Chapter 2: The Truth behind the Truth

Standing before a mound of freshly laid earth stood Keitaro Urashima. He watched as the sun descended below the horizon, crying for the loved one buried six feet beneath him – their final sunset together.

Naru Urashima, his wife, had stood by his side during the funeral. She watched as nearly a hundred teary eyed clansmen paid their condolences to the unofficial head of the Urashima clan – a title bequeath to him by his grandmother's passing. It broke her heart to see his countenance grow dimmer as one by one they shook his hand, offering tired platitudes and weak compliments over the floral arrangements.

After the funeral had ended and the guests departed, Keitaro and Naru stayed behind, watching the setting sun. They stood there in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Her arms were wrapped around his torso; her tears soaking into his shirt. She desperately wanted to wake up from the nightmare, but she knew that that this was no dream.

Motoko really killed Kanako.

Keitaro was distracted by the images playing in his mind – the scene of Kanako's death running like a never ending loop in some worn down film projector. The pattern of the wounds and the damage to the room revealed to him in almost graphic detail the last moments of Kanako's life. Though there was no evidence to place her there, Keitaro knew that only Motoko could have inflicted the wounds carved into his sister's body.

Kanako first encountered Motoko in the hallway. She had been carrying her laundry back to her room. They talked, though he couldn't tell for how long.

It was Kanako who struck first.

The way the clothes were strewn about told him that she had thrown the basket at her murderer, hoping she could distract her long enough to attack before Motoko could draw her sword. She was not that lucky. The lack of blood in the hallway informed him that Kanako managed to dodge most of the strikes, but Motoko eventually hit true. Kanako was sliced clean across her belly, causing her to crash into her bedroom door. The splatter pattern on the ceiling and floor told Keitaro what blow came next. Motoko had followed her lateral strike with a diagonal cut, leaving another deep gash from Kanako's right shoulder to her left hip. The mortal wound was a forward thrust to her liver, ensuring that no amount of medical assistance would save her.

It was the Urashima Tiger Strike that had killed Kanako. The Tiger Strike was developed more than four hundred years ago by Keisuke Urashima – a legendary swordsman renowned for his skill with the blade. It was designed to defeat a stronger opponent, using blinding speed to overcome insurmountable power. The technique was passed down through the generations, protecting the Urashima Clan from its enemies; a technique that Keitaro had taught Kanako's killer.

Motoko was a master swordsman of the Shinmeiryu – to kill using another school's technique would be heresy. He knew Motoko would not care. She wanted to send Keitaro a message – to make him understand.

He understood perfectly.

"Why, why did she do this?" Naru cried out, weeping into her husband's arm. Her mind franticly searched for an answer that would not come to her. They had all been friends. They laughed and cried together. How could Motoko do such a thing?

Naru could feel her husband's body tense up at the question, but it was more than that. It was as if a wall had been erected between the two. "What's wrong," she asked. Keitaro couldn't meet her gaze, the guilt growing within him. She reached out to her husband, gently bringing his face to hers: her gentle visage inviting him to open his heart to her.

Keitaro took her hand that had held his cheek, and clasped his hands around them. "It was my fault Naru, it was because of me that Kanako is dead," he stammered, struggling with the words.

The fear in his eyes sent shivers up her spine. At first, she thought he was overreacting, but the conviction in his voice had quickly dispelled that notion. "I don't understand," she began saying, before a familiar voice interrupted her.

"He is admitting his complicity Naru."

Keitaro's eyes narrowed as he instantly recognized the voice. He grabbed Naru and swung her behind him, shielding her with his body. There standing before them, dressed in a form fitting black leather outfit, was Motoko.

Motoko had changed much from their days back at the Hinata Sou. She had always been tall, but her stiletto heels allowed her to tower above most of the men in Japan. Her long, lustrous ebony hair had been cut short, and treated with highlights. But perhaps most obvious was her physique. Her chest and hips had filled out, far surpassing that of her sister's. In other words, Motoko had become the epitome of beauty.

Whereas other men would be drinking in the vision of beauty standing before him, Keitaro only saw one thing – the sword, hanging off of Motoko's hip. It was the sword that had killed his sister.

"I'll kill you!" he roared, but before Keitaro could pounce, an arrow shot past his cheek, grazing him. In the split second that it took the arrow to traverse the distance between his face and the thunking sound he heard behind him, he calculated the approximate trajectory from source to origin. Tearing off the pin that had held a flower to his lapelle, Keitaro hurled it towards the origin of the arrow shot. The scream told him that he had hit his mark. He turned towards Motoko, but stopped in his tracks when he saw Motoko's drawn sword held against Naru's throat.

"Please Motoko, stop this now, we were friends once," pleaded Naru, trying to inch away from the sharp edge of Motoko's blade. Motoko ignored her pleas. She focused only on Keitaro, her gaze never wavering from the man she loved – the man she continued to love.

"Let her go, it's me you want," Keitaro seethed, struggling to keep his rage in check. Motoko circled Naru, her blade ever pointing at her throat. She then directed her gaze at him. She recognized his stance. His shoulders were square too hers, exposing his body to attack. Though considered a defensively weak position, his stance offered him a greater range of offensive techniques – the hallmark of the Urashima style of martial arts. Motoko noticed that Keitaro's left foot had lifted slightly, shifting the weight to the ball of his foot.

Suddenly, she realized how his genial, almost scatterbrain behavior belied his lethal potential. She smirked, recognizing that she had been caught in his trap. Keitaro was the grandmaster of the Urashima style and true heir to the clan's ultimate technique: Wrath of God.

She had seen it only once before, when she was with him in the mountains of Kyoto. The technique had but one strength – inhuman speed. Though she had been unable to determine the secret behind the technique's speed, she understood the end result: the greater the acceleration of an object, the greater its force. Where her ultimate technique split boulders, his pulverized them into fine powder.

She was caught in his kill radius. She would be dead before her blade, only inches from Naru's neck, could reach its mark. "Clever," Motoko admitted to her foe, "but not clever enough." Then with the slightest nod of her head, a dozen arrows flew, encircling Keitaro with a ring of protruding shafts.

"Damn, she came in force," Keitaro thought, trying to locate his hidden enemies. "As you can tell Keitaro, I have come prepared," said Motoko, grinning at him with satisfaction.

"What do you want," he retorted, trying to stall for time. "I want you to suffer," Motoko replied simply, "to understand what it is to endure betrayal and loss."

"Don't you think he suffered enough," Naru screamed, "You killed Kanako, you desecrated our home, what more do you want?"

Motoko was taken back by her words. Yes, what did she want? She had not intended to kill Kanako that day, but things just got out of control. She had only one objective. Motoko then turned to face Naru. "Kanako died, because she wanted to protect you."