SHADOWS OF RED
by Hime-kou
Author's Notes: Another revised and combined chapter! For this one, I combined chapters 4 and 5 to get Black Mirror. Hope it doesn't get too confusing. Now I'm confused...hm, should I include my old author's notes?
Thanks to Firalyn Tiatra and Callisto Black for reviewing! Your reviews made me feel so nice! Thank you tons and tons! Now Hime-kou's in Happy Author Mode. And I sympathize with Callisto Black, as I have homework to do too...I finished off an essay for Health whilewriting. Ido realize that there's some problems with my writing...and everything just happens too conveniently! Should work on that. But thanks again!
Disclaimer: Product of over-active imagination, Ruroken not mine.
Chapter 4-Black Mirror
Battousai didn't draw his sword. A stone grazed his forehead and drew blood. Stones whirred past Sachiko, one catching her on the leg. She grimaced and crouched lower.
"Battousai!" she said. "Why don't you draw your sword? We could finish them here…"
"No!"
The word caught her off balance. It was filled with agony and fury, helplessness and anger. Battousai was standing with his shoulders back, his eyes closed.
"I cannot. These people…they haven't harmed me, Sachiko-dono. They haven't done anything wrong! Could you kill them in cold blood?"
Sachiko shivered. Could she? Stones continued to fly, and the mob pressed closer.
"Enough of this." Sachiko mouthed the words and drew her katana. The sight momentarily confused their attackers. A woman, drawing a sword? A tiger petting a lamb?
She leveled the sword at them. "Get out." Ashes began to whirl and choke the air, blinding the men.
"Damn her! I can't see in all this filthy dust! Where's the whore?"
Sachiko turned and grabbed Battousai's gi. "Let's go, before the Bakufu comes and sees us."
Together, they jumped onto the rooftops and ran the last street to their new house, leaving the mob behind in a whirlwind of ash and dust. Confused shouts rang from somewhere in the vortex of dust. Their cries were attracting onlookers, people coming out of houses to watch. Sachiko knew the word would spread soon enough about Battousai and his ash-making woman. Hopefully, the men had bad crediblity. After all, who would believe that some woman had drawn a sword and actually used swordsman's spirit? Why the men must have been drunk and hallucinating.
Sachiko nearly smiled as she grimly contemplated what the men must look and sound like. Claiming that a woman did that to them would make them seem like liars. In a time when men ruled, women were not supposed to do anything. Shows what stupid idiots people can be at times, Sachiko thought with satisfaction.
Sachiko followed Battousai's brightly waving hair. She couldn't help but mutter about it's annoyng color. As she prepared to jump lightly down to the back door of a house, her kimono caught on a tile and Sachiko went tumbling gracefully down towards the hard earth. She landed with a thump, sending shooting pains up her shoulder. Battousai looked down at her in…amusement? Anger at the man forced her to her feet, ignoring the hand he extended to her. Stupid man. Stupid, insufferable, hateful man, Sachiko seethed.
A woman slid open the shoji for them, taking their dirty tatami sandals away. She murmured a quiet, "Konnichiwa," and slid away, melting into the house. She returned moments later, taking each hitokiri to the washroom and giving them new clothing. Provided by Katsura of course.
It was when they were both freshly clothed and sitting when Sachiko remembered that her pack had been left on the street.
"Damn it!" She said as she jumped up. Battousai looked up.
"What is it?" Concern showed on his face, but Sachiko was too agitated to notice.
"My pack! I—no, you—left it in the street with those bastards! I've got to go get it!"
Battousai regarded her in surprise. A pack? She was this unsettled for her pack?
"Gomenasai, Sachiko-dono. But I doubt it's still there. Besides, it's getting dark. It wouldn't be safe to go out."
"You forget. I'm used to the dark, Battousai-san. I am a hitokiri after all." The words were spoken with venom and a hint of despair.
He had forgotten. She was a hitokiri, wasn't she? The only one who could possibly stand up to him and survive. A very good hitokiri indeed.
"I need that pack," she ended in a whisper.
She sat again. Silence filled the room. They sat for eternity like that, it seemed. The quiet pressed down on Sachiko, filling her with despair. The same despair drove her to open her mouth and talk, despair mingled with a curious need to confide in Battousai.
"All that's left of my family was in there."
The words were spoken quietly now, and resigned.
"When I began to work for Katsura-san, all that I had left of my childhood was a blank memory and a comb. My mother's comb, it seems. Katsura-san said they found it in the kimono I was wearing. It was…important to me. I don't even know what she looked like, my mother. Or who was in my family. I can't remember anyone anymore."
Silence fell again. Battousai contemplated what she had said. His own past was painful and he didn't like to remember it. Now hers sounded just as horrible. Perhaps the misery in his own soul was mirrored by the misery in hers.
"I began working for the Ishin Shishi when I was fourteen," he said in turn, accepting her story and giving his own. "I went against my master's wishes and joined, hoping to bring some good to this world."
He recalled the number of people he had killed, the blood that stained his hands.
"But all I've brought is a reign of blood and fear."
The calluses that traced his hands would never go away. They were the mark of the swordsman, the mark of a killer. Blood stained his hands in his dreams, every night, the the blood came to haunt him.
Sachiko turned a little. "The gods know I've brought blood and fear also," she said quietly.
A sense of companionship filled the room. One killer would always know another.
"Ah, Battousai. And Sachiko-san, how wonderful!"
The voice split the peaceable silence that had developed between them.
The man who stood at the door was a stranger to her. But Battousai looked up and grimaced.
"Iizuka-san," he said flatly.
The man nodded and smirked. "Well, well, Battousai. Got yourself a woman, huh? And you so young..."
Sachiko decided she hated him too. He lounged against the frame, grinning. He evidently had no value for his life.
"What are you talking about, Iizuka? She's not my…my woman…er…" Battousai stammered out, his face red.
Sachiko fought the urge to giggle. Giggle! And she hadn't laughed in ages. But the sight of Battousai blushing like a little boy…the laughter tickled at the back of her throat. She knew nothing of him. She understood nothing of him. She didn't understand how he could be a cold-blooded killer one moment, grief-filled adult the other, and finally, a truly adolescent boy.
"Well, whatever. Anyway, Katsura-san's got an assignment for the both of you. Separately, of course. Here, Battousai." Iizuka tossed Battousai a black envelope. Sachiko watched as a grim look stole over the assassin's face and the embarrassmentdied out of his eyes.
"As for you, Sachiko-san…my, I've only heard of you from Katsura-san once, and I didn't even know you were a woman. It was only today that he told me you were one. It'll sure throw the Bakufu from following our trail! What proper woman would be a hitokiri?"
He laughed again, ignoring Sachiko's hand wandering to the hilt of her katana or Battousai's glare. Evidently, this man was either extremely powerful or incredibly stupid.
"Here, hime. This is your assignment."
He tossed a black envelope to her. She caught it and couldn't help but sense herself tensing up. An assignment. More blood.
"Now, get going my friends." With that, Iizuka turned and strolled out, leaving the two to contemplate their burdens.
Battousai nodded at her, curtly, and stood. "I'll be going then." She didn't ask him his assignment. Nor did he ask about hers. He just turned and walked out, the peace that had been between them before, torn, the cold-blooded killer returning.
She sighed and opened her own envelope.
Mogami Kaito
A retainer of Matsudaira Shungaku, Daimyo of Aizu. Aizu supported the Bakufu and the Shogunate. Some of her other…assignments had been people from Aizu and people of Matsudaira also. Matsudaira was actually related to the shogun—he was a powerful ally of the shogunate.
8:00 At Heian Jingu Shrine.
Thought you'd be safe if you were in a place of the gods, huh? Sachiko thought grimly. In this age and time, the gods are dead to us all.
She stood. Gathering her katana, she wondered briefly where Battousai's assignment was, then shook it off.
It was time to kill.
Of Interest
1. Tiger petting a lamb...ha, ha, ha. What a BAD simile. But it's supposed to be one, since tiger's don't pet lambs. They eat them.
2. Ashes...Sachiko's swordsman's spirit. I think it's too sexist to say, swordswoman, cause she's just as powerful (and more so) than most men. Rather like Kenshin's leaf stuff in his battle with Shishio? That was so awesome.
3. Iizuka...this man was Kenshin's supposed "friend" in his Battousai years. In actuality...read or watch Ruroken to find out!
4. Matsudaira...this was the name of the Tokugawa shogunate before they changed it to, well, Tokugawa. The first shogun was a man named Tokugawa Ieyasu, son of Matsudaira Hirotada. So the Matsudaira house is closely related to the Tokugawa Shogunate. The family was immensely powerful and loyal to the Shogunate.
Thanks for reading! Hope you're enjoying it, please drop a review.