WARNING: Spoilers! If you don't know who Kenji is, please read at your own risk! POSSIBLE CHARACTER DEATH AT END OF STORY.
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 50: End of the Tunnel
Kenji skidded to a halt when the tunnel came to a end in abrupt darkness. The fox sniffed experimentally at the unseen barrier, then turned its head up to look at Kenji. It pawed gently at the door that was black and camouflaged by darkness, encouraging Kenji to take a closer look, which the boy did. He stepped forward and put an experimental arm out. There was a smooth, metallic surface somewhere in front indeed. This meant that the tunnel could have a continuation.
In a spur of inspiration, Kenji put both palms on the surface and pushed. The door did not so much as groan. The boy tried again. And again. And again, each time putting much greater force on the door than the previous. But nothing seemed to work.
Finally, he growled and gave the door a firm kick in an attempt to quell his anger and frustration. He was so near and yet so far. This careless action caused his foot to hand on the latch he had not seen or felt in his entire time spent tussling with the door, and his annoyed growl exploded into a yell of pain.
"OUCH! OWOWOW!" He hopped around on his good foot, feeling the stinging pain in the other foot which had struck the latch. After he had hopped a good amount of time, the pain subsided into a dull throb. He sighed, turning to glare slightly at the door, then at the fox that was resting on all fours beside it, preening.
"You could've warned me, you know!" He scolded the animal, not knowing for what. It was not as if the fox /knew/ there was a latch there, was it? Stalking forward and clasping his hand around the latch, he pulled. The door moaned slightly, and budged an inch. Kenji's face brightened. /Now/ he was getting somewhere! He tugged, with much more force than his first pull. The door protested only with a screech from its hinges. It swung wide open after a bit more cajoling.
Even more darkness greeted Kenji from within the chambers of the opened door. The fox darted in immediately without hesitation, even as Kenji took time to gape and ponder over his next step. Seeing the flash of bright silver pass by him, however, Kenji simply followed. For some reason, the fox seemed more eager than he was to get nearer to the bowels of Yuugure activity. And in the event that if he did get lost in this labyrinth of darkness, at least he if followed the fox, he could have fox stew for dinner and survive a bit longer. Kenji nodded. He was absolutely sure that that was the reason why the fox was bringing him around at all.
They wandered around a bit in a huge room with a huge slab of stone that had fallen from somewhere and formed a ramp towards the exit. Kenji noticed that the huge stone seemed to fit the huge exit exactly. He wondered if they were any way related. No time for further musings, however, for the fox was getting quickly out of sight. Kenji followed with a burst of speed, down a long, winding, one-way tunnel with fire torches lined on both sides of the wall. There were signs of footsteps and shuffling on the soil on the ground, Kenji realised, and his heart leapt with anticipation. He hoped that he could find Soujirou or Enishi by the end of the tunnel, for he had to warn them about the cannons before sunset.
At the final stretch of narrow tunnel, there were no fire torches on the walls anymore, although there were holders. It was as if someone had hurriedly plucked the torches from their original resting places. Kenji saw the fox veer off and disappear into the distance. He could see that the end of the tunnel opened up to a rather soft glow of warm, orange fire. Hastening his steps, he stepped out of the tunnel and near to the light, announcing his arrival to whoever cared to know with frantic, heavy steps and a sharp hoot of achievement.
Four heads immediately turned to regard him, with surprised wariness first, then recognition, relief, and finally exasperation.
"Kenji!" Misao rose from where she was sitting, huddled near the makeshift fire torch campfire. She put a hand on her waist and used the other one to point at the boy. "You're in enemy territory! Stop announcing your presence to everybody!"
"I can't help it oba-san!" Kenji simply grinned and hopped around some more, adrenaline and a sense of victory powering him. "I could sense my friends nearby and I just had to make a din!"
"How sweet," Kamatari smiled at Kenji affectionately, yet giving off a rather sinister feel at the same time. "I like hyperactive boys."
Misao shot him a warning glare, which he ignored, naturally.
"Well, boy, you sure took your own sweet time comin'," Chou scoffed. He was leaning back on his palms and with his legs outstretched in front of him. "They've all gone up ahead over the other side, where the pastures are greener. We're just here to keep a watchout for the reinforcements Saitou's requested, pending approval."
Kenji took all the information in sombrely. He turned to the last person in the current group who had yet to speak a word. "Oji-san?" He asked, timidly. "How come the Oniwabanshuu is still here? You should have no reason to be waiting here as well for police reinforcements, right...?"
Aoshi's eyes slowly opened. He looked at Kenji, then looked over his shoulders to a spot beyond the boy. Kenji blinked, turning around to see what Aoshi was looking at. There was a signboard sticking out from somewhere near the edge of the cliff, that was illuminated by several sticks of fire torches. Kenji looked questioningly at Aoshi for a little while more, then moved forward to peruse the sign. He was absorbed in it for a while, mostly because it was written with much erroneous and sometimes funny grammar.
Once he was done with the sign, he glanced towards the darkness beyond the cliff drop. The fox was sitting at the entrance of the only suspension bridge that was still up and apparently operational. It tilted its head at Kenji, beckoning it to come, but Kenji had something else on mind. "Oji-san," he asked Aoshi, a tinge of curiousity in his voice, "why is there one bridge left? It says here that there are four and one person can go on one... makes no sense to just leave it hanging around to me..."
There was a brief respite of silence, after which Chou began to hoot with laughter, and Kamatari smiled knowingly to himself. "Well if ya must know, kid," Chou waved a hand before his face, "when one of the other bridges fell down it hit this particular bridge slightly, so this thing is now two connections short of a full bridge," he pointed at one end of the bridge, whose rope was so delicately wrought together that it seemed like it would snap at any time. "I don't think even an ant can crawl across without making the bridge plunge to certain doom, much less us big sized humans," he sniggered. "That Tenken is sometimes /too/ fast for his own good."
Kenji spent a bit of time mulling over the information. "So you're all going to wait here for reinforcements and that's it?" He asked, slightly disappointed.
"Don't think there's anything else we could do," Kamatari shrugged. He had sauntered to the edge of the cliff while Kenji had been thinking, a large stone in hand. Without an explanation - perhaps there was no need for one - he flung the stone with great force across the crevasse, into the darkness. For a long time they waited, to see if the stone would hit anything on the other side, so they could gauge how far exactly 'the other side' was.
And for a long time, they heard nothing.
"See?" Kamatari turned around with a resigned sigh. "Can't even tell how far the other side is. Nothing we can do until backup comes."
It was true, Kenji knew, that it would be pointless to try to grope a way out in the darkness. But surely, he thought, there had to be something they could do without simply waiting around. Sunset, after all, was just around the corner. "Oji-san," the boy tried again, flustered. "Is there really nothing we can do? Sunset is approaching... we can't wait too long..." His words tapered off into mumblings. Aoshi raised an eyebrow in his direction.
"Is there something you wish to tell us about?" The sombre ninja immediately asked, surprising Kenji. He had not realised he could be read so easily. Then again, Aoshi had watched him grow up, so that did not particular come as a surprise.
"I have something to show you, Oji-san," Kenji declared. "But it's too dark here and you probably won't be able to make up much of it," he sighed. "We need to get across to the other side of this crevasse. It'll be much easier to talk there."
The four who had been left behind stared at him in wonderment. "How do you know if it'll be easier to talk here or there anyway?" Kamatari asked. "The way I see it, it'll be as dark over there as it is over here."
"That has to do with what I need to show you guys," Kenji nodded to acknowledge Kamatari's doubt. He pulled out the parchment from where he had hidden it in one of his sleeves. "I have a map of this place," he declared, earning himself several wide-eyed looks of amazement. "Don't ask me how I got it, because I'm not quite sure myself," he scratched the back of his head and shot the waiting fox an accusing glance.
The fox stuck its nose up in the air.
"I've gone through the map on my way down the tunnel," Kenji carried on. "The map is accurate thus far. And if it continues to be accurate," he pointed at the darkness that laid beyond the bridge, "then once we step over onto the other side and walk a little, we'll come out into the open air labyrinth. There should be enough light in that place to go around!" He grinned, proud of his narration.
The others exchanged quick, suspicious glances among themselves. So deep they were in enemy territory, it was hard for them not to be suspicious of the slightest bit of seemingly divine help. "Let me see that map anyway, Kenji," Aoshi decided that the only way to know was to look at the evidence itself. Kenji obediently handed the parchment over, folding his hands behind himself afterwards to carefully examine what Aoshi thought of the thing.
Aoshi took the scroll, turned it around and carefully stroked a finger over the bottom part of the material. After a few strokes, he stopped. He rolled the parchment up and handed it back to Kenji.
Expectant eyes were soon upon him. Aoshi put two fingers to his chin in a pose of thought. Finally he announced, "The map has the pattern of the Yuugure marked onto its back, just like all its other official documents." A pause. "It is real and can be trusted."
Kenji grinned widely, as if he was vindicated of some charge.
"So now the question becomes," Kamatari pointed down the dark canyon, "/how, do we get across this thing?"
Before any human had a chance to brainstorm on that interesting question, the single animal in amongst them yipped for attention. It was not disappointed, for suddenly everybody stared at it, some with surprise and some with curiosity. "What's wrong?" Kenji addressed the fox, knowing that he looked silly but too exhilarated to care. He approached the fox, who yipped again, pointing its nose at the bridge over and over. "Cross the bridge...?" He tried to translate, and was apparently successful, because the fox then stopped barking and sat down peacefully, staring at Kenji first, then observing the people present.
"Kenji," Aoshi was frowning, "where did that fox come from?"
"I don't know," Kenji replied honestly, "I think it kinda followed me here from Tokyo," he gestured at the fox, who shook its tail in a friendly manner, as if in agreement. "It seems rather tame. Maybe it belongs to someone else?" He shrugged. "In any case, the fox was the one who gave me the map, whether you believe it or not, haha!" The boy laughed sheepishly. Beside him, the silver fox yowled soulfully.
Aoshi glanced once at the signboard, seemingly suddenly able to understand something. He closed his eyes. "I believe you," he stated solemnly, causing Kenji to cease laughing, and everybody else to look at him with something akin to disbelief. "So it seems like once we cross the bridge, we may have a good chance of being able to do something meaningful."
"We can disarm the cannons!" Kenji perked up, holding the rolled-up scroll in a pose of triumph. "That should teach them not to mess around with Kyoto!" The fox stood on all fours and yipped.
"Cannons?" Aoshi quipped.
"Yeah," Kenji nodded. The fox started chasing its tail. "The scroll mentions that there are cannons mounted in various parts of the labyrinth on the other side. If we can use the map to find each and every one of them, and disable them, then we have less things to worry about, right? Unless you mean to say that Soujirou and Enishi have already gone over to the other side to disable the cannons?"
"Absolutely no idea what they could be doing on the other side now," Chou shrugged. "They went in blind. Probably gonna need to figure things out blindly s'well."
"Well then what're we waiting for!" Kenji was practically hopping on his feet. "Let's go help them out now!"
"Didn't you read the signboard, boy?" Kamatari sighed, beckoning in the direction of the warning. "This bridge can't hold the weight of even one person anymore. We can't all go over to 'help out' unless we find a way to walk which doesn't involve instantly plunging down into whatever it is that lurks underneath." He pointed downwards, closing his speech with a tone of finality.
Kenji squinted at what could be down there. For all they knew, it could have been a canyon that was not even half his height! Picking up a fire torch, he flung it down, watching the spark of light go lower, lower, and lower, until it could no longer be seen. He shuddered visibly, forced to take his words back. The canyon was practically a bottomless pit.
"Well, we have to try something at least," Kenji surprised even himself with his frustrated tone of voice. He picked up a few of Misao's kunais that was scattered around his visible vicinity and approached the entrance of the bridge. With a firm 'thonk!', he embedded two of the kunai deeply into the rope that was still hanging on firmly. He used another one to kill the other rope that was barely hanging on by a thread. The bridge rocked and tilted, now hanging upon one rope.
"If we can't walk firmly across on wide planks," Kenji turned back to stare at his friends, "then we'll run across on its width!" He declared, pointing down the bridge. "Kitsune! You take a fire torch and go down first, so we can know how far away the other end is!" He commanded, half in jest and half for the fun of it.
And to the horror of everybody else present - Kenji included, the fox complied with an excited yip. It picked up a fire torch between its jaws, then bounded rapidly across the shakey looking bridge like it was firm ground, wagging its tail like it was a happy puppy.
Five seconds later, a loud yip echoed across the crevasse. They could now see the spectral flame of the fire torch the fox was waving about, some forty to fifty metres away from where they were situated.
"Well, dammit," Kenji blinked, finally lowering his finger, "I hadn't seriously expected the thing to be able to understand. But anyway!" Kenji's eyes gleamed with mischief. "We're going onwards! Follow me, fellow worthy warriors!"
Without a word more, he dashed forward onto the bridge, disappearing into the darkness before anybody could hold him back or protest.
Not long after Kenji had traversed the whole length of the bridge, the ancient connection fell to the weight of its travellers in a landslide of broken splinters and snapped ropes, never again to be seen in the light of day.
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... to be continued
25/2/05
tougenkyou . net / xd
my hopes of this thing ending at chapter 50 has been crushed! now let's aim to end it at chapter 55! w00t!