Kenneth

Kenneth expected Katie to drive off as fast as she could. Instead her eyes narrowed. She spun the car around, pulling it parallel to the porch. "No you don't. This is MY house," she snarled.

"Ricky! Duck!" Kenneth yelled. Ricky dived beneath the window. Kenneth ducked, himself. What was the madwoman thinking?

A shot shattered the driver's side window. Katie ducked as she shoved the door open, getting showered with glass. She tumbled to the ground, rolled, and then leaped up the steps to catch one of their assailants in the face with a well-placed round kick. One down. Two to go.

Ricky scrambled out of the other side of the car. Kenneth did the same. Grunts and shots from the porch. Only Katie's furious yell let him know she was still alive.

"We've got to help her!" Rickie shouted, running around the side of the car. He yanked open the other back door and grabbed for the bundle of swords.

"Rickie! No!" Kenneth ducked and ran around the side of the car, just in time to see one of the gunmen put his brother in their sites. Katie dived for the gunman and the shot went wild, but this left the second man who she'd been fighting time to act. He shot her.

Kenneth heard himself scream something. There was blood everywhere and he couldn't tell where she'd been hit. In shock, Rickie dropped the swords. Kenneth shoved him into the bushes, out of the way, and grabbed them instead, shaking them free of their bundle.

He grabbed the sakabato at first. A jolt ran through him. Time seemed to stop. The whole scene shifted, turned in a sickening pirouet. Like he didn't even know where he was. Who he was. It happened in less than a second.

It was not a good sword. The voice was his own voice, though he recognized it from very far away. Remember? It wasn't authentic. The voice of Kenneth Shane, Irish accent and all. His lifeline. He listened to it.

Kenneth dropped the useless reverse bladed sword and grabbed up the Kamiya sword. The feeling of disorientation suddenly snapped into place.

He narrowed his eyes. He was able to process the gunmen's movements at a higher rate than before. He was feeling something from them. He saw the one Katie had thwarted raise his gun again, to shoot her in the face. He saw the second train his gun on him.

"DO RYU SEN!" Kenneth shouted, striking the ground with his sword. The ground seemed to shake, knocking the two men off balance. He didn't wait to watch. He was in the air, the lightest leap he'd ever done, his loafers connecting with the porch in exactly the spot he wanted them to. And then, whispering: "Ryu San Sen!" Dragon's Nest Flash. He knew, what the Japanese meant, he who was Irish and couldn't speak a lick of it. He knew it was Japanese at all. His body moved of its own volition. The technique was meant for multiple opponents. The first went down in a spray of blood as the Kamiya sword took him in the throat. Kenneth spun. The final gunman was on one knee. Recovered. Shooting at him. Kenneth cut off his gun hand. Kenneth stabbed him through the heart.

It was there that he came to himself, his sword still in the man, his legs and body caught in a forward thrust front stance he'd never taken in his life, sweat pouring down his brow, his chest heaving from exertion his body was not used to. He stared into the dying man's eyes, his own wide.

"Your...eyes..." the man said. It was the last thing he said before he died.

Rickie was staring at him, mouth open, shaking. Katie was blinking at him. She'd been shot, he saw now, in the hip. Another few inches and it would have been something vital. She staggered to her feet, her hand clapped to the wound. In a voice thick with pain, she said: "I thought you hated violence. I didn't know you knew how to do that."

Neither did I! Kenneth thought in a panic. It was what he wanted to say. Instead he looked over at Rickie, and said, "You can start training at Miss Kamiya's dojo starting tomorrow, that you can." The words confused him, because the timing seemed off. He had to have a different sword when he said those words, didn't he? The war couldn't be over yet because he was soaked in blood. He could smell it in his nostrils, driving him crazy, like a horse when a horse got blood in his nostrils...

Kenneth let go of the hilt of the blade without pulling it free of the dead man's chest, and fell to the ground with a heavy thunk, lost in the blessed peace of unconsciousness.

Author's Notes: Gomen!! This fight scene was hard to write. I wrote several versions, making each way too complicated, and finally came up with this one in a burst of inspiration this morning. This one, I liked. Thank you to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, and staying patient!