Kaede Morinaga realized that the only thing the Akahoris, Soujiro Seta or... that spiky-haired samurai wannabe brat and his hefty companion knew about Shogo Amakusa was the fact that he was a terrorist leader and nothing more.
Even Tetsuo Akahori, the man with his own personal troop of spies outside of Japan's government secret service, was completely clueless regarding what Amakusa was all about. Without the charismatic leader, the Hidden Christians would have faced the same brand of persecution in the hands of different "masters": A new chapter in the same old story.
Six years ago, Amakusa had to pick up the pieces of his shattered dreams and lost flock thanks to Akahori's machinations. Frustrated with the continued ostracism of Japanese Christians in outright and subtle ways within their land of birth because of Japan's obsession with conformity to a fault, he took it upon himself to spread the Word of God by reinventing himself into an evangelist of sorts, defying the will of an apathetic nation in order to ensure a bright future for Kakure Kirishitan everywhere.
No more hiding, no more shame for what they were and what they believed in, no more rejection, no more rough treatment as though they were common criminals, no more pretending to possess Buddhist iconography that was actually Christian in nature, and no more torture and executions for having faith in the One True God. These tenets served as the heart of Amakusa's Ministry.
Aside from defying the odds and conquering a thousand soldiers and policemen, Amakusa was also well-known as a faith healer and preacher. His knowledge of western medicine and his message that God loved everyone in the world regardless of who they were and what sins they'd committed made him beloved everywhere: He was the God that made the imperfect man whole again. Physically and spiritually, Amakusa's existence served as a balm for his people, his church.
Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation by Chester Castañeda
Who's one-dimensional now? Due to some mature themes in this chapter, reader discretion is advised.
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 25: The Frightening Comeback
Tetsuo reassessed his earlier judgment of Morinaga, his brain whirring like a well-oiled machine while he thought up possible avenues he could exploit in order to turn the situation around and back to his favor. 'I should calm down. She hasn't done anything of note yet, and she's still in dire straits.'
Yahiko Myojin himself mused, 'How is that Kenshin clone doing this? She can barely land a strike against Psycho-Kid, but now she's suddenly keeping up and blocking his every strike?'
A flicker of familiarity and insight gripped the Son of Tokyo Samurai's weary heart. 'I can't even see her hands or arms! She reminds me of...' The teenager's eyes dilated into saucers as his skin turned to cold marble. '...Impossible.'
Realizing that he was wasting his time and energy attempting to shred the Battousai of Speed (apparently, that name specifically referred to the Kenshin imposter's otherworldly hand speed more than her foot speed) at a safe distance, Soujiro ceased trying to attack from the midrange.
The ensuing Swarming Barbs served as the Battousai of Speed's collective feint for Soujiro to backpedal into position as she flickered in and out of existence by jumping to his blindside again and again. She then showcased her impressive hand speed with an undulating sword dance.
"Scorpio Stance: Scorpion Nest."
Instead of blocking strikes like with the Cancer Stance's Protective Shell, the Scorpio Stance's Scorpion Nest instead used the same undetectable movements to shred everything within Kaede's striking range.
'I can't read her moves! She's become a constant bombardment of murderous intent! I can't react at all!' thought Soujiro with a misplaced smile that didn't reflect his growing alarm.
"SETA-KUN!" Tetsuo screamed at his bodyguard while Rin Akahori clutched at her chest and swallowed hard. A literal red mist wafted through the stale air of the guestroom while a figurative red mist descended upon the Fake Battousai.
As usual, the Shukuchi kept the Ten Ken out of harm's way. The lines and specks of crimson on his kimono and hakama spoke volumes, however. He tried to counter, but his slash passed right through Morinaga as though she weren't there at all.
'She's starting to land her attacks. She's becoming more and more dangerous. She's now cutting him up. Her murderous intent is everywhere, but something's different. I could've sworn she'd attack Psycho-Kid with impunity, but she's become focused and deliberate instead. What gives?' Yahiko asked himself.
'She may not be able to match my Shukuchi's speed, but her stance switches and her hand speed definitely live up to her name. I still can't risk letting her hand speed and my leg speed go head-to-head right now,' thought Soujiro as he felt the thigh that Amakusa injured begin to throb.
'No. I'm doing it wrong. I can't win this way. I should let him lead,' thought Morinaga. To Soujiro, the redhead swore, "Like I said. I'll show you how one-dimensional you really are, Seta Soujiro. I'll expose your weaknesses one-by-one."
"Oh really? Please do, Miss Battousai," encouraged Soujiro as he sheathed his sword and blasted away using the One-Step Shukuchi. He could feel her eyes shoot daggers at him thanks to his quip.
The Ten Ken ran past Morinaga and ended up behind her in a heartbeat, which allowed him to let his blade fly without worrying about her bothersome Scissor Grip or Vise Grip sword-catching techniques.
Soujiro failed to turn the slash mark on Kaede's back into a cross scar that matched the one near her right eye as, yet again, his slash missed its target by inches. He wondered if his dormant feelings were betraying him and his blood thirst was spilling through.
Akahori was thinking the same thing, and so was Yahiko.
'I still can't feel any bloodlust from Psycho-Kid like usual. How is she able to detect his presence or movement?' thought the Tokyo Samurai Descendant.
'She's using something else to detect Seta-kun's presence,' thought the mastermind behind the disastrous Modern Shimabara War. 'Her rage has reached beyond the boiling point. She won't go berserk now because she has become steam, rising above her anger. Although I have to wonder why she's so angry in the first place.'
Soujiro narrowly escaped having his leg pierced by a Deathstalker Stab, but it left a nasty gash on his calf nonetheless. The Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki slash from Amakusa had started to bleed as well. 'Her counterstrikes are dangerous. I better watch myself.'
As if reading everyone else's minds, Kaede said to Soujiro, "It doesn't matter if I can't detect you by sight or by reading your ki. You're not a ghost. Even though you're so fast that I can't see your movements, there are still other indicators of your presence."
That much was true. Morinaga, who'd day in and day out dealt with a swordsman who possessed a wild beast's aura such that every waking moment, he exuded bloodlust, was so used to the constant bombardment of malice that she deployed other means of reading her master's next move whenever she attacked him.
The same principles applied to Soujiro's absence of bloodthirstiness. It didn't matter if her enemy always radiated killing ki or a lack thereof. Because of how long she'd been with Akatsuki (whom she attempted to kill time and time again), she'd become adept at predicting his moves and detecting his presence through other means.
"You and Master Doraku are polar opposites yet are exactly the same."
"Doraku? Who's that?"
Soujiro let loose another battoujutsu slash that Morinaga blocked with her Vise Grip and countered with a Deathstalker Stab. He avoided getting his heart stabbed by running away, scaling the walls, and falling from the ceiling with decapitation in mind, but she thusly blocked with a Scissor Grip and countered with a Crisscross Claw that marked his sides with nasty cuts.
"She's a Battousai in a different sense. She may not know how to use any sword-drawing techniques, but she may have mastered everything there is to know about blocking or countering them," Akahori realized as Morinaga again blocked and deflected Soujiro's battoujutsu several times over.
"There's more than one way to skin a cat. If I can't see, then I'll hear. If I can't hear, then I'll smell. If I can't smell, then I'll feel. If I can't feel, then I'll think. If I can't think, then I'll fight by my instincts. Even if that fails and I'm completely locked within myself, I'll still keep on fighting!" she declared.
He moved to her blindside like she did earlier and attacked with the Ryu Sho Sen, but he missed her neck entirely and ended up wide open for Swarming Barbs that would've turned him into a human pincushion had he not parried them and dashed away in time.
His flight however was a feint he did to set her up for a Ryu Sou Sen, but she again countered that with a Protective Shell and Scorpion Nest combo that left him worse for wear instead. The furious exchange reminded Yahiko of how Enishi Yukishiro completely sealed Kenshin Himura's Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu once upon a time.
"Are you resorting to using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu now? That's pathetic. I know how to counter those moves too. Shogo-sama's Dragon Nest Flash and Dragon Rising Flash would put yours to shame. Aside from copying Battousai's techniques, are the only things you're good at are battoujutsu and running really fast?" mocked Morinaga.
"Seta-kun..." murmured Rin as she remembered how confident she was that Soujiro would never lose to a contest of speed. Father and daughter both realized that this wasn't a race any longer, but a war of attrition. 'Instead of surpassing his speed, Morinaga-san is finding ways to slow Seta-kun down.'
For the first time since the duel started, the pace of the fight slowed. Thanks to the wounds on his legs and Morinaga's ability to detect his presence, Soujiro started to pick his spots and use his prized talent, the Reduced Earth, in moderation.
This was exactly what she wanted, though. While Soujiro hesitated, he stood still. While he stood still, he became a lot more hittable. She inched closer to him by moving her body using her toes then stabbed at him to check her range.
When Seta dodged and retaliated with a battoujutsu strike and follow-up slashes, she ducked, slipped, blocked with her Cancer Stance techniques, and then ripped him apart with alternating Scorpion Nest and Swarming Barb counterattacks. By the time he'd used the Shukuchi to escape, his bloody clothes were already in tatters. However, his smile remained.
Yahiko fell to his knees at seeing the droplets of blood and the tattered wardrobe of the pressured Heaven Sword. 'Just like that, he was able to rough Psycho-Kid up. I used every trick up my sleeve, and I couldn't even touch a hair on Shishio's sidekick. How good is this crossdressing tomboy?'
To Soujiro, Yahiko said, "Psycho-Kid! What the hell are you doing? Stop playing around with that Battousai wannabe and finish her off before I have do it for you!"
"Eh? Yahiko-san?" Soujiro blinked at the Tokyoite's outburst.
"Seta-kun! Don't let her dictate the pace! Use the Shukuchi and keep her guessing! Don't hesitate!" yelled Akahori while wiping the cold sweat off his brow and the nape of his neck. 'That trollop hasn't defeated the Reduced Earth just yet. Relax.'
'I wonder if this was what it was like to fight Usui-san seriously,' thought Soujiro as he licked the small scratch on his kote or fingerless swordsman glove. His enemy's striking accuracy continued to rise. 'If I had fought Usui-san, he would've used his Shingan to predict where I'm going even if he can't sense my bloodlust.'
While Soujiro Seta served as the Heaven Sword of the Ten Swords, Usui Uonoma instead played the role as the group's Blind Sword. Because this former shogunate swordsman was injured by Makoto Shishio yet developed extraordinary skills because of it, he became part of Shishio's Faction under the deal that he could kill Shishio anytime he wanted if given the chance.
In particular, his Shingan (Mind's Eye) or his superhuman hearing and his ability to deduce the emotions of his opponents because of his hidden talent was what made Usui such a dangerous man.
Soujiro disappeared and did another multidirectional attack with his One-Step Shukuchi while Morinaga used the Swarming Barbs as her range finder and her defense against the occasional imitation Ryu Sou Sen that the Ten Ken released from time to time.
Three weeks ago, in Shinshu's East Valley...
"That annoying brat ruined a perfectly good protection scam. We should gang up on him and feed him to the fishes, boss," said a man with nearly all but two of his front teeth missing, which made his mouth look like a hippopotamus's maw.
"I don't give a damn about that samurai poser." Keisuke licked his lips and cracked his knuckles. "Kyoko-chan's loser of a crippled father is nowhere to be found. Before he comes back to Shinshu, I'll make his daughter mine."
"I heard he made Sergeant back in Yokohama," revealed the gangliest member of Keisuke's group, with limbs worthy of a walking stick insect.
"Cool. So I was able to injure a sergeant. I hope Sarge can accept me as his son-in-law, though! Imagine that, his daughter marrying the leader of the infamous Battousai Group! I'm getting horny just thinking about it."
"Hey, as a group, we can all share Kyoko-chan... Right, Boss?" a man with a nest for a beard proposed, but it was promptly shut down with a swift kick to his posterior care of Keisuke's sandaled feet.
"Nobody touches my girl unless I say so." Keisuke harrumphed as he spat at his older (but not wiser) subordinate. "You should cool down, men. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. I'm sure she's coming here to confront us anytime soon, and when she does...!"
"That's an interesting conversation you're having there, you filthy pigs. Can I join in?"
Keisuke turned, expecting to see the twin-tailed Shinshu beauty he'd been chasing after since her sweet sixteen birthday, only to be greeted by a short, boyish, and redheaded young man with Edo Era garments and daisho or a pair of swords composed of a normal-length sword (uchigatana) and a short sword (wakizashi).
"Now who's this girl you people are slavering over like a piece of meat?" asked the red-haired phantom as his mane swayed while he moved towards the gang of miscreants.
"Mind your own business, Shorty! And who are you supposed to be anyway?" spat Keisuke while his men gathered around him and brandished their miscellaneous weapons composed of cane swords, clubs, brass knuckles, spears, and so forth.
As though he swallowed something sour, the new arrival introduced himself with a scowl, saying, "I'm the Hitokiri Battousai. Got a problem with that, punk?"
"Yeah right. And I'm the Emperor! Take off that damn red wig and go run back home to your momma, little boy!" said an all-skin-and-bones hooligan as he charged towards the newcomer and grabbed hold of him. An instant later, the man found himself lying on the ground with a twisted arm.
The Battousai continued. "As I was saying, I've heard that you've been pretending to be the Battousai Group and scaring villagers with your shenanigans. I personally couldn't care less, but I could use the sword practice by taking you all on at the same time."
"I like where this is going. What 'practice' do you have in mind, pretty boy?" asked the plump hippo man with missing teeth.
"I didn't know you swung that way," remarked one of the more tanned members of Keisuke's gang.
The old geezer with the nigh-toothless grin answered, "It has nothing to do with where or how I swing! As long as he has a cute, girly face, it shouldn't matter!"
For one reason or another, the exchange between two of Keisuke's men, particularly the words from the pervert who was hitting on him, set the Battousai off, prompting him to stab at their guts and crotches repeatedly with his sheathed daisho. The thugs crumpled down to the ground and groveled like pigs on mud.
With a snort and a toss of his hair, Keisuke said, "Battousai is a myth. There's never been any Battousai," as he stood up and sauntered over the redhead while invading the latter's personal space.
"Is that so? And what makes you say that?" asked the Battousai, his hands already reaching for the handles of his dual swords.
"Yeah, boss! Saying that the Hitokiri Battousai isn't real is like saying that the Four Butchers of the Bakumatsu didn't exist, the Shinsengumi didn't exist, or even the Bakumatsu no Douran itself didn't happen! He's an important part of our history and culture!" protested the scraggly history buff of Keisuke's Fake Battousai Group.
"Really? Doesn't he sound more like something out of a fairy tale? A manslayer with a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek who looks like a girl yet is also known to be the Strongest Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu? Don't make me laugh. Even if that oh-so-scary bogeyman from twenty years ago actually exists, what makes you think he'd end up here in the middle of nowhere?"
"Maybe he doesn't appreciate us using his name in vain for our gang?"
Without sparing his contrary underling a glance, Keisuke palmed the talkative man's face and hissed through the subsequent gurgles and coughs, "I don't believe Mister Swordsman here is exactly as he claims... and I can prove it."
"I'd like to see you try...!" was what the Battousai intended to say before Keisuke slavered his tongue over his neck and shoved their mouths together. A wave of nausea made the redhead almost lose his lunch as he pushed his molester aside.
However, Keisuke had already grabbed a fist-full of the "hitokiri's" upper garment and tugged hard, revealing the smaller "man's" suspiciously plump chest wrapped up in traditional "sarashi" bandages.
The Fake Battousai Group Leader cackled while all the other members of his troop did wolf whistles at the exposed assassin.
"I knew something was up. It looks like we have a cute li'l lamb in wolf's clothing here, boys."
'The Shukuchi is still quite the problem. As long as he has that move, I won't be able to seriously injure him,' thought Morinaga as she circled counterclockwise to her right to keep Soujiro's right-handed strikes from hitting her. 'However, it's hardly an infallible technique. I'll find out its weak point and attack it with impunity!'
The Shukuchi allowed Seta to score some hits against the Battousai of Speed despite her superior hand speed and high defense, scraping her knee, shallowly stabbing her shoulder, and tearing a piece of her abdomen. However, he couldn't commit to any of his strikes and finish her off because of her sword-catching and counterstrike techniques. The both of them remained at an deadlock.
Kaede reckoned, ' I don't know how Battousai was able to defeat you, but I'll find my own way of beating you and your Shukuchi. I'm guessing the Battousai had twice the problems dealing with the Ten Ken because he relied a bit too much on reading bloodlust to predict the moves of his opponent. He was probably undetectable to him, I bet.'
The combatants continued to probe each other's defenses with their respective multi-hit attacks... the Swarming Barbs and the Dragon Nest Flash... sparks flying whenever their blades went into contact with each other. All the while, Morinaga barely moved an inch from where she stood, waiting for Soujiro's strikes as they happened while he ran circles around her.
'The Ten Ken blocks his opponent's sense of sight because he's faster than the naked eye. The sixth sense or the ability to read the emotional state of one's opponent through changes in ki flow is also blocked thanks to his eternal state of bliss. However, those are just two of the six senses known to man.'
Morinaga closed her eyes, and wistful nostalgia filled the insides of both Yahiko and Soujiro upon seeing her fall in her Cancer Stance... her left-handed wakizashi raised above her head and her right-handed uchigatana lying at waist-level... in anticipation of a sword strike.
'She's doing the same thing I did when I fought Psycho-Kid. She's timing his hoof-like steps by ear,' Yahiko realized. 'Come to think of it, she's also lying in wait to counter Psycho-Kid like I did too! I can't blame her, though. Few people can keep up with his speed, so they're typically forced to lie in wait instead.'
'Hmmm. Morinaga-san and Usui-san have similar styles of blocking and countering. Her hard blocks remind me of Usui-san's tortoise shell shield and spear techniques. If I'd fought Usui-san, then I'd have two options. Figure out how to disrupt his Shingan, or...' Soujiro sheathed his sword while maintaining the fast pace of his gallop.
'Even if I can't see you, I can hear and feel you coming instead,' thought Kaede as she opened her eyes, turned to her side, and faced her attacker who'd mimicked her earlier use of blind spots to spring a similar type of surprise attack on her, his sword sheathed and ready to fly out of its container.
"Cancer Stance: Antennae." Like the antennae of the crab (of whom she based her Cancer Stance techniques on), other crustaceans, and insects as well, Morinaga utilized heightened senses that were sharpened by her constant attempts at her master's life and his occasional (casual) attempts at her life to test her growing fighting prowess.
The trembling of the floorboards and ground, the loudness of the exploding footsteps, and her ability to accurately calculate distances by eyesight and instinct allowed her to detect the supposedly undetectable. Her twin swords served as her antennas as well, allowing her to feel the vibrations of her opponent's sword and gauge whether or not they were within striking range.
'...Figure out a way to bypass his shield,' Soujiro finished his train of thought.
By reflex and muscle memory, Morinaga crossed her blades to intercept the battoujutsu strike. However, Seta ducked down the Scissor Grip, went into a seated position, and aimed his unsheathed blade low so that he could cut either her legs, hands, or womb apart without getting blocked by the Protective Shell, Vise Grip, or Scissor Grip.
Soujiro's Kikuichi Monji produced a thin trail of blood as it passed right through the wavering, transparent body of Kaede Morinaga. "Cancer Stance: Crypsis."
Just like the ecological version of crypsis, Kaede's version of Crypsis allowed her to avoid detection or observation by others in a myriad of ways such as moving out of someone's line of vision, disappearing into an enemy's blind spot, attacking at the cover of night, or camouflaging herself to blend with her surroundings.
As Kaede disappeared from Soujiro's view, her image flickering into nothingness like it did when he first saw an afterimage of hers back in Shinshu's East Valley, Yahiko figured out the trick behind the move. After all, the boy saw it used on him before by a certain Masahiro Takae, the Last Ninja of the Takae Clan.
'It's Takae's Invisibility Trick! Or at least part of it! How did she know such a move? Was she trained by that old geezer of a ninja too? Or maybe they're techniques that use the same principles of camouflage and concealment. I have no idea.'
Yahiko also noticed how much control Morinaga had over her maai or striking range, such that whenever Seta moved into it, there was little he could do to penetrate it. 'She's even mastered maai to the same degree as Shinomori Aoshi.'
By the time the Ten Ken was able to move towards his own blind side after the savvy Battousai of Speed turned the tables on him, she was already in her Scorpio Stance, her right-handed main sword held aloft and ready to strike while her left-handed short sword was wielded parallel to it. "Deathstalker Stab."
He then realized that Crypsis was the technique she'd been using to avoid his slashes in such a way that it seemed like they passed right through her while she appeared to stand perfectly still. She didn't only have dangerously quick hands, she also had the ability to dodge in short distances instantaneously, which was the exact opposite of what the Shukuchi could do.
The Scorpio Stance's main stabbing technique also drew blood but hit nothing more of Soujiro as he outright vanished from the Fake Battousai's midst. The Heaven Sword pulled the same trick he used to avoid the first slash of Amakusa's Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki, doing a Shukuchi backpedal to get out of harm's way.
For a second or two, Morinaga remained wide open as her blade's tip embedded itself on the ground. A second was all Seta needed. 'Although you're good at moving fast in short distances, I can do the same at long range. Behold the true power of the Shukuchi!'
Instead of deploying a multidirectional assault, Soujiro moved straight for the kill with the One-Step Shukuchi. Because he didn't need to waste movement with a zigzagging pattern, his straightforward path allowed him to strike even faster than before.
"Cancer Stance: Crabwise Stalk."
Like a crab, Morinaga moved to the side in the blink of an eye and avoided getting slashed in half. Her abdomen still suffered a nasty gash, but she was otherwise none the worse for wear. Thanks to her Crypsis, he couldn't tell which direction she went. Thanks to her Antennae, she knew exactly when to dodge.
Soujiro couldn't turn or evade the Deathstalker Stab to his midsection in time, although he did push his calves and shin enough to keep Kaede from completely running him through.
Once the dust settled, Yahiko, Tetsuo, and Rin were left in awe of what transpired before them: A triumphant Morinaga standing over a kneeling Seta while a puddle of blood dripped down from his abdomen and calf. The stab, slash to the back, and slam into the floor she received earlier had been paid back in full with interest.
During all that time, the alabaster-skinned, half-blind Rin remained quiet, her nose slightly wrinkled at the growing stench of blood and the lack of noise from Soujiro's Shukuchi. Yahiko couldn't even begin to guess what was going on in her mind.
'Oh man. She knows ninjutsu camouflage and the ability to dodge the Shukuchi? Who the hell is this crazy chick?' Yahiko mused while wiping his sweaty hands on his hakama. That five-second exchange seemed to stretch on forever.
The unbeatable Heaven Sword he risked life and limb to fight had been manhandled by this strange Battousai impersonator and her endless bag of tricks. He then heard the Elder Akahori say, "She discovered it."
"She discovered what? You mean Morinaga?"
"Battousai-dono discovered the weakness of the Shukuchi."
"That godly technique of Psycho-Kid's has a weakness? You've got to be kidding me, Oyakata."
"But it does have one. You are aware of how it was developed, right? It's a martial art attributed to xian and sennin that allowed them to move great distances in a single step. It also allowed martial artists to charge into their opponent's proximity in a heartbeat. The great Mouri no Sanbonya were said to be capable of this technique, but all three of them wouldn't even be able to touch Seta-kun."
Yahiko scratched his head while Morinaga waited for Soujiro to stand up, inching ever closer to her prey. "I appreciate the history lesson, but what does that have to do with the Fake Battousai kicking Psycho-Kid's ass?"
The politician's eyes darted towards Soujiro. This was something he wanted his twenty-something bodyguard to hear as well. He'd already discussed his suspicions about the Shukuchi with him before, but this was the first time he saw his doubts confirmed by his own eyes.
"My point is, at its heart, it's a technique designed for fast-paced travel on a straight line. According to the laws of physics, it's next to impossible for someone to suddenly move to the side using Shukuchi without losing your balance because of its speed and amount of momentum you gain from it. Therefore, anyone who has the capability of detecting and sidestepping it can render it null and void."
Soujiro Seta chuckled despite himself. 'Did Shishio-san know about the Shukuchi's weakness too? He probably did. If he didn't, he would've killed me for knowing about it. He kept me around because, like Usui-san, he knew he could keep me in line.'
"I told you so. I've exposed you as a one-dimensional fighter. You have nowhere left to run, Shukuchi or no Shukuchi," said Kaede.
"Seta-kun," Rin whispered, her moist and moving eyes squinting at the blurry shapes before them while her white skin seemingly gleamed with its own light. "Think for yourself. What is your truth? Don't be ashamed of what you are or fear what you can become."
'What in the world is she talking about?' though Yahiko. 'Psycho-Kid won't be able to hear her from here if she's going to whisper.'
"I heard you have one more trick up your sleeve, Ten Ken. It's called the 'Instant Heaven Kill', isn't it? You used it against Shogo-sama earlier. I have a counter technique I'd like to try against it, if you don't mind."
Soujiro didn't even respond as he sheathed his sword and fell into his battoujutsu stance, his smile still intact. Even though Morinaga broke through all his techniques save one, Kenshin Himura (now Kamiya) remained the sole person to break him down emotionally.
Three weeks ago, in Shinshu's East Valley...
"Well, well, well. You've been hiding something from us, eh? Miss Battousai!" said Keisuke as the rest of his entourage of criminals and hired goons hooted and hollered at the crossdresser. "I knew it. You smelled too good and looked too beautiful to be a hitokiri."
"Don't you dare touch me, you pervert!"
The Battousai's face went from green to blue to red as she attempted to stab Keisuke in the eye. However, she yelped while her body shuddered from head to toe as the lecher slid his hand right between her legs and wiggled them on the surface of her crotch.
An unbidden memory of hands, stinking breaths, and sweaty flesh invaded her head, distracting her.
Keisuke said, "It's just like a woman to melt in a man's arms when you touch her in the right spot!" as he went behind her, grabbed her by the neck with his arm, and gripped her right hand.
"As expected of the boss, he really knows everything about women!" said the lankiest of the Fake Battousai Group.
"HAHA! It looks like she's about to cry! What was she thinking, dressing up like the Battousai?" said the Fake Battousai Group member with two lone upper front teeth on the far left and far right of his mouth.
After a couple of seconds of chuckling at the shivering, red-as-an-angry-beet Battousai, Keisuke decided, "You can have her. The only one I'm interested in is Kyoko-chan," as he undid the Fake Battousai's kimono and groped her breasts.
"Really boss? Gee, thanks!"
"Sweet! I've got dibs!"
"Are we sure that's a girl? Those breasts aren't big enough to convince me. Maybe they're padded. Maybe she has a snake hiding underneath her pants."
"I don't care! I always fantasized about doing the Battousai from behind!"
"...What? Are you gay or something?"
"It's only gay if you're a guy who wants to get fucked by a man, not the other way around!"
"You've been in prison, haven't you?"
"Little boys are the best, but little girls are fine too!"
"W-What are you people doing? Stop it! I SAID STOP IT!"
The Fake Battousai felt her breath become heavy as the men in her immediate vicinity started undoing their hakama and fundoshi, exposing themselves then and there in order to do whatever they pleased with her.
It was all coming back to her now. She remembered something she shouldn't have. They made her remember. Back then, there was nothing she could do as her foster mother watched on, helpless, crying, and bleeding to death while she herself was...
No. She wasn't helpless anymore. That wasn't the case right now.
The Battousai of Speed elbowed Keisuke and threw him off her as the rest of the members of the Fake Battousai Group converged towards her.
"Scorpion Nest."
"AAAGGGHH!" the bloodcurdling scream came not from the Hitokiri Battousai imposter, but from the gathered men as their genitals got chopped off and flopped down to the ground in an instant. They howled, whined, and wailed like pigs. Like dogs.
"Y-YOU GODDAMN BITCH! I'm going to kill you and fuck your corpse with my fist!" said the man with the missing front teeth even as his head flew from his body while mouthing the last three words of his sentence.
"Swarming Barbs." Her body moved on its own as she penetrated each and every last one of them. In disgust and what she deemed as righteous indignation, she turned them all into eunuchs before ending their lives or letting them bleed to death from all their wounds.
Their screams and death rattles made the forest stir and the birds fly away save for the murder of crows that was looking forward to a banquet of corpses.
Many from the surviving Fake Battousai Group drew their weapons and attacked, only to see their limbs fly, their eyes gouged, and their crotches mutilated by the diminutive hellcat whose fury they unleashed. Several others from the gang ran away. None survived that night save for one, but he was going to die anyway one way or another.
"P-Please! I was only joking! I didn't really mean anything I said! You already took away my manhood! Spare my life!" blubbered and squeaked the once proud leader of the Fake Battousai Group while he cringed and murmured under his breath the name "Kyoko-chan," plus the words "Sorry," and "Help me," over and over.
His bleeding crotch leaked a combination of blood and urine over his leg when the Battousai grabbed hold of his hair and moved his face mere inches to hers.
"I am not a sheep in wolf's clothing. It's the other way around. It's Battousai himself who has become nothing more than a yelping dog whose bark is worse than his bite. I'm the new Hitokiri Battousai. I represent the Battousai before he was tamed, when his fangs were still filled with blood."
"I-Is that so? Well then..."
As Keisuke predictably threw sand in the Battousai of Speed's eyes in order to give him time to plunge a dagger into her heart, she declared with shut eyes and mouthful of grit, "Sasori Gatame," and before he knew it, she gutted him like a fish, letting his ropey entrails fall to the ground for the crows to feast upon.
She thought to herself as Keisuke screamed in agony, 'For Shogo-sama, I'll become the better Battousai than the Battousai himself even though I still loathe him and his existence,' as she disappeared back into the woods.
She heard explosive footsteps from the distance. A flicker of her red-haired, cross-scarred image remained for a young, sword-toting man to espy before it dissipated altogether like a forgotten dream in the early morn.
"Himura-san...?"
Tetsuo had heard enough. Like a puppet on strings, Soujiro followed Kaede's suggestion that he use the Shun Ten Satsu. Morinaga had full control of the battle.
If Seta died then and there, there would be no one left in the room (barring that injured Son of Tokyo Samurai Akahori hired as a bodyguard on a whim) left to stop Shogo's sycophantic follower from massacring what was left of the Akahori Family.
Akahori spoke, interrupting the two combatant's battle.
"Am I really the bad guy here? Let's think about this logically for a moment. Your lord and savior, Amakusa Shogo, was the one who led an unnecessary rebellion against a new government that didn't actually ban Christianity as a religion. It's Amakusa who came barreling into Kyoto in order to assassinate former bakufu officials, not the other way around. Many lives were sacrificed, and for what purpose? Petty revenge that made a neutral government become wary of Hidden Christians once more?"
Morinaga hissed, "Are you going to talk me to death, Akahori? Or are you bargaining for your life? You won't be able to buy your bodyguard any more time. I have him and his techniques figured out."
"Hear me out. Mind you, Buddhism faced similar bans, but did you see a Buddhist going up in arms about it? I could probably name one, but he's an exception to the rule and he betrayed his own religion. Christians actually have a history of rebelling against the state. It's only natural for the government to suppress them, given their past history. In fact, these terrorist acts you two are perpetrating aren't helping your cause in the least."
"Killing you is less of a terrorist act and more of karma in action. I know what you did six years ago. I was there." Kaede decided to humor her would-be victim so that she too could take a rest. Figuring out the secret to the Shukuchi proved harder than she initially believed, much more so the Shun Ten Satsu.
"Is your religion worth dying for? Of course, since you're a zealot, you'd probably answer 'Yes' without a second thought. But if you were to think about it for a second, can you still justify your answer? For the sake of worshipping a man who died on the cross then came back to life like some sort of undead abomination, you're going to risk your own lives and the lives of many others? What sort of god would allow you to suffer this much?"
"I'm a recent convert, so I don't have much to say about the religion itself except it at least has its heart in the right place. I'm not one to judge."
"Christians love to paint themselves as good people that are unjustly persecuted by a cruel Japanese government. Are you people really that 'good'? Is stepping on a religious image and renouncing your faith not worth the lives or suffering of the people around you? Is it right to let others endure because of your 'faith'?"
"I'm aware of the double standards. Yes, they are good people. Yes, I would die for them if Shogo-sama wanted me to. Yes, the Japanese government, then and now, remains cruel, vile, and selfish. Shogo-sama and I are going to cleanse your filth from the face of the earth... starting with you."
The politician rubbed his curtain beard. She was a tougher cookie to break than he initially expected. She wasn't the blind Christian zealot he thought her to be, although she was as obsessed with Amakusa as the rest of the cult leader's followers.
'Wait a minute. I remember the police reports concerning that gang who pretended to be the Battousai Group getting castrated by a Battousai look-alike. She's the one who did it. There's no doubt it in my mind.'
The middle-aged man then recalled how close the Fake Battousai was to snapping after her body was touched by Soujiro. 'Didn't she lose her temper as well when she castrated members of that Fake Battousai Group? Why is she reacting so violently to having her true gender exposed? Maybe it has something to do with how it was exposed...'
Tetsuo had all the pieces of the puzzle. He only needed to put them together to uncover the truth behind the Battousai of Speed. It was time for a little experiment.
"Seta-kun, instead of doing the Instant Heaven Murder, why don't you tear her clothes off?"
Soon, the weakness of Soujiro's Shukuchi and his last-ditch effort to defeat the Fake Battousai was the furthest thing from everyone's minds thanks to the audaciousness of the Oyakata's statement.
"Why would I do that, Akahori-san?" Soujiro looked at Akahori as though he stripped himself naked and did a ballerina routine in the middle of the room.
Did the politician snap at the thought of having his daughter's life in danger once more, like the time when he beat the Ten Ken up for stopping him from giving into Amakusa's demands in order to save Rin from harm?
"Because that's her weak point. She has all the earmarks of a victim of child molestation. Have you forgotten what she did to that Fake Battousai Group? She castrated the whole lot of them. She would've done the same to you too had you not possessed the Shukuchi."
"W-What?" All the color drained from the Battousai of Speed's face. Even Yahiko and Rin struggled for words as the black sheep of the Daijokan continued to speak.
"Why do you think she overreacted when you touched her breast? When you tore apart her clothes? She wasn't only flustered. She was hysterical. Don't let her calmness fool you. She's using her anger to sharpen her senses and keep up with your pace."
"...Shut up."
"Even now, you can't use your sixth sense to judge her movements, can you, Seta-kun? She's been emanating hatred and bloodlust all this time. However, her greatest strength is also her weakness. If I have to hazard a guess, she's been fighting you with everything she got in order to forget a bad memory of hers."
"I said SHUT UP!" screamed the Fake Battousai as she attacked the Oyakata instead of Soujiro, which prompted the Heaven Sword to leap into action with a battoujutsu strike to intercept her charge.
"She hated the name Battousai, even though she's forced to use it. I don't think it's a coincidence that she even looks like him. Here's what I think happened. Once upon a time, our little princess was attacked by a gang of people when she was quite young. Her samurai in shining armor, Amakusa Shogo, came to her rescue along with his beloved sister, Lady Magdalia."
"Keep your filthy mouth shut," she grunted under her breath with grit teeth as the Ten Ken put her on the defensive, none of her Swarming Barbs, Deathstalker Stabs, and Scorpion Nests landing on the smiling bodyguard of the bastard she wanted to silence forever.
"Oyakata, you snake in the grass! What the hell are you saying?" Yahiko grabbed hold of the curtain-bearded man's collar and lifted him off the ground. "You're willing to traumatize her with her horrible past just to save your own pathetic hide?"
"Listen to yourself. You're the one who's not making sense here. We're dealing with a terrorist. She's out to kill me and my only daughter. If she has past trauma I can exploit so that my family can survive, then so be it."
"This is a bit too extreme, Akahori-san. I'm sorry, but won't do it."
Even Soujiro expressed his disapproval of the Oyakata's methods, to the point of not bothering to follow the old man's commands, opting instead to fight the way he usually fought. It didn't matter anyway, as the reserved Morinaga remained too distracted to address the growing lapses in her usually ironclad defense.
"T-Ten Ken..." she whispered with pinkish cheeks.
Akahori resumed his speech. "I wouldn't be surprised if, for the longest time, she had a fear of men in general. The Kakure Kirishitan helped 'heal' her trauma by brainwashing her into becoming one with their cult who worshipped a bloodied Jew nailed to a cross as god and symbolically partook in his flesh like cannibals. Both brother and sister trained her and turned her into a killing machine so that they can use her past trauma and boundless rage to their advantage."
"THAT'S A LIE! Don't you dare use the names of Magdalia-sama and Shogo-sama in vain!" screamed Morinaga in remembrance of her actual master, Doraku Akatsuki, and his strange pledge to her the night when her foster mother died.
Nevertheless, Akahori's words still struck home. The diversion made her miss blocking Seta's battoujutsu strike to the neck with the Vise Grip, which had her topple over to keep her head from flying off of her shoulders. She scurried away like a crab before Soujiro could use the floor as his chopping block of sorts.
"Actually, the people who attacked and sexually abused her probably hated the Hitokiri Battousai. That was the reason why they chose her as their victim. She was supposed to act as their substitute for Battousai. She was the poor unfortunate soul whom they used to vent their anger and frustration on. She'll always be angry with Himura Battousai because it was his existence who caused her harm and made her suffer."
"SHUT UP! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTPUP! GAAHH!" Shrieking like a banshee or an onryo as tears streamed down her eyes, Morinaga attacked Soujiro with endless combinations of Swarming Barbs and Scorpion Nests that exploded like bullet holes and cannon blasts on the walls and floor.
"Just because I looked like him! JUST BECAUSE I LOOKED LIKE BATTOUSAI, MOMMY HAD TO DIE AND I HAD TO SUFFER TOO!"
"Mommy...?" mouthed Yahiko as he let go off the Oyakata while Rin moved beside her father as the politician tried to catch his breath. The next thing they knew, a wakizashi went flying straight towards Tetsuo Akahori's head.
A long time ago in the Yoshiwara Red Light District...
"Fucking Battousai. Turn me into an amputee cripple, why don't you? Suck on it hard, bitch! Make me feel good!"
"Whoa. Easy there, Bro! That's not the Battousai you have on all fours!"
"Yeah, man. There's plenty for everybody! Don't damage the goods!"
"Mister Customer, please! You're being too rough! I can't handle all of you at once!"
"Shut up, bitch! We all paid good money for you!"
"Leave Mizuki-san alone!"
"Get away from here, you little runt!"
"OW! DAMMIT!"
"Will you look at that? He looks like a miniature Battousai, doesn't he? He even has red hair too!"
"Come to think of it, he does. Maybe if we pay extra..."
"Please, good sirs, leave my child alone! He has nothing to do with this!"
"So he's your brat? Well, fuck it. Who cares about the son of a whore? Grab him!"
"NO! MOTHER!"
"AH, MY EYE! YOU WHORE!"
"Kaede! Run away!"
"OUCH! You goddamned bitch! GO GRAB HOLD OF THE BRAT!"
"P-Please, spare the child."
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH, PIG!"
"H-How did you get that in? Weapons aren't allowed inside Yoshiwara!"
"This will teach you to mess with me, slut!"
"AAAAHHH!"
"...Mommy?"
"You have quite the face on you."
"Let go of me! Mommy! No! She needs to go see a doctor! Please, mister! She's bleeding everywhere!"
"You fucking idiot. I'm the one who made her bleed. Then again, that red hair and pretty face of yours is making me real hard."
"W-What? Why? No! Why are you doing this? NO!"
"I've heard enough from you. Shut up and take your damn clothes off!"
"I-I'm... a-a boy! Please, no!"
"Who cares? It doesn't matter if you're a little boy or girl as long as you're cute. You're as pretty as the Battousai himself, in fact."
"Why are you doing this? What did we ever do to you?"
"Kaede? No! Please! He's just a child! Take me instead!"
"Quiet, bitch! Stand back and watch! We aren't through with you!"
"For tonight, you'll pretend to be Battousai for me. I'll make you scream just as he made me scream. Don't worry. I'm a nice guy, so I'll at least make sure you'll enjoy it too.
"You're sick the head! Are you even listening! STOP! What are you doing?"
"AUUUGGH!"
"Whoa, Aniki. This is fucked up. Did you need to put that scar on the little kid's cheek?"
"NO! STOP! DON'T TOUCH HIM! HE DOESN'T DESERVE ANY OF THIS!"
"Are you fucking moron? We've already crossed the line. Run away if you want to. I'm going to enjoy myself here if you need me."
"..."
"Let go of me, you pervert! Lecher! It hurts! Help! Somebody HELP! Mommy! MOMMY...!"
"STOP! NO! STOP IT! SOMEBODY HELP US!"
"...Well, well, well. Someone's been lying about being a boy. A little something is missing down below. You've been very, very naughty. Don't worry your pretty little head, though. I'll make a woman out of you."
Thanks to the Shukuchi, Soujiro "teleported" in time to keep the short sword from piercing his boss's head. However, the assault didn't end there.
Although her foot speed would never be a match against the full speed of Soujiro's Shukuchi, Kaede was still able to catch up to the Ten Ken back when he was carrying Rin away from Amakusa thanks to her miniature bursts of speed in short distances. This allowed her to dash before Akahori in order to skewer him while her wakizashi still spun in the air.
A curious thing happened, though. The porcelain doll of a girl that was Akahori's daughter threw herself into harm's way before Morinaga's sword could plunge into the politician's cold and black heart.
Afterwards, the Fake Battousai had to withdraw her Deathstalker Stab, grab hold of her short sword, and block the Ten Ken's instantaneous battoujutsu slash to her semi-exposed chest with a Scissor Grip.
Her blades and arms then got flung into opposite directions thanks to the strength of the Ten Ken's sword-drawing strike that made its mark in between her breasts anyway. She didn't grip her blades in time to strengthen the block.
'Did the Ten Ken's battoujutsu suddenly go faster than before?' Morinaga thought as the world spun around her, the blood from her wounds trickling down to her legs. Had Kaede not detected Soujiro's bloodlust at the last minute, she would've ended up without an arm. 'Hold on a minute...'
'Son of a bitch.'
Meanwhile, for the first time, Yahiko saw Kaede's wakizashi up close. His face wrinkled and distorted upon realizing that the short sword was a reverse-edged one, just like Minoe's.
'Was it a coincidence? Am I imagining things? Did that bitch...?' Myojin contemplated the meaning behind the reverse-edged wakizashi, recalling the bits and pieces of Munenori Minoe's unrecognizable corpse raining down on him a while back.
Like a ray of light, a beam of enlightenment struck Yahiko right between the eyes. What if Minoe's grisly demise atop the portico of the ballroom wasn't in the hands of Amakusa and the Ryu Sou Sen or Kuzu Ryu Sen, but instead in the hands of his accomplice, Morinaga, and her similar slashing technique, the Scorpion Nest?
Instead of following up his attack, Soujiro knelt down to Rin's side... she ended up on her posterior after jumping to her father's rescue... and offered his hand to her. "Can you stand up? Are you okay?"
Instead of accepting Soujiro's help, Rin got up on her own and said to him, "Seta-kun, don't make me your weak point. Think for yourself. Never live for the sake of another, nor ask another to live for you."
"I believe it's time for some audience participation! Scorpio Stance: Flying Tail Stinger," said Kaede as she threw her wakizashi to the air.
"RIN! GET AWAY!" barked Akahori as he pushed his daughter into Yahiko's arms in time for his forearm to get stabbed by Morinaga's falling wakizashi.
Meanwhile, Yahiko ushered Rin near the wall where Amakusa lay so that the Battousai of Speed wouldn't dare use her wide-area Swarming Barbs or Scorpion Nest on them for risk of hurting the Christian leader. He gripped the Akahori daughter's shoulders tightly, which caused him to accidentally bruise her.
Tetsuo yelped in pain as Kaede attempted to drag him away using the jutting sword handle as her leverage, but he managed to tear the blade away before further damage was inflicted on his stabbed arm. "Don't touch me, you dirty bitch!"
The Battousai of Speed's lazy-eyed blank stare was now accompanied by a not-so-cherubic smile. "Shogo-sama was right. You really are the devil for saying those nasty things about me. But I can be a devil too, you know."
Soujiro rained steel death upon Kaede, but she responded in kind by circling around him with the stuttered steps of her Crabwise Stalk as well as the impenetrable shield of her Protective Shell blocks and Scorpion Nest counters.
The Ten Ken's reflexes had actually improved somewhat thanks to him getting used to the patterns of his opponent's combinations. However, there was something slightly different about Morinaga. For one thing, both she and Soujiro were now smiling. For another thing, she was cackling after every exchange.
As soon as the furious onslaught of crisscrossing blades happened, everything stopped altogether. The pace slowed, and for a whole minute, Soujiro did nothing but stalk with his Two-Step and One-Step Shukuchi while Kaede bided her time, giving grinning glances to both the Elder Akahori on one side of the room near the window and Yahiko plus the Younger Akahori on the other side of the room.
"You thought you can make me fall into the slippery slope by reminding me of my past. And maybe I did. A little. But I'm going to make you regret your actions. The things that are about to happen are all your fault. You only have yourself and your boss to blame."
Even though her chest continued to bleed, Morinaga was the one to charge and trade sword swings with the Heaven Sword. Her Crabwise Stalk and counterclockwise movement allowed her to land her counter right slashes from her uchigatana while deflecting any resulting ripostes from Seta's part.
"It's show time." She then made the move she'd been planning to do all that time: Fire off a Flying Tail Stinger at Rin and using her stuttered step to finish off Tetsuo while Soujiro had to pick which one to save. Killing not two, but three birds with twin blades.
Soujiro parried and let the wakizashi fly to the wall before turning, blasting off with the Shukuchi, and intercepting the one-bladed Battousai of Speed with multiple slashes.
Instead of blocking because she lacked a short sword, Kaede contented herself to landing vigorous stabs and slashes while using her Crypsis to ruin the Ten Ken's depth perception. This allowed her to land more than he did, but her lack of a hard block resulted in him adding more stinging cuts to her side and thigh.
A Crabwise Stalk sidestep escape later, and she was back in the middle of the room, her wakizashi in hand. "Let's do that again. This time in reverse."
The wakizashi again flew right at Yahiko and Rin's direction, which made the Tokyo Samurai Descendant draw his blade to deflect it. "Psycho-Kid! She's making a fool out of you! Let me defend your girlfriend while you protect the Oyakata so you won't have to run around all over the place!"
Seta would have none of that, though, traveling right towards the Akahori daughter even as Morinaga leapt up to grab hold of her short sword in mid-flight and prepared to throw it at the Akahori patriarch.
However, that was a feinted throw, and as Soujiro nearly fell for it, he barely had time to avoid getting stabbed on the foot by the "Scorpio Stance: Falling Tail Stinger."
The Ten Ken's attempt at retaliation was promptly blocked by an overhead Vise Grip that disarmed him and left him wide open to a Deathstalker Stab from below as well as the Rising Tail Stinger (a stab that also struck from an upward angle) through Kaede's reverse-edged wakizashi.
'Mind games. She's using mind games and the three of us as sitting ducks in order to force Seta-kun to save us from harm, waste his energy, and leave him open to counterattacks,' mused Tetsuo while he squeezed at his throbbing arm.
Instead of charging, Morinaga walked to the middle of the room while she waited for Soujiro to pick up his weapon. The Heaven Sword did just that using the Shukuchi, but as soon as he sheathed his Kikuichi Monji, he also grabbed hold of Rin in his arms in a bid to save her and Tetsuo from harm by running away with the both of them.
Kaede's kick to the Ten Ken's leg that was injured from his fight against Amakusa earlier aborted that plan in an instant. Yahiko caught the light blonde girl with bleak eyes in the nick of time, half-expecting her to shatter like glass as soon as she fell to his arms.
"The game's not over yet. No cheating."
With that said, the hooting and hollering Morinaga again threw her short sword at the politician, which predictably prompted Soujiro to run after it. However, before it could even hit its mark, Kaede caught it in midair and threw it at the opposite direction, right in between Rin's eyes.
Despite his internal organs slamming into his rib cage after he halted his momentum and reversed gears, Soujiro grinned through the pain and promptly deflected the flying blade before it could harm a hair on Rin's head.
As though she were using the Shukuchi as well, Kaede flickered into existence right in front of Soujiro, placed his sword in her Vise Grip, turned it aside, and stabbed right through his uninjured thigh with the Falling Tail Stinger.
"I can feel it. Your bloodlust. On top of my Antennae sensing your every movement, I can now read your emotions and predict your actions. You're angry at me for daring to harm Akahori Rin, aren't you? You should be more honest with yourself."
Yahiko Myojin had a lot on his mind. Firstly, the Oyakata confirmed that this Battousai of Speed from the Battousai Group was probably the one who finished off the Fake Battousai Group and grievously injured Keisuke to the point of Soujiro having to mercy-kill the bastard.
Secondly, she all but confessed that she'd been traumatized as a child when she went crazy and attacked Akahori and his daughter for revealing her dark past. She also mentioned something about her "Mommy".
Thirdly, she might be the one who killed Minoe back at the ballroom, as evidenced by her bloody, reverse-edged wakizashi and her Scorpion Nest technique. All that time, Yahiko thought Minoe had been finished off by Amakusa's Dragon Nest Flash.
Regardless of her circumstances, she was still a terrorist and an assassin whose acts were grounds for treason.
Meanwhile, Soujiro's Shukuchi had slowed down to around Shinsoki levels, and the No-Step Shukuchi was now out of the question. He remained faster than the eye could follow, but not faster than the eye could see. 'I can't believe I'm saying this, but Psycho-kid's in trouble!'
For long stretches of time, Morinaga paused as if to take a breather, setting the pace whenever she wanted, and having breaks at her behest as well until Soujiro himself attacked and left himself open for her counterstrikes.
"Where do you think you're going?" the Tokyoite blurted out as he saw the pale, half-blind girl move into the proverbial line of fire.
"I have no intention of letting myself become Seta-kun's weak point. The sooner I can make him embrace his true self, the sooner we can get out of this mess."
"And you're going to do that how? By sacrificing yourself for him? I have no intention of letting you turn yourself into a meat shield for Psycho-Kid's sake either!"
"Seta-kun needs to stop limiting his abilities by blindly following the values of others."
"Ugh. Like father, like daughter, huh? You're both insane!"
Next: The Ten Ken awakens.
Here's a little bit of trivia for you. The Battousai of Speed's family name, Morinaga, was taken from the name of Kenshin Himura's anime voice actress, Mayo Suzukaze, or rather her real name, Kaname Morinaga. As for the name Kaede, that's a unisex name.
Open your eyes,
Abdiel