WARNING: Spoilers! If you don't know who Kenji is, please read at your own risk!
WITH DUE CREDIT: This fic was loosely spun off from two fics - "Over the Sting" by sasori and "Chronicles of a Rurouni", one of my earlier fics.
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Yesterday's Shadow is Tomorrow's Twilight
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Chapter 6: Infiltration
Not much time was spent pondering about the sheer simplicity of their entrance,
for after entering the dark and musty chamber which laid behind the door, the
trio found a flight of stairs leading downwards - deep into the heart of the
earth. There were fire torches burning away slowly on both sides of the walls,
but peer as they would, none of them could make out what laid beyond the pitch-darkness
of the tunnel.
Kenji knelt and examined the soft soil near the entrance of the underground. It had been freshly trodden on, and there were traces of oil and grease. Not finding anything else noteworthy, however, he rose to full height again and stared into the darkness, in deep thought.
Soujirou's eyes were bright despite the dusty surroundings, and they darted around inquisitively, as if expecting something to materialize from any corner at any time. Enishi was a cooler sight to behold, as he leant against the nearest wall and looked on with detached interest. Eventually, Kenji made a movement to indicate that he was going to proceed down the stairwell - only stopping when Soujirou's concerned voice reached his ears.
"Ano..." The blue-clad wanderer whispered as softly as it was possible, "... Himura-san?"
"What?" Kenji replied stuffily, jerking his head backwards to address his companion. "If we don't go down, we'll be stuck here all day, and we won't make any progress. If that should happen, then this whole trip would have been pointless."
"I understand that..." Soujirou began slowly, the warmth in his smile lowering a few degrees, "but don't we need a light to see what's going on down there at least?"
All three pairs of eyes turned to look at the torch attached to the walls of the stairwell, its flames burning with a soft glow - seemingly unconcerned with which masters they served. Kenji considered for a split second. No sooner had his train of thoughts ceased did he reach out for the torch to pull it out from it's holding place. He turned around and looked at his companions intensely, as if trying to find the right words to say. That moment passed soon enough, however, when Kenji blinked and looked away. "All right, let's go now," the boy's monotonous voice could be heard over the darkness he was slowly vanishing into.
Behind him, Soujirou refrained from chuckling, even as Enishi's lips turned upwards in a crooked smile.
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It was not a long walk. After descending the steps for about a minute or two,
the trio arrived at a beaten corridor which went on and on into the darkness
- except that this time it stretched across even ground instead of diving deeper
into the earth. Flame torches continued to deck the walls on both sides, giving
a dim glow to the underground chamber which would have a darkness difficult
for the naked eye to penetrate otherwise.
Enishi's head had begun to turn around in all directions the moment he stepped foot on the corridor, and his actions did not escape the notice of his two companions. "What's wrong?" Soujirou was slightly bewildered. It was not always that he saw the white-haired man behaving like a squirrel looking for food.
In reply, the ex-mafia boss put a finger to his lips. He then walked forward, still trying to figure out whatever he was trying to figure out. As he strode, his hands casually brushed the walls. Kenji was seriously wondering if Enishi had gone off his rockers when the man in question stopped and pinned the wall on his left with a serious stare. He spared his companions a simple look - yet that was enough to get them to go near.
As soon as they were gathered around him, he spoke, "The smell of gunpowder is very strong behind this wall. They must have a store of sorts here."
"A store," Kenji repeated, pondering the significance of those words.
"So, shall we kick this door down as well?" Soujirou cheerfully pointed at the wall they were standing beside.
"..." Kenji was about to say how stupid it would be to have two doors operate in the same manner for a secret society organization, but thought the better of it.
And sure enough, the door opened with a kick.
Enishi blinked while lowering his leg. "They've gotten more moronic." He muttered under his breath, earning him an eyebrow raise from the young Himura. Nevertheless, the boy was aware that it was not the time to push the duo about his doubts. Mustering up enough wits and guts, he stuck the torch into the chamber to see what was in it.
Sensing nothing dangerous, the boy dove into the chamber whole. A quick inspection of his surroundings revealed an enormous amount of boxes and crates stacked one atop another, covered with sheets of dirty, brown cloth. The overwhelming smell of gunpowder forced Kenji to cough a few times to get rid of anything irritable he had just breathed in, and it was obvious enough what lay within the crates of the room.
"They're getting ready to ship these stuff out already," Enishi had flung a nearby cloth aside and was inspecting whatever apparatus was hidden inside. Soujirou was taking it upon himself to try to close the door Enishi had so violently kicked open. But since he was using his hands instead of his All-Powerful-Feet-of-Shukuchi, he was not making much progress. His exaggerated movements, however, was a rather comical sight to behold. Kenji stared at the dark-haired man in disbelief, wondering if he was doing it on purpose to ease the tension in the air.
Finally, the boy couldn't take it anymore. "So-Soujirou... I'll help you with that, so please stay away from the-"
It was like there was a flash, and the expression on Soujirou's face darkened visibly. He leapt backwards and gave the rotating door one strong kick on its hinges - slamming it positively shut. Again, Kenji gawked in disbelief. His suspicion that Soujirou had been pushing it with his hands earlier just to try to be funny was strengthened by leaps and bounds. Yet before he had a chance to vocalize his thoughts, the blue-clad man had grabbed him by his wrist and was rounding a large stack of crates so they could hide behind it. It was at this time that Kenji noticed Enishi, too, had disappeared.
Not a few moments later, the door could be heard opening again. Footsteps shuffled into the chamber. There was a pause, and then a man could be heard gasping.
"What the- who left the torch on the floor here?"
"The torch?" Another voice - younger and smoother, could be heard. Another pause. The younger man gasped as well. "Ah crap, you're right! Who left it here?"
Kenji winced, staring blankly at his empty hand, which he was using to grasp the torch. Somehow, in the event of being dragged around by Soujirou, his grip had loosened and the torch had dropped.
"W... Well, couldn't have been anyone but you and me, c-could it?" The older man's voice sounded like he was creeped out. "We're the only ones on duty tonight."
"Heck, yeah," the younger voice agreed. Stomping could be heard, and the small light the torch had provided slowly vanished into the darkness. "You'd think they would have arranged for more guards to oversee the place on the night before the goods get sent out." A burst of light was suddenly seen, just before a strong, pungent smell filled the chamber.
"Hey!" The other voice was saying, some shuffling indicating that he had moved to snatch something. "Don't smoke in here! You trying to get us both blown up?"
A chuckle. Some rustling of cloth and sounds of equipment rearrangement. "Oops, forgot all about that. Heh heh."
"Don't you 'heh heh' me! I hope you haven't forgotten how many lives you took because of that one accident with your cigarette butt and the uncovered explosive!"
There was a snarl next. "Don't you go all holier-than-thou with me! You haven't got a pretty history yourself, bozo! Buzz off! I'm trying to work here!"
A long silence followed. The duo who had arrived were obviously deeply engrossed in whatever work they were doing. Enishi appeared beside Soujirou soon after the stranger duo spoke their last bit, giving the dark-haired man a nasty shock - in which it took him all his self-control to keep himself from crying out.
It took Soujirou a few more moments to calm down, after which he asked in a tiny, bare voice, "What do we do now?"
"There's an exit from this room to other rooms," Kenji suggested, "unless the layout we got was nothing but a hoax."
"Well, we made it here with that map, didn't we?" Enishi shrugged.
"In that case-"
"You know..." Kenji was cut short by the younger man who had been working with the apparatus and silent until now, "... do you think it's true?"
"What?" The older man gruffly replied, although his voice was thin.
"That this shrine was built over a cemetary... and that we're now in that cemetary since we're underground and everything..."
A strange silence overtook the chamber, only broken when the older man chuckled nervously. "What are you talking about?" He struggled to keep his voice playful. "Next you're going to tell me the ghosts of the Bakumatsu are going to show up and slaughter us all, huh?"
The duo laughed.
"Speaking of people showing up, where's that woman who was supposed to mediate the trafficking deal? She was supposed to show up tonight, but I haven't caught a whiff of her at all."
"You know women - the more important the date is, the longer they'll take to show up!"
It was at this poignant moment in time, as the duo engaged in hearty laughter, that Kenji found the supposed exit to other rooms. Coincidentally the exit was hidden behind the tall stack of crates, and so was probably hardly used by anybody. Which was a good thing, considering that the trio was now to make their great escapade with this door.
"Hey, you go guard the stairs and wait for that woman or something. I'll go on with the stock take. This is gonna take all night..."
Those were the last statements they heard before they slipped through the door, out of the room where the two strangers were.
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They emerged unscathed, and rather well-adjusted to the dark, from behind the
tapestry of a normal looking bunker with two beds and sparse furniture. Rough
sketches of guns and machinery were littered about the room, some hung on the
walls. Empty magazines lay abandoned across beds and the ground, the slight
smell of gunpowder tainting the otherwise normal looking room.
Kenji dusted his clothes and sat down on one of the beds after moving some empty bullet shells away. "Well," he began calmly, fixing his stoic glance on his two companions, "it looks like we're stuck here until they move out of the place."
"It looks that way," Soujirou scratched his head and smiled.
Enishi merely shrugged. "Not like we have anything else to do. This sure beats having to report back to the station wolf."
"Yukishiro-san..." His partner smiled at him with the same long-suffering smile he used everytime Saitou was mentioned.
"You don't have to be grateful to him just because he didn't throw you into the gallows, Tenken," Enishi frowned, although he also smiled tersely at the same time, "or because he was 'kind' enough to give us something to do."
"I know," Soujirou's smile became sad, in the same instance Kenji perked up at the mention of Soujirou's familiar sounding nickname, "I just..."
There was a flapping sound, and a figure came crashing through the tapestry the trio had came through just now.
The buxom lady, evidently in her early-forties, stopped spinning from the impact and managed to steady herself, cursing and swearing in ways so creative, even Enishi was blinked with surprise. "Damn them! Damn them!" She eventually said something coherent. "Why can't they put the stupid entrance where normal people can walk through without having to tumble down a tunnel under some gigantic tree root?!" She glanced up from the piece of paper she was holding. "This had better be a good lot of weapons-"
Three pairs of eyes stared at the newcomer to the room.
"You're not from the Yuugure," the lady was quick to discern. Then, as the truth of the situation crept in, her eyes widened.
She screamed.
... to be continued
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28/7/03
xd@tougenkyou.net
Re: Megumi's words (Calger459)
My humblest, humblest apologies if I got that part wrong. I made the terrible
mistake of not digging my manga out to refer and instead, depending on my rusty
memory... and seeing that it's been three years since I last touched the manga...
ahahahahhaahah... I'm very very sorry... of course I didn't mean to say that
Kenshin was inherently weak or that he would die young or anything! :O Thanks
for the reminder, though! I also agree that it would be hard for Enishi to be
rid of his psychomatic traits - I assure you, it's all still there, just minutely
suppressed. XD I'm waiting for a chance to let it surface to greet the world
again. :3 I personally assume that Kenji wouldn't have known much about Kenshin's
past with the Shishio and Enishi saga, since if he had, I doubt he would as
rebellious, and the whole point in this fic about Kenji's rebelliousness would
become moot. XD XD XD Many thanks, though, for your invigorating comments. m(_
_)m
Re: The fox (Shahrezad1)
Do exercise a bit more patience! :D The fox plays a small part in the outworking
of the plot and is intrinsically linked to the shrines that are involved in
the story. The fox sentinels are different from the fox who appears to be following
Kenji around, though. :D And well... I actually prefer cats, but yeah, foxes
are cute too. XD XD XD
Re: sasori!
KYAAAA! XD I must admit that sasori's fic "Over the Sting" was what
gave me the idea to partner Soujirou with Enishi. The thought never crossed
my mind, although I already had ideas of Kenji meeting up with Soujirou. But
writing about just two persons wasn't all that fun... then I read sasori's fic...
and bingo! I got my third character! If someone has to teach Kenji how noble
his father was, despite how bad Kenji thought he was, who better than Soujirou
and Enishi, who both had their lives changed by The Man himself? :D
So yeah. Read sasori's fic. XD
Ah, but! THIS FIC IS NOT YAOI. *sweatdrop* I don't go for that, personally. ^_^x I do believe, however, that Soujirou and Enishi can form a very strong bond of friendship if they do meet up and go around wandering together. :D Because yeah, they balance each other out really well (we got The Happy and The Broody! The Ex-Mafia Boss and The Ex-Mafia-Boss-to-be-Secretary! oh, and blue and orange complements each other pretty well, buahahahah) and they are rather alike in some ways (yes! they're both psychos!!... subjectively speaking XD).
Oops, enough ranting for now. Thanks for reading the fic! *bows and zooms out*