Ambiguity
Chapter 17: Lives Saved, Lives Lost
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Author: Jun-I

Pairing: Kanbei x female Kyuzo
Warnings: See Chapter 1
Disclaimers: See Chapter 1

Acknowledgements: Thanks to narrizan for telling me that Kanbei used Kyuzo's sword to cut down Ukyo.  The perspective on Kanbei killing Ukyo is really Zan's.

Deep within the flying fortress, Kanbei and Shichiroji found themselves in a standoff with Tessai and his horde of gun-bearing Mimizuku warriors. Shichiroji quickly peeled off the flooring with his prosthetic arm and barricaded himself and Kanbei behind the metal sheeting. But how long could they hold out against the mecha warriors' firepower?

The hope for Kanna grew dim. Just then, the Nobuseri cutter erupted through the floor of the great hall. Kanbei saw Kyuuzou in the pilot's seat. Their eyes met for a brief moment. Then, in a flash, the female warrior leapt out of the craft and put her sword through Tessai. Ukyo's chief henchman fell. "Only I can kill that man." Kyuuzou said to her former colleague in a low voice.

Kanbei ran up to her. "Your arm…" he started. Kyuuzou's right arm hung uselessly at her side. The samurai woman replied matter-of-factly, "I can still use my left arm."

Shimada rested his eyes at their savior. As always, she would find him and save him, even if she had to risk her life to do so. But he knew it was not love that moved her.

Kanbei tore his gaze away from the red figure when Katsushiro ran into the room. The child charged at a Mimizuku but the robot broke his sword and knocked him to the ground. Kambei immediately went to the boy's rescue. With a quick slash, he cut down the mecha who was about to discharge a gun at the fallen child.

But there were more Mimizukus with firearms, and they were not hesitating to use them. Kyuuzou saw a Mimizuku point its gun at her commander. The scarlet samurai rushed at the robot without hesitation. That thing would not kill Shimada Kanbei, at least not while she was still alive!

All of a sudden, bullets tore through her body. The master swordswoman saw the Mimizuku fall to the floor, revealing Katsushiro behind it. The child had a smoking gun in his hand. Then Kyuuzou herself fell.

As the crimson samurai collapsed, she felt the tiny life she held inside her fade away. Should she care? She would have snuffed out that life herself anyway. But just for that brief moment, the woman felt deep regret.

Kanbei caught Kyuuzou in his arms before she hit the ground. The man cradled her head in his left arm while supporting her thin body with his right arm. The woman looked him in the eye even as her crimson blood soaked his clothes. "Hurry… finish the job," she commanded.

But the white-clad warrior ignored her order. "Please don't leave me!" he pleaded. "I love you."

"Why is he saying this?" Kyuuzou wondered. Why was he toying with her even now, tempting her to believe in something she should not trust? She shook her head weakly as if to refuse his words. "Don't forget our duel," she reminded him slowly even as life bled away from her. "I'll wait for you in the village."

Despair seized Kanbei's heart as he realized that Kyuuzou would not stay no matter how hard he begged. "I will be there with you soon," he whispered to the pale warrior as he held her close. "Wait for me in the afterlife."

Kyuuzou made no answer. The dark warrior's face faded from her sight as she passed into another world.

Kanbei removed his bloodied glove and passed his bare hand over those vacant ruby eyes in one last caress, closing them for good. He recalled the last time he had seen them thus shut, when she had lain asleep beside him in the mountain forest. He had dared to hope then that it would be the first of many nights they would share. But it turned out to be the last.

Kanbei stood up to face the boy who had just killed his beloved. "I… I killed Kyuuzou," Katsushiro stuttered. "I… should die for this! Make recompense with my life!"

"You live for a little longer," Kanbei calmly addressed the trembling boy even as he felt something die within himself. "And fight well. We'll be dead soon enough anyway."

Shichiroji looked at his friend with slight surprise. It almost sounded as if Kanbei wanted to die. But they did not come here planning to die. They came here planning to win, or at least that was what he thought.

"Enough talk!" Kanbei said. "Someone still has to take Ukyo's head!" The commander silently took up one of Kyuuzou's twin swords. Then he led the survivors back into battle. Kanbei wielded Kyuuzou's sword in his right hand, his own sword in his left, as he fought his way through the flying fortress.

The young emperor gasped in horror as the dark ronin strode towards him with a murderous glare in his dark eyes. Ukyo stared at the sword the samurai was pointing at him. It was not Kanbei's sword. It was a familiar sword. His cousin's. How did it come to be in this man's hand?

Ukyo had never once dreamt that this sword would one day be aimed at him. The Amanushi screamed. But before he could finish his scream, Kanbei struck him through with the sword. As Ukyo met Kanbei's eyes for that brief moment, the Amanushi had the vague feeling that to this man, killing him was not just about Kanna. It was something more personal. Then the emperor fell.

With Kyuuzou's sword in his hand, Kanbei fought his way through what was left of the Capital. He would finish this war and win this victory – for her. Shichiroji and Kanbei hacked through the machinery of the giant fortress, dismantling whatever they could as the flying ship hit the ground and plowed forward toward Kanna.

Kikuchiyo drove the Nobuseri's ship-cutting sword through the fortress, trying his best to bring the giant ship to a halt. His efforts did not go to waste. The Capital lost enough momentum to tip over the edge of the cliff and plummet into the chasm dividing Kanna from the rest of the world. The samurai had succeeded. The village was saved.

Shichiroji and Kanbei found themselves standing among the falling snowflakes and smoking debris as the distraught Katsushiro stumbled around, screaming for more Nobuseri to kill.

"We've lived yet again," the old friends said to each other in an unreadable tone. Kanbei was not sure if he was sad or glad. The veteran had won his war, but still he felt oddly hollow. He had come all the way to Kanna to fight a winning battle for once. Now the former commander had his wish, but he still felt defeated – he had lost the only woman he ever loved. But if not for Kanna, he would never have met Kyuuzou. Perhaps it was all fated to end this way.

He buried her beside the others in Kanna. The seasoned soldier shed no tears over her. Kyuuzou would not have wanted that. The proud red samurai never desired to be loved or cherished. During the one night they possessed each other, he had not seen any tenderness or warmth in her scarlet eyes, only curiosity and challenge.

The dark commander was never one to be sentimental. He had seen many comrades fall and left their corpses behind without any lingering grief. After all, grief was useless on the battlefield. But he missed the crimson warrior. He would come to see her again and again, right until the day he left Kanna with Shichiroji.

Each time, Kanbei would stand silently before Kyuuzou's grave, wondering if she would ever let him speak to her the way a man would speak to a woman, had she lived. And each time, he tried to remind himself that Kyuuzou would not have wanted to be the subject of any softer feelings. From beginning to end, she was a fighter, not a lover. Yet in the years after, he could never forget her. Whenever he closed his eyes the memories would come unbidden to him – the sight of her graceful form leaping from the wrecked Raiden, the way she looked under the moonlight in the House of the Fireflies, and how they had embraced each other under the great tree in Kanna Forest.

"Where is she now?" the old samurai would wonder. "Does she still walk alone in the world of the dead?"

Note: Though Kyuuzou is the 'only woman' Kanbei had ever loved, it is not conclusive if she is the only person he had ever loved, in the universe of this fic. The indications in earlier chapters are that his previous partners, serious or otherwise, were all male. I'll leave this in this fuzzy state so that readers can decide for themselves if Kyuuzou is Kanbei's one and only true love. ;-) A nod to Shichi/Kan fans ;-)