CHAPTER 3 Summary: Akira looks back on his last twelve hours since their entry to the Mibu territory. WARNING - Spoilers up to Vol 22 of SDK MANGA.
CHAPTER 3 RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Samurai Deeper Kyo anime, manga or any of its characters. Kamijyo Akimine is the true legal and spiritual owner.
ANOTHER WARNING: There are all sorts of spoilers that cover Vol 15 – Vol 22 of the manga. If you do not want to know what happens, please do not read this story. You have been warned x 3!
I WOULD NEVER HURT YOU
By: Nekozuki1776
Chapter 3
The last 12 hours have been nothing short of hell.
I breathe a deep sigh.
Partly in pain and mostly in relief thinking of all that we've accomplished.
One thing is for certain.
Things sure aren't lacking of excitement around here.
In the past 12 hours, I've fallen through a deep chasm, sustained multiple stab wounds, been tested beyond my physical limits and have had my mind torn inside out.
I suppose it's all in a day's work when one chooses to take on the most powerful entity in the country.
It also comes with the territory when one is a member of the Shiseiten and is affiliated with the most powerful samurai of all time.
Biased? Maybe. But I wouldn't expect anything less from a man that taught me everything I know about being a warrior.
And the mental and physical pain over the last twelve hours was nothing . . .
Compared to the pain of having to witness your rapid deterioration.
Shinrei's curse initially left you with sixty days to live. But it wasn't enough having you suffer the anticipation of your preordained death; so Saishi and Saisei took it one step further by reducing your lifeline to twelve hours.
Twelve. Miserable. Hours.
To have an evil organism wrenching the life out of your heart.
I've endured many tortures in my life. But never this.
What a cheap shot those bastards pulled.
A face to face battle I can handle, even if I was outnumbered. At least I would be directly facing my opponents.
The anguished guilt you were emanating from your aura was almost unbearable. To not only face a ghost of an enemy literally squeezing the life out of you but to be burdened with the fact that you were the main source of entrapment to get us to Mibu.
We all have our different reasons for going to Mibu. Even you, Yuya-san.
You just happen to be our most important reason at the moment.
It was your spirit that brought us together for the common bond that is you. I just wish it wasn't under these dire circumstances.
Like the time in Yomotsu Hirasaka, I wanted to hold you in my arms and soothe you with every comforting word I could think of to convince you that you were in no way at fault for this.
But I didn't. Something held me back.
And big brother was always watching . . .
He knew something. He had already given me his trademark silent look that stated a thousand words.
But let's not dwell on this topic now.
We all have our own battles to face as you do yours.
And I knew that no amount of coaxing would have eased your distressed state. So I did my best to silently guard over you while we embarked on this journey of dispelling your curse.
Shinrei, Saishi, Saisei. All of Mibu. They were going to pay.
But like all paths taken to Mibu, the road was a long and winding one. We were tested from the moment we stepped into the confines of their territory.
We first faced a horde of soldiers, a sort of an anti-demon eyes coalition. They embarked on an attack even as they hostilely denounced us.
They especially shunned HIM. They called him the red-eyed abomination, the last of the cursed demon child responsible for bringing about the unfortunate events into Mibu. But we defeated them quite easily.
The soldiers were followed by a second group of constituents that confronted us only moments later. Their gripe was how the demon eyed child turned their revered Muramasa against the Mibu. They even blamed him for his mentor's death as they began their open attack in revenge.
For a moment, I thought that our journey had ended even before it began.
But we got through to them. Opened a line of communication.
Thanks to you, Yuya-san.
I don't know if it was your post fever delirium or your usual foolishness that made you rush into harms way in front of the attacking warriors but my heart skipped a beat in fear of your life.
Thank kami for the spirit of Muramasa's kodachi guarding over her.
And guarding over us.
It was only then did we gain the approval to travel through the gates and to fight in the name of Muramasa's hopes and ideals.
But obtaining their approval for entrance was the least of our worries. Not even a few steps through the gateway, another pleasant event fell upon us.
Or more accurately, we fell through it.
I was too preoccupied worrying over your condition following your confrontation outside the gate when we were caught off guard as the ground fell out from under us. And Bon (Bontenmaru), you, and I started dropping straight through the depths of the black hole.
Just one of the many welcome wagons sent out by the Mibu.
Within a heartbeat, we instinctually went into our survival mode as Bon passed you over to me and I took you into my arms. I then proceeded to use Bon as a jumping board to ricochet towards the surface, avoiding the falling crags of the stoned pathway and throw you to HIM—the only person who wasn't caught in this trap.
It was rather a tricky maneuver to defy the fast pull of gravity while securely holding you and then focusing all my strength to accurately throw you out of harms away.
Straight into the arms of my brother.
I had no doubt he was going protect you with everything he had but I couldn't help but think that you might have been safer by my side; knowing the prodigal, demon eyed son was very much a target in his Mibu homeland.
However, I knew I didn't have a choice, especially since I didn't know what I was falling into.
And it took less than a hair's breath for me to decide to hurl you out of danger as I instructed you to tell him not to worry about us and that Bon and I were going to catch up as soon as we could.
But while my body went through these strategic motions, a part of me had already become unaware of everything around me.
Except for the woman in my arms.
At this point, the physical and mental demand of this situation was the last thing on my mind when all I could think was how close your body was to mine.
And nothing could have felt so good and so sweet than what I experienced in those few seconds.
Believe me when I say that falling down a bottomless pit was not planned. It certainly wasn't a pretense to hold you.
But it doesn't mean I didn't like it.
All my senses seem to heighten a hundred fold as I molded you into my arms.
I thank whatever force of nature in addition to gravity that brought us together for those few precious seconds. It went by so quickly that I doubt you even realize what happened in your shocked state let alone experience it like I did. Those few seconds when I got to hold you, to relish your scent, to embrace your entire essence before I hurled your form to safety.
I'll let you think the rapid beating of my heart was due to the danger we were facing.
It had nothing to do with you.
Not at all.
And maybe if I keep repeating to myself that Yukimura hates drinking sake, I'll believe that too.
I wanted to continue to wrap my arms around you and never let you go.
To shield you from all this pain.
The urgency of getting you to immediate safety versus wanting to make this moment last a lifetime was a difficult choice. Having to part with you after the few seconds of heaven was indeed torture.
Leave it to you to cause havoc in my mind while filling me with complete comfort. How ironic to find the one iota of peace within your arms in midst of this utter chaos.
This was most likely the only opportunity to be this close to you so I relished every moment while in the close proximity of your entire aura . The few seconds of blissful eternity that I tucked away in the corner recess of my mind.
It was one of the few memories I grasped onto in my darkest hour during my confrontation with the two Goyousei warriors.
My battles with Saishi and Saisei were one of toughest I've faced in a long time. I give them credit for their thoroughness. Those two read my every move.
The fight with Saisei in particular was a difficult one. She used every piece of data in my profile in almost destroying me.
Almost.
The arrogant Goyousei was convinced she had the upper hand and was literally announcing my death in front of my battered form.
How rude.
The announcement was premature on her part.
Her overconfidence was her one fatal flaw to her otherwise impeccable fighting technique.
Don't get me wrong. I could barely stand let alone continue to fight towards the end. By this point, it would have been so easy to succumb to the darkest comfort of death. Every muscle, every bone, every fiber of my being was filled with pain and I was ready to announce my life for forfeit.
But it was with my grasp of the aforementioned memories and the thought of abandoning the two particular people in these memories that prevented me from giving up.
You and Him.
Him for inspiring me to be the warrior I want to be.
You for inspiring me to be the man I want to be.
Everyone has what it takes to die. To live is a much a harder thing.
It was with this thought I solved the secret to her technique. It took me longer than it should have. But I did it.
Saisei's power of deflecting my attacks on to me backfired once I found the precise window of opportunity to reciprocate her technique. I completely took her by surprise when I stabbed myself in the stomach with my own swords to finish her off.
After the defeat of Saisei, overpowering Saishi was child's play.
Soon after the battle when I was barely lucid in my pain, HE approached in a surprise attack, with his red eyes glittering and he spoke through his vicious smirk as he promised me to a REAL battle once this whole Mibu business was out of the way.
A bonafide one-on-one battle with the demon-eyed legend.
His harsh words voiced in a form of a challenge was tantamount to a compliment. What a heady feeling it was to have my brother acknowledge me as a worthy opponent after all these years.
It was with his words and your comforting care of my wounds which willed me to continue with our journey.
And the remaining Goyousei battles came about as your life continued to fade.
Even in your weakened state, you continued to keep up, you encouraged us to go on, despite the challenges the Mibu continued to dispense one after another.
The third Goyousei, Chinmei, was probably the worst one of them all. No one was fooled by his so called peace loving façade which barely hid his animalistic malice towards our fearless leader. The psycho nearly pulverized him. And when Chinmei was finally defeated, once again, true to Mibu form, he left a parting gift for you.
A further reduction of your life force down to one hour.
What is it about you that invites trouble Yuya-san?
Forgive me for my harshness. What I should be asking is, what kind of brutal warriors were they anyway? One more sadistic than the other. Especially that Chinmei. There was something definitely unbalanced about that Goyousei. If I didn't know any better, his maniacal persistence would refuse the grim reaper to claim him and it was only a matter of time until we encountered him again.
But back to the matter at hand. The gloom further set in –filled us with worry and apprehension with the fact that you only had one hour before the water dragon wrenched the life out of you.
It's not often I beseech to a higher power. After all, there isn't anything much more omnipotent than the "gods" we were facing. But I couldn't help but ask for the first time in a long time, someone from above for the strength, the will and the miracle to spare your life.
And you still maintained your strong spirit. Held on to hope against hope and matter of factly proclaimed that you were going to battle the curse and your inner fear as intensely as each of us battled the Goyousei warriors.
At one point, you were given a chance for a merciful "out" from all this trauma by the only seemingly compassionate Mibu in existence, Taihaku. He sympathetically offered to persuade Shinrei into expunging the curse in exchange for our dutiful retreat.
True to form, you countered in your viciously determined tone of how none of us fought tooth and nail risking our lives throughout the Mibu grounds only to be told to beg for your life and walk away from it all.
You announced your fervent belief in all of our abilities to overcome the Goyousei. There was no way you were obediently waving the white flag of defeat. You would rather die trying than to be saved under those circumstances.
Stupid, foolish woman.
Of all the times when you should have been conserving your last resource of energy as your life ebbed away, you had to go loudly pontificating your adamant rejection of everything that's Mibu.
Even if it cost your life.
I wanted to scream to the heavens for you to accept Taihaku's offer. But I knew, like the offer I made to you back at the Sea of Trees, it wasn't my choice to make.
To live a life of free will despite its tragic circumstances.
And I couldn't have been more frustrated . . . and more proud of you than I was at that moment.
It wasn't long after Taihaku bowed in defeat with his battle with Benitora did we head off to the last Goyousei.
Oh how I wanted to have my pound of flesh with this bastard—the cause of all your pain.
But by the time we reached Shinrei, I was worn for the wear. Bruised, battered and barely conscious.
And I knew this was my mentor's fight.
Shinrei was tough. But the demon eyed warrior was tougher.
And you were with him in spirit every moment of the way.
Even in your near death state with only minutes left to live, you mustered up the will to continue battling in spirit along with the rest of us.
To give him the reason to fight.
To give him the strength to carry out the Mumyou Jinpuu-ryuu ultimate technique with absolute flawless execution.
To obtain the final victory that relented Shinrei to at last release the curse from your body.
What a relief to have you back to norm. To be childishly laughing and flailing your flintlock about while promising to obtain monetary compensation for all our pain and suffering. It seems as though the frighteningly rambunctious spirit of the bounty huntress has made a full recovery amongst us.
How WONDERFUL.
Truth be told, your overzealous ranting on the potential profits to be made and the revenge to be taken is a small price to pay to have you back the way you were meant to be--healthy and whole, free of the blasted curse and laughing with your enthusiastic vigor for life.
One thing is for certain.
Things are never dull around you, is it?
The last 12 hours have been nothing short of hell . . .
And I would go through it all over again Yuya-san.
Just to hear you laugh.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
A/N – (10/10/04) I've decided to address the reviews and e-mails in a general summary format since there were many similar questions. Upon several e-mail requests, I have also summarized some information that might be helpful in understanding certain terms and events of the manga as referenced in this story.
DISCLAIMER/ WARNING: This is my informal translation of the terms and definitions based on the SDK manga (not the anime). It is written for the sole purpose of facilitating the understanding of this story. It is in no way affiliated with the TOKYOPOP translation. My skills in the Japanese language are moderate at best but I do take careful action in my reading and research of the manga. Please do not rely on this information as an official / licensed reference or use it as such. Please ask if you would like to use the following information outside the scope as described above.
ONCE AGAIN, SPOILERS BELOW.
TERMS:
GOYOUSEI – The top five warriors in charge of protecting the Mibu Clan and especially the Red King. Each are bestowed with their own specific elemental power. ("GO" means number "5").
Goyousei listed in order of chronological battle appearance in MIBU:
1-Keikoku (aka Hotaru)
2-Saishi & Saisei
3-Chinmei
4-Taihaku
5-Shinrei
KODACHI – A short bladed hand sword. Muramasa gave his kodachi as a parting gift to Yuya for her protection as well as a memento.
SHISEITEN – The four powerful warriors that once fought by Kyo's side. After four years of dispersed wandering, they gradually regroup to rejoin forces with Kyo in the present period. ("SHI" means the number "4", SEITEN means "godly" or "heaven like").
Shiseiten listed in order of chronological appearance:
1-Akira
2-Bontenmaru
3-Hotaru (formerly Goyousei)
4-Akari (first appearance, Vol. 22)
THE RED KING (Aka-no-Ou) – The ultimate leader and the most powerful being in all of the Mibu Clan. It has been rumored that Kyo or Kyoshiro might be one of the possible successors to the Red King's throne.
o-o-o-o-o
The "kiss" when Shinrei places the water dragon curse in Yuya takes places in Volume 12, Chapter 94.
The scene when Akira "embraces" Yuya and throws her to Kyo for safety before falling down the black hole with Bontenmaru takes place in Volume 15, Chapter 117.
TOKYOPOP has released up to Volume 9 of the SDK manga in the English publication.
To date, I have read the SDK manga up to volume 26 and have also seen the anime series. I recently acquired Vol 27 and am in the midst of reading / analyzing it. I heard through the grapevine that Vol 28 will be out within the next month and am eagerly awaiting for its release.
Thank you for your continued readership on this story which seems to have taken a life of its own. You make writing even more fun and exciting!
And an extra dose of arigato to those who reviewed: LadyWater2010, Happster360, Kyo'sDarkAngle, Lady of Genesis, Arin Ross, The Mediocre One, Alyson Metallium, Chibi Tenshi, A Smiling Rain Cloud, Starian Princess, Shiseiten-Hikari, and Genjy0-Sanz0. –nekozuki
