AVENGEMENT
Disclaimer: Nope . . . I do not own RK. No matter how much I wish and wish it ain't mine.
A/N: To my reviewers: YOU GUYS ROCK! Thank you SO much for reading my fic and supporting my idea.
I made a change in Kaoru's assassin name; since she is a shadow assassin, I decided to make her have a whole ton of aliases. These are "Shin no Kage," which means Shadow of Death, "Hito ga Kaowani," which basically means "one without a face. Shortened terms that I may use for "Hito ga Kaowani" would be "Kaowani" or "Kaonai." "Masked Murderer" is a more popular assassin name but she prefers Shin no Kage. A major thanks goes out to Chiki-san, who gave me the Japanese translations.
Warning: Has some killing and swearing. Don't like killing and swearing? Don't read it.
Chapter Two
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Sensitive hearing picked up soft footfalls, she sensed for any battle qi. There was one, it wasn't particularly powerful but anything was a possibility. This person could prove to be a threat. She sheathed the katana and exhaled softly. Slowly, the assassin crouched down at the riverbank, her hand at her waist, ready to pull out her katana.
Her form was a mere silhouette, silver in the gleam of the moonlight. Long, raven hair, pulled into a high ponytail, gi and hakama, the katana – she looked like a samurai poised for battle.
She waited.
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Kaoru adjusted her wrist guards and clenched her sword.
Bottomless sapphire eyes studied the figure – unbeknownst to her presence. The unsuspecting fool didn't sense her qi – the qi she had partially hidden.
The brawny and scarred man let his already weak guard down. If Kaoru took pleasure in brutally murdering random beings, the idiot wouldn't be puffing nonchalantly at his cigarette.
Seeing the tempting sight of the white stalk of nicotine, whet her appetite for one herself. She had taken to smoking as a temporary means of sedation after her father's assassination. Kaoru flung her craving for the cigarette, deep down back to where it had come from.
She relaxed a little, after sizing up the man. He was rather beefy, making him slower; his weapons were long manriki chains. She almost laughed at the silly fact that his weapon made it very easy for him to be caught in them. Her hand however, never left the hilt of her sword.
Kaoru decided to come out from her position. The petite girl swiftly and silently vanished from her spot by the river. Seconds later, she appeared behind the large man, her face hidden since her head was inclined downwards.
The mammoth idiot brushed off the thought that someone was actually behind him. He thought that it was just the rustling of leaves. Ironically, a very experienced assassin was tailing the unsuspecting fool. He decided to turn around anyway, to ensure that he was completely alone.
To his amusement, he saw a short figure behind him.
"What's a little shrimp like you doing out so late at night? Shouldn't you be home crying to your mommy, eh little boy?" he asked, trying to look and sound intimidating.
"I am not a puny orange crustacean. It is not late. I have no parents. What I'm doing out here is none of your business and I do not cry," Kaoru's cold voice cut through the crisp evening air like a hot knife through butter.
Deciding long ago, to play the role as a member of the dominant gender, she stuck to it.
"Ha! You're a riot kid, a kid your age doesn't go crying home to his mommy. What a joke! Get out of my way," the man said, laughing at Kaoru.
Kaoru smirked, "I think you should be the one crying to the female member of your procreation, plus, you're the one invading my privacy. Get out of my face"
He saw her katana, brushing it off as an inferior weapon, he spoke arrogantly, "Feisty aren't you? Let's see what you can do with that little sword you have there," the man said, amused at the last sentence Kaoru had said.
The man spat out his cigarette. He swung a manriki around, planning to chain him up. The brawny man lashed out with the chains.
She swiftly jumped to the side, evading the attack with ease.
'Pathetic,' she thought
"I see you have the sense to run. Well guess what kid, running ain't gonna get you too far. I kill inferior kids like the one I see before me," he said, referring to her in the third person. He swung the chains around again and lashed out with them.
Kaoru swiftly dodged all his attempts to hit her. Darting around at amazing speed, the man was chained up in his own two weapons as a result of swinging the chains around in attempt to hit the assassin.
"Inferior? You dare call me, Shin no Kage an inferior kid? You dare, think lowly of my sword? Come, let me show you why they call me Shin no Kage, my sword will taste your blood tonight. You will die by my hand Akamatsu" Kaoru whispered her invitation to his death coldly.
How she had known his name, Akamatsu would never know. But then again, an assassin always has his assets and sources.
She drew her sword in faster than the blink of an eye. It was at his throat, the sharp edge teasing the delicate skin.
"Sh-Shin no Kage . . . I beg of y-you, spare my life. I-I didn't mean it. R-really – I didn't," the oversized fool stammered, trembling in fear of the infamous Shadow of Death.
"Akamatsu, Akamatsu, Akamatsu . . . Never saw that one coming ne? An innocent little boy, which is what you think I am, ne? Wrong! Fucking idiot, you think I do not know what you are? You really underestimate me? A disgrace to all assassins, murdering women and children to please your bloodlust, raping innocent young girls; you are a fucking disgrace. I will put an end to you," Kaoru said, slicing his throat with a slight shift of her blade.
A slight trickle of blood ran down the side of his neck.
The man gasped at the sudden pain he felt. He did similar attacks to previous assignments. Never once had he been in this predicament, now he knew the pain he gave others.
"To clear something up, the legendary Shin no Kage is neither a man nor boy; Shin no Kage is a woman. I'll see you in hell," Kaoru said, pulling the sword's edge away from his throat, only to run its tip through his Adam's apple and quickly deliver a powerful kick to his bleeding throat. With a twist of her foot, she simply stated, "Goodbye"
He fell to the ground, staring up at ice blue eyes, the ice blue eyes of the legendary hitokiri, Shin no Kage.
A look of shock glazed over his eyes right before he died. The Masked Murderer, Shin no Kage, Hito ga Kaowani is a woman. A woman had defeated him, Akamatsu the assassin. Even a murderer as stupid as himself, couldn't help but feel ashamed that a woman had crushed his reputation – his already useless status in the assassin hierarchy. The woman, who had killed countless numbers of his much more skilled colleagues, had now taken his life.
He died, ashamed of his worthless role of an assassin in the lower category of the assassin hierarchy.
Kaoru flicked the blood from her sword.
She swiftly dug through the man's pockets and found a box of matches and cigarettes. A small jar of sake stood beside his lifeless form. She took the cigarettes and matches out and lifted the large, dead body effortlessly from the ground, and brought it to a spot further up the riverbank, a place people were more likely to visit.
The assassin poured the sake onto the body. She put a cigarette between her lips and lit it. Without turning around, she lit another match and tossed it onto the body, which burst into flames on contact with the match. She tossed the remaining white stalks of nicotine onto the smoldering body and without a word, walked away.
(A/N: I do not know if this was done in the Bakamatsu era and I did not have any time to research on it, but I thought it was kinda cool so I put it in. Please do not flame me for it and be understanding that I have things to do other than write fanfiction, as much as I would love to write all the time, life has its vicissitudes)
Not much distance away, brown eyes watched the scene unfold before his eyes.
'I must have the Shin no Kage join Choshu," was the thought that flashed through Katsura Kogoro's mind as he saw the raven-haired assassin disappear into the shadows . . .
A/N: Yes, that is the end of this chapter . . . too short? Go deal with it – just kidding. Seriously life isn't exactly the best right now for me and I don't have as much free time to type my story as I wish. Reviewing would be nice, I hope you liked this chapter. It was fun to write; I hope the language wasn't too harsh. I doubt that in that era such words existed though. Anyway, I will try to get the next chapter out as soon as time and energy permits me to do so. Thanks for reading my fic . . .
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Black Chiney