Author's Note: I finally started to write because I feel bad for not updating in so long. It's summer and well . . .I just felt reaaaallly lazy and I didn't feel like THINKING. I don't know if I'm gonna update this story much because it takes time for me to get inspired – and the fact that it's summer and I am FREE from thinking. I will try to finish it this summer because I want to start on the fics that have been floating through my head for a while. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter.
Disclaimer: Please don't make me pay a fine, I know this story isn't mine.
Chapter 11: Famous Situations
"WHAT?!" How come?! That's not fair!! I'm fine – really!!" Sano shouted in defiance.
"Look, Sano, I know you want to go on this mission – but you're just not well enough. The burns you got while trying to run into the castle's fire need more time to heal than a few days –"
"But it's been a week and a half!! And I can get up!!" Sano got up effortlessly, but then quickly collapsed because all the burns he had felt like a fire that blazed through his whole body.
"I think I've made my point. Katsu, I and most of the Sekihoutai will go ahead with the mission – we will leave three behind to make sure that there is no other strange activities going on around here. You will stay with them. And that's final." Takei said before he left.
I remember looking down at my bandages. The bandages that cover up half of my stomach are from the burns. After I saw my brother die, I did collapse and I don't remember anything I did. But according to Katsu, I got up and tried to run back into the castle, all the while shouting for my brother. It was Takei who finally got there in time to pull me out before I burned myself to death. Somehow, he got less injured than I did. As for where the other half of the bandages came from? That's another story . . .
"They don't know what they're talking about . . .I'm fine and completely healed!" Sano shouted to no one in particular. He tried to get up, but ended up falling flat on his face on the floor anyway. Being hard-headed as he was, Sano got up again and started to put on the rest of his clothes.
"Better take this with me," Sano said as he grabbed a gun and started to slowly walk out of his door and hopefully through the hotel without being noticed and then follow the rest of the Sekihoutai to where the action was.
"Are you sure we couldn't have taken Sano with us? I mean . . .I know he was injured and all but he really wanted to go!" Katsu continued to complain. Takei rubbed his cheekbones. I used to tolerate Katsu, but now he's beginning to be a pain like that annoying Sanosuke kid . . .oh my head . . .Takei continued to think.
"Look, Katsu, I've ALREADY told you! Those burns don't heal in a day!"
". . .but it's been a week . . ." Katsu started – before Takei gave him a death glare.
"Erm – point taken!" Katsu said as he smiled and put his hands outwardly in front of his chest as if surrendering to the Takei death glare (©).
Sano imagined his own theme music as he gracefully and quietly maneuvered through the corridors. Well . . .to be honest he was a slow clutz. But since most of the men in the hotel, including some of the Sekihoutai officers, were drunk off their ass, they didn't notice a certain, slow-moving, white lump dashing around. As for Sano? He was too stupid to realize that the mens' drunkenness was to his advantage.
HA! If only Katsu could see this!! I'm totally invisible!!Sano thought happily as he finally got through the hotel and to the back door.
So long, suckers!!Sano thought happily as he went through the back door and into the night. Unfortunately, being such a inattentive, impulse- driven person, Sano stopped right where he stood outside the hotel as he realized a very important fact –
"Oh, crap! I don't know where they were going! Oh, man . . ." Sano whined.
After standing there for almost a good half-hour, Sano finally remembered something.
"Katsu, tell the other men that we will be going to Niigata Forest, east of the hotel."
"Oh yeah!" Sano shouted to the world, "I remember now! They said that they were going to that forest east of here!! Let's see . . .east is – to the right! Yes! Now I have a direction!" Sano announced happily as he started to stride east.
"Oh crap . . .I think I'm lost . . ." Sano whined to no one in particular. He continued to wander around the forest. Actually, the "forest" looked like a cross between a jungle and a swamp – not exactly a nice place to get lost in. Suddenly, Sano started to hear something in the distance. The closer it got, the closer Sano began to recognize what it was.
"Not now!! A horseman! The last thing I need!" Sano shouted into the night as he started running as fast as he could.
"Where to hide! Where to hide!" Sano shouted before he spotted a cluster of bushes and hid there – for the time being anyway. The sounded of the horse's hoof beating on the ground came closer. After a while the beating of the ground came exceedingly close before receding into the distance. After the rumble stopped, Sano cautiously came out from the bushes.
"There he is!! The perpetrator!" A horseman behind him shouted as he pointed to Sano.
"Oh no! There must have been two of them! One must have gone while the other stayed behind!! Why am I so unlucky?!" Sano complained before he started running again. After all, if he had stayed behind he would have probably ended up being sliced and diced.
However, no matter how fast a human is, no one is able to beat the speed of one on a horse. To make matter worse, Sano tripped over a root and fell flat on his face. He turned around while he still sat on the ground and looked the horseman. The horseman's horse reared into the air as he raised his sword and got ready to strike Sano.
I remember I closed my eyes for an instant, thinking "Great, now look what I've gotten myself into". I thought that I was going to die once and for all. But some patterns never change. My pattern of getting myself into dangerous situations and then getting out of them has still stayed with me till this day . . .
Sano's eyes remained tightly clenched. The next thing he heard was the sound of a sharp weapon slicing and dicing through a body. This creepily crunching and liquefied sound was quickly followed by a large thump – presumably the sliced body, probably the horseman, still on his horse, from the magnitude of the sound. Sano slowly opened both eyes to see that his rescuer was the last person he had expected to see.
"So, we meet again. Try not to get in my way." Sano's long, red-headed rescuer said as he narrowed his gleaming purple eyes at Sano. The Battousai smirked at Sano's wide-eyed reaction.
"Nice to see you too, Sano." He said before he left the dumbfounded Sano still sitting on the ground. In instant he was gone and all that was left was the corpse of a horseman attached to the horse.
"Ok, I'm gonna do it. No wait . . .It's disgusting . . .NO! I've gotta do it!" Sano kept arguing with himself. He finally started to inch his way towards the dead swordsman. Somewhere in the process of trying to run for his life, Sano had ended up loosing his gun. Now he was weaponless and . . . helpless. Taking the swordsman's sword was Sano's only option in order to get hold of a weapon. Sano succeeded on grabbing the blade of the sword and he continued to pull it away from the swordsman. When the sword did not come willingly from the strong grip of the swordsman, Sano used all of his strength and yanked it from the swordsman – taking the swordsman's arm with the sword.
Sano gagged and held his mouth from hurling as he jumped backwards away from the gruesome sight. After fifteen minutes of looking at the bloody horror, Sano decided to try to get the sword again. Sano once again inched himself toward the swordsman. Sano started to unwrap the swordsman's fingers from their firm grip on the hilt. After unwrapping five, cold and lifeless fingers, Sano finally succeeded in gripping the sword and backing away from the swordsman as far as possible. Sano continued to run through the forest, searching for any familiar Sekihoutai member – hopefully Katsu.
The footsteps of two separate people echoed though the woods. The eerie silence of the forest was finally shattered. The whole forest heard the sound of two big lumps as they collided into each other and tumbled to the ground.
"WHAT THE —" One lump yelled at the other lump. This lumps' gun was ready to fire at any minute if the other lump was an enemy.
"Wait, is that Sano?" The lump with a gun finally recognized the mound of white which was busy try to gets his butt off the ground. Sano finally looked up.
"Katsu?! I can't believe I finally found you!"
"I was about to KILL you! Can't you be more careful?!" Katsu yelled down at Sano.
"Sheesh, can't you ever relax?" Sano asked Katsu as he got up and brushed his butt off. He them looked around for his sword and ended up finding it stuck into a tree. With a few pulls, Sano finally got the sword out of the tree.
"So you really did get out of the hotel? How did you manage?" Katsu asked with curiosity. Sano smirked, ready to tell his story of bravery, but a certain galloping noise stopped him. Sano's eyes widened.
"Oh crap! Come on Katsu! We gotta get outta here!" Sano yelled at him as he grabbed Katsu's arm and started running the other direction.
"Sano, what's going on?!"
"Let's just say I had a run-in with these guys before and I almost got killed . . .again!"
Sano and Katsu ran as quickly as they could and they ended up hiding in a very large bush. Both boys say the horseman ride off into the distance. Remembering what happened to him last time, Sano start to turn around in the bush and move through it to the other direction. Both boys finally got through the immensely large bush and ended up in a clearing.
"Phew, I thought we'd never escape that." Sano sighed.
"Yeah, I was running away from those horsemen before I bumped into you." Katsu said before both boys looked at each other and both started to laugh.
"Please, let me in on the joke. I'd love to know what's so funny." Katsu and Sano froze. They slowly looked up and their eyes locked on one of the brawniest men they had seen in their lives. He was around six-foot-five and had a disheveled mop of black hair. He was also covered in some of the ugliest scars a person could have. That worst part was he was accompanied by four other men, shorter by a foot than their leader, but still just as brawny and just as ugly.
"I think I will enjoy killing you little runts." The brawny leader said to his fellow friends as they laughed at his sadistic joke. Katsu and Sano exchanged quick glanced before Katsu stuck the butt of his gun into the man's ribs and Sano did the same with the hilt of his sword. After this sudden attack, the boys ran off like the wind while the brawny leader hunched over. However, his men were more than eager to fight as they ran after the two boys. One of them finally caught up to Katsu.
"You're really ichin' for a fight a'n't you little brat?!" Katsu dangled helplessly while the man's grip around his neck tightened. Sano stopped running and instantly came back to help his friend.
"Let him go!!" Sano shouted as he took the sword and whacked it with all his strength into the man's arms. The sword barely made a fair-sized dent in the man's arm but the man release Katsu. Katsu quickly grabbed his gun and started to run off with Sano. The five men may have been extremely muscular and strong, but when it came to running, the men couldn't compete with slender boys, partially because alone all their muscle could have weighed around seventy pounds and that's a lot of extra weight to run with.
Unfortunately, the boys may have escaped but since they were running in a straight line they had escaped right to a dead end. A cliff. There were two choices: Go fight the men and most likely get killed, or fall down the immense depths of the cliff and die.
"So . . .Katsu, any bright ideas?" Sano asked nervously as both he and Katsu looked behind them at the black depth of a cliff and in front of them at the five enormous angry men charging at them.
"I guess I got myself into another of my famous situations . . ." BUWAHAHAAHA!!! And I have ended with one of my famous cliff hangers! Except this time it was a REAL cliff hanger!! Get it?! Sano and Katsu are at the edge of a cliff? Cliff-hanger? Get it?! No? Oh well. GRRR!!! I REALLY hate this formating, does anyone know how to make BIG spaces?? I suppose most of you are probably really mad at me right now . . . I promise I shall try to write the next chapter as soon as I can. Thank you to all who review!! Have a great summer!!