The Sacred Night, Chapter 26
Only a ninja could fight in a Tokyo apartment without damaging anything in the room. Misao flung kunai once in awhile, but not one touched the walls. Since her supply of kunai was limited, she relied more on the unarmed techniques Aoshi had nearly bested me with when I first met him. That Hannya person she had mentioned, her teacher, must have been very good. In the small apartment, the larger vampire was at a disadvantage to the compact and flexible Misao. Aoshi, who had recently arrived, was watching approvingly, though with him it was difficult to tell. She twisted and dodged nimbly, adeptly placing stealthy but accurate blows on the body of the vampire that seemed grotesquely clumsy compared to the agile Misao.
She and Aoshi had similar styles, but not entirely the same. They both based their techniques on kempo, a style I had only seen them and their associates use, but added different weapons to it. Aoshi used the two trademark kodachi to defend while he attacked with kempo, but Misao divided her two strategies differently. She used kunai for long-range attacks and kempo for close range situations.
Megumi-dono, are you all right? I asked mentally from across the room, since she appeared to be in a stupor.
Hai…
Do you have some sort of connection to Takeda-san? Is that why you have been acting this way ever since you saw something from the window?
Y-yes… I suppose I should tell you, Ken-san, she thought, collecting herself. I was an apprentice doctor one hundred thirty years ago… before I was bound. The doctor that was teaching me died, and they didn't even let me mourn. I found out that these men, Takeda's men, had been forcing him to make opium for them, and they wanted me to continue in his stead. I refused, but they told me I didn't have a choice, that I was the only one who knew the formula, but I didn't. I had no idea what they were talking about. I had never made opium, I thought. Then they showed me a vial of medicine I'd made just the day before and smiled. I'd been making opium all along and didn't even know it.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`Flashback~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
"No!" I screamed. "That's medicine! I never made opium!" I exclaimed defiantly, knowing what they were implying but fighting not to believe it. One of them grabbed my arm and I yelped. He jerked me up close to his face and I could smell the smoke, sake, and gods-knew-what-else all over him.
"You've already done it a thousands times, little vixen. If it's a sin, you're already condemned," he drawled menacingly. With that, he cast me from him and the whole group left the room, locking me in the place I had always loved most in the world, now my private prison. I cried, staring around at all of the substances and instruments the doctor and I had used, and wondered how many other ways he had deceived me. Had we ever really cured a single person? Had I really been a killer in secret, designing poisons to stop hearts, all along? I feared I had. The unearthly strong man was right. I was already condemned.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`/Flashback~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
That man was a vampire, and he bound me to himself later that night. He said I would live practically forever and make opium for all of them until I died.
But Aoshi let you escape.
Yes.
What does Aoshi have to do with Takeda?
He and four other men- the Oniwabanshuu, I don't know if he's told you about them, were bodyguards for Takeda when I was there. I tried to kill myself, and Shinomori-san was willing to look the other way and let me use his blade when he knew Takeda would be angry.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`Flashback~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
"You're not working," my guard warned. This time, it was a tall, quiet man in a white coat. He looked intelligent and intense, though he was probably one of the other brainless fighters my captor hired to keep me in my place and working. They all seemed so dull-witted, but they could anticipate everything I would do with superb accuracy. I sometimes felt a strange invasion in my mind before they did this, and I had the suspicion that they had some sort of telepathic ability. They were also frustratingly strong, as men often were, but these were different. They never breathed hard, or breathed visibly, for that matter, no matter how much they exerted themselves. My guards were indeed a strange manner of men.
"I would rather die than continue this shameful occupation," I asserted coldly, never looking at him. If I didn't continue it, I certainly would die, I assumed.
"Then die," he answered unexpectedly, tossing a sheathed knife to land on the floor in front of me. I didn't understand. Takeda-sama would have his head for this when he found out.
"Takeda-sama will kill you," I pointed out. My guard didn't answer, but didn't take a step to retrieve his blade, either. I picked it up, then, and made the first cut up my arm. I wasn't samurai, and anyway I didn't deserve the honor of a proper seppuku. I began to bleed, and continued cutting until I couldn't see anymore.
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`/Flashback~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
Shinomori-san waited until I fainted and took me to a real doctor. He knew I was bound and could stand to lose a lot of blood, so this was a relatively safe way to get me off the premises without much suspicion and he didn't have to worry about my revealing what was happening, because I didn't know it myself.
This had been before I met Aoshi, while he was away from Misao following an obsession with making a name for the four men who'd been with him, Hannya among them. Given my experience with him in that time, I was surprised he had found it in his heart to help Megumi at the cost of his and his men's positions.
He sacrificed his position? He was trying to make his men the strongest. He was completely obsessed with that goal.
Yes. There was a battle after that. Takeda couldn't let me go that easily and Shinomori-san knew it. He won the battle as he predicted, but his men all four died instead of triumphing gloriously as he expected. Guns were just becoming popular in those days, and Shinomori-san didn't expect Takeda to have them without telling him.
Takeda killed all four Oniwabanshuu?
Yes.
And that is why that vampire came in here? He was after you?
Yes.
I understood. I had been wrong about Megumi when I assumed she was innocent, but there was still a difference between her sins and mine. She had been forced to do everything she had done and had resisted from the beginning. I had done no such thing. I was guilty and responsible for everything. I turned my eyes back to the fight. Dawn was approaching and all of the vampires, I included, were becoming visibly tired, especially the ones fighting. Misao had begun to breathe.
It was a good thing that vampires were restricted to the night, whereas humans could roam any time they wished to wake up. Such strong and dangerous creatures could never safely commingle with the majority of the human race. We managed enough violence in the scant few hours we were allowed; we certainly didn't need twenty-four.
The strange vampire was becoming sluggish and even clumsier than he had been before, but Misao was still, well, Misao. She breathed hard after awhile, but she sent the other vampire to the floor and quickly had a fistful of kunai trained on his throat. She stood over him for a moment, waiting to see if he would challenge her victory, but he didn't rise. She took away the kunai, and he disappeared. She promptly collapsed, caught by Aoshi, and both of them disappeared as well. Sano left, since nothing interesting was going on anymore, and only Kaoru, Megumi, and I remained.
I got up laboriously, feeling more like lying down right where I was, while Kaoru stood up and waited for me. She was probably rather tired as well, but human sleep cycles were considerably more flexible than those of vampires. She took my hand and went before me toward our bedroom, injured though she was. I stumbled a little and she laughed, but she knew from experience that at this point, I would be a vegetable before I even lay down.
"Ken-san," Megumi called and nodded toward the living room, and I had barely formed a coherent sentence in my brain to speak when Kaoru mercifully answered for me.
"Not tonight," she said gently and quietly, stopping to look past me. "He's so tired; just look at him," and we continued toward the bedroom, which seemed about a mile away. I was hungry, but it would have to wait. Besides, it would be so nice just once to go to bed without feeding on someone else. I fell asleep happier than I'd been in awhile.
I drowsily opened my eyes when night fell. Kaoru was already awake, but hadn't left the bed yet. I was perversely reminded of another day when I'd awakened to find her still there, but it mercifully had not truly been her. This time, it was most likely because she was not particularly strong yet and had been advised not to walk when there was no one in the room to help her in case she fell. She looked wide awake and full of energy, but stayed there calmly waiting for me to feel the same.
Her face was beautifully accentuated by the play of shadows in the dark, and for the thousandth time I wondered how it would look in natural light. I had been curious before and made a point to see it in a brightly lit apartment, since synthetic light was not as powerful as sunlight, but I was sure the sun did it better justice. I had very few memories of women's faces in the sun, and the only one that plainly stood out to me was my mother. I had not seen her in one hundred forty-five years, since she died when I was a human child of nine. Any others had been village women from that time, slave women or mistresses from the year after that, during which I was a slave, or the scant few women I had seen while living with my shishou.
I had comparatively few memories of anything in the sunlight. I had lived fourteen years in it, but I had experienced one hundred forty years away from it. Most of my memories, and all of the even remotely recent ones, took place in the dark, where all of my kind hid from humanity. We were sought out by some in our territory, and we sought out some when they unwittingly or unavoidably entered it, but make no mistake, we hid. We were stronger and faster and could manipulate their minds, but we were dismally outnumbered, and if they didn't accept us, we were finished, so we hid.
There were hunters on both sides, but even they took precautions to avoid discovery. Vampires hunted humans in the secrecy of night, and humans hunted vampires through their bound contacts or by working in concert with other vampires. There was no other way for a human to thwart vampiric senses besides putting someone nearby who the vampire would sense, but not deem worthy of suspicion, or by luring the vampires to them.
This was usually accomplished with kidnappings or theft. I remembered a kidnapping I had felt at a hunter's hands, and reached to touch its victim's face as if to recite a line of thanks that she was present. She looked at me quizzically, since there was no way she could know what I'd been thinking, but seemed to appreciate the gesture. She pulled me up to experience this night with her.
******************************************************************************************************
I took such a long time to write this! I didn't have as much time to write this weekend as I normally do, so though I will try my utmost not to miss a day, I may not be successful. Apologies in advance. I have been able to write some during school recently, though, since we don't do much in computer class and it has the added bonus of me being able to type directly onto my disk and not write it out first. It's looking better, but I'm still not promising.
Cattibrie393: thanks! is it that you like how i'm not describing the actual blow-by-blow of a fight, but more of what's going on other places and in people's minds while the fight is happening? i like writing action better that way, because i despise fight scenes, and i'm a very introspective writer.
Forbidden Dream: Yesssss! another new person! i'm glad you like the story so much, and i obviously share your love of vampires. i've got a couple of vamp-haters interested in this fic now, and i'm beckoning to them to join the dark side, lol. i adore enishi so very much. glad you like my poetry, and i did not know ff.net was closing that section. maybe it's not getting enough traffic. i guess i'll move it, or i could just change the genre on it from 'poetry' to 'angst' or something like that and keep it posted as a story.
Kenshin's My Man: whoa! thank you for saying so. i like the Kenshin expressions, too. that reminds me of when Misao and Kenshin were traveling together and she tried to cheer him up by describing his expressions and imitating them… she was very funny.
Yuhi-thedoerofevildeeds: sorry, but it does have to end sometime. i think you will like the epilogue.
Invader Zimo: glad to hear you got an account. you really don't have to look and see if there's another author with the name you want, because ff.net won't let you register with the same name. they used to, but they changed it. i'll try to remember that you are the same person. glad you are still enjoying the story! Kanryuu is basically just being a prick, but he is mainly mad because Aoshi allowed Megumi to escape. Actually, I don't think Sano knows about the opium yet, but he won't be happy. that bit of info provides an interesting conflict which might just make the story longer.