Wayward Ransom, chapter 19.
"I want you to trouble me...Be my savior, and I'll be your downfall."--Matchbox 20
Bankotsu made his agonized way through light shrubbery, memories of the betrayal still roaring in his head. Using the little reserve of strength he had left to propel one of the katanas he held, he hacked down anything in his way.
Seeing the roughly-hewn small monument in the distance, he stopped for a minute, and noted the gap in the foresty undergrowth to the projection's side. That was the path he had made for himself here before, after first finding this site, which was so close the the cottage he dared not ever discuss or approach. Since his first few visits had happened so recently, the forest had not yet healed itself over from Bankotsu's cuts in the undergrowth when he made his way here before.
As he approached the simple rocky projection, he remembered how Jakotsu silently, but amusedly watched his back for him as Bankotsu knelt before it. He remembered grinding his fist into the ground, steeped in thought, much to Jakotsu's puzzlement. Grief, especially over a woman, seemed to be something foreign to Jakotsu, and was one of the many things one simply could not ever explain to him.
Jakotsu...I could grieve over losing you, and even that you wouldn't understand.
The two of them eventually resumed the journey which began at the traitorous daimyo's fort in the late afternoon, and ended at the base of the mountain. Reaching the cave's entrance, Jakotsu pestered him to the breaking point about fighting the half-demon himself, and in spite of every logical objection Bankotsu could make, Jakotsu persisted, and wore Bankotsu down until he got what he wanted. And then...Renkotsu...
Damn it all, thought Bankotsu as he sighed. He was a spectacular tactician, a splendid warrior...he had so much potential...it would have been better had he ran. But he became the idiot. A brave, intelligent, ambitious fucking idiot. But...I respect him even more for attempting to stand up to me. And in the end, he was one of mine, and his death was no less important.
Bankotsu, the last member of the Seven remaining, had every intention of taking his compounding, unrelenting sorrow out on the half-demon. And he did...until the half-demon sent him to the shores of the Sanzu.
What a fascinating person this "Inuyasha" was. An incredibly strong, clear-thinking fighter. What was his secret? Bankotsu, bearing no personal grudge, would almost have liked to get to know him, to understand him.
Huh, he thought. The half-demon. The only one of my targets that ever intrigued me. Bankotsu, admittedly, had sensed having a lot in common with the half-demon the instant he first saw him. However, there was no hope for any mutual understandings; the circumstances of their meetings had to have been entirely different for that.
Approaching the monument, he noticed Akiko's rusted, weather-beaten wakazashi and its scabbard, still here after over a decade. Even the chain that attached the little charms to the scabbard was still untouched. Bankotsu figured the first time that someone had found Akiko's body in the cottage, and buried it here in an attempt to quell her spirit, placing her poorly-used weapon here also as a marker. Or maybe even a soul-offering, thought Bankotsu with a sarcastic, grunted laugh.
He fell down in exhaustion to one knee, right in front of the stone, and sweat and blood speckled the ground. He closed his eyes, and touched his head to the stone, leaning heavily into it. He placed one of his "borrowed" katanas flat on the ground to his side, and struck the ground with the other, blade-down in an effort to keep himself upright. Soon, he unconsciously started twisting the hilt, grinding the blade's point into the rocky earth, while the betrayal ten years prior continued to gnaw at him.
He remembered how he found his last two comrades' weapons thrown on the single step to the cottage after breathlessly running there.
He stood at the threshold, peering inside the cottage for a moment.
She was indeed here. What was left of her...was here.
Bankotsu took in a horrified short breath as he ran his eyes up and down the broken, naked and bloody body of Akiko lying on the floor, lying on her side, her face toward the doorway. She had bruises covering her from head to toe. Her hair, knotted and unruly, haphazardly covered both herself and the floor. Blood all around her.
He walked quietly over to her, his teeth gritted as he contemplated the audacity of the government. When he reached her, he sat down with his knees to the side, and leaned over her. He ran a hand softly over her forehead, down her temple, to her cheek. She still felt warm to the touch, but the balmy air in the cottage would soon dissipate, and the chill of the snowy air would speed her demise quickly. An agonized expression could be seen under the bruises on her face and blood that ran in a single trickle from her mouth.
Anger over Akiko's treatment added to the blazing fire already begun the instant Bankotsu knew he and his men were set up by that bastard, who was in all respects now, the area's newly anointed daimyo after the death of his father. And now this daimyo was using one of the few people personally connected to Bankotsu besides his men, to aid in destroying him. It worked more effectively than either Bankotsu could ever comprehend or the daimyo had ever envisioned.
He was about to get up, and slaughter every man left alive who was surely waiting for him at the front step of the cottage. For his men, and for her.
"Ban-..."
At first, Bankotsu was in disbelief over what he thought he heard. It was a barely perceptible murmur. Had a spirit talked to him? He looked around, and doubt over the existence of spirits and the like began slowly to reenter his heart. Maybe an animal made the sound outside? No, it was too haunting to be that, either.
He again heard a low, sad, whimpering sound, and when he looked more closely, he saw Akiko's eyes ever so slightly open. "Ban...," she began again, her bloody lips coming together briefly, her voice choking the syllable out in agony, and her hands clenched tightly in pain.
Bankotsu knew they had left her just barely alive purposely. It was all part of the never ending mind games the government and military played with him all his life.
"Akiko..." Bankotsu bent down again and ran his hands over her head and cheek again.
"Ban...kotsu...hold...me..." she whispered, and closed her eyes, preparing for his touch. Even, she said to herself, if it was from the same hands that crushed brushes to splinters and killed fifteen men effortlessly.
The young man could see tears silently streaming down her cheek. He would rather not try and move her. She was too broken. He would cause her more pain than if he simply let her be. Didn't she understand that?
"Akiko...I can't...you're too-" Bankotsu began, glancing up at the painting of the phoenix on the wall to Akiko's feet. That damned painting, which almost a year ago was thought so beautiful, was now silently mocking the two of them.
"Please...I'm...afraid..." she pleaded when she opened her eyes enough to see the young man's face twisted in an expression of shock at her request. If he crushed her, too, that would be fine. At least he was the one to do it.
"Akiko..." Bankotsu shook his head and gritted his teeth. He looked into her tearing, red-rimmed eyes and softly said, "Alright. At your request."
Bankotsu saw Akiko's deep green, brown-trimmed kimono lying in a heap in a corner. He crawled over to pick it up, and reverently draped it across Akiko's form. Holding his breath, and preparing for her to scream, he ever so gently slipped a supporting hand under her side, and picked her upper body slowly off the floor. Her head lolled around helplessly, and though she winced a bit, she never made a sound.
He noticed her arms. The trails on her arms were glaringly bright, scarlet red. All of her nails even looked bloodied, and though some of them were, they also seemed to have a shiny, crimson sheen of their own.
He inched his arms arond her, and softly drew her to his chest. When she finally came to rest between his neck and his breast, she broke down into uncontrollable tears, wailing painfully into his shoulder.
Bankotsu said nothing, and simply held her as she wept, as right now, it was all he could do. His shoulder was quickly getting damper with every tear she made. His fingers on one of his hands were entwined with those of one of hers, and her fingernails were drawing a bit of blood from his hand as they dug into his skin.
He could not speak, and he most certainly could not cry. This was not the time or the place for tears for him. He would express his compounding sorrow by killing as many soldiers and officials as possible after he laid the girl to rest.
"Bankotsu...I'm so angry..." she whimpered inbetween tears. "I'm so...afraid..." she repeated over and over, when she had no tears left to cry.
"Don't be afraid," he found himself whispering softly in her ear. He knew there was that small part of him that could never forgive himself for getting involved with her. It couldn't be helped that his men were lost, though he would avenge them also once he stepped outside. In the back of his mind, he always remembered that any assignment could have been their last, no matter how powerful they had become. And his men were all fighters. They were all people who put themselves out there when it mattered. But he selfishly allowed himself to get close to someone, and that made it all the more possible for the sick and twisted government to abuse that person in an attempt to kill him from the inside out.
She seemed heartened by his encouragement. "You were right, Bankotsu."
"Hm?" he questioned, turning his head the slightest bit towards her ear, humoring her.
"Maemi's fortune..." New tears were pulled from her eyes. "I wanted it all to happen...so badly." She broke down again, as the truth of her admission once again broke though all her defenses. "I was so afraid of you...I regret being...so afraid..."
He tried to hush her gently, but she couldn't be comforted. "This is...my fault..." he stammered quietly as she sobbed on his shoulder. "I shouldn't-"
"No," she whispered, recovering again. "I know you...had nothing to do with it. Others warned me...about you. Over and over. I didn't listen."
Bankotsu gritted his teeth in guilt. There was the proof. It was his fault, after all.
She was finding new found, temporary strength in the strong arms surrounding her as she lay dying. "And I didn't listen because...those people...never did anything for me..." She closed her eyes. "Thank...you...," she began again as more tears flowed from her eyes. "So...much..."
Bankotsu could only hold her closer after hearing her touching words. He knew holding her more tightly would cause her pain, but holding her closer brought the both of them a touch of comfort.
He was so rarely thanked for anything, he almost didn't know what to say when Akiko managed to do it. He always made it a point to thank his men for their loyalty and service often, unlike the military, who saw their soldiers as a disposable resource. But...there was always the question: who would thank him? And who would possibly ever have a reason for thanking a mercenary who had been trained to be a killing machine since the age of three?
The minutes passed by as he steadfastly sat there on the floor, holding her. The cottage soon had snow wafting in through the torn-open front door, blown in by a gentle, yet chilling wind. The temperature inside the cottage dropped considerably, and pretty soon the inside was as unforgivingly cold as the outside.
Her fingernails ceased digging into his hand, and forehead soon felt cold to his neck. He could not keep her body warm any longer. She was dead in his arms.
He painstakingly wrapped her in her kimono, as he knew he would have no opportunity to give her a proper grave. After sliding the screen to the rear room open, he took her body into the back room, and laid her on her mat, covering her with blankets. When inside, he took note of the writing materials and other things of hers in the room. She had obviously been here a while. And this was planned a long time in advance.
When he turned to leave the back room, he glanced back at her. She looked as if she were asleep, her blankets and kimono hiding the bruises and cuts on her body, but not her face. He turned from her, and shut the screen. He headed out to the front room, fury seething through every muscle and tendon in his body.
When he stepped out the front threshold, he knew he was stepping outside to die also. He turned around to glance at the inside of the cottage once more, and smirked, almost laughingly, as he ran a finger up and down along the threshold.
"Hn. Unmerciful."
He stood in the silence of the cold air for a few moments before hearing something whizzing toward him. He felt a sharp stinging in the back of his right thigh that made him flatten his hand on the threshold and lean into it, wincing and gritting his teeth for a moment.
He tried to pull out the arrow, but it was no use. The shaft broke into pieces in his hands, and a portion of it remained hopelessly embedded in his muscle.
So. They've also resorted to poison arrows with me.
He walked in silence over to his huge blade, the banryuu. He heard the soldiers assembling behind him, coming out of their hidden places in the forest. By the time he had his hand on his weapon, he knew there were hundreds there.
I stepped out of that cottage to die, he told himself as he grasped the shaft, so I swear on this weapon that I will not take any less than 1000 men down with me today.
He turned around, and when the banryuu fell, the carnage began.
And he was up to 999, before the poison, encouraged through his system by the hot activity of killing, forced him down on one knee, never to get back up again. The mindless soldiers swarmed around him like ants, and soon he was beaten, stripped of his armor, and splayed across the single front step of the cottage.
He briefly saw the young daimyo hovering above him, the bastard's face twisted into a pious, dutified scowl. He spoke to some men behind him who could not be seen, pointing at them. "Take his weapon, you, and hang it on our wall." Turning back towards his prey, he grinned. "It'll be our souvenir. Our proof that his life was taken."
"You...1000!...YOU!" Bankotsu hissed through his teeth at the daimyo as he lay on the step.
Then, his head yanked back over the edge of the step...words he couldn't hear said into his ear...and the falling katana...
Bankotsu realized that all the graves he visited never completely brought him to any peace; it never eliminated his hatred of that daimyo and his lapdogs. Bankotsu could honestly say he never hated anyone until that day, and never hated anyone else afterwards.
He continued to mercilessly grind the katana's point into the ground. He bared his teeth, and searingly hot tears started emerging from the corners of his eyes.
And for the first time since he walked on the earth at the age of three, Bankotsu allowed himself to weep. And he wept just like he did at that age. With his head against the stone, the tears continued to roll down his cheeks as he mourned silently, intensely, and for as long as he needed.