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 25: Head-On
It all started many moons ago, in a little meeting room, dimly lit.
There was no fanfare, and no audiences.
"You put him on the job."
The statement was made with absolute plainness.
"Yes, I did."
The reply was nowhere less plain.
A pause ensued.
Saitou then blew a thick cloud of smoke out from the cigarette he had been breathing in, and turned his sharp, wolflike eyes towards his companion, head slightly tilted. "And this was the highly important matter you had to speak to me in private about, Mr. Okashira?"
From where he stood, Aoshi narrowed his eyes at the officer. It appeared like they had been through this a couple of times.
"You know we won't succeed if we don't have his help." Saitou continued in an unflinching tone.
"What do you mean?" The sombre ninja questioned.
Flicking his finished cigarette butt away and stepping on it to snuff it out for once and for all, Saitou sneered. "I don't have to lay it out all before you, Shinomori," the policeman quipped, "you're smarter than that."
"I understand," there was a mental shrug to Aoshi's words, spoken after a tensed silence, "but it doesn't necessarily make me any more agreeable."
"Then you don't understand at all," Saitou shook his head. "Look." He asserted. "Do you really think we can get far with this affair by hanging on to our sparse, superficial overseas information network? We're not going to be achieving anything if we can't break them from the inside. Who better to give us that information than someone who's been there before?"
"I know that," Aoshi immediately cut into the conversation, eyes still closed in contemplation. "Saitou," he continued, "I'm not suggesting that you take him off your list of men. I'm just voicing out a view. You seem, as usual, more cool-headed than I am as regards to cases like these, and thus I defer to you. However," the ninja pushed away from the wall he was leaning against, "I have my own way of doings things - my own style. You choose your men, I choose mine. If one day, I need to exert my right, I hope you won't do anything to hinder it."
Saitou snorted, lips curling up into a belittling smile. "I wouldn't dream about it." He turned, and continued, "Not directly, anyway."
Leaving Aoshi to ponder the meaning of those words, Saitou thus departed from the scene.
The wheels were set in motion from that moment on.
And now, as Aoshi stared into the determined eyes of an untamed tiger, he realized with a start what Saitou had meant when he affirmed that he would not interfere directly.
"Saitou Hajime sent you."
Enishi remained poker-faced at the insinuation. "I don't do things just because someone tells me to," he cocked his head, and added, "I'm here of my own accord."
"Oh?" Aoshi folded his arms across his chest and eyed the newcomer carefully, drawing any conclusion he felt was necessary.
Before he could open his mouth to ask the inevitable question, however, Enishi spoke out first. "I permitted it."
The ninja blinked. "Permitted it?" He echoed quietly, an ominous aura immediately permeating his thoughts.
Leaning slightly against the doorpost, Enishi raised a hand in mock gesture, "Takeda Kanryuu," were the first words he uttered. A deep hush immediately fell over the duo. "Latest model of automatic firing gatling guns, one first for personal usage, five more for later delivery," the white-haired man proceeded anyway, pausing poignantly at this point of time to punch his left palm for effect, "I permitted the sale."
Aoshi frowned. "I didn't need to know that."
"Yes you do," the ex-mafia boss frowned reciprocally, his countenance hardening. "You want closure, Shinomori Aoshi, and I'm here to give you that. Now you can put all your doubts and theories aside - I'll give you first-hand affirmation that I was behind the whole Takeda Kanryuu fiasco. Nothing personal, ninja. Back then he was just another money tree."
A grueling stare. "You didn't care to think how many lives would be lost to that money tree of yours."
Enishi quirked an eyebrow. "This coming from the guy who once worked as that money tree's bodyguard?" He stopped to observe Aoshi's reaction - or lack thereof, before continuing, "You have a better memory than that. Come off it, iceman, you know better than me where that blade of yours' been before. If it's my dirty past you're worried about," the white-haired man sneered, "then it's you and I both. You and I both."
Even the birds appeared to have vanished from the scene, the pure humidity surrounding the shrine visible from ground up. "Are you trying to make me distrust you more?" Aoshi eventually asked, understandably perturbed.
"Hah," Enishi's response was to snort derisively, "I hadn't thought /that/ was possible." He made a random sort of gesture and shrugged slightly, about to continue speaking his mind when an uncharacteristically big movement from Aoshi, as he walked towards the back of the room and stood by the window, stopped him.
"I'll admit," the tall ninja said, "that it had always bugged me as to your participation of the Takeda Kanryuu affair."
"Bugged?" Enishi sneered. "You mean bothered. Obviously bothered."
There was no real emotion behind the hard stare Aoshi afforded Enishi by way of response, but he went on to say, "However you want to phrase it. It was obvious we were treading in dangerous waters with your addition. You could, of course, have been a very valuable asset or a damnable liability. That, even at this point of time, remains unclear, to me. Look at the ease and nonchalance in which you speak of the people who were victims of your senseless criminal acts, and tell me again if I should not be 'bothered' about your participation, indeed?"
Despite the accusations, Enishi smirked in a rather sinister manner. "That's why you need to think more with your head than your heart." Without waiting for a response he continued, "/Your/ presence and motive irks me, Shinomori, just as mine possibly irks you. I won't even go into the details." He waved a hand carelessly. "But above all things else, you're the single person holding this entire episode up. Aren't you proud?"
The shinobi's eyes narrowed. "If this is about the information again, I can only say that I have my own timetable."
"And heaven only knows what diabolical scheme you've cooked up in that timetable of yours," Enishi rebutted immediately. He pushed himself away from the doorpost and looked squarely at Aoshi in the face. "Many people have been watching you," he said, features hardened. "You hold the key to unlocking what will happen next," he added plaintively. "And I am the single obstacle that stands in the way of the lock." There was a pause, as Enishi observed the other man raise his brows in slight movement. He chuckled. "Bingo?"
Aoshi remained impassively stoic. But there was a inner flame of sort burning in his eyes.
"It's really not hard to see that the boy was not your problem," Enishi pressed on, visibly irritated at the lack of response in his verbal sparring partner. "His path and yours run intricately parallel, and your gradual letting go of personal resentment was somehow tied to how much you'd let go of resentment of him and his group. It shows in the little actions. And we've been hanging out around your little ninja band for long enough to observe all that. Soujirou is aware, of course, and he is confused. He cannot think of anything else that could be in your way, besides himself, and his link to that period of your unmentionable past." Lips curling up into a rather feral grin, Enishi gestured. "What do you have to say about that?"
"He is not aware of all the facts," Aoshi turned his head away slightly to stare at something beyond the window beside him, "and a severed head of a poisonous snake is always more dangerous than a severed tail."
The silence that next followed was foreboding. Slowly, whatever vestige of a smile on Enishi's faced slipped, and although there was no malice in his tone when he next spoke, it did reflect his moody determination very well.
"I am a very selfish person, as you probably already know," the ex-mafia boss nearly snarled. "And personally, I don't give two hoots about any dumb reason you have for biding your time so moronically. I'll just have you know one thing - I like my life, and the people in it, the way it is now. I'm known to have a one-track mind, and I rampage all the way to my goal, no matter what stands in the way. So far it has only been this sad excuse of an organisation called Yuugure. And I'll give you a friendly warning that you're quickly becoming another one. I know you like to play the bad guy just so that other people can slowly realise where they've gone wrong, but you're not likely to get anything done this time. Put your time and energy somewhere more useful."
Again, Aoshi's eyes darted towards the window beside him, and this time he had a slightly thoughtful but commanding look in his features. "Perhaps," he briefly murmured in response to Enishi's monologue.
"That's all I needed to hear for today," one could easily catch the younger man rolling his eyes. There was always something more frustrating in dealing with the quiet ones than the ones who talked non-stop. He turned on his heels and was about to make his silent exit when he jerked awkwardly to a stop, the manner of a man who suddenly remembered something but did not know how to phrase his next sentence. When he next spoke, however, his voice was as cool as it had been from the beginning.
"Might want to clean the Tokyo stones up a bit," he had mumbled, seemingly to nobody, in a volume only slightly above a whisper, "flowers should have dried up by now." Without waiting to catch Aoshi's near-gawk, and without explaining what those words could have meant, Enishi vanished away from sight.
Of course Aoshi knew what the younger person had meant. Still, he did not know why Enishi would have said anything about the Tokyo gravestones he had made for his four fallen comrades. Nevertheless, his attention was now on other things, as a darkly clothed person slipped noiselessly into the room he was in and slid the door shut with equal tranquility. He bowed slightly to Aoshi, who nodded in acknowledgement.
"I have news, Aoshi-sama."
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"Speak," however, was the first thing Soujirou heard, when he passed
by the closed room with a casual, quiet step he had grown used to out of years
of training to be unobtrusive. He was just on his way back from the little tea
hut Okina had introduced him to, having grabbed a spare clean, white hakama
with him for Kenji, as he remembered that the boy still wore the one stained
with his blood. It was by pure chance that he happened upon the dark figure
suspiciously hanging around the corridors of what looked like an abandoned part
of the temple. It was by the same chance that the spy, who looked highly trained,
did not notice him.
When the figure disappeared around the corner, Soujirou hesitated to follow. He gave just enough time for the person to travel the length of the corridor as per his speed, before silently trailing after in the same direction. When he turned, he did not see anybody, but a long, quiet corridor of rustic wood. He wondered briefly if the person could have entered into any one of the rooms along that corridor, and so decided to quietly but slowly make his way down the path.
The boyish wanderer wondered if this was the room the mysterious figure could have vanished into. Calmly masking as much of his presence as he could, he peered in through the small opening the sliding door had left. A gust of cold wind surged forward from the opening and stabbed airily at the eye he was using to peep, but he did not give up. From where he stood, he could only make out the right shoulder of the dark-clad figure, who hovered around the window and was talking to somebody on the left, which Soujirou could neither see nor hear properly.
He strained to listen in on the conversation, which seemed suspicious on any count, making it justifiable for him to eavesdrop. The men were quiet and cautious, reflected in the hushed tones they had chosen to use to converse. Soujirou could make out several words - ready, slip-up, preparations, three days, festival - none of which he could string together to form a coherent sentence. The discussion was obviously drawing to a close, as the shadowy figure stepped closer to the window.
He must have meant to utter as his last sentence, "This time we will obliterate them," for it was remarkably clear and loud, even to Soujirou. The wanderer reeled slightly in shock at the bold statement, and without waiting for all the other facts to catch up, decided to act.
The door slued open noisily, what with the force Soujirou had used on it. He wondered what his expression could have been at that time, or what word of accusation escaped from his mouth, to have caused the look of pure disbelief on the darkly-clad ninja's face. Nevertheless he was already travelling half the distance between himself and the window when he became aware of what he was doing, shinai in hand. The figure by the window had froze in the sudden intensity of Soujirou's entrance, but he slipped out and away, still with that look on his face, before Soujirou even got to him.
In the same line of direction stood the man whom the figure must have been talking to, with his back turned against the door and towards the window. In view of his speed, Soujirou was not sure if he should halt later and crash through the window or halt now and crash into the man. Neither options appeared to be feasible, when the man turned around to stare questioningly at the approaching wanderer.
Gasping in shock as he stared at the rapidly approaching figure of Aoshi, the first thing to come to Soujirou's mind was to swerve, which he did, and ended up crashing unceremoniously into the shelf by the wall, which then emptied all the books on it onto the wanderer by means of revenge, burying him.
And as for Aoshi, he blinked.
After taking a moment to ponder about the vast mysteries of the universe, he turned around and began to wonder how he could extricate the book-buried person behind him.
That line of thought did not run for too long, for as soon as he hit upon a solution, Soujirou burst free from his papery prison, sitting in a daze among the bound books with his trademark smile plastered on his face. He laughed nervously, "Ahahaha... I didn't know you were there, Shinomori-san. Sorry about this mess..." he trailed off when he saw that Aoshi had extended a hand silently to - possibly, help him to his feet. Wondering if that was even conceivable, he glanced back and forth at the hand and then at Aoshi, not knowing what to do.
Eventually, the tall ninja shook his head. "Come on, Soujirou, my hand is getting tired, and we both have to get to the dinner hall." Noticing Soujirou's inquisitive stare, even as he slowly grasped the hand to haul himself onto his feet, Aoshi continued, "I have some things to discuss with everybody. You need to be there too, of course. Let's go. You can clean up the mess here after we're done there."
Without waiting for a reply, the older person swept coolly out of the room, leaving Soujirou flabbergasted at the experience. He tapped his head with a long-suffering smile on his face, eyebrows arched inwards in a statement of inner incomprehension. Finally, he kept his shinai and picked the hakama he had dropped up, leaving the mess behind and turning down the corridor to hurry after Aoshi.
The crickets in the area suddenly broke into singing and dancing.
A new kind of tranquility settled upon the temple, the old fading away just as the evening sun sank into the horizon.
... to be continued
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16/2/04
xd@tougenkyou.net
A/N
this chapter would not have been possible without sasori, firuze,
and april-san, who either supported me through The Block or
helped me get enishi's character down as best as they could. m(_ _)m thank you!
*glomp* many may not agree with how i portrayed certain people here, but i am
ready to defend my case. :D send me your thoughts if you have any! thanks!
lots of people seem amused by the forest of death. XD sasori, shahrezad1, shihali... hey, all the 'S's! XD aoshi was just asking for it, having a surname like that. EEevee and fyyrrose, name me a fic which you both wreck havoc in and i'll be glad to wreck MY havoc in your review panel *evil grin* i hope i can keep up to your standards of revealing the pieces of the puzzle, Silver Nightingale! O.Ox *STRESSED!!* thanks for your note, Dawn! well phenix, i hope this chapter was good for you! and jbramx2, do you know that your reviews always make me laugh until my inwards rearrange themselves?! XD XD XD thank you! *glomp* i've never forgotten you, tanuki-dono! i was so scared you'd stopped reading already! but no matter what, you always have my gratitude. :D *pats drunken monkey on head* glad you liked the fic! *gigantic glomp on chibi kitten paw prints* O_Ox SO SWEET OF YOU!! i'll cherish that poem for the rest of my life. :D and kitiara, here's the new chapter!
Zeromaru! stop hogging the cookies! XD distribute them now! and you too Espi! XD