Part six: Lost Memories
"I don't remember anything."
The group of ruffians let out a boisterous laugh, it's already late at night, and one would be less sane to walk alone in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. "Are you out of your wits, little boy? Do you even actually know where you are?"
He knows the place is of Kyoto, and he is walking which seems to be the wilder side nearing the outskirts of the woods. How he got there, he didn't know. Everything in his memory before that is a total blank, let alone on knowing who he is.
"You little fella think you're intimidating carrying a sword like that?" one of them spat, "besides, who are you anyway? You work with the government?"
Each questions asked by the rogues is like a riddle on his identity. All he knows is he wakes up one day, in the rough grounds outside the forest. Without a background and identity, he founds himself pitied by a young peasant girl named Yuri, finding him wandering aimlessly at the nearby cleared farm and fainting from the dead heat of the sun. The clue to his identity is his clothes, Yuri and her mother found him in a much modern kimono and by the judge of his looks he seems to be around his late teens. They wondered why a youth like him is carrying a sword, a real one, when it is strictly prohibited by the government. He is as baffled as they were, but allowed him to keep it.for it might be a clue to who he really was. The fragile, doe eyed Yuri tells him that how a blow in one's head could rob someone of his senses, and now his memory. He repays the small family by helping them tend their small farm, and leaving his sword so often behind.he does not know much purpose of it, only to know that it is not allowed to be used so he wouldn't bother carrying it around with his chores. They called him Soujiro, for they find the name inscribed at one of the almost washed letters tucked in his robe. It's been almost a week already, and donning also peasant clothes.he wants to leave everything of his void past behind. He was found wearing a ravaged torn kimono, his arms are wearing custom made protectors.that one would need in battle.plus the sword, a very beautiful crafted one and lethally sharp. With these he comes up with a conclusion: the life he led before must have not been peaceful as this. The interest to know who he was has plummeted swiftly, and he requested that his old clothes to be thrown away.
But that night, he have to accompany Yuri in picking some wild herbs by the forest.and is in awe that how he, have retained a strong memory of the place. "This forest is often dangerous and one could easily get lost or threatened by nasty rouges," she once exclaimed, "maybe you have been here before, don't you think?"
He merely shrugged, and she insisted that he brings his sword.just in case. And with great resentment, he did. It will be of good use now, when he heard screams from a certain direction.he found Yuri in a mercy of five ruffians. The sight of a young farmer boy dragging a sword caught their eye that it immediately distracts them to let her rush quickly to his side.
If he could only remember only how to use it.
"Well kid, who the fuck are you?" one of them chided, and Soujiro could feel his blood boil. Right now he wants to rage and kick them to death, but obviously they are outnumbered. But it's so strange, he managed to remain very calm of the situation.added to surprise for himself, he felt involuntarily that a smile is slowly breaking in his face. He finds himself speaking words he never thought he will utter,
"Why don't you kill me instead?"
"Smart-ass boy! Are you trying to insult us?!" One of them snarled, hitting him at the face. There is something bone-chilling of his smile, and most of the rogues feel queasy.what will this young peasant youth do? It's like he is holding his anger from within, and he is just about to show he'll unleash it with his victory with that proud smile. But the peasant boy does not even know how to hold a sword, the leader of the pack noticed it. Soujiro is clumsily dragging it by it's weight.
Yuri quickly rushed to his aid, to see if he is okay. She is surprised to see him still smiling, as if he just had an embarrassing stumble to the ground. But it is good to see that he only obtain a bruise, and not a broken jaw.
"They call me Soujiro, but I have no qualms on who I really am.I lost my memory," he finally replied. It's the truth, and the men looked at him in stern silence. A few minutes after, they all laughed in ridicule.
"Leave him alone! He didn't know anything, and that's the truth!!" Yuri said bravely, pressing her digit firmly to one of them, her small frame seemingly dwarfish to the supposedly bandits, as she tried her best to threaten them off. But it became a small amusement to them, a puny peasant girl defending a youth who does not know who he was and is by mercy, trying to use a sword when he can't.
"So why don't we let him refresh his little head?!" one of them grabbed the frail Yuri, and try to pin her to the ground and ravish her. The rest of the men eagerly watched, and anticipating their turn. "Let the little boy watch and see what it takes to be a real man!!" Soujiro starts to see red, and suddenly his head throbbed fiercely with great pain. He is so consumed of desire to defend the person who saved him at the day he walked the earth nameless, that it somehow sent some reaction to his brain. "Hanase..Hanase!!!" the girl screamed, as the man tried to pry her legs forcefully open.
"Iya!! Hanase.." She look to him at her left disparingly, ".Soujiro!!"
A vivid flashback, accompanied by a searing pain to his head resounded, that he cringed in pain and fell to the ground. An image of a young lady with soulful green eyes and long hair came into his mind, and she was struggling to his grip. She was screaming the almost same words that Yuri is doing now,
"Misao!" his memory react on impulse, automatically came into recognition twin with the image. He found his old self screaming that name. But in the present, his mouth open soundlessly and the name means nothing.
"Damare, bakaero!!" the man hissed, and hit Yuri to the face. The others laughed, enjoying the sight, as Soujiro watched helplessly laying down the ground.
That act, has finally inflamed him.
His body reacted as if it has a control on its own, recalling the reflexes and moves he once has, but he can't consciously remembers. He quickly hoisted the sword, and when the others recognized it, it's all too late.
The first man to fall has his eyes stared in full disbelief and his mouth distorted to a soundless grotesque scream, as Soujiro cleverly maneuvered his sword in a fatal arc, cutting both arms swiftly, as like the wind has pass through the body. Blood bursts into mid air, spattering anyone within the radius. The other three lackey's looked around and is utterly horrified with the red crimson that stained in them, and finding the peasant boy standing, the sword in his hand that delivered the move in such a professional stance. The smile on Soujiro's face, is wicked.
"Yuen, Kagaru, Tomu, Hanji..is everything alright?" their master, who got distracted by the sudden haste silence, got nothing but swishing sounds that greeted his ears and low grunts and gasps as a response. It stalled him for awhile, and disturbs him that he hears no one responded to his question. He stared back at Yuri, the girl underneath him is unusually calm, and her doe eyes are staring out in a distance widely. A closer look to those brown wide orbs, he noticed what seems to be a flicker of a sword that was to pass about his neck. He rolled down to the ground in a nick of time,
"Hah! You bastard! Do you think that will work!!" he let out a nervous laugh, but it came to a sudden halt when it came into that the youth does not look like what he expected. Soujiro is into an offensive mode stance, and his sword is unsheathed and dripping with dark red stain. The pose is not any lame threat, it is for real. The sword, which he is clumsily dragging awhile ago, is now being hold like a light feather. The stains in his clothes indicated he hacked his lackeys in a swift, silent death. And his eye's, they are full with dark rage, clouding the indigo gaze to a deadly blue flame.
"Yuen, Kagaru! Tomu! Hanji!" he swallowed a deep painful lump to his throat as he called out their names, no response. He looked back at Soujiro once again, a sign of defeat and fear played at his face.
"They can't help you now." Soujiro replied flatly, "they are all dead." Placing the tip damgerously near his throat, he whispered. "Leave us alone, and I'll spare yours in turn."
He was surprised to see the man laugh, is it a sign of desperation? To distract him? Whatever it is, his body's instinct tells him to be on guard, and he never let go of the grip.
"Hah! And you said you have amnesia!!" the man howled, ".is this who you really are kid? Or are you playing games with me?" all this might be gibberish, but its giving the man enough time for himself to make out a dagger in his secret pocket. "Looks to me that you have a dark past you can't remember!!"
Another searing pain shot to Soujiro's head. A dark past? The truth is he can't recall anything why he just did that. His body responded just automatically by instinct at the alarming sight of Yuri being violated.to where he learned it, to what it is called.it all escapes him. Fear creeps into him, the past he does not want to remember is haunting him at the very moment. Does it mean.he was once a cold vicious killer? A trained assassin? Who was he? WHAT was he?
The bandit took the moment of distraction to lounge on him. With the flash of silver raised, Soujiro felt a sting of the cold metal lanced down to his right arm. The pain and smell of his own blood alerted his senses once more, and whatever force within him, it starts to control his every move. He countered swiftly, just when the man is going to stab him again, he disappeared into thin air.
Just to re-appear lightning quick behind his back.
A cold whaffing of air that teased the back of his neck made his hair prickle, a small shadow is behind him, and the next thing he knows is the pool of his own blood spilling through the cold night air, as the gleaming metal slashed to his back. Soujiro finally has him.
It took several moments for Soujiro to recover from his own shock, and a less rattled Yuri to trek the way he knew his home. Her mother is full of worry on seeing the sight of both of them in mess, but most of all, held aghast to see Soujiro stained with blood.and so is the sheathed sword in his grip. After getting a good night bath and some tea to calm both their nerves, Soujiro relayed the incident that had happened. In desperation to save Yuri, he recalls some fragments of his memory. And that memory is the strange extraordinary skills that he can't imagine having, the way of the sword.
"I-I don't like to kill them," he whispered, "but then and there.it seems I'm drawn just to do it.just to save Yuri."
Osei, Yuri's middle-aged mother, nodded thoughtfully. She has accustomed to like the boy that could have been her own, also perhaps also as a son-in-law. And the truthful sadness in his voice is indicating that he does not want to be restored to his former life, and she fully believed him. But they can't keep a youth with a dark past, as she listens to his statement.she is pondering on how she could break the news.
"Soujiro, you have been great help to us, me and Yuri, and I could never wish for anything else.having such a young man like you that could be my son is a dream comes true. But there is something important I have to tell." she stood up, and arrived few minutes later carrying a box. "I kept your old things, in a hope that someone in your past could identify you, a family perhaps..do you wish to remember?"
Soujiro reluctantly agreed, after all for what he had gone through now, he is in dire need of explanation. "Hai, please tell me."
Osei breathed deeply, she does not know if she'll be happy or worried in bringing the news. "Your true identity is.Soujiro.Seta Soujiro. I send your items to some authorities for identification, and they positively agree that you are him and in regard that once you know already about it..you must immediately leave."
He felt a quick stab in his heart, and Yuri looked a bit puzzled to her mother. "Why, okaasan?"
" In early morning tomorrow, if he didn't leave.we will be arrested." she looked with a painful gaze to Soujiro, the youth has no absolute idea on who he was. But no matter how much they were endeared by him, she has to let him go.
".Seta Soujiro." she trails off, ".you are a once former skilled assassin, a master of the Heaven Sword technique. You once served as the trusted right-hand man to a former dictator who threatened to take over Japan some year or so ago, by a man called Makoto Shi-shi-o." she bent her head sadly, ".your blinded loyalty that nearly destroyed you, then you got engaged in a bloody battle, and was spared on that duel by the so called Kenshin Himura.your former sworn enemy."
".the former battosai the slasher!" Yuri whispered, trying to hide the amusement beneath her voice. She didn't know the youth she had grown to like as a brother has connections with the most complex of political figures.and of slashers.
".Kenshin Himura, he saved your life.and believes you have to start a new beginning, in the process, he lets you escape.on which you did. After that, no one has heard of you again.until now."
To Soujiro it's like hearing some alien language, what he has feared was brought to reality. He struggled with the words to say, ".and what happened after I escaped?"
"No one knows for sure, but a few people who recognized you said you became an aloof yet law abiding citizen.wandering from place to place." Osei replied, "But the police believed that even so, you can re-surface a threat.and they ordered an arrest as early as tomorrow." She placed her hands to his, squeezing it firmly and looking at him to the eye. "Soujiro, I believed that you are now a changed man.so you must leave tonight, I'm telling you!"
He felt at loss, the small family he came to knew are risking themselves so that he could re-discover himself once more, he finds himself saying yes, and they all hastily starts making preparations. Osei told him that she fixed his clothes, except for the missing torn piece, and told him to wear them once more so no one could find any evidence he have been there, to which he obey immediately. For he somehow knew already about his past, and so he have to re-took the getup once more. He finds himself recognizing every detail, how quick he could put those arm protectors, down to the complex tied sandals and to slinging his sword in a deceiving notion that none could see it. It's so painful to say farewell.
"Osei-san." he suddenly remembered, "I mentioned someone named Misao while ago right? Do they give any information that she was..a lead that could possibly know who I really am?"
"Misao.I think they mentioned someone named Makamachi Misao, yes I think you knew of her." there is an expression of Osei's face that it is not a good idea to look for the woman, " She is the current leader of some ninja clan Oniwabanshu, she used to be one of your enemies."
"It's not a good idea to look for a former enemy, Soujiro."
"Yes, but somehow..she is connected to my past in a strong sense, and not as an enemy." he said wondering out loud, when the name registers to his head.the vision of the boyish looking girl giggling into some inn came into mind. Maybe after the aftermath, they met somewhere.and she didn't know who he was. But that time, he knew her, and finds himself at ease at her presence at that instant. "Osei-san, Yuri.she could probably held some answers, please forgive me.I'll try my best not to get into any much trouble" he bowed in respect, and the mother and daughter hugged him tight.
"Arigatou for everything, I mean it.till then,Sayonara.."
"I don't remember anything."
The group of ruffians let out a boisterous laugh, it's already late at night, and one would be less sane to walk alone in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. "Are you out of your wits, little boy? Do you even actually know where you are?"
He knows the place is of Kyoto, and he is walking which seems to be the wilder side nearing the outskirts of the woods. How he got there, he didn't know. Everything in his memory before that is a total blank, let alone on knowing who he is.
"You little fella think you're intimidating carrying a sword like that?" one of them spat, "besides, who are you anyway? You work with the government?"
Each questions asked by the rogues is like a riddle on his identity. All he knows is he wakes up one day, in the rough grounds outside the forest. Without a background and identity, he founds himself pitied by a young peasant girl named Yuri, finding him wandering aimlessly at the nearby cleared farm and fainting from the dead heat of the sun. The clue to his identity is his clothes, Yuri and her mother found him in a much modern kimono and by the judge of his looks he seems to be around his late teens. They wondered why a youth like him is carrying a sword, a real one, when it is strictly prohibited by the government. He is as baffled as they were, but allowed him to keep it.for it might be a clue to who he really was. The fragile, doe eyed Yuri tells him that how a blow in one's head could rob someone of his senses, and now his memory. He repays the small family by helping them tend their small farm, and leaving his sword so often behind.he does not know much purpose of it, only to know that it is not allowed to be used so he wouldn't bother carrying it around with his chores. They called him Soujiro, for they find the name inscribed at one of the almost washed letters tucked in his robe. It's been almost a week already, and donning also peasant clothes.he wants to leave everything of his void past behind. He was found wearing a ravaged torn kimono, his arms are wearing custom made protectors.that one would need in battle.plus the sword, a very beautiful crafted one and lethally sharp. With these he comes up with a conclusion: the life he led before must have not been peaceful as this. The interest to know who he was has plummeted swiftly, and he requested that his old clothes to be thrown away.
But that night, he have to accompany Yuri in picking some wild herbs by the forest.and is in awe that how he, have retained a strong memory of the place. "This forest is often dangerous and one could easily get lost or threatened by nasty rouges," she once exclaimed, "maybe you have been here before, don't you think?"
He merely shrugged, and she insisted that he brings his sword.just in case. And with great resentment, he did. It will be of good use now, when he heard screams from a certain direction.he found Yuri in a mercy of five ruffians. The sight of a young farmer boy dragging a sword caught their eye that it immediately distracts them to let her rush quickly to his side.
If he could only remember only how to use it.
"Well kid, who the fuck are you?" one of them chided, and Soujiro could feel his blood boil. Right now he wants to rage and kick them to death, but obviously they are outnumbered. But it's so strange, he managed to remain very calm of the situation.added to surprise for himself, he felt involuntarily that a smile is slowly breaking in his face. He finds himself speaking words he never thought he will utter,
"Why don't you kill me instead?"
"Smart-ass boy! Are you trying to insult us?!" One of them snarled, hitting him at the face. There is something bone-chilling of his smile, and most of the rogues feel queasy.what will this young peasant youth do? It's like he is holding his anger from within, and he is just about to show he'll unleash it with his victory with that proud smile. But the peasant boy does not even know how to hold a sword, the leader of the pack noticed it. Soujiro is clumsily dragging it by it's weight.
Yuri quickly rushed to his aid, to see if he is okay. She is surprised to see him still smiling, as if he just had an embarrassing stumble to the ground. But it is good to see that he only obtain a bruise, and not a broken jaw.
"They call me Soujiro, but I have no qualms on who I really am.I lost my memory," he finally replied. It's the truth, and the men looked at him in stern silence. A few minutes after, they all laughed in ridicule.
"Leave him alone! He didn't know anything, and that's the truth!!" Yuri said bravely, pressing her digit firmly to one of them, her small frame seemingly dwarfish to the supposedly bandits, as she tried her best to threaten them off. But it became a small amusement to them, a puny peasant girl defending a youth who does not know who he was and is by mercy, trying to use a sword when he can't.
"So why don't we let him refresh his little head?!" one of them grabbed the frail Yuri, and try to pin her to the ground and ravish her. The rest of the men eagerly watched, and anticipating their turn. "Let the little boy watch and see what it takes to be a real man!!" Soujiro starts to see red, and suddenly his head throbbed fiercely with great pain. He is so consumed of desire to defend the person who saved him at the day he walked the earth nameless, that it somehow sent some reaction to his brain. "Hanase..Hanase!!!" the girl screamed, as the man tried to pry her legs forcefully open.
"Iya!! Hanase.." She look to him at her left disparingly, ".Soujiro!!"
A vivid flashback, accompanied by a searing pain to his head resounded, that he cringed in pain and fell to the ground. An image of a young lady with soulful green eyes and long hair came into his mind, and she was struggling to his grip. She was screaming the almost same words that Yuri is doing now,
"Misao!" his memory react on impulse, automatically came into recognition twin with the image. He found his old self screaming that name. But in the present, his mouth open soundlessly and the name means nothing.
"Damare, bakaero!!" the man hissed, and hit Yuri to the face. The others laughed, enjoying the sight, as Soujiro watched helplessly laying down the ground.
That act, has finally inflamed him.
His body reacted as if it has a control on its own, recalling the reflexes and moves he once has, but he can't consciously remembers. He quickly hoisted the sword, and when the others recognized it, it's all too late.
The first man to fall has his eyes stared in full disbelief and his mouth distorted to a soundless grotesque scream, as Soujiro cleverly maneuvered his sword in a fatal arc, cutting both arms swiftly, as like the wind has pass through the body. Blood bursts into mid air, spattering anyone within the radius. The other three lackey's looked around and is utterly horrified with the red crimson that stained in them, and finding the peasant boy standing, the sword in his hand that delivered the move in such a professional stance. The smile on Soujiro's face, is wicked.
"Yuen, Kagaru, Tomu, Hanji..is everything alright?" their master, who got distracted by the sudden haste silence, got nothing but swishing sounds that greeted his ears and low grunts and gasps as a response. It stalled him for awhile, and disturbs him that he hears no one responded to his question. He stared back at Yuri, the girl underneath him is unusually calm, and her doe eyes are staring out in a distance widely. A closer look to those brown wide orbs, he noticed what seems to be a flicker of a sword that was to pass about his neck. He rolled down to the ground in a nick of time,
"Hah! You bastard! Do you think that will work!!" he let out a nervous laugh, but it came to a sudden halt when it came into that the youth does not look like what he expected. Soujiro is into an offensive mode stance, and his sword is unsheathed and dripping with dark red stain. The pose is not any lame threat, it is for real. The sword, which he is clumsily dragging awhile ago, is now being hold like a light feather. The stains in his clothes indicated he hacked his lackeys in a swift, silent death. And his eye's, they are full with dark rage, clouding the indigo gaze to a deadly blue flame.
"Yuen, Kagaru! Tomu! Hanji!" he swallowed a deep painful lump to his throat as he called out their names, no response. He looked back at Soujiro once again, a sign of defeat and fear played at his face.
"They can't help you now." Soujiro replied flatly, "they are all dead." Placing the tip damgerously near his throat, he whispered. "Leave us alone, and I'll spare yours in turn."
He was surprised to see the man laugh, is it a sign of desperation? To distract him? Whatever it is, his body's instinct tells him to be on guard, and he never let go of the grip.
"Hah! And you said you have amnesia!!" the man howled, ".is this who you really are kid? Or are you playing games with me?" all this might be gibberish, but its giving the man enough time for himself to make out a dagger in his secret pocket. "Looks to me that you have a dark past you can't remember!!"
Another searing pain shot to Soujiro's head. A dark past? The truth is he can't recall anything why he just did that. His body responded just automatically by instinct at the alarming sight of Yuri being violated.to where he learned it, to what it is called.it all escapes him. Fear creeps into him, the past he does not want to remember is haunting him at the very moment. Does it mean.he was once a cold vicious killer? A trained assassin? Who was he? WHAT was he?
The bandit took the moment of distraction to lounge on him. With the flash of silver raised, Soujiro felt a sting of the cold metal lanced down to his right arm. The pain and smell of his own blood alerted his senses once more, and whatever force within him, it starts to control his every move. He countered swiftly, just when the man is going to stab him again, he disappeared into thin air.
Just to re-appear lightning quick behind his back.
A cold whaffing of air that teased the back of his neck made his hair prickle, a small shadow is behind him, and the next thing he knows is the pool of his own blood spilling through the cold night air, as the gleaming metal slashed to his back. Soujiro finally has him.
It took several moments for Soujiro to recover from his own shock, and a less rattled Yuri to trek the way he knew his home. Her mother is full of worry on seeing the sight of both of them in mess, but most of all, held aghast to see Soujiro stained with blood.and so is the sheathed sword in his grip. After getting a good night bath and some tea to calm both their nerves, Soujiro relayed the incident that had happened. In desperation to save Yuri, he recalls some fragments of his memory. And that memory is the strange extraordinary skills that he can't imagine having, the way of the sword.
"I-I don't like to kill them," he whispered, "but then and there.it seems I'm drawn just to do it.just to save Yuri."
Osei, Yuri's middle-aged mother, nodded thoughtfully. She has accustomed to like the boy that could have been her own, also perhaps also as a son-in-law. And the truthful sadness in his voice is indicating that he does not want to be restored to his former life, and she fully believed him. But they can't keep a youth with a dark past, as she listens to his statement.she is pondering on how she could break the news.
"Soujiro, you have been great help to us, me and Yuri, and I could never wish for anything else.having such a young man like you that could be my son is a dream comes true. But there is something important I have to tell." she stood up, and arrived few minutes later carrying a box. "I kept your old things, in a hope that someone in your past could identify you, a family perhaps..do you wish to remember?"
Soujiro reluctantly agreed, after all for what he had gone through now, he is in dire need of explanation. "Hai, please tell me."
Osei breathed deeply, she does not know if she'll be happy or worried in bringing the news. "Your true identity is.Soujiro.Seta Soujiro. I send your items to some authorities for identification, and they positively agree that you are him and in regard that once you know already about it..you must immediately leave."
He felt a quick stab in his heart, and Yuri looked a bit puzzled to her mother. "Why, okaasan?"
" In early morning tomorrow, if he didn't leave.we will be arrested." she looked with a painful gaze to Soujiro, the youth has no absolute idea on who he was. But no matter how much they were endeared by him, she has to let him go.
".Seta Soujiro." she trails off, ".you are a once former skilled assassin, a master of the Heaven Sword technique. You once served as the trusted right-hand man to a former dictator who threatened to take over Japan some year or so ago, by a man called Makoto Shi-shi-o." she bent her head sadly, ".your blinded loyalty that nearly destroyed you, then you got engaged in a bloody battle, and was spared on that duel by the so called Kenshin Himura.your former sworn enemy."
".the former battosai the slasher!" Yuri whispered, trying to hide the amusement beneath her voice. She didn't know the youth she had grown to like as a brother has connections with the most complex of political figures.and of slashers.
".Kenshin Himura, he saved your life.and believes you have to start a new beginning, in the process, he lets you escape.on which you did. After that, no one has heard of you again.until now."
To Soujiro it's like hearing some alien language, what he has feared was brought to reality. He struggled with the words to say, ".and what happened after I escaped?"
"No one knows for sure, but a few people who recognized you said you became an aloof yet law abiding citizen.wandering from place to place." Osei replied, "But the police believed that even so, you can re-surface a threat.and they ordered an arrest as early as tomorrow." She placed her hands to his, squeezing it firmly and looking at him to the eye. "Soujiro, I believed that you are now a changed man.so you must leave tonight, I'm telling you!"
He felt at loss, the small family he came to knew are risking themselves so that he could re-discover himself once more, he finds himself saying yes, and they all hastily starts making preparations. Osei told him that she fixed his clothes, except for the missing torn piece, and told him to wear them once more so no one could find any evidence he have been there, to which he obey immediately. For he somehow knew already about his past, and so he have to re-took the getup once more. He finds himself recognizing every detail, how quick he could put those arm protectors, down to the complex tied sandals and to slinging his sword in a deceiving notion that none could see it. It's so painful to say farewell.
"Osei-san." he suddenly remembered, "I mentioned someone named Misao while ago right? Do they give any information that she was..a lead that could possibly know who I really am?"
"Misao.I think they mentioned someone named Makamachi Misao, yes I think you knew of her." there is an expression of Osei's face that it is not a good idea to look for the woman, " She is the current leader of some ninja clan Oniwabanshu, she used to be one of your enemies."
"It's not a good idea to look for a former enemy, Soujiro."
"Yes, but somehow..she is connected to my past in a strong sense, and not as an enemy." he said wondering out loud, when the name registers to his head.the vision of the boyish looking girl giggling into some inn came into mind. Maybe after the aftermath, they met somewhere.and she didn't know who he was. But that time, he knew her, and finds himself at ease at her presence at that instant. "Osei-san, Yuri.she could probably held some answers, please forgive me.I'll try my best not to get into any much trouble" he bowed in respect, and the mother and daughter hugged him tight.
"Arigatou for everything, I mean it.till then,Sayonara.."