Tales of the Mitsurugi Dragon: Shadow of Shadows
By Hitokiri Gentatsu
A/N: Gomen for being so long with this but I have two jobs now so things IRL are pretty busy. I will finish this and 'Sanctuary' as well, so don't worry. Hope you will enjoy this chapter and, as always, feel free to read and review.
Chapter Three: Confusion
"In plays they always say, 'a rain of blood fell'…but you really made it rain blood."
Yukishiro Tomoe
Jinchuu Arc
Dusk had fallen over the city and the sky overhead was painted a deep shade of crimson shot through with pink and purple but Kenshin paid on heed to its beauty as he walked through the gathering gloom. His narrow-eyed gaze took in everything and everyone as he passed down the street, which was full of people, toward the restaurant. He wasn't truly hungry but he knew better than to not eat at all and he needed the focus that a few jars of sake would provide him in order to do tonight's work.
He slipped into the establishment on silent feet, unnoticed among the crowd of guests, and took a seat in a corner so that his back would be guarded while he ate. A young girl came and took his order of plain rice and spicy beef and departed. Kenshin watched the other occupants of the room but saw no one that could be a threat to him. When the girl returned, he pressed one of his few coins into her hand and asked her to bring him three bottles of sake. She bowed and returned shortly with his request. She left him alone, a slight blush creeping over her face at the thought of the polite, handsome and young samurai she had just served.
Kenshin took little notice of the girl and became pre-occupied with pushing his food around instead. He looked around the room and tried to eat but the food tasted of blood, as nearly everything he ate or drank did. He managed to choke down about half of it before pushing it away with a grimace. Instead of food, he turned to the sake jar in front of him and poured some of the liquid into his cup. He contemplated it for a moment and then downed it in one gulp, grimacing as the warmed alcohol made its way down to his stomach.
He made quick work of the three bottles and soon called the waitress over, asking for three more and giving her another of his coins. After drinking these three, he was finally able to manage the rest of his dinner and he felt his body calm slightly. The night outside had grown dark and most of the people had left the establishment by the time he had finished. He left a few more coins on the table, picked up his swords and left as quietly as he had come, disappearing into the night like a phantom.
The cool night air hit him as he left and he slid his arms inside his gi for warmth. He moved down the street noiselessly, his senses on alert for possible enemies. His head never moved but his now amber eyes continually swept the area around him.
There was no one.
He continued to walk with apparent unconcern as a few remaining townsfolk scampered quickly to their homes, wanting desperately to return to their families before violence could befall them. Battousai ignored them. They were of no threat to him and he had work to do this night.
*
Battousai leapt to the roof of the wall that enclosed the estate with the grace and silence of a cat. He crouched there, watching the guards moving back and forth in a pattern so complex that it took him several moments to determine what it was. They seemed to be moving in a haphazard fashion. Battousai narrowed his glowing eyes and watched them carefully, glad that there was no moon to give his presence away to those below him. After several moments he was able to discern the pattern and several seconds latter he had counted it out in his head.
"Even those guards will not save you," he thought as he landed silently on the ground behind a screen of trees and shrubs, his amber eyes narrowed in concentration.
He counted off seconds in his head, timing the movements of the unseen guards that he had watched from above, before darting from under the covering plants. He was nearly invisible in the deep shadows that dappled the yard as he moved passed the guards with the silent swiftness his master had painstakeningly drilled into him from youth. He hid within the shadows of the main house and watched the passing guards a moment before sliding a nearby window open and slipping through it.
The room before him was empty and he paused to catch his breath. He knew he could have easily killed all the guards outside but they were not his targets, even though they worked for a Shogunate official. Their deaths would just be meaningless slaughter and not even the Hitokiri Battousai liked that.
"Its better this way. No needless bloodshed and only one death…"
He listened at the door for a few minutes before slowly sliding it open. The narrow and shadowy corridor before him was devoid of light and people, although there he could sense people sleeping in the rooms on either side of the hall. He sprinted down the empty hall without a sound and seemingly without touching the floor, intent on only one thing; ending this quickly and quietly so that he could move on to the next target.
Battousai paused in mid-stride as a powerful ki beat against his own, although his was carefully masked to hide his location from others. He paused and looked at the door before him, which appeared to be no different from the others but for the presence he sensed beyond it. From what he could tell, there was only one person in the room and that person was most likely his target.
"It could be a trap. Better go carefully," he thought to himself as Katsura's warning echoed in his mind.
Battousai stood, posed at the closed door, waiting for some internal signal. When nothing happened for several minutes and when no alarm was given, he quietly slid the door open and slipped into the dark room. He stood against the wall and was inching along it when a deep voice spoke to him from across the room.
"So--you are the Ishin Shadow, the one called Hitokiri Battousai, are you? You're not what I expected at all."
Battousai scanned the room, knowing from the beating of the other's ki where the man stood.
"I have come to bring you Tenchuu for your tyrannous acts against the people." Battousai's voice held a cold edge to it and his amber eyes glowed in the darkness.
There was the sound of a match striking something as a single lantern was lit and Battousai could see an older samurai regarding him. The man had a naked blade in his hands and his face was a mask of rage. Battousai's eyes widened for a moment but then his mouth formed into a snarl and his eyes narrowed again, becoming twin pools of death.
The other man stepped forward into the lantern's glow and Battousai saw that his arms were covered with scars and that the man's eyes were cold, hard chips of black onyx, flat and devoid of all emotion.
"The eyes of a killer…" a distant part of his mind thought.
"They send a child to do the work of a man," the other man sneered at him and then charged.
Battousai growled low in his throat and drew his blade as the man rushed him and he felt more than saw the impact of the two blades. He jumped back, flipping in mid-air and landed near the west wall of the room.
"You're better than I expected, hitokiri but you will still die here." The man charged again, aiming his swing for the Battousai's head.
He moved under the swing and, in one fluid motion, got in behind the man, making a diagonal slash at his unprotected back. He was surprised when the man spun around and aimed a kick at his unprotected left side. There was a sickening crack of bone as the kick connected and Battousai staggered back into the wall, holding his side and gasping for breath. The man advanced on him, his blade gleaming dully in the faint light.
"I believe the one who will receive Tenchuu tonight will be you, Hitokiri Battousai!" He raised his katana high into the air and for a moment Battousai could see his death in the eyes of the Shogunate assassin. For a moment he stood frozen, his eyes transfixed by the gleaming blade that was poised to take his life, unable to move a muscle to stop it. Then, quite suddenly, time began to move again and Battousai struck, his eyes closed and a grimace on his face. He heard and felt his blade pass through the other man's body and the thump as the two pieces fell to the floor in a shower of blood. The other man's katana fell uselessly to the floor never having even touched its intended target.
Battousai opened his eyes and flicked the blood from his sword before cleaning and returning it to his side. Then he staggered against the wall, an arm wrapped around his broken ribs. He breathed shallowly and tried not to move as he looked around the now silent room for something to use as a makeshift bandage. There was nothing of use in the room, just the corpse and himself and he silently cursed his luck. Battousai grimaced in pain and walked slowly toward the room's window, feeling the broken bones move as he walked. The pain was nearly unbearable and a slight hiss escaped him as he moved.
"Shimmata, this hurts," he thought. "I will have to return to the inn and tend this."
He grimaced at the thought of leaving his work unfinished but there was really no other option for him at this point. He may be good at blocking pain during battle so that wounds became but minor annoyances to him during the course of the fight but this was something different, something that could endanger his life, unlike the scratches he'd picked-up thus far. One misstep here and he would be dealing with a punctured lung in addition to his broken ribs.
"My other targets will have to wait for another night to die." Another hiss escaped him as he continued to move slowly and silently to the window.
He slid it open and inch or so and peered outside. The guards in this area moved in a tighter and more complex pattern near the room of their master then they had anywhere else within the estate. Battousai slipped into the shadows of the room as one of the guards passed by outside the window. After several moments, he peeked out again to study the pattern the guards made as they patrolled the area between the house and the back gate. He hissed in pain again but continued to watch as each sharp pain shot through him.
He had just begun to understand and count off the pattern being walked by the guards within his sight when another guard passed by the window just as another hiss escaped him.
"Who's there? Shirohoshi-sama...are you well?" The man slide the window fully open and saw his master's body.
Battousai slipped into the shadows of the room as the guard raised the alarm through the house and several guards arrived on the scene with their captain.
"Damn Ishin hitokiri! I want him found!" The guard captain said as he scanned the room for some sign of his quarry.
The others raced to follow their captain's orders and Battousai could hear them moving about the house. The grounds outside were empty of them from what he could see but he dared not move while the captain remained in the room.
Another involuntary hiss escaped him and the captain turned to face him.
"So you're still here and wounded by the sound of it." The man's eyes peered into the shadowy darkness of the room but saw nothing.
While the captain had been talking, Battousai had slipped from his hiding place and outside but, as he did so, the uneven boards beneath his feet jarred his ribs and he let out a small cry. The captain came outside and smirked at him.
"So you are the Hitokiri Battousai? Somehow I pictured someone older. No matter, you will die here." The captain drew his sword.
"It is you who will die." Battousai's voice was cold, with no trace of pain he was feeling nor any emotion. He crouched in battoujutsu stance and waited.
The captain stood there, not making a move, seemingly waiting for him to attack. Battousai stared at him, his burning amber gaze holding the other man's before he vanished from sight. The guard captain looked around wildly for him and felt the air above him move slightly. He sidestepped the attack and heard Battousai land heavily on the ground, another pain filled cry coming from him. The captain swung around, aiming for the downed hitokiri's sword arm, intent on ending the sword fighting days of the Hitokiri Battousai for good. Battousai rose and moved back with god-like speed, watching the blade pass harmlessly in front of him. As it did so, he moved forward again and unsheathed his blade with blinding speed. The captain had no chance to parry the blow and the katana sliced open his stomach. He fell backward, dead before he even hit the floor.
Battousai stared dispassionately at the corpse and clenched his ribs with a hiss, tears of pain standing in his amber eyes. He glanced around, noticing no one around and sprinted for the back gate, his sword still unsheathed. He slipped outside the gate just as a second alarm was given and he stood leaning against the outer wall, trying to breath as shallowly as possible. Tears of pain coursed down his cheeks from eyes that were now purple hued gold. He stood there for several minutes before the noise on the other side of the gate became a dull murmur. Only then did he move away from the wall and begin to stagger back toward the inn.
He got a few houses away from the one he had just left when he collapsed in the alley, unable to move farther due to the persistent and sharp pain in his side. His breath came out in gasps and he moaned quietly. Somehow he managed to get back on his feet and he began to walk blindly down the darkened alley, the pain he was in slowly overcoming all thought and common sense. He stumbled and fell again, crying out in pain. He lay still for a few moments and then got up again.
The trip back to the inn was a nightmare of pain and darkness that hovered at the edge of his vision. Twice he had nearly walked right into two troops of the Shinsengumi, who were likely searching for him and once he had stumbled into the middle of a family dispute. His ears still rung with the force of the man's punch and there was a thin trickle of blood on his face coming from somewhere under his bangs.
Soon the inn swam into view and he relaxed slightly. Only a few more steps and he would be safe for the night. Then he heard it, the unmistakable sound of a sword being drawn and a cool voice spoke with deadly earnest.
"Now is the time for you to receive the Tenchuu, Battousai-san"