It's a sad day indeed. I have just read the FINAL chapter of Kenichi. It's over?! Noooooooo! It can't end! And those bastards have the nerve to end it with a fucking cliffhanger too. Damn it. Now how do I spend my Fridays?

Go outside!

...no...

Chapter 35

Assassins Unite

Taka slowly crept through the thicket of Ryozanpaku's back yard. The calm flow of the hot springs could be heard right behind him so all he needed to do was walk directly away from it. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. As Taka's training routine usually went today was awareness day, as Shigure liked to call it. All the timer they had dedicated to sharpening Taka's perception and instincts in one of the hardest ways Shigure knew how.

It came as no surprise to him that she changed the traps... Again.

So no matter how low he crept there was still no telling which trap was a real one or which one was a fake, that is of he could find every single one, which he couldn't since his sensei had upped the difficulty every freaking time. If he didn't love how much stronger he was getting, he would have assumed she was trying to legitimately hurt him.

Though Taka felt comfort knowing that his partner wasn't trying to do such a thing without it being for training purposes. Something about that felt loads better than her hurting him for emotional reasons, though that seemed pretty hard to do. Shigure rarely showed emotions and when she duff they were happy ones or passionate ones. The only thing remotely close to anger he could think of was when she thought Taka was showing affection for Renka, even then she was quick to cheer up once she knew the truth.

He was glad to know that she trusted him, more than she did with anyone else it seemed. That made him happy knowing that what they had was becoming an actual relationship rather than some teenage fling. He never did get to experience the horrors of teenage drama, which he supposed was the reasoning behind their very mature relationship.

Suddenly a loud snap sounded behind him and Taka instinctively dove out of the way from the giant tick that dropped down in his place, picking up dust and leaves into the air. Taka shielded his face as he took a rubbing start, knowing full well that the other traps were bound to go off one after another.

The assassin kicked himself up the giant rock and vaulted over the top of it. As he looked down he saw a spike pity open up beneath him. He desperately reached up and grabbed onto a branch, swinging himself to another. Once he swung to the other branch he found himself falling as the pre-cut branch snapped from his weight.

Taka landed swiftly on the ground, hearing another snap of a branch that sprung him into action. From behind him a log that once looked like a tree sticking out of the ground came undone from its trap and swung toward Taka along with another one in front of it and another behind it. Taka was right in the middle of their line of fire. As both logs swung toward him he jumped straight up and landed on the middle log, holding on to the rope that held it up. As the velocity of the traps began to slow, the assassin jumped to the second log and continued running.

The light at the end of the path became visible and he picked up speed, jumping over a trip wire which only set off another one. As he nearly reached the end of the path and nearly came out into the warm sun of the Ryozanpaku yard another trap went off. Two bamboo sticks with sharpened tips swung down on him at the same time with no warning. As soon as the green poles caught his eye, Taka immediately dove forward. He touched his palm on the ground, propelling himself into the air, able to do a successful front flip between the two poles without getting hit.

Taka came to a stumbling halt at the end of the path and looked back at the remnants of the traps. A giant boulder, a deep pit, several crashed logs which had all been reused from last time. It was a mess, but he knew that he had done a successful session. He may have set them all off, but he was able to dodge them more fluently than before when he would dive and scramble to get out of the way.

"You're agility... is getting better." Shigure said from behind him, her arms folded with a proud smile across her face.

Taka panted from the stress of the deadly training and the fatigue, but pumped his fist. "Well..." He panted. "I learn from the best." Her lips curled into a smile at that as Taka brushed past her, laying a light kiss on her cheek. The swordswoman's face lit up with a blushing smile as he gave her a tight hug. "Thanks." He patted her on the shoulder, uncomfortable from how sweaty he had become.

Taka felt his damp training shirt, impressed that the shirt still held up after all those times being cut and mended by his teacher. The thing had certainly been through a lot. Shigure smiled as she took not of all the stitches scattered along the top. He needed some new gear, especially as a student of the weapons world of martial arts. She wondered why she hadn't gotten the essential things before.

"Let's continue." She nodded, making plots in her head as to what would suit a fighter such as Taka. He used both armed and unarmed styles and utilized his agility much during training.

Taka favored more fist work and never really used any kicks during sparring matches with Kenichi. He needed to be allowed light weight and flexibility, so loose fitting pants were the best choice. The top would be different, since he was a weapon user he needed multiple areas to hide weapons. Shigure took pride in modeling his kimono in a smaller fashion like hers, only his would be a different color. Dark grey or white would do just fine. She wanted to make him a pair of arm guards, but figured that it would be the perfect training for him. So she would simply make him some protective chainmail until she could teach him to do that as well.

Shigure nodded to herself as they entered the dojo. That uniform would look good on him, and even better than that she could present it as a gift. He was her first significant other and every since their relationship had begun the sword mistress wanted to show her appreciation in some way. A gift was perfect for the situation and very appropriate.

Taka would be going out again tonight as he had been doing more often now. His self made war with Ragnarok had been more intense now as more and more incidents were brought to his notice. This served as even more motivation for him to speed up the formation of his guild which had been gaining strength every day of the week. His leadership skills became evident each and every night that he received a call from his Office General. More and more Shigure became convinced that Taka's motivations were the exact same as Kenichi. They wanted to stop Ragnarok because everyone was scared of them.

Kenichi only wanted to be better than them and prove that conflict wasn't the answer. The proper choice, Shigure had to admit that, but Taka was more focused on sitting them down by giving them a more ironic punishment and scaring them into submission.

She hated to admit it, but he was more like her than anyone else. Everything he did besides the killing and recruiting was something she would have done if she was him.

"I'm gonna be fighting a lot more often here soon." Tags suddenly said, starting distantly off into space. Shigure glanced at him causing him to look directly at her. "A lot of my time is going to be taken."

"Then you'll... train harder... When you can." She nodded in indifference. Taka's hand came to her shoulder and she immediately looked around to meet his eyes.

Taka gave her an apologetic stare and shook his head, a bit unsure of himself. "We should go on another date soon. While we can." His lips curled into a wide smile and he winked at his master. "After all. It could be our last."

The swordswoman smiled as he quoted her and nodded back to him. "That's my... apprentice."

"How does friday sound?" He smirked, wrapping his arms around her waist, ignoring the wide open door. "I know the perfect place." His hand lightly rubbed under her chin with an eager smile.

"What kind... of place?" She smiled at him, already excited from their plans.

He mimicked her as he placed a finger over her lips and his voice lowered and sounded a little bit like hers. "It's a... secret." He chuckled at his perfect imitation that caused her to blush a bit. Suddenly the spiky haired teen leaned in and laid a peck of a kiss before letting go of her and heading over to his blindfold which was lying next to the door as always.

He quickly pulled on the strip of cloth and waited for his master to present him with a weapon as he usually did. Shigure regained her composure and nodded to herself, presenting him with a pair of arm guards.

"Unarmed training, again." He nodded to her, taking a deep nervous breath. "Outstanding." He said with disdain.

As Taka limped into the dining room as did Kenichi and Miyako, though no one was in worse shape than Taka had been lately. It had been a routine ever since Taka began his advanced training. He would come to dinner in pain, and Miyako would do her damnest to pick on him because she knew he had very little energy left to argue with her.

This time she came in with her headphones in, taking note of his shape which was the worst he had ever been in. So she decided to be extra cruel with him. The goth girl came in headbanging, shaking her younger brother as she listened to his absolute favorite song.

"Sing with me little brother." She shook him, unplugging her headset, letting him hear the song.

Taka grunted in anger as she teased him on. He was too tired to rock out today. "Ugh, you suck."

"Generals gathered in their masses!" She banged her head and hopped on his back. Taka immediately grunted from the pain, but was easily able to hold her up. "Just like witches at black masses!"

"Damn it, Miyako." He grunted again. "Get off."

"Evil minds that plot destruction!" She sang along, as Kenichi raised his eyebrow. The other masters simply laughed at the sister's teasing. "Sorcerer of death's construction!" She laughed and shook his head left and right. "Come on, just give me one line and I'll stop."

"I can't." He coughed, still out of breath.

"In the fields of bodies burning!" She sang on, shaking his head violently. "As the war machine keeps turning!"

He grunted as his sister's grasp tightened. "Death and hatred to mankind! Poisoning their brainwashed minds!"

Miyako laughed as Taka broke out coughing. She highly enjoyed his fatigued, raspy voice. "Maybe you should take it easy on the harder training."

"The pain means it's working." He calmed down his coughs as his sister shut off her music player.

"Interesting lyrics." Akisame commented with a light smirk. "It's not exactly a happy song, is it?"

"Not at all." Miyako laughed, joining everyone at the table. "That's metal for you." She laughed on.

"I like it." Sakaki shrugged, tipping his can upward.

Taka felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, and Shigure immediately glanced up at him. He gave her a reassuring nod and stepped out of the room. The sword woman stood up while everyone else was deep in conversation about the Oyama family music choice.

The assassin held his mobile up to his ear and stepped off the wood flooring of the main building's floor. He paced around in the dimly lit darkness as Shigure watched him from the porch.

"Yeah?" He answered, glancing up at her patient stare.

"I have sufficient information on the god of thunder." the person on the other end, Hidaka, replied simply.

"Very good." He looked up, thinking out their next move. "Meet me at the hideout in an hour." He glanced up at Shigure's disapproving look. "Have the squad leaders gather their men. All of them."

"It's a good idea for the leader to at least see his men." Hidaka replied. "I will be there."

"Very good." Taka nodded then quickly hung up his cell.

Shigure had already stepped away from the house. Taka wrapped an arm around her waste immediately with a tired smile.

"You are going... to fight him?" Shigure wondered out loud nor approving or disapproving.

He merely shook his head at her question. "No. I'm too tired, and I may not have to either." He let out a sigh then stared into the open door of the dojo. "If Thor has any honor to him, I'll leave him to Kenichi to fight. If he's as ruthless as Loki, then I'll step in."

The sword mistress nodded to herself at his wise decision. She was happy that he was above fighting every single person he could and at least had the conscience to stay away from a fight for once. Her eyes trailed down to his newly torn shirt. New holes were placed in the chest which she stuck her fingers through, feeling his warm chest.

"You're progressing... well." She smiled proudly, knowing that praising Taka was different than progressing Kenichi. Since Kenichi would get confident, while Taka never saw himself as good enough, so he was always forcing himself to become better. Taka chuckled as she rubbed her hands along his strong chest. "You didn't get hit as much... this time."

"I'm never good enough until I put one in you." He chuckled with a dark smile. Shigure smiled at his playful flirting and shook her head. "That'll never happen, my disciple."

The next room was surprisingly silent despite Shiji's claim that all eighty of the assassins had been gathered. Taka glanced at the weapon supplier in surprise. "I don't hear anyone."

"They've gained quite a bit of disciple." Shiji nodded to Taka then to Hidaka. "Thanks to our Office General here."

"Is that right." Taka was grateful to his double for his extra efforts. The ex-hitman merely bowed his head without another word. "How are Rook and Hana doing in their training?"

Renka and Ruby stepped forth after that, both looking proud of their work. Even the red masked girl's eyelids lifted. "They're very good now. At least enough to defeat Valkyrie, but not Hermit or Seigfried."

"I've also taught them a bit of Chinese Kenpo and escape tricks in case things get ugly." The Chinese girl beamed at the lead assassin.

"Very good." He nodded then turned to Hidaka. "What about Thor? What's he like?"

"Strong." His double admitted. "He specializes in combat sumo. Anyone he faces gets easily overpowered. I've also picked up a few moves from his style enough to mimic him." He then waved his hands. "Anyway, you wouldn't need to fight him. When I spectated I found that he often speaks of his love for Sumo. That his dream is for being a bigger person to be considered beautiful."

Taka hummed and bobbed his head. "So he's an honorable fighter. That's good." He looked to Shiji. "Contact Nijima and tell him that Thor is all up to Kenichi to fight."

"Yessir!" Shiji smiled at him, then Taka turned to the door with an uneasy shake of the head.

"There's a ton of people in there." He sighed with uneasiness. All of his friends looked at him. They were not his underlings, they were some of his closest people. "Are you sure these people will obey me? What if they cause trouble and bring us out into the open. That'll bring this entire operation down."

"Just scare them so that they'll be too afraid to betray you." The hooded Renka shrugged with a flirty wink at him. Taka merely rolled his eyes, not wanting to do that to his own allies.

"If I may." Hidaka stepped in. "I've had some experience in this sort of thing. Try studying military principals of leaderships." Taka merely scoffed and shook his head at that, but Hidaka held up his hand and continued. "The military does a good job at keeping people in line. I'll help you with this. We've already started with the first step. Discipline."

Taka nodded. "Like boot camp?"

"Exactly. Put them through hell and train the hell out of them until they're ready for war. At the same time you have to educate them with a sort of mentality. For instance, the United States Marines have the mentality to do their job without question and never submit. Though they also hold a strong sense of team work. I've heard many stories about soldiers being shot in battle and their allies drop everything to help them."

The leader blinked in astonishment. "Wow."

"So you want to put a vision in their heads." He explained. "As assassins what kind of vision do we have?"

"To put an end to people who hurt other people for their own amusement or greedy pleasure." Taka replied. "Basically fighting against much more violent and dangerous bullies."

"Okay. That's good. Since most of those people have been bullied in some way, that'll certainly work." Hidaka paced behind him and put a hand on Taka's shoulder as he started toward the door. "Oh also, there's also another thing you should keep in mind as a leader."

"What's that?" Taka wondered out loud with curiosity.

"There's two objectives to leadership. The primary is mission accomplishment." He held up his fingers. "The secondary is the welfare of your subordinates. Look after them and they'll look after you. It'll promote teamwork."

"Got it." Taka nodded, glancing to his other more skilled assassins. Ruby was the first to step forward and patted him on the shoulder.

"You got this."

Then Shiji passed him with a friendly smile and shook his hand. "You'll make a great leader."

Then Renka reached him and threw herself at him, hugging him tightly despite his protesting. "Go get them, Taka!"

The chinese assassin giggled as she entered the room then Hidaka walked in after her. Taka took in a deep breath then nodded to himself, pulling up the hood to his black robes. He smiled as the triangle end went over his face a bit.

He opened the door after Hidaka and stepped inside, instantly overwhelmed by the bright white light, and surprised by the huge open room. Shiji must have taken out five walls to fit this room in the motel hideout. There were three different groups separated, each with a different person standing directly in front of it. The smaller Hana held a very stern look in front of her squad as did Rook. Shiji seemed more of a laid back leader, but his squad was ever silent.

As soon as the leader stepped inside, Ruby and Hidaka cocked their heads forward. Then suddenly Office General hardened his face. "Grand Master on deck!"

At those words each and every one of the assassins in the room stiffened up and stood at attention without a word. Hidaka's training on them was starting to show, and Taka was impressed by the amount of discipline they already had.

The crowd of hooded people looked a lot like an army of clones at first glance, but a closer look showed many different shapes and sizes of people, each of them showing their loyalty to Taka.

"My name is Tsute Neshimaru." Taka chanted, echoing throughout the room. "If you are here, then you're just like me. You've been bullied." He paced in front of the huge crowds watching their curious eyes follow him. "You've all been hurt by Ragnarok. You're scared just like me. But here this! We are no longer the people we used to be. We do not submit to the fear in our hearts. We put it in those of the bad guy! When you see someone being attacked or bullied on the street I expect each and every one of you to help the victim no matter what you're doing! Every person you save today is an ally tomorrow."

Taka was surprised with how much his words seemed to strike the peoples' hearts.

"Ragnarok has numbers, now so do we." Taka continued, passing in front of Renka. "But we are not like them! You've all been divided for a purpose. Look around you! These people are your family now! Your entire squad is a gathering of your brothers and sisters! But just because we are a strong force does not mean you can go out there and act like one of Ragnarok, and if you do you'll have me to answer to, and I won't hold back on you. We assassins have a certain conduct that we live by." He held up his fingers as he returned to the center. "Four tenets. The first is to stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent, for if you strike down someone who doesn't deserve it, you are nothing by murderous scum. The second is to hide in plain sight, because we are assassins and the shadows are our greatest weapon. The third is to never compromise the brotherhood! This is the most important of all, because if everyone knew who we were then we'd be sitting ducks. Who you are in the brotherhood is not your true identity, so hide it from everyone and do not speak of the brotherhood ever! The fourth is to always give a second chance. We seek to save everyone we can, even our enemies. If they take this warning for granite, then we'll know that they deserve to be punished."

He took a step forth and looked around in astonishment at all the people he had under his command, these people were all his allies who were here seeking his guidance.

"Your squad leaders have been given your objectives. You are all dismissed!" He waved his hand and every one of the assassin bowed to him, but once they bowed down they didn't rise. Taka noticed that they were waiting for him to bow back, so with a smile he did so. It wasn't long before the room was cleared of the assassins and Taka was left with his highest ranking people.

Rook and Hana approached him looking rather inspired from his words. The shade's leader smiled at him. "That was a good speech. Are you sure you only need us for information?"

Taka nodded. "Unless Ragnarok assembles every single one of their men then we don't need to use all of ours for combat either. We need all the information we can get. Just keep your men searching around for any dirt on Ragnarok that we can get."

"So with Shimpaku taking care of Thor, we should probably move on to another fist. Perhaps Valkyrie." Shiji pointed out.

"I thought I faced her already." Taka peered. "Don't tell me she's still in Ragnarok.

"Well your last warning wasn't exactly a threatening one." Ruby pointed out. "It wasn't as effective as your latest ones." Taka peered at her, remembering how Ruby was spying on him that day.

"So Valkyrie, huh." He nodded, stepping away. "She doesn't seem that complicated to be honest. She's very prideful, but she doesn't seem like as much of a bully as the other fists."

"I'll start my people on it right away." Hana declared right away.

"Very good. Don't engage her though, once you've found out anything come back and tell me." Taka nodded then waved the two squad leaders out the door. "Everyone else is dismissed. Ruby, I want you to spectate on Kenichi's fight. If things get out of hand, lend him a bit of assistance."

"Yessir!"

Okay, so many of you have probably heard Taka's favorite song before.

If you can name that song, you'll get a special honorable mention in the next chapter. I'll even throw in a special pick up line just because.

Send your thoughts, moans, groans, complaints, whatever you can fit into that tiny little box. Okay? Great.

Arigato.