalion when he was 16, but they never had the chance to fight against each other during the war. But at age 20, Kyuuzou was now taller than Ayame. A good five inches taller. Perhaps things would be different now.

So the two young ex-soldiers faced off in the training hall with Big Sister Haruko acting as referee. Haruko's new disciples Yasue and Kazumi came along to watch the match. The gray cat Kyuujiro wandered nonchalantly into the hall and watched the two humans with his dispassionate green eyes. As two pairs of twin blades clashed at lightning speed, the young Yasue cheered on both fighters at the same time. "Go, ne-sama! Go, aniki!"

Ayame's strength was her speed and energy. She could throw a flurry of combination techniques that overwhelmed opponents and gave them no chance to recover. But Big Sister, the master of timing and distancing, had taught Kyuuzou how to time such fighters. Sometimes, just sometimes, there was a very short pause when Ayame finished one technique combination and was about to launch another. If he could maintain a distance that was not too far but not too close, he could catch her in that vulnerable split second. It was far easier said than done, however. Ayame's well-honed reflexes were very quick.

Yet Kyuuzou succeeded in pulling off that feat of timing. He kept out of the range of Third Sister's blades, but stayed near enough to close in for a strike before she could launch her next barrage. The male samurai had a longer reach and used that to his advantage. Ayame parried but Kyuuzou shifted the angle of the strike so that it was not to Third Sister's advantage. The sword flew out of the dark woman's left hand. Ayame's lips pursed with annoyance but she did not miss a beat. She continued parrying and attacking with her remaining sword. But Kyuuzou noticed that Third Sister flicked the wrist of her disarmed hand lightly. Good, that meant her hand was more than a little numb. The impact really went home. The younger samurai could feel the glee well up within him.

The silent samurai decided to give the sometimes rather overbearing former officer a dose of her own medicine and launched into his own lightning-fast series of combination strikes. Now Ayame was on the defensive, cautiously trying to time him. Kyuuzou thought perhaps now he was the better fighter than "the goddess of speed." Those two years in another battalion away from her over-protective presence really helped. Victory was in sight. Then Ayame's strike went home and Kyuuzou's sword flew out of his left hand. The young man's wrist stung. The woman smirked.

So they were down to one sword against one sword. The blond warrior kept up the pressure. He tried backing Ayame towards a large pillar, hoping to corner her, but the dark-haired woman retained her awareness of her surroundings and did not allow his aggressiveness to disrupt her footwork. Kyuuzou's senpai did not retreat, but rather side-stepped and kept attacking him from an oblique angle. After a few exchanges, Kyuuzou thought he had figured out her strategy. So when the golden-eyed fighter side-stepped and tried to strike at him again, he rotated his torso to avoid her blade and simultaneously closed in. The young man grabbed Ayame's sword hand with his free left hand, and brought his sword to her neck. Or at least tried to.

Before Kyuuzou's blade could touch Ayame's skin, she stepped in and trapped his sword arm in the crook of her free elbow. Then, in one small quick motion, Ayame rotated the hand in his grip to bring the pommel of her sword down on the side of his wrist joint. As the control technique pulled Kyuuzou forward and downward towards Ayame, the golden-eyed woman conveniently smashed her forehead into his nose, or rather, smashed his nose into her forehead. It was a light blow by Ayame standards, but it did not take much to damage the tissues of a fragile human nose. Kyuuzou was stunned but he did not wince or even change his expression as his eyes reflexively filled with tears. Crimson blood dribbled from his nostrils down to his chin. The fair-headed young man could taste blood on his lips. He heard the child Kazumi give a gasp of alarm.

"Enough!" Big Sister declared. "Duel over!" The cat Kyuujiro gave an indifferent meow, as if to say "What's new?" Then the gray feline casually rose and left the room.

Ayame released Kyuuzou. Then they bowed to each other. "Waaah… ouch!" Yasue giggled. "Ne-sama kicked Aniki's butt!" Haruko silenced her new student with a stern stare. Yasue immediately put on an appropriately repentant expression, but Kyuuzou still noticed a smirk pulling at his junior's lips. The young man turned his eyes back to Ayame. Oh, how he hated some female fighters, especially those born outside the samurai class, the silent warrior thought. They really fought dirty!

"Well, ototo-chan, you have improved since the last time we sparred." Ayame said encouragingly to the younger samurai. "I was lucky this time. Next time, you may very well be the victor."

Small comfort for his smarting nose, which was fortunately not broken. Still, Kyuuzou counted himself lucky. Had it been a life-and-death duel, Ayame would have done worse than head butt him. Some called Ayame "a soul like a naked double edged blade." Kyuuzou was not sure he could disagree.

Even so, Kyuuzou could not think of another fighter who could pressure Third Sister to the point she was desperate enough to use a head butt in a one-on-one match, except for Haruko and Mizuho. But Ayame would never dare to head butt Big Sister or Second Sister. That left only Kyuuzou for Ayame to freely beat the c--- out of. The young samurai bowed graciously to both his senpai. "If I am ever the victor," Kyuuzou said. "It is only because I have learnt from the best."

Then the youngest samurai addressed Major Haruko. "O-ne-sama, I am leaving now to seek my fortune in Kougakyo. I know not what the future will bring. I will leave my share of Second Sister's remains here at Sensei's for safekeeping."

The taller samurai nodded in acknowledgment. Kyuuzou bowed again to his sisters, deferentially retreated a few steps and then picked up his travel bag. He turned to Yasue, who quickly answered his unspoken question. "Have no fear, I have been taking care of Kyuujiro and will continue to do so. Not that he needs much taking care of anyway."

Kyuuzou nodded at the ebony-skinned girl. Then he turned his back on the dojo and began to walk down the mountain towards the open highway. "Hey, don't forget to write!" Captain Ayame called out after him.

That was the last time Kyuuzou had seen Third Sister before today.

"Still, can anyone blame a girl for doing what a girl has to do to survive?" Kyuuzou thought as he recalled the graceless duel. "Battles are ugly. They are never as gloriously graceful as they are in storybooks. And duels are never sexy either, except when Shimada Kanbei is involved. Wait a minute, where did that thought come from?"

"Kyuu-chan?" Ayame's voice brought him back to the present.

"What…" Kyuuzou began to ask as he slowly sat up and stared around him. He was lying on a strange bed in a strange lab. Ayame was sitting beside him. The dark-haired woman looked strangely worn and haggard, almost like a corpse herself. Despite her weary appearance, she turned and shouted triumphantly at someone, "It worked!!! We succeeded!"

That was when Kyuuzou noticed there was another presence in the room. He looked at the person Ayame was addressing. It was a familiar face. He stared at Ayame's companion with confused eyes.

Ayame turned her attention back to Kyuuzou. Then, following the direction of his gaze, she looked at her friend and then back to Kyuuzou. "It's Sayoko, remember?" she said to the red samurai in a cheerful, yet tired voice. "We're in her lab in Kougakyo."

"Sayoko?" Kyuuzou spoke in a voice that sounded strangely disembodied, at least to his own ears.

"Our friend from the Great War!" Ayame continued talking despite the fact she looked like she was about to drop dead, "The samurai known as 'I-kill-people-but-I-don't-eat-animals'-dono!!"

A vague glint of recognition came into Kyuuzou's red eyes as he looked at the person standing before him. "Ah, I remember," he thought. "The vegetarian Yakan pilot who supplied Ayame with soy protein. She was always going around the barracks trying to get enough signatures on her petition to put more vegetarian options on the mess hall menu."

"I hate it when you call me that," the vegetarian war veteran spoke up. But she did not sound too annoyed.

"Sorry," Ayame gave a wry smile as she turned towards her friend, but she did not sound too repentant. Ayame turned her attention back to Kyuuzou and continued addressing him in a rather tired voice. "Your new body might need some getting used to, but I hope you can cope with the changes and remain the same nice, quiet, unassuming little brother. If not, I might have to head butt you into submission, or bludgeon you into good behavior, depending on your level of offensiveness." she smirked weakly. The young man knew Ayame well enough to know that Third Sister was only half-joking.

The topaz-eyed woman then launched into the lecture that Kyuuzou had heard many times while growing up.

"A good man must be unassuming,
Modest and self-effacing,
Must never talk back to his elders,
Except under justified circumstances,
Must respect all women
As he would his mothers and sisters…"

Kyuuzou felt the old familiar annoyance rise within him. He had already adhered assiduously to that code of honor. Did he ever behave in a way to necessitate a reminder? Must she always perform a 'pre-emptive strike' by nagging him before he even did something wrong? That was just like her fighting style – to go in for the pre-emptive strike before the opponent has a chance to react or resist. He sighed inwardly. But before his senpai could finish her recitation, Ayame toppled off her chair and sank to the ground.

"What…" Kyuuzou tried to climb out of bed to assist his unconscious sister, but his limbs seemed tardy in responding to his commands.

"Stay where you are," Sayoko commanded as she strode over and carefully lifted the unconscious woman. She eased her friend onto a narrow bed and inserted an intravenous drip into Ayame's arm.

Then the dark-haired war veteran turned and addressed Kyuuzou again. "You have not quite adjusted to your new body yet. It will take some time. Your sister will be fine if she rests and recharges. She used up most of her ki trying to restore your life force, that's all."

Kyuuzou stared at Sayoko in puzzlement.

"Ayame-dono did not hear from you for months, so she traveled to Kanna to seek you." The purple-haired woman explained. "The villagers told her you died. So Ayame came to me. She knew that I went back to school to finish my graduate degree in biotechnology after the war. Then I made a living growing organs and body parts for transplant patients using their own DNA. Ayame-dono wanted to know if I could replicate your physical form at the exact same age it was when you died. I said it was possible, but I asked her why she would want to do something like that. She said she wanted to bring you back from the dead because she owed you something."

The scientist paused. Kyuuzou stared at her. Did she mean he had just been resurrected? If this was a new body and a new life, then why did he see things the way he did before – through scarlet lenses? It could only mean one thing… this was not a new life. His old sins had not been cleansed away. There was an old blood debt to settle. His life had no meaning beyond killing that man, whether he was Kanbei or someone else.

Sayoko continued talking as she stood up and walked over to the water cooler. "I had to explain to Ayame that it would be a pointless exercise - 'Growing' a new body without going through the incubation and birth process would only produce a lifeless form that has to be hooked up to a life support system. The body would not be you. It does not have its own soul or inner energy. And even if someone performed the extraordinary feat of transferring enough living ki to an empty body, it may breathe on its own for a while, but it cannot sustain itself as living humans do. It would be just like a mindless mecha without a human soul to direct its operations. But you know how stubborn your sister is. She still wanted to try."

The brown-skinned woman filled a porcelain cup with water and handed it to Kyuuzou. The resurrected warrior sipped at the life-giving fluid, and his mind started to clear a little as the dark-haired ex-samurai continued her tale.

"So your sister went back to Kanna and retrieved your remains. Your old body was really quite decomposed but I managed to get some DNA out of your hair and nails. So I created a new form according to your genetic information. Ayame did a ki transfer to your cloned body. I could actually measure the electromagnetic field of the energy flow. An ordinary human would not be capable of pulling off something like that. But I guess your Sensei has trained her students very well. Just as I thought, the body started to breathe, but it showed no sign of consciousness. It would be only a matter of time before this externally-infused ki dissipates and the body has to go back to the life support system, or dies."

Sayoko glanced at Ayame's inert form lying on the other bed. She was breathing evenly. The scientist's expression relaxed. Then she turned back to Kyuuzou. "Now the question was how to call your soul back to your body, which is beyond my skill as a scientist. But Ayame-dono held your hand and went into meditation for two days. I didn't think it would work. But miraculously, you came back. I can't explain it!" Sayoko was now speaking in a rather animated tone. "I heard the rumor that the two of you have a psychic connection. That you can find each other within a certain distance without using sight or sound. Is that true? Maybe she used this mental link to pull you back from the realm of the dead. That's the only explanation I can think of. You'll have to tell me of your experience in going to the realm of the dead and coming back! But perhaps we should continue this discussion another day. I see that you need some time to adjust to your new existence."

Kyuuzou smiled weakly. He remembered how Ayame was always able to sense his energy on the battlefield and fight her way over to him and 'rescue' him. That was annoying. But still, there was no denying they could detect each other's ki if they concentrated hard enough, though she exercised her part of the mental link much more often than he did his part.

Yes, the quiet loner and Third Sister did have a strange bond. Much as they disliked each other, he knew she would be willing to die to save his life, and he would do the same for her. Despite all the unhappiness of the past, Kyuuzou believed there was no one besides his two sisters, at least no one still alive, who would be willing to die for him. No one.

Sayoko's voice brought him back to the present. "By the way, your new body does not have the muscle memory of your old body, so even motions that are familiar to your mind may not be as quick as they once were."

Kyuuzou contemplated that information for a moment then he asked, "Where are my swords?"

"In my apartment, with Ayame-dono's baggage," Sayoko replied.

Author's Comments:

Head butting technique was inspired by an article in a martial arts magazine, in which a female martial artist demonstrating self defense pulls the guy in to smash his nose into her forehead. So yes, that's how real women fight. Sorry to those expecting some sexy, graceful fight scene. I don't think female characters are under any obligation to be more graceful, 'attractive' and 'appealing' than male characters are ;-). For more head butting women, in the film Three Heroes of the East, one of the female characters head butts a guy who is an unfeeling killing machine, but unfortunately that man had been reinforced structurally, so it was 'ouch'! for the heroine. Xena used head butts in her fights too.

- Kyuuzou is, in a sense, color blind. He sees everything through red lenses. But because he was able to see full color until age 10, he can make fair guesses at the true colors of things by doing a mental 'color correction. For the origin of Kyuuzou's red vision, see companion fic Unforgiven.

- Institutes of higher learning are probably not out of place on whatever planet S7 is happening on. That planet had achieved quite a high level of technological sophistication, with the giant mecha and weapons of mass destruction. And cloning. So it is not improbable that people were going to graduate school and becoming researchers.

- On Earth, universities already existed in the old days. Of course, departments of study tend to differ somewhat from modern universities. Medieval Europe and medieval Africa had their universities; three campuses in Timbuktu, Mali alone. And there were even older universities in Asia. The oldest university in the world is Takshashila University in India. (around 700 BCE) Nalanda University, also in India, was a famous 5th century Buddhist university which attracted foreign students such as the famous Tang Sanzang from China, the historical personality on which Sanzou (Japanese pronunciation of 'Sanzang') of Saiyuki is loosely based. (The real life Sanzang, in all likelihood, is NOT a gun-totin' blond. ;-)