Kenshin let out a happy sigh as he left the bathhouse, his hands still scrubbing his free-flowing red hair with a towel. It had taken him and Jack a few hours to clean up from their earlier rescue mission, and since they were now both heroes, they were treated to the bathhouse for free, and served as if they were celebrities. By the time they had eaten, washed, and had their clothes cleaned up from the smoke and fire, it was closing in on evening, so they were invited to stay for the night.
Kenshin joined Jack, who had stepped out of the house earlier. They both shared a smile and walked off together to the inn, where they would be staying for the night (at no charge, of course). As they walked through the town, which was slowly fading into the dusky-blue blanket of the night, they were greeted with enthusiastic waves and calls from grateful villagers. Even the animals seemed happy to see them, but they all had good reason to. Since the architects and the founders of the town thought it would be sensible for the bathhouse to be close to the inn, the two samurai did not need to walk far.
The innkeeper smiled broadly and extended his arms in welcome as the two of them stepped up to his counter. He signed them in personally and picked two pretty, giggling young ladies to escort the samurai up to their room. Jack and Kenshin greeted them politely, which resulted in more giggling. The two ladies nearly lost their jobs because of the "distraction", but hurried the two up to their quarters before their boss could be angered. They left the duo reluctantly, and only after making SURE that there was nothing they needed.
Since Jack and Kenshin had been through a tough day, they drifted off to sleep rather easily, and dreamed of the times when their lives were peaceful, well before the eras of violence and disorder.
6: The Devil Assassin--The Great Vanishing Smoke!
Jack and Kenshin woke a little bit after the sun rose, when the world was still wet and misty with dew. The small bit of activity outside, not nearly loud enough to stir them, was mostly from farmers tilling their lands, or fishers going out to the nearest lake, and merchants setting up wares so they could begin their day. The bright rays of the sun poured through the paper windows, waking the samurai from sleep, and the scent of breakfast being cooked below sounded the knell for their rising.
Taking deep breaths and stretching to revitalize themselves from their rest, Jack and Kenshin walked down to the main lobby and found the room barely bustling with any activity at all, save for those few early-rising cooks who loved starting the day with creating a meal. Most of the food was eggs and chicken meat, since there had been a surge of poultry in the past day, and since Jack and Kenshin were still heroes, they were treated until they were full.
Once breakfast was finished, the matter of where to go next came up. The reluctance to leave the town was only overshadowed by the danger of their staying behind anywhere. The three assassins who were after Kenshin were definitely in hot pursuit (or at least two of them were), and if the samurai stayed anywhere for too long, he would be discovered and violence would ensue. Kenshin never wished to inflict such misery on a town that had been so kind to him (regardless of what he did for them), so even though he loved the place, he wanted to leave as soon as he could.
One of Jack's concerns was how to arrive back to his own time period. He successfully defeated Aku in the future and was able to traverse the space-time continuum, but a flaw in the vortex caused him to land in nineteenth century Japan instead of the thirteenth, where he was originally from. He had no problem with sojourning in the "past", but he wanted to return to his own time and complete his duties. For the moment, he was glad to help Kenshin out with his troubles, though he couldn't help but think about his own.
Jack and Kenshin left the inn and emerged into the outside world, which was just beginning to warm from the rising sun. The sky was clear with white clouds dotting the atmosphere like flowers in a field, and the chorus of children, animals, and people of all kinds rose up to produce a pleasant song. The smells of the town (breakfast aside) told both wanderers that the village was alive and good, and that any form of violence held within the town would be a sacrilege.
As they walked through the village on their way out, many people still greeted and thanked the two wanderers for the deeds done the previous day. A few people, mostly elders and women, asked them where they were going at such an hour, noticing that they were leaving. The samurai didn't want any of the good townspeople to become aware of an assassin on the loose for fear of panic, so they simply told them all that it was high time they continued on their journey, and left it at that.
But still, there was a nagging sensation in the back of Jack's mind. He was becoming slightly suspicious about the building that had been on fire, and began to wonder whether their trail was really covered or not. He and Kenshin had both encountered two of the killers in their journey--one meeting was much more peaceful than the other--and so he began to think about the third. Kenshin had revealed little about the third menace, mostly because he himself knew little, so Jack had a few good reasons to stay on his toes.
It wasn't as if he didn't trust the town or the people, he told Kenshin. He did, but there was just a bad feeling welling up inside him, like a person sensing that rain will come when there are only a handful of clouds in the sky. He had learned to be cautious through the years of training and wandering, and oftentimes his senses were right. Kenshin didn't really sense any problems until they were about a few steps from the town limits. The redhead noticed that a short-range sword had been plunged into the wooden fence that separated the town from the outside world, and knelt down to examine it.
Since Jack was better traveled than his companion, he knew the blade did not come from their native country. It was perfectly straight without a single curve, double-edged, and it ended in a triangular point. Its length was equivalent to the distance from Jack's elbow to his wrist (excluding the hilt, which was a bit longer than his fist), and its wielder must have exerted a significant force to plunge it into the thick wood, since the blade was so light.
The two samurai stood up and scanned around the area very carefully, keeping a lookout for anything suspicious. The man that only Kenshin had seen had deliberately revealed himself to the wandering samurai for psychological purposes: he wanted Kenshin to stay on his toes and be wary as he journeyed, which would slowly deteriorate at him and tire him out. This new "calling card" was a good possible indication that the same killer was not very far, taunting Kenshin again by revealing his location.
As Kenshin explained all this to Jack, the older samurai posed the grim suggestion that maybe the killer was somewhere in the town, or around it. Kenshin considered the possibility and told Jack to keep watch outside as he ran back into the town at full speed. Jack's theory was justified, so Kenshin hurried as quickly as he could as he searched for a man wearing black, with a death's head face painted ghastly white, and who enjoyed toying with others.
The town was still as calm, ordinary, and peaceful as always, which was either a very good or a very bad sign. Kenshin looked everywhere but found nothing that was out of the ordinary. Everything was as he left it, still very quiet and a bit sleepy, with nothing dangerous to show. Kenshin figured that no sign of the killer might've been worse than any sign at all, and kept looking with inexhaustible energy. At the edge of town, Jack watched and waited for any signs of suspicion, keeping a quiet vigil next to the blade.
Silence.
As Kenshin rounded a corner and darted down another alleyway, he caught a faint trail of black smoke drifting through the air. He halted and watched the fog carefully, keeping his hand tightly clenched on the hilt of his sword. One of the villains who sought him had the unusual ability to turn into a cloud of smoke and drift in and out of a solid form, so he kept mindful of the wisp like a dog watching a piece of meat.
On the outskirts of the town, Jack turned to look into the village to see if he could find anything new, and noticed that Kenshin was standing out in the middle of nowhere, standing perfectly still as he watched what looked to be a cloud of dark smoke. Jack made a confused face and wondered why his companion was doing something so peculiar, so he kept his eyes open and waited. To the surprise of both samurai, the cloud began to gather its wispy fingers into a single form, and from out of a cloudy puff came one of the three killers who was after Kenshin Himura.
It was the specter-like man in black, Fumus Adhvanit, a being more devilish than human with a frightening grin and a ghastly blaze in his eyes. He dropped down from the sky, landed gracefully, and with a flick of his wrists, he produced two blades that were exactly the same as the one that had been thrust into the fence. He grinned at the surprised samurai, pleased that his grand entrance had startled him so, and rushed in for the kill without saying a word.
The thunder of metal clashing against metal rang out, wakening every villager that had been sleeping until then. The sound was almost a painful one in that village, which knew no war or destruction, nor even the sound of blades smacking together violently. The people watched in awe as one of their heroes fought against the man in black, whipping his reverse-blade sword with a blinding speed to counter the double blades of his attacker.
Kenshin had not been in a fight like that since the Revolution, a mere three years previous. He had survived the bloodshed and came out a wanderer, using his sword to save and defend those suffering in the wake of destruction, but he rarely had to face an enemy whose attack was so blindingly quick and heartlessly cruel. Fumus was more like a spinning tornado than a living being: he spun around quickly, using sheer momentum to move his blades into a spinning position. It was like watching a mad painter construct an art of chaos upon the easel of innocence, with the colors of silver, black, and red flying everywhere.
Just as Fumus had forced Kenshin back far enough, the man in black was suddenly thrust to the side by a violent kick, sending him bouncing in the dirt. Kenshin slowly recovered from the suddenness of the situation and noticed that it had been Jack who saved him. Without exchanging any words, the elder samurai drew his magical blade and held it in front of him, waiting for the fight to resume.
Fumus rose to his feet, groaning as he shook the dust off his body. He had been too distracted with fighting Kenshin to notice Jack, and that was perhaps his only real weakness. The black creature had astounding speed that Kenshin barely matched, and there was ferocity in him that equaled the elements. Adding unto that his ability to transform into smoke, and the samurai had themselves a very worthy and very dangerous enemy. Growling, Fumus flicked his wrists again, producing the blades and running back into battle without hesitation. Jack and Kenshin met his charge with two claps of metallic thunder.
White and red samurais quickly hopped to each side of their attacker, Jack on the left and Kenshin on the right. Fumus spread himself out wide and battled each of them with one of his blades, his attention split between the two for a time. The man in black was very fast and held his own for a while, but he could not keep the concentration up for long. Both Jack and Kenshin fought back hard, no longer taken by surprise by the sudden arrival of their enemy.
Kenshin swung his sword, which Fumus dove down to avoid, but Jack was there to sweep at him with his feet. The man in black flipped over the sweep and emerged a few hops away, facing both of them instead of just one at a time. His nostrils were flaring and his breath came out like a bull's snort; his foes didn't look fatigued at all. Fumus took only a second to recover from his breathlessness and dove back into the fight, grinning wildly.
He swung and chopped like a mad lumberjack, his blades looking like they were going everywhere as he fought with relentless fervor. But there were really only two of them, and two samurai to counter them, so no matter how fast he went or how much he fought, Fumus always had somebody going up against him with full power. Even he could not keep up the fight for long, and decided to end everything with a quick kill.
Yelling out a wordless battle cry, Fumus lunged towards Jack, one blade brandishing madly and the other ramming forth. Jack defended against the first blade as best he could, but was barely able to swing away from the second, which ripped his gi and cut his shoulder a little. However, this left an opening for Kenshin, who dove right in and slashed at Fumus' arm with his reverse blade. The entire appendage split open like ripe earth beneath a powerful plow, spewing out what looked to be tiny black blobs. Kenshin grimaced as the show of disgust erupted, but revolt changed to horror just as quickly.
Freezing temporarily, Fumus waited patiently while the cut in his arm quickly sewed itself up, like jelly merging into a bigger blob of jelly. Soon, the entire cut area was healed, and it was as if there had been no attack at all. Fumus chuckled darkly as he saw the gawking faces of the samurai, and presented himself to them as a whole being. He gloated at them cruelly, boasting about invincibility to the weapons of man, and referenced the very depths of the Pit as his gloomy origins, verifying that this was a man unknown to the living beings on Earth. Laughing, he stood once again and waited for the hopeless charge.
Kenshin stood his ground with rock-hard determination, but Jack held him back and took his place. The pure steel of his magically forged blade shined brilliantly in the morning sun, reflecting light towards the black-clad man with a glimmering shine. Fumus stood still, daring for the foolish samurai to make his futile charge. Jack accepted the challenge and ran towards the villainous creature, and slashed at him with the blade.
To the amazement of the assassin and Kenshin, a great scar formed on Fumus' chest, and did not heal.
Screaming in shock, pain, and astonishment, Fumus demanded to know how the white samurai could injure him so grievously. Jack, standing tall and firm with the blade of his ancestors resting proudly in his hands, declared that his was not a mortal weapon but one made from the divine, its sole purpose to vanquish evil and protect the good. Against a "demon" such as Fumus, who was black with evil, the sword was the most effective bane. The demon, pronounced Jack, had his days numbered.
Fumus snarled and growled at the samurai, but all his anger in the world could not deny the painful scar running down his chest-the one that refused to heal itself. Jack smiled triumphantly and dared for the killer to strike again, but Fumus was not a fool, no matter how fanatically he wanted to kill them both. He hid his blades, bared his teeth at the two, and retreated in a pillar of smoke just as a gale wind picked up, flapping against the trees and the clothes of the two warriors.
Both Jack and Kenshin took a deep breath, and sheathed their swords as victory was given to them once again. A cheer came up from out of nowhere, and it was then that they realized they were still in that small, sleepy town, full of people who had been witnesses to the entire thing. They streamed out to celebrate the victory of their heroes, showering them with screams and hugs and dozens of rewards. Jack and Kenshin couldn't help but laugh as they were lifted up off their feet and carried through the town. For their deeds, they had achieved permanent celebrity status in the small town--another step towards their individual goals.
But they did not rest upon laurels, not even during that moment of revelry, for even though they had determined two definite weaknesses of one of their enemies, it had been just one enemy, who would most certainly return with a cunning vengeance--and there were two others just like him, only with different weaknesses, more difficult to exploit. The day was still young, the trials nowhere near beginning.