DISCLAIMER: We both know I don't own Soujiro, ShiShiO, Kenshin, Senkaku, Udo Jin-e, or any of the other characters that are making Watsuki Nobuhiro and his corporate sponsors/affiliates rich. If I did, I wouldn't be sweating in a crowded dorm room trying to put off studying for an economics midterm! I'm writing in a bloody sweatshop! Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If not ... chikushou, aku baka!
That reminds me ... my Japanese is next to nonexistent. Don't fault me for it. At least I'm trying.
Happy reading!
ANTI-DISCLAIMER (would that be just a "claimer?"): Some of these characters ARE my own creation, as well as many elements of the setting; the town of Ichibou, Kim Young-eun, Karachi Hoebu, Yamashina Ito, Genji Taku, and several other minor characters are my own ideas. Use your head. If it never appeared in anywhere in the Kenshin series, then it's probably mine. Not that anyone cares but me.
SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: To Kenshin TV ep 61, "Remaining Ju Pon Gattana, Choice of Life."
* * * * *
CHAPTER 14:
THE HEAVENLY SWORD
There was a shower of sparks as Yamashina and Soujiro's blades met again, but Soujiro had learned from the first strike, and didn't give the Yakuza overlord the angle he needed to do a point-blank Battou Jutsu with his opposite hand this time. Yamashina was unbelievably quick with his katana, however; Soujiro struck twice in rapid succession, hoping to draw Yamashina off guard, and the other man brushed them aside just as quickly. Soujiro had to leap away to avoid exposing himself to the wakizashi.
Yamashina countered with an attack of his own, trying to prevent Soujiro from regaining his footing, but Soujiro was light on his feet, and unbalancing him was all but impossible. Soujiro tried to use that to his advantage, luring the grey-clad fighter in with a false opportunity, but Yamashina didn't bite. At one point, Soujiro thought he had an opening, but Yamashina's wakizashi leapt from its sheath just in time to parry Soujiro's counterstrike. Soujiro had to accept the force of impact and let it hurl him skidding back several strides, or he would have been held right where Yamashina wanted him. ShiShiO had taught him how to control a skid without falling or hurting himself.
Soujiro expected Yamashina to press his advantage, which he did, but Soujiro came forward to meet him halfway, hoping to catch him before he was ready for the strike. He did, but Yamashina still blocked Soujiro's attack with his wakizashi; the smaller blade was quick enough to get up on defense, and Soujiro had had to attack on Yamashina's left side, where he held the smaller blade. Yamashina turned the parry into what might have been a lesser version of Aoshi's Gokou Ju Ji, slicing at Soujiro's neck with his blades crossed, but Soujiro was ready for that; before the attack could reach him, he planted his foot in Yamashina's stomach, and it was the Yakuza mastermind's turn to leap backward to absorb the impact. His attack struck harmlessly several inches in front of Soujiro. Immediately, though, Young-eun's captor was coming back for more.
There was never a single instant between when Yamashina was on attack and when he was on defense. Even the best fighters in the world had a brief moment when they switched from defense to offense that they were vulnerable; it was one of the disadvantages of fighting from a defensive style. Yamashina's form and style were absolutely perfect, however. Attacks became parries; parries became counters. He could attack with one hand and defend with the other. Soujiro was calling on enough speed to equal Kenshin's Shinsoku, (1) and was getting absolutely nowhere. He was watching Yamashina's respect for him grow with every strike, and the feral grin gradually faded from Yamashina's face, but Soujiro never managed to lay more than an errant, off-balance kick on the other man. Their blades whirled and rang, sending off showers of sparks in all directions and ricocheting wildly off one another, only to have the force of those ricochets rotate into the next attack.
Eventually, with an acrobatic leap off the outside wall of the palace, Yamashina disengaged. They had gone at least two straight minutes without breaking off, and neither one's breath had even quickened perceptibly. Soujiro knew he was controlling his, and guessed that Yamashina was using the same technique. Soujiro's wrist hurt from the scrape and from a particularly jarring blow, and Yamashina's stomach and left ribs had both taken hits from Soujiro's lightning-quick feet.
"Why don't you stop fooling around with that sakaba?" Yamashina asked. "I don't feel like I'm fighting ShiShiO's pupil here. You would never have touched one of those with him in sight!"
"I know," Soujiro replied. "But it was one of these that finally beat me, so there's nothing making it weak."
"It was Himura Kenshin that beat you, not a sakaba! He would have diced you into chopped liver with a katana! You won't stand a chance against my Tensui Ryu (2) without a real sword."
"You're hurt as much as I am," Soujiro observed.
"Aho!" (3) Yamashina snapped. "Can't you see that I'm trying to get you to fight me seriously?! I've been holding back to let you get the message!"
Soujiro shrugged. "I guess I still need more convincing," he said with his most innocent smile.
Yamashina's feral grin returned. "Have it your way, Soujiro-kun," his voice rang out, and his eyes blazed. "Let's see you counter this with a sakaba! Tensui Ryu, Samebatsu!" (4)
Before the sound had completely died away from Yamashina's lips, his feet blurred, followed a nanosecond later by the rest of him. There was a cracking sound like a string of tiny firecrackers to Soujiro's right, and he barely managed to wheel around in time to block the blinding flank attack. A split second later, Yamashina came at him again, this time from Soujiro's left, in the direction Soujiro had originally been facing. Soujiro blocked that one, too, but didn't get his feet set right to avoid the impact and was thrown back a step. He had to drop wildly to the ground and block to his left again to avoid the third stroke, and blocked the fourth strike from a completely prone position. Yamashina struck immediately, crushing the ball of his foot into Soujiro's ribs, unable to afford the time it would take to bring the wakizashi into play. Fortunately, that slowed him down just long enough for Soujiro to bring his sword partially around to bear in time to counter Yamashina's fifth blurring swing, and to partially catch Yamashina's blade on his own this time, throwing him out of the rhythm of his attack.
Yamashina blurred to a halt several yards in front of Soujiro, a wary expression on his face. Soujiro was on his feet in a heartbeat, but needed a controlled breath before he was ready to attack again. His eyes were narrow and alert, however. It had been two steps short of the full thing, but there was no mistaking what Soujiro had just seen. Or hadn't, since it was beyond the grasp of human eyes.
"Shuku-chi," Soujiro stated flatly.
"You've heard of it, I see," the grey-clad man said smugly. "Very good. ShiShiO dreamed of being able to do it himself someday, did you know? He was never able to accept the fact that he simply couldn't do it, no matter how strong his muscles became. It requires letting go of yourself, and he was always much too full of himself to come even close."
Soujiro's eyes widened. Yamashina didn't know everything about him after all, at least. Then he smiled again, and a hidden tension fell away from him. "Thank you for the lesson," he replied lightly, planting his right foot behind him, "but I already know how it works." With that, he drove forward and vanished, matching Yamashina's speed at two steps short of the full Shuku-chi. A look of naked surprise painted Yamashina's face as he twirled his blades to meet Soujiro's attack. His defense melted into offense almost instantly, but Soujiro knew that he had an opening for a brief moment, and how to take advantage of it. Yamashina had to use both of his swords to block Soujiro's rushing attack, and in that instant, Soujiro spun his sheath upward with his left hand, ramming the end into Yamashina's armpit.
Yamashina shook off the blow, and countered with a knee aimed at Soujiro's groin while their blades were still locked. Soujiro's blow had slowed him momentarily, however, if only slightly, and Soujiro was able to sidestep, wrenching his sword free a split-second later. It landed him on the defensive again almost immediately, however, as Yamashina somehow turned that knee thrust into the first step in his next lunge. He did not have the balance he needed to jump straight into the Shuku-chi again, whereas Soujiro was more set; Soujiro tried to use this to his advantage and came up short again, as Yamashina countered Soujiro's defensive strike, and suddenly was completely balanced again as well. Yamashina drove in again, and once again locked Soujiro's sword with his own paired blades.
"Very good," Yamashina hissed, "much more attention to defense than I would expect from ShiShiO's protege. But try and block this." Yamashina slipped his wakizashi free of the tangle of blades, and drove it at Soujiro's face; when Soujiro twisted his blade to block the short sword, Yamashina slashed in with the katana. Soujiro blocked that as well, and Yamashina countered with the backslash of his wakizashi. Soujiro quickly realized that the first two blows were only to establish his rhythm, and was ready for the speed of the third and successive blows; they came at near-Shuku-chi speed. Yamashina never made the mistake of putting all his energy, or even most of his energy, behind any single strike, enabling him to avoid any attempt by Soujiro to lock one blade or the other with his own. In a matter of ten seconds, Soujiro had parried at least forty attacks; he lost track after the first six or so. Their swords were striking each other so quickly and so often that it sounded like a Gatling gun had been turned on a piece of sheet metal in the courtyard.
When Yamashina broke off the attack at last, because Soujiro was starting to adapt to its rhythm, he had already scored two small cuts, and was clearly surprised that he hadn't done more. A small slit in the cloth over Soujiro's left bicep bore a slight but spreading red stain, and another one on Soujiro's right leg was less serious but nonetheless more than a shaving cut.
"Impressive," Yamashina said appreciatively. "No one has ever survived the Arashi Kenbu (5). You've earned your legend, Soujiro."
"I didn't know I had one," Soujiro answered. "But thanks anyway." His voice was still unfailingly polite, but there was no mistaking the concentration in his eyes. "My turn," he finished. "Meibatsu!" (6)
This was one of Soujiro's favorite attacks against tougher defensive opponents. He lunged in from the front, expecting Yamashina to parry his first atttack. He then spun to his right to unbalance his opponent as he turned to meet him, and as the crowning point of the attack, leapt in behind the second attack, leaping into the air and allowing the force of the impact to throw him into a somersault over the head of his opponent, bringing the blade down on the back of his enemy's skull in a blinding, whirling blur. The attack worked completely ... until the last part. Yamashina blocked it with the wakizashi in his left hand without even turning around.
Yamashina got greedy, however, and tried to twist around and attack Soujiro with his katana while the Tenken was still in the air. Apparently he forgot that Soujiro could play with more parts of his sword than the blade, or didn't know that Soujiro wasn't exactly slow even with his feet off the ground. Soujiro pivoted his sword against Yamashina's wakizashi in midair, ramming the hilt of the sakaba into Yamashina's right wrist as he brought his longer sword into play and almost disarming him. Yamashina had to leap back to recover his grip on his weapon, allowing Soujiro a safe landing.
Unlike Himura, however, Yamashina did not stand still and allow Soujiro to come at him. As soon as he recovered from Soujiro's blow, he blurred into motion again. Soujiro didn't understand why he hadn't upped the ante and gone to a single step short of the Shuku-chi, but he wasn't about to remind him. He wasn't about to stand still, either. Standing still was never a part of his battle plans. An eyeblink after Yamashina blurred into action again, Soujiro did the same, still staying at two steps short of the Shuku-chi.
The next minute or so of the fight was so comical that Soujiro almost broke out laughing. Neither Yamashina nor Soujiro were stupid enough to allow the other to get a direct angle on the other, and they were both extremely agile and changed directions without warning every other heartbeat. They never lined themselves up so they were both coming directly at each other. The result was that they were both having to aim at targets moving sideways or at off angles, faster than the eye could completely follow. Out of at least twenty tries for each of them, they only met each others' steel once. Their feet wildly churned up the dirt in the courtyard, and their changes in direction dug huge divets in the ground, but their swords touched absolutely nothing. Every time one of them tried to adjust their aim to guess where the other was going, the other somehow read it and changed direction.
Eventually, they both skidded to a stop, almost simultaneously. They were almost sixty yards away from each other. Yamashina actually gave Soujiro a somewhat wry grin. "Whoops," he said sheepishly, slipping his wakizashi back into its sheath. "That didn't work so well."
"Not really," Soujiro agreed.
Yamashina's grin sharpened again as he switched his katana into his left hand. "So let's try something different," he smirked. With that, he blurred from vision again. There was the single step short of the Shuku-chi that Soujiro had been expecting! It was a Gatotsu at near-Shuku-chi speed! Soujiro knew what was coming, though. Yamashina was too clever to try something so simplistic, especially when he was already sure that Soujiro could beat the Gatotsu and it wasn't really an Ishin ShiShi technique, anyway.
At the last instant, Yamashina drove forward with the wrong hip, and the wakizashi sprang into play again. He was better than Soujiro would have guessed at drawing the wakizashi from his right hip with his right hand, but nonetheless, the awkwardness of the draw did slow him down momentarily. He had been counting on surprise. Soujiro fell back into the stance of his Meimei Shubi, (7) blocking both attacks a heartbeat apart.
Suddenly, Soujiro tumbled backward; an acid sensation welled up in his throat, and a white froth burst from his mouth. There had been a third part of Yamashina's attack; Yamashina had stepped in behind his attack and delivered a knee kick with all the momentum of the near-Shuku-chi behind it into Soujiro's stomach. Soujiro regained his feet gingerly, and the burning sensation in his throat made his breathing ragged for the first time that he could remember since being struck by the Ama-Kakeru, Ryu-no-Hirameki.
"Tensui Ryu," Yamashina announced coldly. "Tsunami." (8)
"Nice," Soujiro grated in response. "But it won't work on me again." His eyes were narrow and wary, though. Yamashina had had a right to be bitter over not being chosen as the Battousai's successor. ShiShiO would have had trouble with this man, and the ShiShiO Soujiro remembered was much more powerful than the ShiShiO that had been the Ishin Shishi's top assassin after Himura-san quit.
"Won't it?" Yamashina smirked, settling into the Gatotsu stance again. Soujiro's eyes narrowed further. Yamashina knew Soujiro was telling the truth. Soujiro was sure of it; he didn't seem like the type to underestimate an enemy. So the Yakuza lord was about to try something else. What was it? If he charged, Soujiro had a counter, though. He slipped his sword into its sheath and crouched low into the Battou stance, crouching even more forward than he usually did.
Yamashina's eyes blazed. "Let's go, Soujiro!" he cried, and he hurled himself forward at a step short of the Shuku-chi once again. He was clearly expecting Soujiro to leap forward with a Battou Jutsu, and had adjusted the angle of his attack to make that difficult for the Tenken, but that was not Soujiro's intent at all.
"Chi-no-Arashi!" (9) Soujiro shouted, twisting and whirling his sword from his sheath, well before Yamashina had covered half the ground to him. Soujiro swept the flat of his blade along the surface of the ground at super speed, throwing up loose earth and rocks into Yamashina's path in an amplified version of Kenshin's Do Ryu Sen, though Soujiro had never seen Himura's similar technique.
Yamashina was going too fast to stop completely, but much to Soujiro's surprise, he managed to break off the attack and deflect the torrent of earth and gravel with his blades, switching from pure attack to pure defense at nearly the speed of thought. Most of the Ishin Shishi learned such whirling defenses, usually to stop darts or arrows, but Soujiro would never have believed that he could change from an all-out attack to that defense so fluidly. The Tensui Ryu was aptly named. Soujiro was not finished, however. As soon as his stroke was completed, he sprang into motion, a single step short of the Shuku-chi, knifing out to one side and then back in to attack Yamashina's flank. He moved so quickly that the last part of the stream of rock was still arriving at the same time he was. Yamashina had to turn to meet Soujiro's attack, and accept the punishment of the last few stones and clods of earth ... which were moving more than hard enough to leave bruises. Yamashina didn't even stumble as they struck, though; he kept his balance as if he was a pyramid. The wakizashi lashed out in his right hand, forcing Soujiro to jump back, and the ex-Ishin instantly had his weapons back in the hands he was more familiar using them in.
The grey-clad samurai straightened, though he did not lower his guard. "ShiShiO never taught you that," he oberved appreciatively. "I was wrong to call you a pupil."
Soujiro answered with a quizzical look. "Does it make a difference what you call me? It doesn't matter who's a master and who's a student, does it? Just who's the strongest." Soujiro realized when he said that that he had been slipping back into the Tenken mindset more and more since this string of fights began, but at the moment, he didn't have time to consider the implications of that. He had touched a nerve in his opponent, though.
"Oh, that doesn't matter, either," Yamashina replied. "If that mattered, Makoto would never have inherited the mantle of the Ishin Shishi's top operative."
"So why didn't you challenge him for the title?"
"They needed both of us," Yamashina spat. "They convinced me to set it aside for the sake of the cause. I gave everything up for them. The Yakuza, my family, my own personal prestige and honor. Then they conveniently forgot about me when it finally got around to setting up a new government. They didn't want to risk having a mob child in the cabinet. So they found someone else."
"So now you're out to destroy the Meiji government, too?" Soujiro asked. That was surprising. He would have found it hard to believe that such an ardent enemy of ShiShiO could hate the government as much as ShiShiO did. Then again, the government always seemed to step on a lot of toes.
Yamashina laughed. "I'm not as crazy as ShiShiO. And having a weak government in power suits me just fine, now. No, Soujiro, I have no need to destroy such a feeble enemy. The greatest conquerors in history have all known one thing: you only need to destroy what you cannot control. And the Meiji government is nowhere near strong enough to resist me. You, however, are another matter."
"Glad you think so," Soujiro replied. "And what about Young-eun, then?" He said that almost as much for himself as for Yamashina, to remind himself of who he was now and the reasons that had brought him here. He realized that he was slipping into the hard mentality of the Tenken, and while Yamashina was talking was the best chance he had to fight it. His mind flashed back to his conversation with Young-eun the previous night. *Strong things don't break. Hard things do.* He could not afford to be hard now. He needed to be strong.
Yamashina gave a sinister grin. "She'll be a challenge, I'm sure. I don't know if I can control her yet. We'll see. I hope I don't have to destroy her. She'll take some work, but she has more potential than anyone I've ever seen."
"Potential?" Soujiro retorted. "Potential for what?" He had to force his nerves to freeze, while his blood boiled in its veins.
Yamashina's eyes widened, as though realizing he had said more than he might have intended, though Soujiro couldn't make heads or tails of what he had said. "Oops!" he said. "I think I'm talking too much. Let's go, Soujiro!"
* * *
Ueda's attention was diverted from the door of Yamashina's private chambers by the sight of another black-garbed companion of his trudging down the hallway toward him.
"What is it, Hiraki?" Ueda asked.
Hiraki shrugged. "Hell if I know. I just got assigned to guard duty here, too."
"You're relieving me already?"
"No, sorry. The captain said you're staying."
Ueda threw up his hands in exasperation. "Does the captain think I'm a complete incompetent? It shouldn't take two of us to guard one bound, unarmed woman."
"I just do what I'm told."
Ueda growled to himself. "I don't suppose I could ask you to hold down the fort by yourself for a minute? I'm dying for a drink."
"Sure, I guess. It's your ass, not mine, if you're caught, you know," Hiraki replied.
"I know. Who cares? Nothing's going ..." he trailed off by the sound of movement in the bedroom.
"What was that?" Hiraki asked.
"I don't know," Ueda replied, pulling his sword free of its scabbard, "but she shouldn't have been able to move that much!"
Ueda and Hiraki threw open the door and burst into Yamashina's room. The first things they saw were the chains and cuffs that had bound their master's prisoner to the wide canopied bed in the middle of the room. They were lying in a pile on the floor, and the captive was nowhere to be seen.
"Oh, shit," Ueda gasped when he saw the empty room. "The captain's going to kill us."
Then the door to Yamashina's walk-in wardrobe opened, and the little Korean girl appeared. She moved slowly, almost like a ghost, but the guards' eyes narrowed warily. Somewhere in Yamashina's wardrobe, she had found a wakizashi, and it glittered brightly in her hand. There was nothing clumsy or unsteady about the way she held it, either. She did not make eye contact with them at first. When she did, the guards backed away another step. There was an absolutely lightless cast to her eyes. They were like two cold stars burning in a midnight sky.
"No," she said. "He won't." There was a whooshing sound as her form blurred into action.
* * *
Yamashina and Soujiro exchanged a few more thrusts and parries, but the heat that had been behind their first several attacks on each other had subsided somewhat. Soujiro thought that was strange, and kept waiting for when Yamashina intended to pounce--the only reason he could think of was that Yamashina was trying to lull him into getting lazy--but Yamashina never seemed to want to commit to any attack. Soujiro guessed he was waiting for an attack himself, hoping to draw Soujiro off balance and counter, but Soujiro wasn't biting. There were more quick breaks in the fighting as well, as they would stop and try to size each other up every few seconds rather than keeping moving.
Eventually, Soujiro had had enough. He disengaged, hurling himself backward, and took a defensive position on the turf. Yamashina took a similar position twenty yards or so away. What Yamashina forgot, or didn't realize, was that the fight had circled around so that Soujiro was now between Yamashina and the palace, and the grey-clad Yakuza overlord was out closer to the garden gate.
Soujiro grinned. "I'm up for a change of scene. Watchya think?" With that, he sprang back and darted up the wall of the palace, his legs propelling him up the wall so quickly that he never had a chance to start falling. He had used this trick against the Battousai as an attack, but he doubted Yamashina was going to stand still and wait for him. He was right.
Yamashina let out a snarl and bolted forward, springing skyward as soon as he got within range to attack Soujiro while the blue-clad assassin was not looking. Soujiro smiled. If Yamashina actually thought that he had truly turned his back on an enemy, then he didn't know Soujiro at all. Soujiro twisted aside on the surface of the wall the instant before Yamashina reached him. Yamashina got his feet between himself and the wall, saving himself from jumping headlong into the stone face, but Soujiro was there and waiting with his katana. They actually traded a pair of blows before gravity caught up with them, but Soujiro got the better of the exchange. Yamashina had not had time to balance himself properly on the wall, and he probably had not trained as much with fighting from this position as Soujiro had.
There was a light rushing sound in the air as Yamashina's wakizashi sailed up and out of reach over the top of the wall, though the sound was drowned by the thud as both Soujiro and Yamashina crashed to the ground. Neither one could spare much attention to breaking their fall, because they had to worry about each others' blades on the way down. They both knew the other was capable of attacking in midair.
Soujiro landed harder than Yamashina, however. Soujiro was already hurt on two of his limbs, and his roll to absorb the impact was not as fluid as Yamashina's. Yamashina seemed to roll and flow along the ground and then back to his feet as if his Tensui Ryu actually made him into a breathing mass of water. Soujiro winced as he got to his feet. Dirt had settled into the cut on his thigh, and a twinge of pain raced down his leg as he regained his feet. He had taken away one of Yamashina's weapons, but at what cost?
The Yakuza lord was re-assessing him appreciatively, however. "I was right about you," he said, the light of battle brightening in his eyes until they practically glowed. "I haven't been disarmed in a fight since the day before I turned thirteen. Even Himura Battousai never managed that, when we sparred together as Ishin Shishi."
"Really?" Soujiro actually let himself be impressed, though he took it in stride as much as anything else. "I'm surprised. When you fight with two weapons, it's a lot harder to pay attention to both of them than when you fight with one."
"True," Yamashina admitted, "but I was born ambidextrous. The Tensui Ryu isn't for everyone. Besides myself, I can only think of one other person still living who could learn to use it effectively."
Soujiro eyes narrowed, and his mind raced. At first, he thought that the man was actually talking about him, since he was the only other person the man had probably ever met who had mastered the Shuku-chi. However, they both knew that learning a second style, or switching to a second style as a primary style, is almost impossible for masters. Even if Kenshin ever mastered the Shuku-chi, he would never fight like Soujiro did. Soujiro knew how to read techniques with a single pass; he had read Kenshin's succession technique, and had actually been practicing his Kuzu Ryu Sen for some time, but that did not make him a student of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. Yamashina and Senkaku might have learned modified versions of the Gatotsu, but that did not make them Shinsen Gumi. Soujiro himself had been working on a new style, Aoi Denkou Ryu, part of his plan to 'destroy everything and start over,' as he had told Yumi-san, but it was really more a modification of his old Tenken Ryu than anything else. And it sounded like Yamashina practically never left the valley, or if he did, it was only to go pull strings with politicians and such; he doubted the man saw a warrior spirit burning in very many of them. Something in that thought touched off a sixth sense in the back of Soujiro's mind ... warrior spirit ... spirit ...
Soujiro's eyes widened, and Yamashina gave a sharp but smug smirk at the understanding dawning in them. "You can't be serious," he gasped.
"Why not?" Yamashina grinned evilly. "She'll take some taming, to be sure, but I think she'll be one of the finest assassins in the history of the country someday. No one will ever suspect a woman could have the abilities I've seen in her, either. Why do you think you hit it off so well with her? Do you really think it was her warmth and good cheer?"
Soujiro was stunned. Yamashina was completely right. No one would ever suspect her. She had the same coolness, coldness even, that Soujiro had. She had had a troubled childhood, too, growing up in an adoptive family the same way Soujiro had; not abusive, but in a country not her own. She was young and emotionally vulnerable. With a little extra pushing, she could easily fall into the same emotional abyss Soujiro had. And Soujiro remembered what she had done with the chopsticks ... she had a fighter's instincts, the ability to sense others, ease of movement and near-perfect hand-eye coordination, with no training at all. She could easily be what ShiShiO had called Soujiro, 'a little genius at killing.' However, it was clearly not what she wanted.
Slowly, a light began to burn in Soujiro's eyes as well. He sheathed his sword and readied himself for battle again. His mind was digging back to that most repressed memory that Himura had unlocked, the memory that had cost him that battle then, but he would fight for now. The memory of himself as a smiling eight-year-old boy in the midst of a rainstorm, staring at the small sword in his hands and at the first people he had ever killed. The memory of the thoughts running through his mind before ShiShiO had come out of the warehouse and taken the Tenken away with him.
*I killed these people ... but I never really wanted to ... I didn't want to kill ... true, I might have been smiling that rainy night but ... the truth is I was crying.*
Soujiro was stronger than he had been at that encounter with the Battousai, he realized. *Strong things don't break. Hard things do.* The words that he had said in passing to Young-eun on the roof of the blacksmith's shop the night before came back to him. That memory had broken him at ShiShiO's headquarters. The light of battle blossomed in his eyes when he thought of it now, but he did not lose his composure.
"Let's go, Yamashina," he said icily. Without another word, Soujiro blazed into action. Soujiro was beyond kidding around anymore. No more two-step-short, one-step-short games. He flashed out of human vision and into the driving strike of the Shun Ten Satsu. This time, his emotions were steady as he struck.
And he struck nothing but steel.
Even with the force of impact knocking Yamashina back several feet through the turf, Yamashina blocked and held Soujiro's blade with his own. The impact sent a shockwave out across the courtyard, but neither the blades nor their wielders gave out.
"You want to end this, Soujiro?" Yamashina scoffed. "Very well then! Tensui Ryu, Uzushio!" (10)
Yamashina shook his blade free of Soujiro's, and began the fastest and longest spin attack Soujiro had ever witnessed. He stayed a single step short of the Shuku-chi, which surprised Soujiro, but since the tip of his outstretched sword was moving even faster than he himself was at the center of his spin, the blade was actually moving faster than Soujiro could keep up with. Soujiro blocked the first attack, but his concentration zeroed in on the blade so much that Yamashina got off and effortless punch to Soujiro's stomach with his other hand. As Soujiro stumbled back, Yamashina spun again, before Soujiro could set his feet again. Soujiro got his sword between himself and Yamashina's, but the impact threw him to the turf. Yamashina towered over him, sword above his head like an executioner, bringing the blade down on Soujiro's neck. Soujiro managed to wrench his sword around and block it, reversing the sakaba and putting one hand just behind its tip to stabilize it, but the impact popped his unleveraged left shoulder, and Yamashina kicked him while he was down, sending him sprawling. This time, Soujiro landed on his stomach, leaving his unprotected back facing upward for Yamashina to sever. He tried to spin around on the ground beneath the lightning-fast attack, but he knew that it would be too late.
The ring of steel on steel so startled Soujiro as he spun that he barely remembered to get back on his feet when he saw that he had been granted a reprieve from death. It was not the reprieve that startled him so much as who had given it to him.
Standing above him, between himself and the Yakuza lord, was Young-eun, a pair of wakizashi raised above her head, one of which was Yamashina's own that Soujiro had so recently sent flying over the palace wall. Her kimono was rent in a dozen places below the waist, and crumpled all over. Her hair was no longer tied back, and her midnight tresses had been all but cut off; her hair didn't even reach her neck anymore, and being completely unrestrained, it streamed out to one side of her in the dawn breeze. The pearl necklace she had worn the night before was gone. She had captured Yamashina's blade in the cross of her own, and her balance was perfect; she had not moved an inch from the point of impact. On top of all that, Soujiro had neither seen, heard, nor felt her approach.
If Soujiro thought he was surprised, a glance at Yamashina told him that this was an even greater shock to him. The Yakuza overlord's eyes were wide with shock, and possibly even a touch of fear. He disengaged and took a step backward, flowing back into a defensive posture. Young-eun did the same, and backed up to one side as well. Soon her eyes came into view, and Soujiro felt like taking a step backward as well. They looked exactly like the midnight sky had only hours earlier, dark and infinite with two faint, untouchable points of light burning in their depths. Soujiro wondered if his eyes had ever looked like that; he doubted it, because people had never backed away from him when he passed them in the streets.
Soujiro tried to step towards her and stumbled. The blows to his midriff had disturbed his center of gravity and disrupted his breathing, and his leg was beginning to feel like jelly after being wounded, then dashing up a wall, then using the Shuku-chi, and then having his blow at full speed blocked. He wanted to laugh, or cry, but he couldn't. It was too funny for laughter and too sad for tears. He had come here to protect her, and she was protecting him. He collapsed to one knee, driving the point of his sword into the ground for support.
Young-eun spared him a passing glance of her frozen eyes, then turned her attention back to Yamashina. Even her voice was cold and distant. Emotionless. "So, Yamashina, you said I would come to enjoy killing someday," she said, tapping one foot on the ground behind her and crouching forward. A cold grin that was completely different from her smile the last time Soujiro had seen it split her face. She was losing herself, Soujiro realized, but he couldn't force his voice into action to call out to her. There was a lightless twinkle in her eyes as she punctuated the remark, "You may be right."
Without any warning, Soujiro realized why Yamashina had seemed so much more surprised than Soujiro at Young-eun's appearance. He had seen something in her that Soujiro hadn't, since Soujiro had been prone at the time. As soon as those words left Young-eun's lips, she coiled her two short swords close to her body, and vanished from human eyes. The sound of her steps and the dirt flying from her sandals in her wake were all the evidence of her movement around the lawn. Yamashina blocked her first attack and barely even slowed her down. She blazed to a halt a few moments later, several yards away from the Yakuza lord.
"You may definitely be right," she said again.
* * * * *
(1) God-speed
(2) Divine Water Style
(3) Moron
(4) Shark attack
(5) Tempest Sword Dance
(6) Divine Punishment
(7) Invisible Defense
(8) Tidal Wave
(9) Storm of Earth
(10) Whirling Tides
COMING SOON: Chapter 15, "The Shooting Star." This is twice in a row now that I've left a fight (the same fight!) hanging in the balance, and I promise I'll keep writing on this as soon as I'm able. I figured that since I might not be able to write again for a little bit, I'd better publish what I have. It's already as long as several of my other chapters, anyway.
Young-eun is not as strong as she thinks she is, and while she is definitely a far cry above anyone short of a Hitokiri, she has to learn the hard way that the Shuku-chi is not invulnerability. She also has to learn exactly what Soujiro did only weeks earlier, that being strong and being a killer are two different things. 'Strong things don't break; hard things do.' I think it's becoming a theme of this story. Soujiro must also find a deeper strength within himself, the strength that comes from fighting for more than oneself. He also has to do whatever he can to bring Young-eun back to herself and prevent history from repeating.
What do you think so far? This is the biggest, most involved fight scene I've ever written, so I hope you at least have something to say about it!
That reminds me ... my Japanese is next to nonexistent. Don't fault me for it. At least I'm trying.
Happy reading!
ANTI-DISCLAIMER (would that be just a "claimer?"): Some of these characters ARE my own creation, as well as many elements of the setting; the town of Ichibou, Kim Young-eun, Karachi Hoebu, Yamashina Ito, Genji Taku, and several other minor characters are my own ideas. Use your head. If it never appeared in anywhere in the Kenshin series, then it's probably mine. Not that anyone cares but me.
SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: To Kenshin TV ep 61, "Remaining Ju Pon Gattana, Choice of Life."
* * * * *
CHAPTER 14:
THE HEAVENLY SWORD
There was a shower of sparks as Yamashina and Soujiro's blades met again, but Soujiro had learned from the first strike, and didn't give the Yakuza overlord the angle he needed to do a point-blank Battou Jutsu with his opposite hand this time. Yamashina was unbelievably quick with his katana, however; Soujiro struck twice in rapid succession, hoping to draw Yamashina off guard, and the other man brushed them aside just as quickly. Soujiro had to leap away to avoid exposing himself to the wakizashi.
Yamashina countered with an attack of his own, trying to prevent Soujiro from regaining his footing, but Soujiro was light on his feet, and unbalancing him was all but impossible. Soujiro tried to use that to his advantage, luring the grey-clad fighter in with a false opportunity, but Yamashina didn't bite. At one point, Soujiro thought he had an opening, but Yamashina's wakizashi leapt from its sheath just in time to parry Soujiro's counterstrike. Soujiro had to accept the force of impact and let it hurl him skidding back several strides, or he would have been held right where Yamashina wanted him. ShiShiO had taught him how to control a skid without falling or hurting himself.
Soujiro expected Yamashina to press his advantage, which he did, but Soujiro came forward to meet him halfway, hoping to catch him before he was ready for the strike. He did, but Yamashina still blocked Soujiro's attack with his wakizashi; the smaller blade was quick enough to get up on defense, and Soujiro had had to attack on Yamashina's left side, where he held the smaller blade. Yamashina turned the parry into what might have been a lesser version of Aoshi's Gokou Ju Ji, slicing at Soujiro's neck with his blades crossed, but Soujiro was ready for that; before the attack could reach him, he planted his foot in Yamashina's stomach, and it was the Yakuza mastermind's turn to leap backward to absorb the impact. His attack struck harmlessly several inches in front of Soujiro. Immediately, though, Young-eun's captor was coming back for more.
There was never a single instant between when Yamashina was on attack and when he was on defense. Even the best fighters in the world had a brief moment when they switched from defense to offense that they were vulnerable; it was one of the disadvantages of fighting from a defensive style. Yamashina's form and style were absolutely perfect, however. Attacks became parries; parries became counters. He could attack with one hand and defend with the other. Soujiro was calling on enough speed to equal Kenshin's Shinsoku, (1) and was getting absolutely nowhere. He was watching Yamashina's respect for him grow with every strike, and the feral grin gradually faded from Yamashina's face, but Soujiro never managed to lay more than an errant, off-balance kick on the other man. Their blades whirled and rang, sending off showers of sparks in all directions and ricocheting wildly off one another, only to have the force of those ricochets rotate into the next attack.
Eventually, with an acrobatic leap off the outside wall of the palace, Yamashina disengaged. They had gone at least two straight minutes without breaking off, and neither one's breath had even quickened perceptibly. Soujiro knew he was controlling his, and guessed that Yamashina was using the same technique. Soujiro's wrist hurt from the scrape and from a particularly jarring blow, and Yamashina's stomach and left ribs had both taken hits from Soujiro's lightning-quick feet.
"Why don't you stop fooling around with that sakaba?" Yamashina asked. "I don't feel like I'm fighting ShiShiO's pupil here. You would never have touched one of those with him in sight!"
"I know," Soujiro replied. "But it was one of these that finally beat me, so there's nothing making it weak."
"It was Himura Kenshin that beat you, not a sakaba! He would have diced you into chopped liver with a katana! You won't stand a chance against my Tensui Ryu (2) without a real sword."
"You're hurt as much as I am," Soujiro observed.
"Aho!" (3) Yamashina snapped. "Can't you see that I'm trying to get you to fight me seriously?! I've been holding back to let you get the message!"
Soujiro shrugged. "I guess I still need more convincing," he said with his most innocent smile.
Yamashina's feral grin returned. "Have it your way, Soujiro-kun," his voice rang out, and his eyes blazed. "Let's see you counter this with a sakaba! Tensui Ryu, Samebatsu!" (4)
Before the sound had completely died away from Yamashina's lips, his feet blurred, followed a nanosecond later by the rest of him. There was a cracking sound like a string of tiny firecrackers to Soujiro's right, and he barely managed to wheel around in time to block the blinding flank attack. A split second later, Yamashina came at him again, this time from Soujiro's left, in the direction Soujiro had originally been facing. Soujiro blocked that one, too, but didn't get his feet set right to avoid the impact and was thrown back a step. He had to drop wildly to the ground and block to his left again to avoid the third stroke, and blocked the fourth strike from a completely prone position. Yamashina struck immediately, crushing the ball of his foot into Soujiro's ribs, unable to afford the time it would take to bring the wakizashi into play. Fortunately, that slowed him down just long enough for Soujiro to bring his sword partially around to bear in time to counter Yamashina's fifth blurring swing, and to partially catch Yamashina's blade on his own this time, throwing him out of the rhythm of his attack.
Yamashina blurred to a halt several yards in front of Soujiro, a wary expression on his face. Soujiro was on his feet in a heartbeat, but needed a controlled breath before he was ready to attack again. His eyes were narrow and alert, however. It had been two steps short of the full thing, but there was no mistaking what Soujiro had just seen. Or hadn't, since it was beyond the grasp of human eyes.
"Shuku-chi," Soujiro stated flatly.
"You've heard of it, I see," the grey-clad man said smugly. "Very good. ShiShiO dreamed of being able to do it himself someday, did you know? He was never able to accept the fact that he simply couldn't do it, no matter how strong his muscles became. It requires letting go of yourself, and he was always much too full of himself to come even close."
Soujiro's eyes widened. Yamashina didn't know everything about him after all, at least. Then he smiled again, and a hidden tension fell away from him. "Thank you for the lesson," he replied lightly, planting his right foot behind him, "but I already know how it works." With that, he drove forward and vanished, matching Yamashina's speed at two steps short of the full Shuku-chi. A look of naked surprise painted Yamashina's face as he twirled his blades to meet Soujiro's attack. His defense melted into offense almost instantly, but Soujiro knew that he had an opening for a brief moment, and how to take advantage of it. Yamashina had to use both of his swords to block Soujiro's rushing attack, and in that instant, Soujiro spun his sheath upward with his left hand, ramming the end into Yamashina's armpit.
Yamashina shook off the blow, and countered with a knee aimed at Soujiro's groin while their blades were still locked. Soujiro's blow had slowed him momentarily, however, if only slightly, and Soujiro was able to sidestep, wrenching his sword free a split-second later. It landed him on the defensive again almost immediately, however, as Yamashina somehow turned that knee thrust into the first step in his next lunge. He did not have the balance he needed to jump straight into the Shuku-chi again, whereas Soujiro was more set; Soujiro tried to use this to his advantage and came up short again, as Yamashina countered Soujiro's defensive strike, and suddenly was completely balanced again as well. Yamashina drove in again, and once again locked Soujiro's sword with his own paired blades.
"Very good," Yamashina hissed, "much more attention to defense than I would expect from ShiShiO's protege. But try and block this." Yamashina slipped his wakizashi free of the tangle of blades, and drove it at Soujiro's face; when Soujiro twisted his blade to block the short sword, Yamashina slashed in with the katana. Soujiro blocked that as well, and Yamashina countered with the backslash of his wakizashi. Soujiro quickly realized that the first two blows were only to establish his rhythm, and was ready for the speed of the third and successive blows; they came at near-Shuku-chi speed. Yamashina never made the mistake of putting all his energy, or even most of his energy, behind any single strike, enabling him to avoid any attempt by Soujiro to lock one blade or the other with his own. In a matter of ten seconds, Soujiro had parried at least forty attacks; he lost track after the first six or so. Their swords were striking each other so quickly and so often that it sounded like a Gatling gun had been turned on a piece of sheet metal in the courtyard.
When Yamashina broke off the attack at last, because Soujiro was starting to adapt to its rhythm, he had already scored two small cuts, and was clearly surprised that he hadn't done more. A small slit in the cloth over Soujiro's left bicep bore a slight but spreading red stain, and another one on Soujiro's right leg was less serious but nonetheless more than a shaving cut.
"Impressive," Yamashina said appreciatively. "No one has ever survived the Arashi Kenbu (5). You've earned your legend, Soujiro."
"I didn't know I had one," Soujiro answered. "But thanks anyway." His voice was still unfailingly polite, but there was no mistaking the concentration in his eyes. "My turn," he finished. "Meibatsu!" (6)
This was one of Soujiro's favorite attacks against tougher defensive opponents. He lunged in from the front, expecting Yamashina to parry his first atttack. He then spun to his right to unbalance his opponent as he turned to meet him, and as the crowning point of the attack, leapt in behind the second attack, leaping into the air and allowing the force of the impact to throw him into a somersault over the head of his opponent, bringing the blade down on the back of his enemy's skull in a blinding, whirling blur. The attack worked completely ... until the last part. Yamashina blocked it with the wakizashi in his left hand without even turning around.
Yamashina got greedy, however, and tried to twist around and attack Soujiro with his katana while the Tenken was still in the air. Apparently he forgot that Soujiro could play with more parts of his sword than the blade, or didn't know that Soujiro wasn't exactly slow even with his feet off the ground. Soujiro pivoted his sword against Yamashina's wakizashi in midair, ramming the hilt of the sakaba into Yamashina's right wrist as he brought his longer sword into play and almost disarming him. Yamashina had to leap back to recover his grip on his weapon, allowing Soujiro a safe landing.
Unlike Himura, however, Yamashina did not stand still and allow Soujiro to come at him. As soon as he recovered from Soujiro's blow, he blurred into motion again. Soujiro didn't understand why he hadn't upped the ante and gone to a single step short of the Shuku-chi, but he wasn't about to remind him. He wasn't about to stand still, either. Standing still was never a part of his battle plans. An eyeblink after Yamashina blurred into action again, Soujiro did the same, still staying at two steps short of the Shuku-chi.
The next minute or so of the fight was so comical that Soujiro almost broke out laughing. Neither Yamashina nor Soujiro were stupid enough to allow the other to get a direct angle on the other, and they were both extremely agile and changed directions without warning every other heartbeat. They never lined themselves up so they were both coming directly at each other. The result was that they were both having to aim at targets moving sideways or at off angles, faster than the eye could completely follow. Out of at least twenty tries for each of them, they only met each others' steel once. Their feet wildly churned up the dirt in the courtyard, and their changes in direction dug huge divets in the ground, but their swords touched absolutely nothing. Every time one of them tried to adjust their aim to guess where the other was going, the other somehow read it and changed direction.
Eventually, they both skidded to a stop, almost simultaneously. They were almost sixty yards away from each other. Yamashina actually gave Soujiro a somewhat wry grin. "Whoops," he said sheepishly, slipping his wakizashi back into its sheath. "That didn't work so well."
"Not really," Soujiro agreed.
Yamashina's grin sharpened again as he switched his katana into his left hand. "So let's try something different," he smirked. With that, he blurred from vision again. There was the single step short of the Shuku-chi that Soujiro had been expecting! It was a Gatotsu at near-Shuku-chi speed! Soujiro knew what was coming, though. Yamashina was too clever to try something so simplistic, especially when he was already sure that Soujiro could beat the Gatotsu and it wasn't really an Ishin ShiShi technique, anyway.
At the last instant, Yamashina drove forward with the wrong hip, and the wakizashi sprang into play again. He was better than Soujiro would have guessed at drawing the wakizashi from his right hip with his right hand, but nonetheless, the awkwardness of the draw did slow him down momentarily. He had been counting on surprise. Soujiro fell back into the stance of his Meimei Shubi, (7) blocking both attacks a heartbeat apart.
Suddenly, Soujiro tumbled backward; an acid sensation welled up in his throat, and a white froth burst from his mouth. There had been a third part of Yamashina's attack; Yamashina had stepped in behind his attack and delivered a knee kick with all the momentum of the near-Shuku-chi behind it into Soujiro's stomach. Soujiro regained his feet gingerly, and the burning sensation in his throat made his breathing ragged for the first time that he could remember since being struck by the Ama-Kakeru, Ryu-no-Hirameki.
"Tensui Ryu," Yamashina announced coldly. "Tsunami." (8)
"Nice," Soujiro grated in response. "But it won't work on me again." His eyes were narrow and wary, though. Yamashina had had a right to be bitter over not being chosen as the Battousai's successor. ShiShiO would have had trouble with this man, and the ShiShiO Soujiro remembered was much more powerful than the ShiShiO that had been the Ishin Shishi's top assassin after Himura-san quit.
"Won't it?" Yamashina smirked, settling into the Gatotsu stance again. Soujiro's eyes narrowed further. Yamashina knew Soujiro was telling the truth. Soujiro was sure of it; he didn't seem like the type to underestimate an enemy. So the Yakuza lord was about to try something else. What was it? If he charged, Soujiro had a counter, though. He slipped his sword into its sheath and crouched low into the Battou stance, crouching even more forward than he usually did.
Yamashina's eyes blazed. "Let's go, Soujiro!" he cried, and he hurled himself forward at a step short of the Shuku-chi once again. He was clearly expecting Soujiro to leap forward with a Battou Jutsu, and had adjusted the angle of his attack to make that difficult for the Tenken, but that was not Soujiro's intent at all.
"Chi-no-Arashi!" (9) Soujiro shouted, twisting and whirling his sword from his sheath, well before Yamashina had covered half the ground to him. Soujiro swept the flat of his blade along the surface of the ground at super speed, throwing up loose earth and rocks into Yamashina's path in an amplified version of Kenshin's Do Ryu Sen, though Soujiro had never seen Himura's similar technique.
Yamashina was going too fast to stop completely, but much to Soujiro's surprise, he managed to break off the attack and deflect the torrent of earth and gravel with his blades, switching from pure attack to pure defense at nearly the speed of thought. Most of the Ishin Shishi learned such whirling defenses, usually to stop darts or arrows, but Soujiro would never have believed that he could change from an all-out attack to that defense so fluidly. The Tensui Ryu was aptly named. Soujiro was not finished, however. As soon as his stroke was completed, he sprang into motion, a single step short of the Shuku-chi, knifing out to one side and then back in to attack Yamashina's flank. He moved so quickly that the last part of the stream of rock was still arriving at the same time he was. Yamashina had to turn to meet Soujiro's attack, and accept the punishment of the last few stones and clods of earth ... which were moving more than hard enough to leave bruises. Yamashina didn't even stumble as they struck, though; he kept his balance as if he was a pyramid. The wakizashi lashed out in his right hand, forcing Soujiro to jump back, and the ex-Ishin instantly had his weapons back in the hands he was more familiar using them in.
The grey-clad samurai straightened, though he did not lower his guard. "ShiShiO never taught you that," he oberved appreciatively. "I was wrong to call you a pupil."
Soujiro answered with a quizzical look. "Does it make a difference what you call me? It doesn't matter who's a master and who's a student, does it? Just who's the strongest." Soujiro realized when he said that that he had been slipping back into the Tenken mindset more and more since this string of fights began, but at the moment, he didn't have time to consider the implications of that. He had touched a nerve in his opponent, though.
"Oh, that doesn't matter, either," Yamashina replied. "If that mattered, Makoto would never have inherited the mantle of the Ishin Shishi's top operative."
"So why didn't you challenge him for the title?"
"They needed both of us," Yamashina spat. "They convinced me to set it aside for the sake of the cause. I gave everything up for them. The Yakuza, my family, my own personal prestige and honor. Then they conveniently forgot about me when it finally got around to setting up a new government. They didn't want to risk having a mob child in the cabinet. So they found someone else."
"So now you're out to destroy the Meiji government, too?" Soujiro asked. That was surprising. He would have found it hard to believe that such an ardent enemy of ShiShiO could hate the government as much as ShiShiO did. Then again, the government always seemed to step on a lot of toes.
Yamashina laughed. "I'm not as crazy as ShiShiO. And having a weak government in power suits me just fine, now. No, Soujiro, I have no need to destroy such a feeble enemy. The greatest conquerors in history have all known one thing: you only need to destroy what you cannot control. And the Meiji government is nowhere near strong enough to resist me. You, however, are another matter."
"Glad you think so," Soujiro replied. "And what about Young-eun, then?" He said that almost as much for himself as for Yamashina, to remind himself of who he was now and the reasons that had brought him here. He realized that he was slipping into the hard mentality of the Tenken, and while Yamashina was talking was the best chance he had to fight it. His mind flashed back to his conversation with Young-eun the previous night. *Strong things don't break. Hard things do.* He could not afford to be hard now. He needed to be strong.
Yamashina gave a sinister grin. "She'll be a challenge, I'm sure. I don't know if I can control her yet. We'll see. I hope I don't have to destroy her. She'll take some work, but she has more potential than anyone I've ever seen."
"Potential?" Soujiro retorted. "Potential for what?" He had to force his nerves to freeze, while his blood boiled in its veins.
Yamashina's eyes widened, as though realizing he had said more than he might have intended, though Soujiro couldn't make heads or tails of what he had said. "Oops!" he said. "I think I'm talking too much. Let's go, Soujiro!"
* * *
Ueda's attention was diverted from the door of Yamashina's private chambers by the sight of another black-garbed companion of his trudging down the hallway toward him.
"What is it, Hiraki?" Ueda asked.
Hiraki shrugged. "Hell if I know. I just got assigned to guard duty here, too."
"You're relieving me already?"
"No, sorry. The captain said you're staying."
Ueda threw up his hands in exasperation. "Does the captain think I'm a complete incompetent? It shouldn't take two of us to guard one bound, unarmed woman."
"I just do what I'm told."
Ueda growled to himself. "I don't suppose I could ask you to hold down the fort by yourself for a minute? I'm dying for a drink."
"Sure, I guess. It's your ass, not mine, if you're caught, you know," Hiraki replied.
"I know. Who cares? Nothing's going ..." he trailed off by the sound of movement in the bedroom.
"What was that?" Hiraki asked.
"I don't know," Ueda replied, pulling his sword free of its scabbard, "but she shouldn't have been able to move that much!"
Ueda and Hiraki threw open the door and burst into Yamashina's room. The first things they saw were the chains and cuffs that had bound their master's prisoner to the wide canopied bed in the middle of the room. They were lying in a pile on the floor, and the captive was nowhere to be seen.
"Oh, shit," Ueda gasped when he saw the empty room. "The captain's going to kill us."
Then the door to Yamashina's walk-in wardrobe opened, and the little Korean girl appeared. She moved slowly, almost like a ghost, but the guards' eyes narrowed warily. Somewhere in Yamashina's wardrobe, she had found a wakizashi, and it glittered brightly in her hand. There was nothing clumsy or unsteady about the way she held it, either. She did not make eye contact with them at first. When she did, the guards backed away another step. There was an absolutely lightless cast to her eyes. They were like two cold stars burning in a midnight sky.
"No," she said. "He won't." There was a whooshing sound as her form blurred into action.
* * *
Yamashina and Soujiro exchanged a few more thrusts and parries, but the heat that had been behind their first several attacks on each other had subsided somewhat. Soujiro thought that was strange, and kept waiting for when Yamashina intended to pounce--the only reason he could think of was that Yamashina was trying to lull him into getting lazy--but Yamashina never seemed to want to commit to any attack. Soujiro guessed he was waiting for an attack himself, hoping to draw Soujiro off balance and counter, but Soujiro wasn't biting. There were more quick breaks in the fighting as well, as they would stop and try to size each other up every few seconds rather than keeping moving.
Eventually, Soujiro had had enough. He disengaged, hurling himself backward, and took a defensive position on the turf. Yamashina took a similar position twenty yards or so away. What Yamashina forgot, or didn't realize, was that the fight had circled around so that Soujiro was now between Yamashina and the palace, and the grey-clad Yakuza overlord was out closer to the garden gate.
Soujiro grinned. "I'm up for a change of scene. Watchya think?" With that, he sprang back and darted up the wall of the palace, his legs propelling him up the wall so quickly that he never had a chance to start falling. He had used this trick against the Battousai as an attack, but he doubted Yamashina was going to stand still and wait for him. He was right.
Yamashina let out a snarl and bolted forward, springing skyward as soon as he got within range to attack Soujiro while the blue-clad assassin was not looking. Soujiro smiled. If Yamashina actually thought that he had truly turned his back on an enemy, then he didn't know Soujiro at all. Soujiro twisted aside on the surface of the wall the instant before Yamashina reached him. Yamashina got his feet between himself and the wall, saving himself from jumping headlong into the stone face, but Soujiro was there and waiting with his katana. They actually traded a pair of blows before gravity caught up with them, but Soujiro got the better of the exchange. Yamashina had not had time to balance himself properly on the wall, and he probably had not trained as much with fighting from this position as Soujiro had.
There was a light rushing sound in the air as Yamashina's wakizashi sailed up and out of reach over the top of the wall, though the sound was drowned by the thud as both Soujiro and Yamashina crashed to the ground. Neither one could spare much attention to breaking their fall, because they had to worry about each others' blades on the way down. They both knew the other was capable of attacking in midair.
Soujiro landed harder than Yamashina, however. Soujiro was already hurt on two of his limbs, and his roll to absorb the impact was not as fluid as Yamashina's. Yamashina seemed to roll and flow along the ground and then back to his feet as if his Tensui Ryu actually made him into a breathing mass of water. Soujiro winced as he got to his feet. Dirt had settled into the cut on his thigh, and a twinge of pain raced down his leg as he regained his feet. He had taken away one of Yamashina's weapons, but at what cost?
The Yakuza lord was re-assessing him appreciatively, however. "I was right about you," he said, the light of battle brightening in his eyes until they practically glowed. "I haven't been disarmed in a fight since the day before I turned thirteen. Even Himura Battousai never managed that, when we sparred together as Ishin Shishi."
"Really?" Soujiro actually let himself be impressed, though he took it in stride as much as anything else. "I'm surprised. When you fight with two weapons, it's a lot harder to pay attention to both of them than when you fight with one."
"True," Yamashina admitted, "but I was born ambidextrous. The Tensui Ryu isn't for everyone. Besides myself, I can only think of one other person still living who could learn to use it effectively."
Soujiro eyes narrowed, and his mind raced. At first, he thought that the man was actually talking about him, since he was the only other person the man had probably ever met who had mastered the Shuku-chi. However, they both knew that learning a second style, or switching to a second style as a primary style, is almost impossible for masters. Even if Kenshin ever mastered the Shuku-chi, he would never fight like Soujiro did. Soujiro knew how to read techniques with a single pass; he had read Kenshin's succession technique, and had actually been practicing his Kuzu Ryu Sen for some time, but that did not make him a student of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. Yamashina and Senkaku might have learned modified versions of the Gatotsu, but that did not make them Shinsen Gumi. Soujiro himself had been working on a new style, Aoi Denkou Ryu, part of his plan to 'destroy everything and start over,' as he had told Yumi-san, but it was really more a modification of his old Tenken Ryu than anything else. And it sounded like Yamashina practically never left the valley, or if he did, it was only to go pull strings with politicians and such; he doubted the man saw a warrior spirit burning in very many of them. Something in that thought touched off a sixth sense in the back of Soujiro's mind ... warrior spirit ... spirit ...
Soujiro's eyes widened, and Yamashina gave a sharp but smug smirk at the understanding dawning in them. "You can't be serious," he gasped.
"Why not?" Yamashina grinned evilly. "She'll take some taming, to be sure, but I think she'll be one of the finest assassins in the history of the country someday. No one will ever suspect a woman could have the abilities I've seen in her, either. Why do you think you hit it off so well with her? Do you really think it was her warmth and good cheer?"
Soujiro was stunned. Yamashina was completely right. No one would ever suspect her. She had the same coolness, coldness even, that Soujiro had. She had had a troubled childhood, too, growing up in an adoptive family the same way Soujiro had; not abusive, but in a country not her own. She was young and emotionally vulnerable. With a little extra pushing, she could easily fall into the same emotional abyss Soujiro had. And Soujiro remembered what she had done with the chopsticks ... she had a fighter's instincts, the ability to sense others, ease of movement and near-perfect hand-eye coordination, with no training at all. She could easily be what ShiShiO had called Soujiro, 'a little genius at killing.' However, it was clearly not what she wanted.
Slowly, a light began to burn in Soujiro's eyes as well. He sheathed his sword and readied himself for battle again. His mind was digging back to that most repressed memory that Himura had unlocked, the memory that had cost him that battle then, but he would fight for now. The memory of himself as a smiling eight-year-old boy in the midst of a rainstorm, staring at the small sword in his hands and at the first people he had ever killed. The memory of the thoughts running through his mind before ShiShiO had come out of the warehouse and taken the Tenken away with him.
*I killed these people ... but I never really wanted to ... I didn't want to kill ... true, I might have been smiling that rainy night but ... the truth is I was crying.*
Soujiro was stronger than he had been at that encounter with the Battousai, he realized. *Strong things don't break. Hard things do.* The words that he had said in passing to Young-eun on the roof of the blacksmith's shop the night before came back to him. That memory had broken him at ShiShiO's headquarters. The light of battle blossomed in his eyes when he thought of it now, but he did not lose his composure.
"Let's go, Yamashina," he said icily. Without another word, Soujiro blazed into action. Soujiro was beyond kidding around anymore. No more two-step-short, one-step-short games. He flashed out of human vision and into the driving strike of the Shun Ten Satsu. This time, his emotions were steady as he struck.
And he struck nothing but steel.
Even with the force of impact knocking Yamashina back several feet through the turf, Yamashina blocked and held Soujiro's blade with his own. The impact sent a shockwave out across the courtyard, but neither the blades nor their wielders gave out.
"You want to end this, Soujiro?" Yamashina scoffed. "Very well then! Tensui Ryu, Uzushio!" (10)
Yamashina shook his blade free of Soujiro's, and began the fastest and longest spin attack Soujiro had ever witnessed. He stayed a single step short of the Shuku-chi, which surprised Soujiro, but since the tip of his outstretched sword was moving even faster than he himself was at the center of his spin, the blade was actually moving faster than Soujiro could keep up with. Soujiro blocked the first attack, but his concentration zeroed in on the blade so much that Yamashina got off and effortless punch to Soujiro's stomach with his other hand. As Soujiro stumbled back, Yamashina spun again, before Soujiro could set his feet again. Soujiro got his sword between himself and Yamashina's, but the impact threw him to the turf. Yamashina towered over him, sword above his head like an executioner, bringing the blade down on Soujiro's neck. Soujiro managed to wrench his sword around and block it, reversing the sakaba and putting one hand just behind its tip to stabilize it, but the impact popped his unleveraged left shoulder, and Yamashina kicked him while he was down, sending him sprawling. This time, Soujiro landed on his stomach, leaving his unprotected back facing upward for Yamashina to sever. He tried to spin around on the ground beneath the lightning-fast attack, but he knew that it would be too late.
The ring of steel on steel so startled Soujiro as he spun that he barely remembered to get back on his feet when he saw that he had been granted a reprieve from death. It was not the reprieve that startled him so much as who had given it to him.
Standing above him, between himself and the Yakuza lord, was Young-eun, a pair of wakizashi raised above her head, one of which was Yamashina's own that Soujiro had so recently sent flying over the palace wall. Her kimono was rent in a dozen places below the waist, and crumpled all over. Her hair was no longer tied back, and her midnight tresses had been all but cut off; her hair didn't even reach her neck anymore, and being completely unrestrained, it streamed out to one side of her in the dawn breeze. The pearl necklace she had worn the night before was gone. She had captured Yamashina's blade in the cross of her own, and her balance was perfect; she had not moved an inch from the point of impact. On top of all that, Soujiro had neither seen, heard, nor felt her approach.
If Soujiro thought he was surprised, a glance at Yamashina told him that this was an even greater shock to him. The Yakuza overlord's eyes were wide with shock, and possibly even a touch of fear. He disengaged and took a step backward, flowing back into a defensive posture. Young-eun did the same, and backed up to one side as well. Soon her eyes came into view, and Soujiro felt like taking a step backward as well. They looked exactly like the midnight sky had only hours earlier, dark and infinite with two faint, untouchable points of light burning in their depths. Soujiro wondered if his eyes had ever looked like that; he doubted it, because people had never backed away from him when he passed them in the streets.
Soujiro tried to step towards her and stumbled. The blows to his midriff had disturbed his center of gravity and disrupted his breathing, and his leg was beginning to feel like jelly after being wounded, then dashing up a wall, then using the Shuku-chi, and then having his blow at full speed blocked. He wanted to laugh, or cry, but he couldn't. It was too funny for laughter and too sad for tears. He had come here to protect her, and she was protecting him. He collapsed to one knee, driving the point of his sword into the ground for support.
Young-eun spared him a passing glance of her frozen eyes, then turned her attention back to Yamashina. Even her voice was cold and distant. Emotionless. "So, Yamashina, you said I would come to enjoy killing someday," she said, tapping one foot on the ground behind her and crouching forward. A cold grin that was completely different from her smile the last time Soujiro had seen it split her face. She was losing herself, Soujiro realized, but he couldn't force his voice into action to call out to her. There was a lightless twinkle in her eyes as she punctuated the remark, "You may be right."
Without any warning, Soujiro realized why Yamashina had seemed so much more surprised than Soujiro at Young-eun's appearance. He had seen something in her that Soujiro hadn't, since Soujiro had been prone at the time. As soon as those words left Young-eun's lips, she coiled her two short swords close to her body, and vanished from human eyes. The sound of her steps and the dirt flying from her sandals in her wake were all the evidence of her movement around the lawn. Yamashina blocked her first attack and barely even slowed her down. She blazed to a halt a few moments later, several yards away from the Yakuza lord.
"You may definitely be right," she said again.
* * * * *
(1) God-speed
(2) Divine Water Style
(3) Moron
(4) Shark attack
(5) Tempest Sword Dance
(6) Divine Punishment
(7) Invisible Defense
(8) Tidal Wave
(9) Storm of Earth
(10) Whirling Tides
COMING SOON: Chapter 15, "The Shooting Star." This is twice in a row now that I've left a fight (the same fight!) hanging in the balance, and I promise I'll keep writing on this as soon as I'm able. I figured that since I might not be able to write again for a little bit, I'd better publish what I have. It's already as long as several of my other chapters, anyway.
Young-eun is not as strong as she thinks she is, and while she is definitely a far cry above anyone short of a Hitokiri, she has to learn the hard way that the Shuku-chi is not invulnerability. She also has to learn exactly what Soujiro did only weeks earlier, that being strong and being a killer are two different things. 'Strong things don't break; hard things do.' I think it's becoming a theme of this story. Soujiro must also find a deeper strength within himself, the strength that comes from fighting for more than oneself. He also has to do whatever he can to bring Young-eun back to herself and prevent history from repeating.
What do you think so far? This is the biggest, most involved fight scene I've ever written, so I hope you at least have something to say about it!