We will make it out alive
There's a note in the pages of the book
So Sleep tonight,
We'll sleep dreamlessly this time
When we awake we'll know that everything's alright
-Arise, Flyleaf
It's as I feared.
The Shinobi were motionless yet possessed an underlying tenseness to their straight-backed posture. At a single word they would jump in. It made Kei wonder just how far they would go to protect their team leader's life. What was strange was that Shihoin had sent another..to lead the mission. No matter.
SoiFong's eyes bored into hers then fell to the long silver blade tilted downward at her side. "Relinquish your weapons." The imperious command struck something deep within Fire's sleeping volatility. Kagami still held Sazanami and the others slipped through the bag over his shoulder. The four hilts; three created, one true, resonated with discontent.
Tensa..for a moment, Kei remembered vividly the first sword she had ever held a right of wielding with. Oni-hime. But, that sword...
She closed her eyes then opened them, her lips parting to announce denial in the face of death.
No longer existed.
One of the Shinobi held a blade to Takara's throat. The blonde whimpered and twisted in the black-masked man's grip, but the tip of the dagger sunk lower, almost piercing the jugular.
"Don't. Takara." Kei warned, sternly yet locking eyes with the younger girl. Takara nodded jerkily a moment later, stilling her movements. Then, Kei glanced to SoiFong; the one whom had assisted in her escape. What difference four months wrought. Pained beyond the facial facade, Kei endeavored to suppress her hurt, knowing full well that tears would never sway the hardened Stealth Force officer.
"If we refuse to disarm, what will happen?"
SoiFong looked at her steadily. The blade descended until a thin line of red had beaded up along the horizontal glide of the knife tip.
"I see." Kei said carefully, ever aware of the tightening of Kagami's hand around Sazanami's hilt. "Then..." her hand reached up, brushing the side of her neck. "Kill me first however I only ask that she be let go. She has nothing to do with this."
For a moment Kei saw that there was a chance. A softening in the woman's cold eyes, then it was gone. Only stony indifference remained. "Done." SoiFong dismissed, never giving the order for the threat to be removed. The Lie was staring her right in the face. SoiFong wouldn't let anyone leave the field alive.
And if that was the case...
Her hand opened, Getsu-ten's blade began to fall to the earth.
I will not go down without a fight.
(*~*)
"All right." Surrender was easier. Kanzaki had retained enough respect for his fellow officers to know when to give-in. As it stood, he and the rest of the Shinigami could not hope to defeat them. Botan let him stand, keeping him within range of her aim as he Shunpo'd down, his hands already sliding the sheath from his sash.
The moment Rizu saw him, encircled as she was by the three similar dressed Shinobi; she cried, "Karasu!" Her eyes behind the glass frames glittered with anger and disappointment as she watched his relinquishment. "Karasu! Why?" The plaintive note was there. Like a cry, like a reproach that lacked harshness.
Kanzaki had no words. How could he explain that this was better, for their own good? To fight the inevitable meant more bloodshed and as much as possible he wished to avoid it. Leaves crackled underfoot, two more Stealth Force officers appeared, bringing with them Dani and Zoe. Both women were grim-faced, Zoe nearly expressionless when she beheld Shihoin Yoruichi herself.
"Abandoning your post! What have you to say for yourself?" Botan spat, light brown eyes aglow with fury. "Your eminence." Kanzaki said, dipping his head in acknowledgement of the Noble. Shihoin's expression was unreadable, yellow-green eyes flickering over the assemblage slowly being gathered from the surrounding area.
Finally unable to bear his servile silence, Rizu spoke out. "Some of those here have nothing on their records. They should be let go."
Hana regarded the elder woman with large, frightened eyes.
"Such as you?" Botan sneered, mockery in her tone.
"No." Rizu replied evenly, locking eyes with the Shinobi. "I'll admit I was charged with conspiring with a Quincy against the King."
Smugness radiated from Botan's aura.
"However." Rizu slowly turned to look at Shihoin. "It was false. There is no one in this world that can deny the right to another's existence."
The sound of flesh being struck resounded around the small clearing. Botan's upraised hand trembled, the part of her face that remained exposed was white with anger. "How dare-"
"Botan!" Shihoin snapped. "Stand down!"
"But-"
"She's right!" Hana clenched her fists, starting forward only to have her shoulders grabbed. "Kanzaki's a Quincy and a Shinigami! Soul Society would kill one of their own just 'cause he's part something else! It's not his fault he was born that way!"
"Hana.." Kanzaki began, but as he had feared, his former commander had taken notice of the girl's impassioned fury.
"Indeed?" The slim woman stalked forward, impassive eyes on Hana's face. "Then you believe Soul Society to be wrong?"
Hana stared back as fiercely, "yes. They have no right to control who lives and dies. Only God does."
Shihoin tilted her head to the side, "God..hmm? If you believe in this God of yours then why don't we put him to the test?"
The girl's eyes widened as she was suddenly dragged backward by some silent signal. The Shinobi restrained her, raising her forearm to rest outstretched across the trunk of a nearby tree. Rizu's mouth worked but no sound came out. Kyou struggled in vain, "Hana! Hana!"
Kanzaki watched in horror as his former beloved commander leveled her slender Wakizashi to the frozen girl's pale skin. "Let's see if your God staves my blade." Shihoin brought it down-only to have the blade be sheared in half. A beam of light cut through the metal yet was so carefully controlled as it did not touch Hana's arm.
"Who did that?" Botan looked wildly around.
The unfamiliar voice of a male came from above. "*Sic semper tyrannis...You know it's sort of bad form to cut off a girl's arm just 'cause she voices her opinion. I myself am of the mind that the truth in that sentence of hers, threatens you just a little too much. Shihoin."
(Latin Lit. *Thus ever to Tyrants)
"Who are you?" Shihoin asked calmly, eyes darting about, searching for the unknown speaker. The branches shifted, the man spoke again, "who me? Just someone who likes to play his guitar to the lady moon. She's a true lady -"
Kanzaki felt the soft, silent whoosh of air as Botan leapt like a shadow, dagger out flung.
"-whom loves all her children." There was a dull shunk, a gurgling intake of breath. Botan sunk to her knees, the man's unsheathed Zanpaku-to plunged into her chest. "Did I mention how I despise all you Soul Society bastards?" The man's longish wavy brown hair flopped into his eyes as he withdrew the katana outward, cutting open the Shinobi's chest. "Although I suppose in your case, Shihoin-hime, it would be bitch."
"SEIZE HIM!"
(*~*)
Kei was utterly still; Getsu-ten revolved downward, the glowing metal alternately catching the light. Did SoiFong notice the carefully controlled decent? It seemed not. Keeping two fingers folded, tips pressing into her palm, Kei listened for the almost silent sound of the dagger lifting to just inches above Takara's throat.
She snapped her fingers, the space of time reversing to seconds back. Getsu-ten's hilt flew into her outstretched hand, the chain swirled about her legs. SoiFong started, her eyes flashing dangerously, "you-! Kill her!"
Catching at the end of the chain, Kei let it fly. A sharp clang resounded as the circular discus moon collided with the Shinobi's dagger, knocking it from his hand. "Takara, move!" Kei yelled, drawing the chain back for another strike but was forced to block SoiFong's charge with the blade instead. For moments, the two women faced off, staring at each other through the crossing of their swords.
"There is no escape~! So, why!" The onyx eyes smoldered with confusion and rage. "Why do you persist!"
Some surprise came into Kei's expression. She had thought the other would've understood, realized the simple truth of life and death. "Shaolin..." she sighed, lessening the rigidity of her counter. As she had anticipated, this drew the other to press harder. The slim Wakizashi SoiFong wielded, slid farther along Getsu-ten's curved edge. You just don't understand the world at all. I guess that means...you're still young.
Kei's wrist began to shake, her hand quickly flexed, shoving back simultaneously with her full weight. Caught off guard, SoiFong leapt back, tabi boots scraping the ground to gain leverage. She saw her chance. Rapidly now, Kei caught at the slack of the chain, flinging it sideways. By inches the curved tips of the moon grazed across SoiFong's calves.
"Too shallow!" she cried, glimpsing the torn fabric and slight blood staining the silver links. Damn it... her eyes narrowed, jerking her wrist sharply back. Too late she realized her mistake. The thin Tanto dagger sheathed at SoiFong's waist, had been plunged through the knotted links. Kei yanked at it futilely, her sword arm flexing to block the strike of two other Shinobi. Helplessly she became aware of the rest of the elite force surrounding Kagami.
Is there no hope..? Is this our doom?
He was trapped. The Shinobi, confident in his inability to kill them; had slashed and cut their way through. Sazanami's dance of drowning would take them out-yet that in itself was the very thing he strove so hard to avoid. I cannot kill. His hand clenched tightly around the light blue hilt, throwing his head back to avoid the blade slashing the air.
The curved edge ghosted a fiery path across his chin. Kagami recoiled, acrid saltiness seeping from his teeth. No...it had gone far deeper than he had expected. "Suiha-" then couldn't continue. He had never been vain about his looks, but now the sliced skin stung with aching fervor. Is this how an animal feels?
He breathed hard, feeling the constriction of his lungs. It took every ounce of will he possessed, to withhold from cleaving the closest one's head from his body. The identical face masks concealed their features from prying eyes and their eyes glittered with an insane, righteous light.
They believe..
Sazanami parried the knife thrust. The lesser blade snapped, flying through the air. Using the brief moment gained, Kagami shunpo'd upward, slashing his sword sideways. "Suisei-shou!" he yelled, the blade's blue aura expanded into a swirling mass of water. The Shinobi scattered, forming a loose configuration of a triangle. Fools.
"-Don't underestimate me!"
A sharp crack resounded in the air suddenly. Kagami spun toward the area where Kei and Shaolin had been dueling. Swords had been all but abandoned, the heir of the Fong family had beaten the lesser skilled girl down.
"Keiko!"
Blood gushed from the wound to her forehead, other crimson streams ran down the crown, staining her fair hair a foul rust color. "Stop it, Shaolin! STOP IT NOW!" He had no idea the effects his demand would yield. Indeed, Kagami was sure-bitterly, inconsolably that there was no going back. Forever they would be enemies, enemies she would seek to destroy.
Again and again, sharp banging sounded as SoiFong bashed Kei's skull into the blood-stained boulder. "Kei-!" Kagami hissed, infuriated as the others blocked him from going to her aid.
-~*~* 06*~*~-In Arcadia -~*~* 06*~*~-
"Hey, boy..you any good with that sword there?"
In all honesty, Amakusa Toya didn't like to get involved. Things were much simpler as they had been, severing any and all attachments to his fellow officers.
Brilliant.
Talented.
But, a little strange.
That was what the head of the Kido corps said.
Strange? He had pondered to himself after overhearing the conversation between the commanding officer and the princess of the Shihoin family overseeing the routine report. Toya couldn't think of anything off in his behavior that could warrant such an assessment. He received orders, he carried them out and...that was all.
He had always been somewhat of a solitary person, unused to the camaraderie the others tried to coax him into. Yes, he spoke to them. But no...he didn't participate despite their many invitations to go drinking whenever Hachi let them out for the evening.
There was only one other whom understood and with that other Toya had learned the true meaning of mistake and the involvement that cost that dearest one her life.
So.. it was better this way.
Wandering had always been in his blood. A wanderlust that couldn't be quenched nor satisfied-tamed a little when she was alive-but gone once she was no more as well.
Goodbye, he said at her grave.
To the empty Kido corps dorms; nothing.
Toya had few possessions, two uniforms that he quickly discarded taking only a few robes of plain Shinigami wear, two pairs of sandals and tabi socks. A book of gathered poems and a ribbon that had been hers. When he was finished, holding the satchel closed, he glanced around. Nothing left. There was no trace that he had ever been there.
Good. He fastened the strap of his Zanpaku-to over his shoulder.
Toya knew Hachi was beyond the hallway, could sense the elder's presence. You can stop me, if you'd like. Toya also knew that one indication-a few words of regret and he'd stay. Because then he'd feel wanted, not just another face.
But, wanderers had no place.
It was easy to stand before the gate. Telling himself over and over that it didn't matter.
It didn't...not really. Toya brought his hands together slowly, drawing the appropriate gestures that would generate the full force of his Kido. In the distance he heard the hail of one of Kyoraku's officers.
You're not supposed to be there. You're not supposed to do that. Cease this!
Useless demands. Toya increased the field of the reishiihenkankon. In his mind's eye he saw the countless times it had been performed in order for Shinigami to travel between the worlds. On top so that it pours downward creating the path...
That was to the world of the living.
The advance of the Shinigami had halted, he could sense their confidence. Where many were needed to stabilize it, one alone could not do it. That is...
His hair torn from the loose tie, whipped about his face. Dust arose in clouds, the ground itself beginning to break apart from the weight of the force gathering upon it. Toya shaped the massive ball, melding it in his hands. The old way...the forbidden way. "Hold for me, Kage." he whispered, barely restraining the refined energy pulsating in the atmosphere. He wondered if this was how the mythological Atlas felt, carrying the world on his shoulders.
Wrapping his free hand around the narrow hilt, Toya ripped it out, letting go simultaneously of the amassed reishii. For a split second the swirling mass of spirit particles held shape then began to slowly expand in a corona of dazzling light.
Then a wreathe of shadows cut a swath through it, carving a clean path to the empty gate of the Senkaimon. Toya shielded his eyes from the radiance that flared, the bright flashes evaporated as curling wisps of smoke emanated from the wide double gateway of gunmetal gray that stood in place of the arched tunnel world gate.
"What the..." Toya stared up in amazement at the intricate sigils covering the panels. ".. is this.." The gate to Assiah?
"Stop where you are! Don't make another move!" The commanding voice barked. Toya knew it to be the first of the many Shinigami whom had been drawn to the area by his little performance. Pity. He had no intentions whatsoever of complying.
His hand that had remained lax about the Zanpaku-to's hilt suddenly slashed horizontally across the metal plates. Instead of the tang meeting solid reality, it cleaved through, fracturing the dense space. The door cracked, shattering inward to reveal a heavenly slice of purplish sky like from a utopian fantasy.
Toya shouldered his bag, glancing back.
The white city filled with black-robed souls was no longer like home.
He Shunpo'd through, feeling for a moment as though the pale rainbow-like darkness that surrounded him, was welcoming. This was Assiah.
-~*~* 06*~*~-
Progress hadn't left the minds of the Assians. Toya quickly discovered that fact once he had left behind the ruined shells of the destroyed metropolis'. The year was eighteen-hundred and ninety one in the living world. Yet the advancements of the fourth world were greater than any made in the previous hundred years on earth.
Electric light in every house. Real gold and bronze and copper monies known as Ducats. Pots, pans...every facet of ordinary life was so far ahead than anything Toya had known. Even rudimentary machines like those used in the Research and development Division of which Squad Twelve Taichou Urahara Kisuke was the chief of.
It had always been known that Urahara was a genius, but Toya thought these were far more sophisticated. And the architecture~! Buildings made of golden sandstone and pale marble, ornate cornices and statuary of Gryphons-at least he thought it was until one day he overheard a young child asking about one.
A phoenix...the Goddess Suzaku who lived eternally and watched over all her children. Like the moon...
That analogy struck him as strange at first. The sun was warmth and light, not the moon whose cold beauty bathed the world in luminescence. Then one day he found a book that had been fallen underneath a Park bench. It recounted the myth of creation and... the Elements.
Kouseitan'i to the Shinigami. The Eramentu in the ancient dialect of Assiah. The word was carved over and over into the foundations of city gates and walls. Along the bases of the statues and whispered as a prayer for good weather on sweltering days.
Toya watched it all and was amazed at the divergence from the norm he knew. Kouseitan'i was a forbidden word in Soul Society, to speak of it drew the harshest of censures from a superior officer. Yet here...they were revered as something high. Something great.
They who give life..
His eyes passed over the inscription carved into the weathered sculpture.
In a way it was true. All of the Zanpaku-to in existence had been given form by one of the Four. Polished from raw reiryoku and containing a single drop of the original creator's precious pure reiatsu. His gaze wandered to the West, the slim tubular scabbard of his sword resting across his shoulder blades.
There..
The pulse rippled like an illusionary heat wave.
Toya felt the breath of it. Like the silent flapping of great wings, magnified thousands of times over. Fire... his eyelids fluttered shut. It was of being enfolded in the arms of warmth itself, almost unexplainable, almost like love. Being enveloped in unconditional love.
That was what it was like to be in the presence of Fire.
-~*~* 06*~*~-
She could barely breathe. The pounding in her skull deafened all else out, her hand scrabbled along the ground, fingers finding then losing purchase on Getsu-ten's slick edge. In the blindness of her blackening vision, she glimpsed SoiFong's relieved triumph burning in her onyx eyes.
Why do I persist? It would be easy... The tips of her fingers rubbed along the curved edge of one of the moon links. Just don't move. Be still. Be still and it'll all be over. Wetness matted strands of hair to her throat and her cheeks. Sensory feeling was slowly being replaced by numbness. Just let it go-
'No.' The denial echoed in her fading consciousness. 'Death is not an option when there are those whom would grieve over your passing!'
That voice..Tensa? In the dimness, Kei could perceive the hooded figure, the edge of his cloak lifting in the wind.
Wind..! Her eyes flew open. "Kaze-!"
"Stop it! I command you, Suzumebachi!" Kazeatari had half risen, one arm folded against her side, the other clawed around the shikai of Kazekiri. "Stop it now!" The sheer force of will radiated from the wind wielder's voice. Kei watched as the gold stinger capped to SoiFong's hand plunged down.
Nigeki-Kessatsu, she thought faintly. Dead in two steps.
The moment Suzumebachi touched the Homonka on her chest for the second time-
-TBC-
AN: Thanks for reading :)
No flames-haters-stupid comments!
Reviews appreciated C:
