Chapter 6: The Old New Kansas Saloon
Myra and Kristyn arrived in New Kansas on their thomases. The town was very rundown in comparison to the upkeep of the city of April. There were several drunks walking up and down the street and a lot of other people looking at the two girls awkwardly.
"Het babe, wanna get some dinner?" a drunk asked Kristyn. He fell down with the imprint of Kristyn's boot on his face.
The whole town was comprised of two streets that crossed at a dry fountain in the middle. The plant was off to the north end of the city. It seemed to hover ominously in the twilight. The two girls slowly approached the main saloon. It looked old enough to be the oldest in town. Myra read the sign aloud.
"The Old New Kansas Saloon, first erected building in this humble city."
"That's what we want."
The sounds of drunken ecstasy flowed out the double doors. They tied off their thomases on a pole where another one was and walked into the bar. The place was the most lively thing they had ever seen. They saw drunk men brawling and a few couples doing things they shouldn't be doing. The entire bar seemed to be in celebration.
"Double whiskey with a twist," a familiar voice said.
"You!" Kristyn said, though it was drowned out by the ruckus of the bar.
"If it isn't the insurance girls!" Hiryuu said turning on the barstool like a little kid then stopping facing the girls, smiling brightly.
"How are you doing David?" Myra said just as brightly.
"Great, how about you two girls, any luck finding Hiryuu?"
"I thought you were Hiryuu, David," Myra said confused.
"He is not Hiryuu, Myra," Kristyn shouted, quieting the bar a little. A little. "Why the heck are you here? And how the heck did you rise from the dead or whatever?"
"I was never dead in the first place," David said.
"You were shot by a four barrel shotgun right here," she said poking his chest.
"Owww!" Hiryuu whined. "Why did you have to touch it? That hurts, you know? Geez!"
"Cry baby."
"He shot me with a shotgun, you expect me to just be perfectly fine?"
Myra noticed his wound was still bloody under his shirt.
"You should see a doctor!" she said, full of concern.
"He should see an exorcist!" Kristyn said to Myra.
"No, I'm fine really, I don't need any help. I have had worse," he said, remembering the time he woke up in a buried coffin. And that time he wasn't even in the gunfight.
"So how did you do it? Did you have a bulletproof vest on or something. How did you do it?"
"I didn't have anything. I was unconscious," he said, very sincerely.
"Then what are you, are you some kind of wizard or something?" Kristyn said, then squinting, "Are you human?"
"What, do I look like, a thomas?"
"I don't like that tone of voice young man."
"Young man? I'm older than you are!"
"You think I look that young?" Kristyn said, suddenly cheery.
"NO, I'm really, really, really old. I just look seventeen."
"Are you saying I'm old!"
"Maybe thiry-five," he said.
Hiryuu received a blow in the face from Kristyn's steel case.
"That's funny," Myra said, laughing. She also received a blow from the case.
The two sat dazed as Kristyn stormed off.
----
Toyuki looked up at the palace of Kyoto and he swung the katana around easily as though it was an extension of his body. For some reason he felt as though the sword was giving him stronger senses. He could see every detail of the sword down to the most intricate stitch of the leather bound handle to the fine crystal-like shimmer the blade gave. He felt it. It was smoother than any metal and had the quality of a perfect mirror. Oddly, only one side of the sword was a blade. The opposite side was round and blunt, making the sword resemble a very long claw that ended in a very slight hook. It was unlike anything he had ever seen.
Toyuki started running up the steps fueled by his anger at the emperor. He sliced through the crack between the doors and heard the large bar holding the giant doors shut fall to the ground in two pieces. He pushed the door slowly open. There was no one in the lavish giant foyer to the palace. A man came out of a door up a small set of stairs to the side of the room and Toyuki flew up the stairs and cut them man down. His sword shimmered red.
He saw several others in the room and he attacked swiftly and silently. None of the men had seen him. Toyuki felt as though he had a power that he had never felt before. He was so fast. And was in such great control over himself. He headed out and into the foyer and climbed the main staircase. His mind worked fast. He flew into another side room where several warrior leaders were planning some attack. He cut down the first and second man easily but the last man put up a larger fight. He had his sword.
"What is the meaning of this?" the man said, the two swords held strong against each other.
"I will single-handedly kill this entire government for what it has done. You have destroyed my home my family, my friends, and their families. You left only me. This was where you made a mistake," Toyuki said as he brought back his sword and swung forth with enough force to cut through the man's sword and slice deep into the man's chest.
He removed it from the dead man and it dripped in the ruby color. Toyuki proceeded through every room in this fashion, cutting down every man and woman in the palace until he got to the emperor's chambers.
He kicked through the elegant double doors. The emperor sat with his wife and daughter on his daughter's bed telling her a bedtime story. The two parents looked at the boy at the door, with the ruby red sword.
"Good evening," the emperor said, his face lacking emotion.
"You are a snake!" Toyuki said looking at the young girl. "You know what they did to my sister? When they killed everyone in the village. The soldier, your soldier, came into our room. He took out his sword and slit her throat. You know what he did to her next?"
The emperors expression remained blank.
----
Hiryuu woke with a start. He was at the bar in the saloon. He had fallen asleep in his seat.
"You're awake then," the barman said. The entire room was empty except for him the barman and a waitress cleaning tables. "We closed an hour ago."
"What time is it?"
"Five after one."
"Will you still sell me a few shots?"
"Double an' a twist, right?"
"Thanks."
"Hell, more money for me, I ain't doin' it for you," the barman said smiling.
Hiryuu shifted his coat. There was blood on it, and on the bar where he had lain against it. The barman noticed the stain on his coat.
"You alright, kid?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Hiryuu said.
"You should get that checked out."
"I've had a lot worse," Hiryuu said, remembering when he had been shot so many times you could see through his chest.
"It looks like you took a shotgun to the chest," the barman said, looking at the shot glass he was cleaning.
"It does look that way, doesn't it?"
"A four barrel shotgun."
Hiryuu looked at the barman. He smiled a little. The barman cracked a smile and set the shot glass in front of Hiryuu.
----
Kristyn woke up and looked at the clock. She had sat at the front of the saloon for most of the previous night. No one came in but many left. She left when the last person there was David, out cold from drinking at the bar. It was now ten fifteen.
"Myra it's time to get up," she said. No reply. "Myra, come on! Myra?"
The room was empty and Myra's bed was disheveled and her gun was no longer lying against the wall. Where was she, now?
Kristyn packed up and went out to find her. As she walked over to the saloon they had visited last night she saw Myra and David talking cheerily on the porch.
"So, how did you wake back up?" Myra said in a hushed tone. "I don't get what you did."
"Honestly, I don't know exactly what happened to me. I got shot, passed out, and woke up. It's happened a billion times before, too," he said.
"So if you get shot you don't die? Are you magical or something?" Myra said as Kristyn approached them.
"More like cursed," Hiryuu told her.
"What are you talking about?" Kristyn interjected. "Are you going to tell us what you are?"
"Hiryuu was telling me about that!" Myra said, smiling very happily.
"Myra how many times do I have to tell you. David is not Hiryuu," Kristyn said.
"But he said he was," Myra said.
"You're claiming to be Hiryuu the Flame?" Kristyn said furiously.
"I'm not claiming, I am Hiryuu," he said, not loud enough for anyone other than the insurance girls to hear.
"And I'm Meryl Stryfe," Kristyn said, arrogantly.
"Can I be Millie!" Myra asked joyously.
Kristyn gave her the "you-said-something-dumb" look.
"So, why are you here?" Kristyn said looking him straight in the eye.
"I'm on my way to October."
Kristyn suddenly thought back to her map. October was three cities further to the west in her line of cities Hiryuu was striking. David must have been chasing Hiryuu also. He was going for the $$10 000 000 000 reward. Kristyn thought she had him figured out.
"I get it," she said.
"Get what?" Hiryuu and Myra asked.
"You want the reward."
Hiryuu looked at Kristyn like she had said something offensive. Hiryuu wanted to yell that it wasn't his fault that there was a bounty on his head expensive enough to by an entire city, but he didn't want anyone around him to hear it, so he kept his mouth shut. Kristyn took it that she was right from this.
"I'll see you later then," Kristyn said. She walked into the saloon to wait for Hiryuu to come in. From what she had gathered the man had to be relatively large and have some kind of flame weapon stowed away. This meant that no one who walked into the saloon the whole day could have been him. The only person who qualified by her description she recognized to be Red Rick, the notorious leader of the Red Boys, a group of outlaws that held their base here in New Kansas. She watched the man walk in with a large case that probably held his more notorious collection of guns. Three rifles, three pistols, three eight-shot revolvers, and three triple barrel shotguns were inside. The case was a even a triangular prism. This man had an obsession with three. Only three people were ever in his gang. And if you wanted to be in his squad you had to duel one of the current members to the death. That way the better man won.
Sure enough three freakishly murderous men followed him in. David walked into the saloon as well. He went over to the bar and said:
"Double whiskey with a twist."
"You got a deathwish, kid?" the barman said as Red Rick walked up behind Hiryuu.
"You're in my seat, bitch!" Red Rick said, very loudly.
The bar was instantaneously silent. No one, no one, ever sat in Red Rick's seat and lived to see the next sunrise. That was how the sheriff had died, and the town hadn't had a sheriff for six months because no one could stand up against Red Rick, who had named himself sheriff.
"I'm sorry, sir, I was unaware this seat belonged to anyone," Hiryuu said facing the barman. Red Rick picked Hiryuu up by the collar and threw him over the bar.
Several of the people in the saloon were wise enough to get out of it. Several others stayed to watch. Hiryuu suddenly lunged up from behind the bar and used Red Ricks face as a step to jump up and swing himself up into the buildings rafters.
"Is this your seat?" he said leaning against a roof truss. He sprang across between the rafters like a rabbit and sat on one further away. "And is this one?"
"Why you little…" Red Rick grabbed a revolver from his case and shot where Hiryuu had just been. Everyone left in the bar suddenly hightailed it out of there, except Kristyn who hid behind a table she had knocked over to watch Hiryuu fighting the Red Boys. "Where the hell-"
Hiryuu landed on top of Red Rick and held an odd claw shaped knife against his neck.
"Any of you four move and Red Rick dies," Hiryuu said pressing the claw knife against the man he was sitting on the shoulders. "It's time for you to leave Kristyn," he added looking over at the table she was hiding behind. Kristyn knew he hadn't seen her, he had been facing away from her the whole time so how could he know she was there.
A crystal vase in front of her exploded as a gun fired.
"Get out, NOW!" Hiryuu yelled.
She didn't need to be told twice. She ran as fast as she could out the door, glancing sideways at the kid whose revolver was still smoking.
Next, Chapter 7: Hiryuu the Flame Discovered