Healer
By Meii-chan
Chapter 8—The Making of an Antagonist
There were at least fifty of them, Yumi noted, as she silently crept around the corner of the house. They would be outnumbered twelve and a half to one. She shook her head. Stupid! You can't have half of a person alive! Then she thought of the gruesome image and shivered. I definitely don't want to see that again, she thought, remembering the mystifying man wrapped in bandages. I wonder who he is. I've never seen him before. Have I?
Overhead, the wind blew slightly so that the leaves of the maple tree beside her fluttered in the wind. Only under the flickering shadow of the leaves did she sneak out in her bare feet, because any type of footwear would make some sound. Making her way into the deserted street, she stuck close to the shadows of building that lined the road. In that fashion, she made her way into the center of Yokohama and the police station that rested in its heart.
Kenshin didn't unsheathe his sword during Chou's pass. Instead, he simply moved out of the way and Chou charged straight into a tree.
"You think you're so great, dodging my attack. Well, we'll see who's victorious in the end! Draw your sword!"
"Why?"
"Because I want to prove that I'm better than you are. I already know that I am, of course, but just to prove it."
Kenshin seemed to be quite confused. "If you know this unworthy one is the Hitokiri Battousai, why do you think you're stronger?" It seemed like Kenshin, eager to have his opponent surrender, vexed Chou in a very grave way.
"Because you're so weak that you become some guy's hireling! A strong person wouldn't have to answer to the demands of anyone! They can do everything for themselves! The Hitokiri Battousai was strong before! But now that he answers to some decrepit fool, he isn't worthy to be revered or feared! Isn't that why you refer to yourself as 'this unworthy one?'"
"No, that isn't true. The Hitokiri Battousai," Kenshin flinched as he said this, "was always just a mere hireling. The Hitokiri Battousai was only a tool used by the Ishin Shishi (1) to bring in the Meiji era. This unworthy one didn't take the lives of countless nameless individuals for this unworthy one's own reasons. This unworthy one thinks that, even as the Hitokiri Battousai, wouldn't it be too selfish to never yield to the needs of others? What has caused you to think this way?"
"Is that how it is? You just start chipping away at the moral values of a person to win? I thought you were more exciting than that…"
Outskirts of Osaka: June, 1862
"Haku-nii! It's getting out of its cage!"
"Look! That cricket jumped really far!"
"Catch it before it jumps into my hair!"
"Calm down, Ruki-chan! I got it."
A younger Chou, about ten years old, watched the other children play amongst themselves in the schoolyard. He longed to be with them, but instead, there he was, stuck sitting under the shade of a large oak tree.
"Hey, kid." A voice behind him said. Chou turned his head to see who it was. A tall man with his dark hair tied behind him in a ponytail stood behind him. "Why aren't you playing with all the other kids?" He turned to look at the other children, happily amusing themselves with the little creatures.
"I got in trouble with Kinomura-sensei by saying bad word in class. I'm not allowed to play, but I want to."
The man beside him did not make any reassuring speech, as Chou had expected. "Kinomura-sensei only said that you couldn't. You can do whatever you want."
"But if he finds out, I'll get in trouble. And I can't get in trouble, because then my parents will find out and I'll be in worse trouble than before."
"Just because you're a kid doesn't mean you're helpless. You still have to fight to get what you want." He said, motioning the two swords at his waist. Then he turned to go, strolling into the dusty street outside of the courtyard. "I don't care what you do, but remember that you'll never get anywhere if you let other people control your life."
Night
The room was dark, very dark. Chou could hardly see his own hands as they reached forward to find any walls, obstacles, or other objects lying around the temple floor. It was odd, he knew, for most temples are kept clear without unnecessary debris littering the ground. However, he kept that opinion to himself after unceremoniously tripping over a tofu bucket.
And so, in the darkness, he pressed on toward the small glimmering light in the distance. The azure glow became brighter as he approached it. Chou saw the hilt of the blade and grabbed it.
It was curiously shaped: a flexible, serpentine blade slid out with the hilt and came to rest on the floor like a satin ribbon when he moved it.
Eyes transfixed on the sword, Chou failed to notice an atrophied hand reach out of the darkness and clap him on the shoulder. Chou gasped, too afraid to turn around to see what was there.
"So, you've discovered this old shrine's holy sword, eh?" the old man of which the hand belonged to said, "Sorry if you want to see the true Hakujin no Tachi (3). This is a shadow blade; Shakkuu gave the true one to a shrine in Yokohama."
True Hakujin no Tachi?
"I suggest you run along now before your parents miss you."
"You can do whatever you want…"
"No! I need this sword!" he screamed at the decrepit old man. "There's someone I need to kill! That's the only way I can get what I want!"
"Now, now… that's not the right way to solve problems." The old man said, trying to wrestle the blade from Chou's hands.
"I don't care! I don't want to do whatever you adults tell me! It's my life!" Before the old man was able to remove a hand from the sword, Chou had swung it wildly, cutting the old man in two symmetrical pieces in the process. The old man died instantly, while the sword had pulverized itself and broken into pieces.
As Chou stared at the carnage, he began to panic. Certainly someone was going to find out, right? But with the sword broken, he would have to find a new one to replace that one. Oh, where did he say the better sword was? Shrine in Yokohama, was it?
And, no, killing didn't feel too bad. He felt power, and it felt very nice.
Chou's little army of bandits, pickpockets, and other types of street thugs were ready. Much to the encouragement of their leader, they had all loaded up on knives and all sorts of weaponry, modern or anachronistic. As soon and Chou had allowed them to go, they made a beeline for the little building that sat at the edge of town, cutting down perfectly healthy tree branches and trampling the undergrowth in their wake.
The new leader Senkaku, a gigantic man with a rather conical head, had absolutely no control over the wild attackers. He simply allowed them to do whatever they wanted; it didn't matter if they attracted the attention of the municipal police force—there were enough of them to take the entire city in one night. Thus, they razed the plants growing the rice paddy and sloshed the muddy water everywhere, not caring what happened afterwards. It was only when Senkaku had gotten close enough to the house (for he had poor vision) that he realized he had done something wrong.
The scattered bandits were quickly being knocked down by a child armed with only a single bamboo fishing rod. This first notion did not alarm Senkaku to any extent; he was confident that all the roguish thugs on there side would soon outnumber him. The ones already lying on the ground were the ones that were the fastest, and therefore, got there first. However, something else was happening that was not expected. The fallen bandits had failed to stand back up…
Kirashi and Megumi stuck close to Soujiro. Despite whatever battle skills they both lacked, they were not totally useless, for they were armed with Kirashi's numerous sewing needles and pins.
As Soujiro stunned the bandits by quickly disarming and then knocking them to the ground, Megumi and Kirashi quickly moved to shove the sharp metal objects into the bundles of nerves in the neck.
"In spite of all of this being dangerous, I find this amusing." Kirashi said, stabbing a bandit with a pin. "I never realized how useful acupuncture can be. To render someone helpless for a period of time with hardly any side effects…I'll have to remember to thank Okaa-san (2) for giving me those useless lessons."
"Kirashi-san? How long do they stay that way?" Soujiro said nervously, as some of them were beginning to stir.
"Long enough. Anata! How long is that going to take you? Just throw them in a cluster of them and keep them far away from us!" Kirashi turned hastily to look at Henya, who was hurriedly tying the fireworks into large bundles with some twine.
He was soon done, as he then threw a lit clump of fireworks to the right of Kirashi, in Soujiro's blind spot. It bounced off the head of one of the bandits, and then detonated, sending the three bandits flying through the air in a dazzling display of multicolored lights.
Watching all of this happen in the distance was Senkaku, who did not like it one bit. He quickly organized the remaining bandits into a more concentrated invasion force in an attempt to turn the tide of the battle.
Chou found Kenshin's mental attacks to be particularly disturbing. He figured the fastest way to cease the endless babble from Kenshin's mouth was to kill him—fast. Thus he chucked the blade in his hand at Kenshin.
Kenshin casually stepped to the left and the sword missed, hitting the temple bell when it finished its brief maiden voyage though the air. The temple bell, old as it was, make a clanking, cacophonous noise when struck with the projectile. "Maa…would you mind? Let's leave the poor bell alone when we fight." He said in a joking manner as Chou fumed.
"No! I will kill you and take the weapon of the Hitokiri Battousai!" Chou drew out another sword with two blades and aimed it at Kenshin.
He instantly recognized the stance. "You're imitating Shinsengumi third unit commander Saitou Hajime's Gatotsu? Even though it's a very good imitation, it won't work."
"How would you know? Come and find out. This is the Renbatou (4). Even if I don't kill you immediately, the wounds made by this sword can't be sewn up. You'll die of infection."
"Well, then I'll do this."
Kenshin clicked the sword loose from its sheath and took the whole thing from beside his waist. Holding the hilt of the sword, he flung the sheath at Chou.
Chou, expecting Kenshin to charge at him, hardly saw the metal saya (5) before it clocked him on the head. Recovering from that in a short span of time, he swung the two swords blindly in front of him, thirsty for revenge against Kenshin for making him look so stupid. (Although a part of him was quite happy that he sent all his men to raid elsewhere so they didn't see him being so pathetic.) Then he found himself crossing swords with the Hitokiri Battousai. Only then did he recognize the difference in their weapons.
"What's wrong with that sword?!"
"This? It's a sakabatou."
"A saka-wha?"
Yumi had made it to the police station unscathed when she discovered that the station was deserted. Himura! Where did he go? He lied to me about the troubled youth didn't he? I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!
She was about to start screaming out loud in frustration when a jarring din rang out throughout the town. Still rubbing her ears to rid them of the sound, she started out toward the place the noise had come from. Sounds like a temple bell…Wait. Isn't there some deserted shrine somewhere near Kirashi-san's house? Himura, you better have a good explanation as to why you're there!
"Sakabatou. The dull edge and the cutting edge are reversed, so that it does not take human life."
Chou stepped back a couple of paces and chuckled. "I like odd swords, especially ones made by Arai Shakkuu. Your sword's unique for a hitokiri, isn't it? I probably won't do me any good, but at least I get bragging rights if I defeated you, right? I think I'll take it from you by using my favorite killing blade." Chou threw the useless Renbatou to the ground and tugged at something wrapped around his waist.
"Behold! My favorite sword! The true killing sword Hakujin no Tachi!" The blade snapped into the air and dove to the ground like a viscous cobra, poised to stab into its opponent. "Now it's true madness." Chou flipped the sword in the air, and the blade rose into the air towards Kenshin to stab him from the side.
"Chou! How did you get such a murderous weapon?" Kenshin exclaimed as he dodged out of the path of the blade.
"Jealous, aren't you? This is where I found it."
Yokohama: Shrine of the Moon; July, 1862
"Took long enough to find this place." Chou muttered to himself as he trudged up the stone steps toward the shrine. "That old guy has to be right about the true Hakujin no Tachi being here." He thought as he looked at the book he was carrying labeled "Kami-sama no Sekai: A guide to Yokohama's most popular and unique shrines. (6)" "I just about went through every religious temple thing from every single religion in this stupid town."
"This is the only place I haven't looked." He said to himself as he cleared the red arched gate. Before him were a gigantic copper bell, and then the solid wooden structure of the Shinto Shrine.
"May I help you?" a sweet voice asked. The voice belonged to a diminutive shrine maiden sweeping the temple grounds. Her raven hair had slipped out from the bun at the top of her head and fallen before her eyes. When Chou had come in, she had hurriedly pushed the stray locks back. "My name is Kaguya. This is the Shrine of the Moon. Are your parents here with you? You're welcome to ring the bell." She informed Chou as he walked up to the rotund metal object.
Chou stared at the shiny, polished surface of the bell. He looked at the distorted reflection that was his face and then the mostly white and red figure that was Kaguya looking on in the background. It was almost a shame to kill her and stain the shrine with her blood, but it was necessary.
Then in an instant, Chou turned and sprung at Kaguya. Unsheathing a knife in midair, he stabbed her in the chest, immediately killing her. But still, she stared at him with dull lifeless eyes.
Chou repeatedly swung the Hakujin no Tachi about, and Kenshin was attempting to become as passive as possible by dodging the fluid, ribbon-like motion of the ever-changing blade.
Needless to say, the temple grounds were utterly destroyed by this kind of violence. As they fought, the now tarnished bell crashed to the ground as the Hakujin no Tachi slashed through the thick rope suspending the bell. The red temple gate fell to the ground when Kenshin had jumped on to it to ricochet to the other side of the temple yard. As the gate fell, the chipped crimson painted wood had splintered, and the fragments fell to the ground like slivers of solidified scarlet blood. And among the crashing of the wooden gate, Kenshin had heard a definite scream beyond the splintered debris.
As Kenshin had paused to focus on the origin of that voice, Chou took the opportunity to fling the Hakujin no Tachi at the copper bell Kenshin was standing on. But as he did so, he saw a ghastly image of a women dressed in white and red robes reflected in the bell, despite all the patina that had built up over the metal object over the years. Then, Chou sliced through the bell, and continued to swing his sword around to the remains of the wreaked temple gate and the ghostly entity that stood there.
"Yumi-dono!" Kenshin shouted as she emerged from behind the gate, disheveled kimono and all.
"What are you doing in there Himura?! Stop fooling around! You're so useless!" she screamed at him, unaware of the edge of Hakuji no Tachi flying towards her.
Kenshin suddenly was beside her, blocking Chou's sword from reaching her. And when Chou twisted it to go for another strike, Kenshin wrapped the Hakujin no Tachi around his sakabatou and quickly sheathed it. From this motion, the Hakujin no Tachi splintered and broke from that point.
"No…my sword…it should have been strong enough to slice you sakabatou in half! How did this happen?" Chou said, bewildered.
"Swords and weaponry are powerful, but they are useless if the people using them only rely on that. This unworthy one told you before. The person behind the blade can only gain their true strength if they have something important to protect. Swords and violence are not the answer to all the problems in this world. The world you want is one where you can be happy, but in every era man has lived through, there are responsibilities everyone has to complete and rules to abide to! You can only be truly satisfied if they people you care about are safe and happy. And for that to happen, you cannot think only of yourself! You're no longer a child! Learn to think about all the other people who still care about you! And then maybe you won't have such an obsession with killing to get what you want."
Chou was in a state of stupor. He hadn't expected such a moral denunciation from Kenshin. "Maybe…"
"There's more than one road to take your lifetime. Maybe you can still keep your swords and not harm other people at the same time. Think about it." Then he turned to Yumi. "We should go now; Kirahsi-dono and the others might need us."
"It's just you…"
Henya's fireworks turned dangerous explosive devices proved to be very useful and effective. The number of conscious bandits had dropped dramatically, and all was going fairly well. However, Senkaku had separated his men into two main groups and conceived what he had thought to be as the perfect battle strategy. One group was to lead Soujiro away from the Megumi and Kirashi, and the other was to lure Henya's explosives away from himself when he went after the two women. Now it was for Senkaku to enter the battle and to victory!
The bandits Soujiro faced were not actually difficult to defeat. Part of him thought that was because they didn't see a threat in a boy of eight years. However, the other part of his mind was focused on the dreadful fact something was not all right.
His reasoning was concluded when he heard Megumi and Kirashi scream out somewhere behind him. A gigantic man with arched blades held in his hands towered over them with every intention to kill.
Quickly, Soujiro snatched up a knife from one of the unconscious bandits and ran toward them so swiftly that it seemed to the other conscious bandits like he had disappeared into thin air.
Senkaku was about to slam the blades down on Kirashi and Megumi when agonizing pain coursed through the palms of his hands. At a closer glance, Senkaku realized that Soujiro, the azure blur that slipped past him, had buried the short sword into his hands so that they were pierced together. Seeing Soujiro slide to a stop some meter away, Senkaku furiously wrenched his right hand free and threw the arched blade at the Soujiro. Then his world exploded into bright amber colors as Henya's bomb had detonated behind him and propelled him into the air. Remarkably, Senkaku was hardly affected by the blast, and still was able to stand up. He was planning to go and chop that annoying little bomber into bite-sized pieces when something slammed down on the muscle between his head and left shoulder.
"Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu—Ryuu Tsui Sen!" Kenshin shouted, attacking Senkaku from above. After his attack, Senkaku immediately fell to the ground, KO'ed.
Behind Kenshin, Yumi rushed over to see if Kirashi and Megumi were all right. By using Kirashi's shawl as a shield, they both were able to escape the worst heat of the firework explosion. Henya too was unscathed, as most of the bandits attacking him were blasted away before reaching three meters of him.
"I'm so glad to see you're all alright, no thanks to someone." Yumi said, glaring at Kenshin, who was whistling innocently. "But what about Bouya?"
"Bouya?" Kirashi repeated, confused.
"Sou-chan?" Megumi murmured. "He was just right there. And then he went over there…" Her finger traced the route in the air and came to land over a small bloodied body lying on the ground. She gasped. "Sou-chan!"
Glossary
1. Ishin Shishi – the Patriots; the side of the Bakumatsu that wanted to restore power to the emperor and open the country up to western influence.
2. Okaa-san – Mother
3. Hakujin no Tachi –Thin Bladed Sword; the name of the twisty sword Chou uses. Forged by Arai Shakkuu, the maker of Kenshin's sakabatou.
4. Renbatou—Linked Blade Sword; also forged by Arai Shakkuu
5. Saya – the sheath
6. Kami-sama no Sekai—God's world. My made up name for a tourist pamphlet.
Author's notes: Yay! Otakon!! I finally got that plastic Soujiro doll! Wheee! (Never mind that I made one out of fabric out of cloth already.)
Do you think Chou could have cursed a bit more in this chapter? I'm sort of picky about slang, so I didn't do much in this draft. Does anyone think I should change it? (This fanfic was rated PG13 for the violence, but not language.) But, it was fun/brain racking trying to make up a story for Chou's past. But then, making up character pasts is the point of this whole story. Saizuchi, Kamatari…I'll get to them.
Whoever thought acupuncture would pop into this? Yeah, I just included it because 1. Kirashi and Megumi have to have something to do and 2. Because I got obsessed with Naruto and discovered the easiest person to draw was Haku, and he was good at acupuncture.
Ack…I hate writing fight scenes. Hopefully the next chapter is easier on my brain to write…
Poor Soujiro…he's half dead…again…OO But that's alright, because I can't write angst, he can't suffer that much. Although it's kind of unfair. I need to make Megumi suffer more. Mwahahaha… (Tsubaki: Oo…Meii-chan… (I got a muse!))
sekihoutai—About the Henya thing…it's just weird, because I drew character designs for each character, and it's a well known fact (actually, not at all well known) that I can only draw two kinds of things: cute things and feminine things. I can't draw disfigured people like Watsuki-san, so Henya ended up looking somewhat…...Heh. I did base that whole thing on Sano's dining preferences, but Amaterasu isn't exactly Tae. (Emphasis on attacking freeloaders)
Lord Cirenmas—I like Soujiro/Misao stories. Really. But there's too many of them! So it's hard to write one that's really original. Besides, I feel sorry for Misao if she spent most of her life in love with Aoshi and then someone just stuck her with someone else.
AngeloftheDeceased—I guess Soujiro/Yumi is do-able, But wouldn't Shishio-san be really incensed? (Although Kamatari-san would be in ecstasy…)
Oni Tenshi – if you've read far enough to this review, Yay! Good for you! How is my writing?
Don't forget to Review!!