Chapter six: Falling in Love?

Akiko had just finished taking a bath in the hot spring. The Shichinintai were to attack a castle the next day and she wanted to be well rested for the fight. She at off by herself, combing out her wet, black hair, which just reached below her butt.

'I wonder if Kageyu is getting along well enough with them,' Akiko thought somewhat angrily as she watched the red dragon laughing it up with everyone. 'Wait a minute. Where did Jakotsu go?'

"Something wrong?" she heard Jakotsu's familiar feminine voice say.

"No, why do you ask"?

Jakotsu plopped down in front of her and looked at her with contempt. "Stay away from Bankotsu," he said bluntly. "There's no way I'm loosing him to some woman!"

"Well, there is nothing you need to worry about. I have no interest in Bankotsu."

Jakotsu gave her one last look of hatred and got up. But he didn't go back to where everyone else was sitting.

'Strange…Oh well, it doesn't matter. It's not like I was lying. I don't like Bankotsu at all. I hate him and will soon get my revenge,' she convinced herself before putting her comb away and letting her hair finish drying.

"Hey, Akiko! Come join us!" Bankotsu called over to her, noticing her sitting by herself under a tree.

"No thanks," she told him. Even though she hated to admit it, she kind of did want to go talk with them, but it was too late. She had already said no and if she went over now, she would loose her pride.

"Ah, come on!" Suikotsu called to her.

'I can't! I already said I didn't want to. If I go over there it will diminish my "not wanting to like them" attitude.'

Realizing this plan was a mistake from the start and that they probably wouldn't care if she said "no thanks" but then came over anyway, she replied softly, "fine".

'Damn my stupid weird little quirks to Hell! Why do I have to be so odd when it comes to changing my mind about stuff like this? Because I said I didn't want to go talk to them and now I'm going anyway. It's like I'm being proven wrong!' she thought, answering her own question.

The moment she sat down with them by the fire, she realized it would have been better to stay over by herself. For now, not only was she proven wrong, but also all of them but Jakotsu were staring at her. She couldn't think of anything to say to them.

Akiko was glad Kageyu was there now when he finally said, "We were just talking about how we are going to kill everyone tomorrow. Are you going to use any of your ninja weapons?"

Akiko thought it might have been better sitting in silence. "Um. Yeah…"

"What all do you have?" Renkotsu asked her, clearly trying to make her feel uncomfortable.

"Chigiriki, poison darts, fukiya, hoko, kakute, kama, neko-te, kyoketsu-shogei, shobo, shuriken, tanto, a tessen (with a blade), tetsu-bishi, kunai, and of course, Dohanone."

They all stared at her for a moment. "Those are all the different types of weapons you have?" Mukotsu asked astounded, looking over at the stash of weapons she had being looked after by Ginkotsu. "How did you learn to use all of them?"

"There's actually some more. I've been meaning to try and learn how to use an ono."

Bankotsu's face lit up at the sound of that. "Really? That's kind of what my Banryuu is! I can help teach you if you want."

"I don't know…" she said thinking through the advantages this could have. 'If he teaches me, I could probably learn how to weaken him with his own type of weapon,'

"Come on, it'll be fun. We can hack people up together!"

She smiled slightly. "Sure."

Akiko felt someone nudging her on the shoulder. She deep brown, almost black, eyes to see Bankotsu looking down at her. It was then that she realized she was sleeping against him.

"Sorry," she said quickly, trying to hide her embarrassment.

"It's okay," he said shrugging.

It didn't help that once again, everyone was staring at her. 'Jeez, they shouldn't have kept me up half the night anyway.'

"Bankotsu?" she said after realizing Jakotsu wasn't there

"Hmm?"

"Did Jakotsu ever come back last night?"

"Yeah, he came back a little while after you fell asleep. What did you two say to each other by the tree? I think he hates you more than any other woman he's met."

'Shit. Jakotsu must have seen me sleeping next to Bankotsu. Well it's not like I meant to! Like I said, they kept me up practically the whole night talking and-' her thoughts suddenly raced to something else. 'Today's the day I have to actually start killing people.'

Akiko's stomach began to feel queasy. And the now present Jakotsu's evil glares were not helping her feel better.

"Don't worry, Akiko," Kageyu whispered to her. "Remember how much hatred you felt for the Shichinintai when they first attacked the village? Just remember that hatred and use it to kill. Believe me, the times I've had to kill someone, it worked."

"Right. Thank you, Kageyu," she said quietly.

She was suddenly becoming more aware of how close they were getting. She could already see the castle. Ginkotsu's tank claws were making loud clank sounds in the road. Kyoukotsu stomped loudly. Renkotsu, Mukotsu, and Suikotsu were riding on Ginkotsu while Akiko, Jakotsu, and Bankotsu walked.

"Ready?" Bankotsu asked everyone as the castle was in plain sight now.

Ginkotsu and Renkotsu were shooting guns off at the front line of people defending the castle. Seeing the people being blown up and burned made Akiko remember them doing that at her village.

Soon Suikotsu was stabbing at people. Blood poring from their mouths as he stabbed his claws into their necks and slashed at their chests. He stuck his claws into someone's stomach, spilling their intestines as he ripped them out.

Mukotsu shot poison from his container. The flesh of the residents of the castle who were trapped skin began to bubble and they screamed. Grabbing their faces they ripped off the skin, which was already falling off.

Kyoukotsu was breaking peoples' limbs and biting off their body parts.

Jakotsu laughed evilly and drew Jakotsutou. The snake-like sword slashed at some of the people. Blood splattered from them. Their innards came gushing out of the huge cuts across them. He lopped of limbs, and people fell to the ground screaming. Akiko watched for a moment as he became even more sadistic than when he killed her mother.

Bankotsu laughed, obviously thinking the same thing. "Hey, Jakotsu! You seem even more sadistic than usual today."

"Just venting some anger, Aniki," he replied. After Bankotsu looked away, Jakotsu gave Akiko a filthy glare and continued to perform even more gory attacks onto the innocent residents of the castle.

"Come on," Bankotsu said, pulling Akiko towards the main part of the castle. "They'll take care of them. We need to go kill the Lord of the castle."

She nodded, fighting her way though some of the guards trying to attack her. She closed her eyes and brought down Dohanone to the throat of the person attacking her. When she opened her eyes, she saw his lifeless body fall to the ground. Blood streaming from a deep gash directly in his neck.

Surprisingly, she didn't feel bad. She didn't really feel anything. And if it was something, it was… happiness?

As more guards came to attack her, she kept her eyes open this time and cut across their chests. Blood squirted out and they all fell. She even felt herself smile this time.

Bankotsu was smirking. "Looks like you're a better addition to the Shichinintai than I thought. I'd know that cute, sick little look anywhere. You're just like Jakotsu."

"What?" she asked, not really registering what this meant.

Bankotsu smiled again and got her to follow him to the inside of the castle. More guards were waiting there. He lifted Banryuu into the air and in one swoop, beheaded all of them. Akiko noticed that she was already bloody from when she killed. Now the blood from Bankotsu's victims sprayed on her too. This ordinarily would have bothered her, but for some reason, she found the sight of blood invigorating. Perhaps she was more like Jakotsu than she thought. So far, Akiko hadn't even thought of the hatred she felt for the Shichinintai, but still was enjoying the feeling of ending someone's life.

Despite how bad she felt for not being bothered by killing someone, she ran with Bankotsu killing everyone in her way.

Finally at the room where the Lord had been hiding, he sent even more guards on them. She didn't even have to think about it now; Akiko automatically cut through all of them and they fell to the floor, drenched in their own blood.

"P-please don't k-kill me!" said the lord, terrified. "I can p-pay you an-anything you-" But he couldn't finish his sentence as Bankotsu beheaded him.

Everyone was tending to their weapons or relaxing. Bankotsu, Jakotsu, and Akiko were sitting on the outside of the castle, drinking sake. Akiko was still getting used to the taste of it.

Jakotsu leaned against Bankotsu. "Aniki, are we going to sleep in the castle tonight?" he asked

"I suppose so," Bankotsu told him, taking a large gulp of sake, then refilling his cup.

"How many rooms are there?" Jakotsu said mischievously.

Bankotsu looked at him and asked kind of nervously, "Why?"

"Because! We can share a room!" Jakotsu replied excitedly. "Won't that be fun?"

Bankotsu smiled. "I dunno…" he said quietly and blushed, taking another large gulp, emptying the cup again.

As Bankotsu was distracted, Jakotsu looked over at Akiko and smiled smugly.

And for some reason Akiko found Bankotsu's reaction to make her angry. 'Stupid Jakotsu! It's not like I'm in love with Bankotsu or anything.' She spent the rest of their time drinking sake telling herself that she did not love Bankotsu. That she loathed him in fact. It was his fault her family was dead. And no matter what she felt for him, he was going to pay.

Author's Note: Gah! My back hurts. Please review. And if you do, I promise I'll try and write these chapters faster.