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 44: Impasse No More
Soujirou's smile was forced as he walked towards the calm master who was sipping at his wine nonchalantly. He found the self-proclaimed genius at a large clearing that was quite a distance away from the waterfall.
Night was falling.
Hiko was alone.
The wanderer had been trying to find the duo for a few days now, but every time he latched onto their aura of presence, they would suddenly shift to another spot in the forest. It was unnerving, and Soujirou did not understand what they would be doing it for. Camping outdoors for such a long period of time while playing hide and seek with potentially dangerous foes always unnerved him. "Where is Himura-san?" He settled for asking a more simple question. "Did he run away again?"
Hiko finished the cup of drink in his hand. He stuffed the small cup back into his cloak and gathered the sake bottle sitting on the ground. "He should be here soon," he smirked at the wanderer, who was nonplussed.
Then, before either could say a word further, there was a rustling of leaves from somewhere northwards. Soujirou immediately tensed and hovered his hand over his weapon instinctively. The nostalgia of feeling comfortable cool metal sheath and hilt beneath his fingers did not strike him as odd.
Like he had been using a metal blade all his years of wandering, instead of modified bamboo.
The rustling noise became louder. Finally, a dark figure tumbled out from the thick undergrowth into the clearing lit by moonlight.
Soujirou gasped upon recognising the newcomer, who was panting hard. "Himura-san?"
But Kenji had his attention on something else. "You!" He pointed at Hiko. Then he looked at the sky, and counted off his fingers. "Okay! I'm here within the stipulated time! Let's have another match!"
"Very well," Hiko concurred without much of a protest or fight, much to Soujirou's surprise. Enishi and himself had to resort to much begging and bribery alone to engage the old master in even one friendly spar. Looking at Hiko saunter towards Kenji with a rare spring in his step, Soujirou was almost sure that Hiko was rather /happy/ to be sparring with the boy, whom he was sure - no offence intended - was anything but a good challenge.
Slowly, the wanderer smiled to himself. A master was only true when he demonstrates his ability to spot and develop latent talent in seemingly rough pieces of raw material.
Hiko was a true master.
And so Kenji must be an uncut stone of true calibre.
He sat down on the spot where Hiko had been sitting on, watching with vague interest as the old master proceeded to trash the living daylights out of the young boy, while at the same time giving him pointers to improve his stance, attack and defense. He almost laughed at the speed in which Kenji was losing, but was amazed at his tenacity and perseverance. In the few minutes of blurred fists and swords that happened, Soujirou could see a marked improvement in Kenji's form, although he still had a long way to go.
The wanderer's upturned lips slowly thinned into a straight line. He propped his head up on a palm, eyes never leaving the scene before him. Finally, Hiko tripped Kenji and the boy fell face-first onto the ground. Hiko then proceeded to say something that Soujirou could not hear. In the next moment, the master had rapidly disappeared into the trees, leaving behind an injured Kenji on the ground, breathing hard, as well as a rather taken aback Soujirou, gaping like a goldfish.
The wanderer immediately got to his feet and followed Hiko's lead, trying to locate where Hiko's presence felt the strongest. He spared a glance backwards while he pursued, at the young Kenji, who was just climbing slowly to his feet, wiping his face free of grime and blood. He knew Hiko's teaching methods were rather unorthodox, but he decided he was in no position to interfere.
Enishi had warned Soujirou many times that he should mind his own business if he wanted to stay alive a little longer. For once, Soujirou decided that he would heed the older person's advice. After all, he was just here to observe. Slapping a smile back on his face, he continued trailing Hiko.
Summer was ending. It would be getting colder soon.
--
It was much later that same day, that Enishi found himself watching the flames dance about in the interior of the kiln. They licked at all corners of the baked insides, sometimes extending its tendrils of light and energy to the outside, whenever it found an opening that would allow them to do thus. They made a strange but familiar, noisy but nostalgic crackling sound. Averting his eyes for a while, Enishi ran a hand through his hair.
The last time he had to watch a bonfire in the wilderness like this, was when that utterly silly Soujirou fell into the river to save a cat and as a result got himself very sick. They never usually used a bonfire if they could help it, especially at night, since it attracted way too much lawful attention than they needed. He scoffed to himself, remembering how Soujirou had smiled the entire way through his fever. Then the next day the boy was okay. Enishi socked him good in the jaw for that particularly stressful incident. He was good at making people sick, not healthy.
The flames slowly converted into soot and smoke, rising towards the heavens, thinning out and disappearing into the clouds. Enishi stared, his mind racing ahead of him. He remembered sitting down and watching large things burn like this before. It was when he set his foster family's house on fire - after their death and after his inheritance of their massive fortune. At that remembrance, he chuckled to himself dryly. That was a huge bonfire all right. He had been seated upon the cemented walls of the building, watching the entire house go up in flames - laughing sinisterly and reciting Chinese idioms while he was at it.
That was the first time he met the four of them, wasn't it?
Enishi shifted, so that he now glanced at his feet. There was a pile of wet, mouldable clay which he had set into the shape of a rectangular plate. He withdrew his sword from its sheath, realising that his hand was moving before his mind did. The tip of the blade touched the clay, and he began writing letters upon the surface, without knowing why. "Guang... Ming... Zheng... Da..." He mumbled under his breath as he wrote. A wistful sadness flickered over his eyes. But only for a while. Finishing the final stroke, Enishi sighed and relaxed. Not two seconds after he had done so, he tensed again. A shadow stretched from the forest boundaries to slowly fall upon the clay tablet he had been writing on. That, coupled with the sounds of rustling grass, indicated that someone was approaching.
"Light... bright... right... might?" Soujirou read out loud, staring at the words Enishi had carved into the plate of clay. He then stared at Enishi. "Fancy you practicing kanji-writing at a time like this, Yukishiro-san!"
Enishi remained surprisingly calm despite the millions of retorts that were sounding in his head, waiting to come out of his lips. He gazed at the plate again, tracing his fingers over the freshly carved words.
"An idiom isn't meant to be read literally." Enishi mumbled. "This whole thing comes together to mean 'above and overboard'. Was the first Chinese idiom I ever learnt in Shanghai. And they were all there, all four of them..." he contiued vaguely. "Funny how core members of an underground syndicate would resort to giving themselves callsigns of righteousness, huh?" He snickered darkly. The clouds gathered, and the moon was covered, leaving the clearing to bask only in the glow of the fiery kiln. Suddenly serious, Enishi turned to Soujirou, face straight. "How's the red doing? Good enough to go?"
Soujirou smiled and tilted his head in a direction. "Will anything I say affect what you have already decided to do?"
Enishi stared at him levelly at first. Then he snorted and turned away. "I'm glad you're at least clear on /that/."
Soujirou said nothing. He walked to where Enishi was and sat down beside the man. "When are we moving out to Azumamaro?"
There was a short silence. The crickets suddenly sounded very loud.
"Tomorrow morning. We'll be meeting up with Shinomori and Saitou once we locate the dungeon entrance."
The younger wanderer's shoulder slumped slightly. It was hardly visible, but it was there. "So we're at the end of our journey?" The sentence came out almost as a whisper. The wind blew. The fire burned faster.
Enishi did not answer.
"These past few months have been really fun!" Soujirou's voice was cheerful. He straightened himself and turned to the quiet Enishi. "But how do you feel, having to fight against your former friends?"
This stirred Enishi to muster a response. "I never had friends." There was a short pause. "It's an overrated word you can't afford to have in underground Shanghai anyway," he snorted.
"Well, what /do/ you call friends in Shanghai then?" Soujirou pressed on, still smiling. He drew his knees up and rested his cheek upon them, looking sidelong at Enishi while he was at it. "Comrades? Brothers-in-arms?"
"There is no such concept in the bang pai - the gangs, despite anybody's best interests," Enishi shrugged. "They say they'll stick to you. Swear with blood that they'll watch your back, but when someone waves a wad of cash in front of them they run away like gullible puppies." A sardonic smile decorated Enishi's face. "It was kind of interesting to watch, but very inefficient for an organisation."
Soujirou stared at Enishi for two seconds, before bursting out laughing. He ignored Enishi's offended look of query, waiting until his laughter had simmered before venturing to say anything. "Yukishiro-san," he had his usual cheer in his voice, but something was different, "whether you like it or not, or whether you treat them well or not, there will /always/ be people who will want to stick around no matter what happens!"
Enishi wanted to scoff, loudly. "Like you, huh?" He muttered, eyes on the ground, on the plate of clay he had been carving. He picked up a small, sturdy twig and began to write something else on the soft matter.
"Like our four visitors from the western mainland!" Soujirou continued seamlessly, without any indication as to whether he heard Enishi's mumbling. "Did you notice? Your name still rings a bell deep in their heart! It looks like you are still dear in their thoughts after all these many years!"
It was Enishi's turn to laugh out loud. "Dear in their hearts?" He shook his head, snickering. "Fear, more like it." He grinned. "I ruled my gang with an iron fist."
"Yukishiro-san, you're not very observant, are you?" Soujirou pouted slightly while explaining. "You're confusing fear with respect. From what I have seen of the four visitors - Guang-san and Da-san aside, Ming-san and Zheng-san appears to have quite a lot of respect for you, you know!"
If Enishi could deflate, he would have. "Oh, really?" He mumbled. "How very amusing that you would claim that hot-tempered girl to have respect for me when she was trying to warn you that I am the most evil thing to ever walk Japan since Oda Nobunaga."
"Well, Yukishiro-san, liking and disliking a person are both intense feelings one can bear towards someone, that involves thinking endlessly about said person in either fluffy daydreams or late-night voodoo rituals." He smiled, even as Enishi's face turned dark with disgust. "In Zheng-san's case, I can sense that she really does hate you! Although she also has some sort of a grudging regard. Strange, but absolutely true!"
"Probably only because of Ming," Enishi sighed. "That girl's been head-over-heels in love with him ever since I can remember."
"What has that got to with anything?" Soujirou was amused. Again, Enishi sighed.
"Ming served under me as a sort-of right-hand man," the former gang leader explained in a voice that made it apparent that he would rather not be explaining anything at all. "Zheng was always hanging out around him. And he made sure to at least remind her once a day to respect the leader, blah blah blah. So if she /does/ have any inkling of respect for me, Ming must've rubbed off on her."
Soujirou gave a low whistle of appreciation. "Isn't it strange that someone who served as your somewhat right-hand man would leave the organisation you built to set up his own... dealing with, I think... the same kind of underground activity?"
"That's why I said," a flicker of what Soujirou thought was hurt flashed by Enishi's face for a split second, "that there is nothing in this world to be trusted. No friends, no comrades, not even relatives," he laughed. It was a cold laughter. "Nothing." He stood up. "...we'd better load the things that are ready into the cart first. We can do the rest tomorrow morning before setting off." The note of finality in his tone indicated that the discussion was over.
As he began moving away, he could hear Soujirou getting to his feet as well from behind him. "Yukishiro-san," the younger wanderer's voice was soft, but firm, "you have a bad habit of waiting until you lose something to realise how important it actually was."
There was a tensed silence.
"Your point being?"
Soujirou smiled, giggling lightly. "Even though they may be enemies now, they still were your friends, who seem to hold you with some form of fear and regard! So don't do anything to them that you'll later regret!"
Enishi took a few seconds to clamber up from the floor, his response to Soujirou's completely off-topic remark being that of a bodyfault to the ground. He harrumphed loudly, then proceeded to stomp off into the distance, deciding that it would not be worth the effort to give Soujirou a verbal reply.
"See you tomorrow!" Soujirou waved and cheerfully chirped relentlessly. When Enishi vanished completely from sight, Soujirou transferred his gaze to the skies, where the moon and the stars were. "For better or worst," he smiled at the luminaries, "it all ends tomorrow!"
A distant star twinkled.
And fell, plucked from the inky skies, in flames.
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... to be continued
19/1/05
tougenkyou . net / xd
i had a deal with sasori that chapter forty four would be yet another crack chapter. well, but as you can see, it fell through. but don't worry. XD will feed you all with crack. soon. ka ka ka ka ka!