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 51: Into the Light
"Are we all safe and sound!" Kenji screeched at the top of his voice.
The birds in the distance forest canopy replied with sweet singing. A soft, gentle breeze caressed the barren, bleak landscape of the walled labyrinth he had stepped into. Overhead, the ceiling was no longer the dirt or musty of the tunnel roof. Instead, the clear blue sky stretched for as far as his eyes could take in. The redhead grinned, taking in a huge breath of clean, fresh air. Air had never tasted as good as it did now!
"You're going to attract all the enemies within hearing distance with your shouting," Misao sighed, as she emerged from the cavernous exit of the tunnel that was behind them. From behind her, Aoshi stepped into the sunlight as well.
After landing on the other side of the crevasse and spending a small amount of time marvelling at the suspension bridge falling into darkness, they had embarked on yet another twisted, winding one-way tunnel journey, confusing their sense of direction. It seemed like all the bridges led to different paths, and the exits laid in different areas of a massive open air labyrinth on the other side of the mountain.
"Where are the other two?" Kenji asked, curious. He looked at Aoshi.
"They are required to stay behind to await police reinforcements, being spies of the force," the tall man reminded Kenji. He walked towards Kenji and held a hand out. "Let's see that map again."
The boy handed the parchment over without question, watching as Aoshi spread it over the whitewashed tiles of the floor, using the sunlight to see - clearly this time - what the contents of the scroll was.
Kenji took the pause in action to examine the new surroundings. From all around him, there were white walls without roofs, shooting upwards to the skies, blending in with the whiteness of the moving clouds. The walls were about three to four times his height, its ramrod straight slope with smooth surfaces making it impossible for someone to climb without some tools and preparation.
Since this was a maze of sorts, climbing did not particular seem like a good way to clear it. Who knew if the walls had traps laid within them? The enemy did not seem like they were people who pulled punches on the ones who had overturned their grand schemes, after all. Kenji knew from the rest that Saitou, Soujirou and Enishi had already gone on ahead of them. But since each bridge led to a different exit in a different area of the labyrinth, it might take a while before they met up together again.
Of course, Kenji was sure, they would meet up again. For that was how this elaborate maze had been designed. No matter where the starting point was, there was only one true exit. And that was where the minotaur lurked. He found himself marvelling slightly at how the architecture of the place was simple, yet archaic and elegant. A bird croned in the distance, and the song of many crickets flooded his senses. He closed his eyes and let the sound of the forest overwhelm him. He could really get used to this.
In the distance - a rather far distance away, there was the sound of a gigantic explosion. Aoshi and Misao immediately looked up from their examination of the map, joining Kenji in staring in the direction of the huge blast. After about two more subsequent blasts of considerably softer volume, Kenji turned back around to look at his two seniors with inquiry in his eyes.
"No," Aoshi immediately read from his expressions that he meant to ask if they were going to go hence and help. The taller man rolled up the scroll and tossed it back to Kenji. "Our purpose in this maze is to find and disable all cannons and equipment that control those cannons. The others can take care of themself," Aoshi kept his words very guarded. He checked the direction of his shadow, then looked all around him. "All right," he commanded, "let's go."
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When Soujirou heard the explosion, he had stopped to glance briefly in that direction as well. He saw a column of dust and smoke raise up in the air, and heard about two more loud bangs. Then there was sheer silence. The sights, sounds and smell of the forest in a normal hot and sunny day filled Soujirou's senses once more.
"Well, that was certainly queer," Soujirou chirped brightly to himself. Folding his hands into his sleeves and tucking them snugly in the inside of his gi, he walked on, to where the lonely white walls would lead him.
He wondered how the rest were faring.
He himself was not faring very well, he admitted with candor. There was certainly something strange about these tall walls that he could not quite put his finger on. To his credit, he actually /remembered/ that somewhere, sometime in the distant past, Enishi had mentioned Chinese labyrinths to him before. Back then, Soujirou had chosen to simply laugh it off as something ridiculous, for Enishi had said that the Chinese were so well versed with geographic formation, they could trap a person for a week in a space that was only five metres long and five metres wide, using two long pillars as tools and nothing else.
Who could rightly believe in such an absurd claim, anyway?
Now, however, that Soujirou was the subject to one of these so-called geographic formations, walking about the white-washed walls that looked more and more familiar each time he passed by them, he found himself having to review the possibility of Enishi having spoken the truth. It almost felt as if he had walked into a strange pocket of time and dimension, where serenity was a trap and every step seemed to lead him closer to disaster.
At that thought, Soujirou stopped. He shook his head and narrowed his eyes. He would take the enemy seriously. Even if the enemy was simply an array of confusing white walls.
He withdrew his sword slightly from the sheath, nicking his thumb to draw a little bit of blood. He casually pressed the blood upon the white wall next to him, giving it an unmistakable mark and smell. He glanced once at it, apparently satisfied.
In his next step, he was gone from sight.
It was not before long that he had marked the path he had been walking with small drops of blood upon the wall. Following the signs he had given himself, he turned a new corner and found himself coming to an immediate, dead stop. He stared, at the huge, empty room before him, barricaded from the outside world with the same tall, white walls he had been running around in since just now.
He wondered how in the world he could have missed seeing this entrance for all this time. It was sobering to know, too, that if he had not been marking where he was going, he would have easily overlooked this particular well-hidden entrance for a long, long time.
Still, Soujirou's smile remained unaffected while he examined the room carefully, from the threshold. He was unwilling to take a further step into what he knew could be a trap.
For at the far end corner of the room, the girl Zheng was leaning against one wall smugly. She perked up when she heard footsteps, her complacent smile stretching when she saw that it was Soujirou standing at the entrance. Pushing herself off from the wall behind her, she applauded, "Welcome to our headquarters, Seta Soujirou." Her voice was laced with poisoned honey. "Won't you please step into our cannon control centre?"
Soujirou, of course, stated his hesitation immediately. "That won't be necessary," he shrugged, "this room is too empty to be anything really significant, Zheng-san."
At that, Zheng actually laughed. She tsk'ed at the boy and shook a finger. "Don't they teach you in schools here, that you should never judge a book by its cover?" The girl shot a challenging glare at Soujirou. "Some things are better understood up close and personal."
Soujirou was not quite sure what she meant by that - her heavily accented Japanese having distracted him quite some time back when she was in the middle of trying to pronounce the idiom correctly. Stifling his giggles, however, Soujirou returned his attention to the issue on hand.
Zheng had mentioned that this room was a cannon control room - highly possible that she was lying, considering that Soujirou could see nothing but a huge, white and empty room. Yet at the same time, if she was /not/ lying, then he would be giving up a rather grand chance that was being offered to him. The chance of being able to destroy the Yuugure's plans at sunset.
However minute that possibility, it seemed like a good risk to take.
After all, what did he have to lose?
Besides his socks, which he had already lost in that one particular Kenji versus Aoshi fight in the city of Kyoto. But his intelligent mind figured that he was digressing, so he hastily pulled himself back on track.
"Very well," the boyish wanderer replied the mafia lady, who had seemed to anticipate this answer. Soujirou then stepped into the room properly, as he continued, "I suppose I will learn nothing unless I step into the lion's den myself."
And Soujirou was not surprised that, the moment he entered the room wholly, the door behind him shifted tightly shut by some device. He did not sigh or look back to confirm his entrapment. There was, after all, something more interesting about the room to be observed.
It was as if there was a dimensional line in between the two posts of the door. As Soujirou glanced around himself from within the room, he was genuinely surprised to see that the room was no longer an empty, roofless area enclosed by four plain walls.
The walls were still white, but in many areas around them, there were stacks and stacks of boxes and wooden crates. There were planks of wood inter-meshing with one another above him on the ceiling, woven against each other like a huge canopy of wooden cross-stitches. Light broke through this planked umbrella from the space between the hatches, its intensity drowning out most of the details in the room, until Soujirou had to shift into a position that put him under a shadowy area.
Once he did that, immediately the contents of the room became more observable. Besides the crates and boxes he had already seen in the brief moment of revelation when he stepped in, he now also saw that there was a door behind where Zheng was standing, probably leading to an important location. There was nothing else that was really fantastic about the room, so he returned his smiling glance to Zheng.
"How impressive!" Soujirou nodded in approval. "A labyrinth that uses optical illusions to disguise the most important areas as impenetrable walls!"
Zheng actually raised an eyebrow. "You figure it out quickly enough," she remarked.
"Oh, it really isn't anything I should be very proud of," Soujirou giggled. "It's a trick I've used before myself too," he said softly. The moment passed quickly, and he was back to his slightly tippy self. "I'm sure you didn't invite me in just to have friendly, sarcastic banter with me, did you?" He asked. "Well, even if you /did, I'll have to let you know that I don't seem to have enough time to chat with you, so if you have no business with me, I would really appreciate it if you could open the door and let me go back to my aimless wandering!"
The mafia girl, silent all the time while Soujirou monologued, spoke up. "You still refuse to leave Yukishiro Enishi?"
Of course, Soujirou had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. "Oh my, have we gone one big round just to return to square one?" He held a hand out. "How many times have I told you that Yukishiro-san and I are not exactly best of buddies ever since you first asked, Zheng-san?" He threw the question out.
"You stand on his side," Zheng rebutted.
"That doesn't say a lot, Zheng-san," Soujirou pointed out. "But anyway, if you mean to ask if I have changed my mind and will now work with you instead, then I am afraid my answer remains the same," he shook his head. "We am here to crush your organisation. Please do not stand in our way if you do not wish to get hurt."
This certainly did not sit well with the obstinate lady, whose temper flared and hit the sky immediately. "You do not know what is good for you!" She accused Soujirou, who simply kept smiling. "You could have averted a disaster to your lovely Kyoto city if you had come join us!" She swung her hands and hit something that looked like a button on the wall. The button gave a squeak of protest, and then the entire wall that was behind her, minus the door, started to sink into the flooring, revealing with great fanfare the vast sky and sea of treetops that resided behind it. This room they were in was situated right above a cliff overlooking the forest from a sheer drop.
Embedded into the slope of the unused mountain that was below the room, their sheer sizes making them protrude out of their hiding places, were massive cannons - mounted and aimed at the city that had been sworn to destruction by sunset.
"Now that's a little too much, don't you think?" Soujirou was half-offended and half-amused. "Just because of my rejection you try to toast an entire city and make enemies of an entire nation?" He shook his head. "I assure you lady, I'm not worth all that attention at all!"
"This is not about you," Zheng coolly stated. She pressed yet another button on the wall, and the sunken wall was raised again. "I just wish to let you see the doom of the city first before you meet /your/ doom." She sneered, and the wall closed itself in one with the ceiling ominously. "If you had agreed to join the Yuugure, then Yukishiro will be too distracted by your betrayal to fight. He will perish with great suffering! But since you refuse, then you, too, will perish with him!" She laughed, as if it was all very logical to her.
This time, Soujirou did roll his eyes. "Pray tell me, lady, what makes you think I will just stand here and let you have your way when I am in no way missing an arm or leg to resist or otherwise escape?"
"Of course you will not," Zheng sounded sure. Soujirou felt like turning away just to spite her, but her next words froze him on the spot. "If you don't want to be the one to trigger the cannons off." She pointed triumphantly at the area around his feet.
Soujirou could literally see the flash of wire in his eyes. He did not know how, but while he had been speaking with Zheng, wire strings had somehow found their way around his ankles, sticking so close to his feet that it would be difficult to escape their encirclement without touching at least one wire slightly. But even so, he wondered how seriously he should take Zheng's insinuations that these wires were somehow connected to the cannons that were facing Kyoto now.
And he voiced his hesitation out openly.
"I'm not sure if I can believe you, Zheng-san," Soujirou's smile was back in place, "but /you/ should believe me when I tell you this - Yukishiro-san certainly does not care if I stand on his side or your side! I find your superfluous planning to be rather amusing!"
Zheng had opened the door she had been leaning on, her hand hovering over yet another trigger-like device. "Is that what you really think?" She asked, quietly. "Or is that what Yukishiro wants you to think?"
There was a momentous second of silence.
"Will you tell me why the Yuugure are going to such an extent to try to monopolise the entire Japanese underground?" Soujirou prompted, when he realised he could not answer Zheng's previous questions.
The girl Zheng smirked. /For revenge/ she mouthed, without using her voice to say anything. Without giving Soujirou a chance to press on, she hit the trigger device and slipped away through the door, shutting it with a loud slam. The room shuddered.
In the next immediate moment, the walls on both sides of Soujirou burst open to reveal a new layer underneath. A layer that was decorated from top to bottom with rows upon rows of massive, sharp spikes that glinted evilly against the afternoon sun. The room shuddered again, and the the walls began moving inwards slowly, with a low, groaning sound.
"Oh my!" Soujirou exclaimed at nothing in particular, as he turned his head from side to side to assess the speed of the trap. He looked at his feet, then looked at the ceiling, very clear about his predicament, and clearer still about his escape plans. Pulling his sword out of its sheath, he held the blade close to his lips, feeling the coolness of the metal on them for that single instant. "Hiko-san... time to see how much of a genius you really are on the art of smithing!"
There was a loud whistle of metal cutting air. A string broke. Something metallic fell to the ground.
And from beneath the floor of the room Soujirou was in, a cannon went off, its mouth exploding in flames and smoke.
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... to be continued
2/3/05
tougenkyou . net / xd
uwaaaah! why isn't this thing getting anywhere near to the end yet! come on! move, plot, move!