Note: This story isn't historically accurate. The author made great use of historical license in writing it. The inaccuracy is designed to add to the dramatic aspects of the plot. The Huns' invasions and the first Japanese incursion into Chinese territory are at least two centuries apart. The military apparatuses used in the story are out of their respective Eras, as well. That being said, the cultural aspects of Chinese society were extensively studied and are, mostly, accurate, though. Enjoy the reading!

Flower of China

By Kath Klein

Translated by Yoruki Hiiragizawa

Chapter XI

'Here it is, General,' the fat officer at the City Guard Office placed a pile of paper and parchments in front of General Li and the Captain. 'You've asked for the complaints and reports from the past year…' He couldn't quite hide the curiosity from seeping out of his voice as he looked at the imposing man standing before him.

'That's right. I want to see all the documented cases from the previous fourteen months,' the General stated, unwavering, as he skimmed through the documents.

'May I ask what is it that you're looking for, Sir?' The officer fidgeted, rolling his shoulder uncomfortably and turned to stare at the green-eyed boy with a frown as if expecting some sort of explanation.

The young Captain returned the fat man's stare with one of his own, completely unaffected.

'That's no concern of yours,' Xiao Lang uttered impatiently, without taking his eyes from the documents. 'You should worry yourself with securing the city, Major Shirong. Shanghai is a mess.'

The Major looked back to the General with a contemptuous sneer. 'The fact, General, is that Shanghai's only value is the riches obtained by its brothels and opium dealers.'

Very slowly, Li raised his eyes, silently glaring at the Major and making him feel uncomfortable by the second. Straightening himself up to his full height, he grabbed the reports. 'How can there be so few reports for such a violent city?'

'Not every crime is reported to the City Guard. Robbery, murder and rape happen here daily. Who cares if whores go missing or indigents get killed, Sir?' The Major shrugged, with a dismissive hand-waving. 'There's a war going on. The good people of Shanghai know not to make the Imperial Army lose their time with such things.'

Li narrowed his eyes on the man, critically inspecting him. He hadn't liked the man, not one bit. He was overweight and moved sluggishly which indicated a concerning lack of training and laziness; his blade was tarnished, his uniform was unwashed and grimy, marking him as unkempt. His disregarding remarks showed a lack of intelligence. Xiao Lang hated that kind of man. They disgraced the Army and dishonoured the Emperor.

'If that's the case, I'll write a report on the city's situation, recommending that Shanghai be marked as a security black spot, for, as you so pertinently put it, there's a war going on and it would be just too easy for traitors and conspirators to make their lair in the city. I've spent the whole day walking around yesterday and didn't see a single patrol on the streets. I doubt there's any patrolling at night.'

The Major widened his eyes and then scowled at the General. 'That's out of your jurisdiction.'

'You're clearly not part of my troop, Major,' he scoffed at the soldier. 'But I still outrank you and it's not your place to tell me what I can or can't do. I want to have a word with General Mao as soon as he arrives.'

The Major's already pale face turned a sickly grey and he tugged at his collar. 'Will you be waiting for him, then?'

'Isn't that obvious?' The General replied, turning on his heels. 'I'll be in the office analysing this…' Xiao Lang patted lightly at the bundle of documents the Major had given him. 'Let me know when the General gets here.'

Sakura watched as Xiao Lang made his way to said office and then turned to observe the Major: he was sweating. Profusely. Except it wasn't even a hot enough day to justify that. So it stood to reason that the man was nervous about something. Sakura narrowed her eyes at him, making him fidget, darting his eyes around the room.

'Wh-What are you looking at, you brat? I outrank you, so don't look at me like that!'

Sakura looked around to hide the way her lips curled in contempt. 'It's too hot in here, huh, Major?'

The man swallowed hard, wiping his sweaty forehead. 'Indeed, it is!'

She briefly took notice of the opened windows and the guardsmen wearing heavy coats, just like the one she had on. Without any other word, and just as the General had done before, she turned on her heels and headed to the little office, closing the door.

She pulled a chair and sat in front of the General, watching him as he perused the documents he brought with him. She rolled her eyes when he clenched his teeth at whatever he was reading. That whole situation was just ridiculous. She had never imagined he'd be that thick-headed to try and fix a misstep.

'Something here doesn't smell right,' Li said all of a sudden.

'This whole place smells wrong, General,' she replied, annoyed.

'That's true,' he sighed. 'But that's not what I meant. These reports are all incomplete. In a city such as Shanghai, they should be more detailed to give us an edge when trying to fight the criminals.' He stated, concerned. 'I hate lazy officers.'

'There's a lot of crime around, Sir. The soldiers must be more concerned with keeping their lives than with the bureaucracy.'

'Some formalities allow us to compile registers and statistics, Kinomoto. It's not just useless poetry in silk scrolls like what the nobles waste their time with.' Li replied. 'A city like this, with dozens of pleasure houses quarantined, where people die from diseases or are killed and just…' he flipped through the reports over the table. 'I don't think there are even a hundred reports here. And this is supposed to be fourteen months worth of crime.'

'General Mao had requested for reinforcements a while back,' she mentioned.

'Yes. And we sent two-hundred men his way, but he hadn't mentioned how bad things still were around here in any of his following correspondence. There's definitely something wrong here.' He ran his hand through his hair. 'I also didn't like that Major Shirong.'

'He's not a pleasant man,' Sakura agreed, hesitantly. 'Nor trustworthy.'

'Officers like him are a discredit to the Imperial Army.' He couldn't hide the criticism in his voice even as he went back to reading the reports in silence.

When Xiao Lang looked up again, after some time, he frowned looking through the window. 'It's past noon already and General Mao is still to arrive. He's not the kind of man who would shrink from his duty. And he wouldn't let someone like Shirong in charge of the city like this.'

Sakura tapped her fingers on the table, thinking about it. He was right, something was going on there. Before she could say anything, the General had gotten up.

'Let's go,' he went to the door, looking at her over his shoulder. 'Be on your guard.'

She looked around, searching for whatever had triggered him to move even as she followed him out of the room. They exited the City Guard Office and strode away.

Xiao Lang abruptly changed directions a couple times, meandering around the city while stealthily looking for something behind them. Sakura had to control herself to avoid doing the same and giving out that they were on to whoever the General was trying to lose.

After enough twists and turns to let Sakura feeling slightly dizzy, the General stopped in front of a restaurant, briefly hesitating before getting in. 'Let's eat something.'

Sakura followed him without a word but bursting with curiosity. Before entering the building, she risked a quick glance around and still couldn't find anything that justified his behaviour.

They sat at a table and placed their orders, keeping the charged stillness around them for a moment longer before Xiao Lang broke the silence. 'Je sais que Vous étudiez le français avec Daidouji.' (I know you've been studying French with Daidouji).

Sakura stared at him in wide-eyed astonishment, before replying in the same language. 'I didn't know you spoke French, General.'

'Just a bit. I hired someone to teach me enough to be able to read a few engineering books,' he went on, giving that little importance.

Sakura just nodded, still feeling slack-jawed. That man was full of surprises. She had no idea the General also knew French, but what really astonished her was that he was sufficiently aware of her own knowledge to use that ruse so no one else would understand them. Lower-ranking officers, such as herself, barely knew how to read and write, let alone speak a foreign language.

'General Mao might be dead, for all we know. It's the only reason I can think of for his absence,' he commented with a straight face.

'Major Shirong started sweating profusely when you said you'd wait for the General,' she pointed out with knit brows.

'I also noticed that. And the other guardsmen were trying too hard not to attract any attention. They're definitely hiding something,' he said thoughtfully.

'What do you intend to do? Will you report it to the Emperor?'

Xiao Lang shook his head. 'We need to find out what's happening first. Prince Yue will keep us here till he's done enjoying himself, so we'll have plenty of time to get to the bottom of it and weed out the undesirables,' he smirked, looking at his pupil.

Sakura looked at the General with a raised eyebrow. 'Weed out, Sir?'

A servant woman approached their table with their orders and began setting the dishes and teapot in front of them. The fragrant scent of star anise, fennel seed, Szechuan pepper, cinnamon and cloves mixed with the pork and fresh plums momentarily took Sakura's attention from her superior officer to the richly decorated ceramic pots on the table that were causing her to salivate.

He nodded. 'Exactement. Starting out with the crooked officers…' he mentioned, carelessly gesticulating with his hands. 'Like the shifty men following us.'

Sakura nodded once. 'I figured we were being followed, though I haven't been able to locate them.'

'I knew you would infer it,' he said unsurprised. Touya was smarter than the average soldier, after all. 'There's one at the table to the right near the entrance and two more outside, near our window, trying to hear what we're talking.' He frowned while looking around the busy restaurant. 'I can't find where the fourth man went.'

Sakura narrowed her eyes at the General and then looked askance at the window. 'Are you sure he's not outside as well?'

Xiao Lang shook his head with certainty. 'Watch the shadows. Do you see how there are only two shadows stationed near the window?'

Sakura took notice of what he said. 'And are you sure there are four of them?'

'What do you think?' Li looked at her with one raised eyebrow and opened an enigmatic smile before gesturing for the attendant to serve them the tea.

Sakura rolled her eyes. He could be insufferably smug, sometimes.

The servant poured the hot liquid into the cups and presented them ceremoniously, with both hands, to the General first and then to the Captain.

Li was once again looking over the restaurant trying to locate the fourth element of the group following them. He distractedly reached out for his teacup, inhaling the sharp and astringent vapours of the green tea. It was still boiling hot, so he just set it back down and reached for his rice bowl, instead. He was rather hungry and the camp food was always the same insipid watery goo.

Sakura was also looking around, but then she took notice of the servant who remained by their table, waiting to be released from their service.

The woman was holding the platter to her chest, her knuckles turning white at the tray's rim. Her eyes were darting around but seemed to return quite often to the teapot at the centre of their table.

Sakura saw the woman hold her breath when Xiao Lang reached for his cup and widened her eyes at a sudden realisation. 'Don't!' She snapped at him, grabbing the General's wrist before he could take the first sip.

'What the…' he stopped in mid-sentence, frozen in place, agape with wide eyes as what had just happened dawned on him. He slowly lowered his arm - the Captain's hand still on his wrist - and placed the cup back on the table, all the while staring into Kinomoto's green eyes.

Sakura pointed with her eyes in the woman's direction and saw the General nod once. And just like that, without a single word exchanged between them, they had an action plan traced.

Sakura let go of his wrist and, with a sudden spring, leapt onto the woman before she could even think of fleeing. The General had jumped to his feet, kicked the window open in pursuit of the two men outside.

'Even think of screaming and I'll rip your tongue out,' Sakura warned the woman who cowered under the tight grip on her arm. 'Where's the man who gave you the poison?'

'I-I d-don't know…' the woman whimpered.

'Don't lie to me!' Sakura growled, twisting her arm.

The servant shrank under her firm grasp, shaking from head to toe and Sakura noticed how her eyes kept going back to the kitchen door.

Sakura pulled the woman's arm to her back a bit more forcefully. 'I should slit your throat for attempting against the life of Imperial officers!' She said through clenched teeth, before releasing her and crossing the restaurant to the kitchen under the confused patron's eyes.

She stormed into the hot kitchen and immediately located a guardsman across the vaporous room. The man was stuffing himself with something or other and got startled by her entrance, though he quickly recovered from his catatonic state, heading to the kitchen's back door.

Sakura pursed her mouth in a sneer. Ah, but there was no way she would allow the cowardly rat to escape after trying to poison her. She reached for the throwing knife she kept by her ankle without ever taking her eyes from the man.

Just as the soldier touched the door to push it open, a knife nailed his hand to the wood and he howled in pain like a wounded animal.

Sakura then marched across the room, hitting the man's leg with enough strength to debilitate his movements, should he attempt to flee again. She twisted the knife before pulling it from his hand and kicked the door open to get out of that place, taking the offender with her.

As soon as she stepped into the alley outside, Sakura saw the General approaching her while dragging one of their pursuers with him.

'One of them died,' Xiao Lang said, tossing the man to the ground in front of her. 'The other ran away.'

The man caught by Sakura was as tall as her General, and she found it disappointing that he was so frightened of her at that point to give her no trouble while she dragged him around. With a hard tug, the man fell to the floor next to his companion whining and whimpering over his injured hand. Sakura rolled her eyes. Those men were weaklings. It was no wonder Shanghai was such a crime-ridden city.

Xiao Lang stopped by her side, watching the criminals with a crooked smile. He patted her on the back, clearly satisfied with her, by what she'd done.

Sakura saw Li approach the men on the floor, tying them up before interrogating them. They tried to put up a strong face at first, but it didn't take long before they started blurting out everything they knew, which, admittedly, wasn't much. They were ordered by Major Shirong to "take care of the nosy General and his pet Captain". The Major had also provided the toxin to deal with them in case the opportunity to use it presented itself.

Xiao Lang took the flask from the man Sakura captured in the kitchen and analysed it for a few moments. Then he tossed it to her.

'What do you think it is?' Sakura asked. The guardsmen had sworn they didn't know.

The General narrowed his eyes, looking at Touya. 'They didn't use much. It's nearly full, so it must be something potent.'

'The Imperial Army sometimes apply snake venom to coat arrows,' she mentioned, looking at the flask in her hands but, then, she shook her head, remembering the lessons she had with Li about toxins. 'It can't be snake venom. It can't be venom at all. Venom needs to get straight into the blood through a wound to be effective.'

The General nodded with a satisfied grin and crossed his arms. 'So which kind of toxin is it?'

Sakura narrowed her eyes at the General. 'You're testing me, aren't you?'

Xiao Lang widened his eyes, trying - and failing - to look offended by her comment. 'You just saved my life! Why would I do that?'

'Because if you had taken that tea, I would have to figure out what it is to give you the antidote.'

He laughed, throwing his head back. 'Excellent answer! Now… what is it? Remember that each toxin acts differently in our bodies, so they need to be countered by specific antidotes. If you get the wrong answer, I might be as good as dead… Hypothetically speaking.' He looked at the Captain with a raised eyebrow. 'You wouldn't want that, would you?'

She swallowed hard, looking away from him and stared at the flask again. Damn it! She hated it when he tested her like that. The worst was knowing that he did that to have fun at her expense.

The toxin could come from anything, really. She had already ruled out venom, so scorpions and snakes were out. The army didn't use poison and officially it was considered a dishonourable tactic, but the Imperial Library still had many books on the subject. There were several poisonous animals and plants around China.

She opened the flask, taking a shallow sniff at the content. She flinched, crinkling her nose and tearing up at the pungent rancid odour. It was, indeed, a concentrated substance. And she doubted it was of vegetal origin. It had a very bile-like smell.

She recalled what she had read in several books about that issue. Frog and toad poison was fairly common but it loses its potency when boiled or exposed to high temperatures - their tea had been really hot when it got to their table. Also, most amphibian poisons didn't conserve its toxicity for long. She doubted the Major had had time to arrange a new flask of poison since she and the General had arrived at the City Guard Office that morning.

No, he already had the poison stored somewhere. It was very becoming of a man like Shirong. He'd rather use cowardly means to deal with problems instead of direct confrontation.

'If you take your time, my chances of surviving also decrease,' Xiao Lang said with a somewhat dramatic flare.

She held tightly to the flask. The General was looking at her with a raised eyebrow. She couldn't fail that test. 'I'm thinking...' she said through gritted teeth.

Other common poisonous species could be found in the sea. Starfish, octopuses, Devilfish… Which would the Major use? In order to kill them fast, the dosage needed to be lethal. There would be no do-overs, no second chances. What would be guaranteed to kill them?

She widened her eyes. 'It's blowfish poison.'

The General narrowed his eyes at her. 'We never saw this poison in our classes. How did you figure it out?'

'I've read that the toxin extracted from the blowfish is durable and resistant to storage. I figured a man like Major Shirong would have something as low as this at the ready in case he needed,' she shrugged. 'If you had drunk that tea, General, I wouldn't be able to do much to help you. Blowfish poison is deadly in really small doses.'

He nodded, accepting her explanation. 'You got the answer right, even if you figured out the poison due to the assassin's characteristics.' Xiao Lang heaved a sigh and held her gaze for a long moment. 'I'm glad you stopped me from taking that first sip.'

She looked away, trying not to think of what could've happened had she not noticed the odd behaviour of the attendant. She tightened the grip on the poison flask and furrowed her brow. 'If you hadn't taken a mortal dosage, then you would have to spew out all the poison, and immediately swallow a concoction of charcoal macerated in alcohol, ginger and cinnamon to try to counter the toxin…'

Xiao Lang stared at her for a moment with a fixed gaze, his mouth wide open. Then he narrowed his eyes, looking at Kinomoto with suspicion. 'What the hell have you been studying in that Library?'

She shrugged, feeling somewhat satisfied with his reaction. 'A little of everything but what really matters is that, if there had been any chance of saving you, I would be able to do it,' she cleverly replied.

The General shook with laughter. 'You're right. So you've saved me twice,' he jested. 'I knew you could do it, Kinomoto. You wouldn't let your General die, would you?'

'Hmph.' Sakura fidgeted, clasping her wrist behind her back and jutting out her chin, avoiding to face him. 'Yes, I would,' she answered out of spite. 'If it was to save the Emperor…'

'Ah, yes! Once again an excellent answer,' Xiao Lang agreed, still laughing. 'The Emperor's life is much more important than ours.'

'What should we do with them?' She pointed to the two guards still tied on the floor to change the subject.

The General scowled at the two men. 'The only thing that can be done when we're dealing with traitors.'

She just nodded, knowing exactly what those words meant.

'By the way…' Xiao Lang began, making her turn to face him. 'Thank you, Touya,' he said with a grateful smile that made her heart skip a beat.

Sakura widened her eyes at hearing him call her by what he believed to be her first name. She slumped her shoulders and looked away. 'I just performed my duty, General,' she said quietly.

She wondered how could a name symbolise her freedom while reminding her that she was still caged. The more Touya achieved, the more certain she became that Kinomoto Sakura would never be free.

Sakura glanced sideways to the General beside her. They were on the outside of one of the few whorehouses still unaffected by the pestilence infecting the city. She was on edge and broke out in a cold sweat, in spite of the chilly night air. To add to her discomfort, they were wearing plain clothes instead of their uniforms. It left her feeling oddly vulnerable.

They could hear a man laughing as he pleasured himself with a rather noisy concubine. She groaned, holding tightly to the handle of her sword.

'We'll get the scoundrel,' the General whispered, attracting her attention. 'But we can't be unfair. We need to make sure that no innocent bystander will be caught by mistake.'

She knew that he had noticed her tension and tried to relax, but didn't answer.

As soon as they got to the camp after the attempted poisoning, the General had prepared an urgent missive to the Emperor, reporting what had occurred and his suspicions about General Mao being dead, as well as his plan of action.

Sakura considered childish of him to go over Prince Yue's authority like that. She knew they couldn't stand one another, but His Imperial Highness was still his superior and the Emperor's de facto representative in the area for being closest.

The General only jeopardised his own authority by not respecting the Prince's. And he didn't even try to hide his disdain. It was ironic that he was blatant about questioning the authority of others when he hated to have the same done to his.

The morning following the departure of the messenger, they headed to Shanghai with their soldiers to take control of the City Guard Office. They've faced some resistance, at first, but not as much as she had thought and, in less than a week, Shanghai's guardsmen had surrendered.

It seemed like Major Shirong was highly unpopular among his own men and nothing but the required loyalty demanded of a soldier to his superior officer had kept him in charge for so long. Notwithstanding, they wouldn't trust the remaining guardsmen of Shanghai as far as they could throw them, so Xiao Lang had appointed a man he trusted to command the City Guard.

Shirong had escaped the siege to the City Guard Office a few days ago. Well, not actually escaped. General Li let him go so that the idiotic coward would lead them to his accomplices. They were also hoping to find out what had actually happened to General Mao. His family was desperate after any news.

They thought the plan wouldn't bear fruit when Shirong had remained hidden in an abandoned warehouse for the first couple days. Then the man finally surfaced that evening.

Sakura put her hands in the pockets of her coat and sighed, tiredly. 'I hope he won't stay in there too long.'

'Don't worry. He'll come out soon enough,' Xiao Lang said, leaning against the wall.

'How can you be so sure of that?' She inquired watching him with suspicion.

'He went up alone,' the General mentioned, pointing toward one of the windows where they had seen Shirong pass a few minutes earlier.

'So? He could meet up with a concubine in one of the rooms,' she replied.

'That may be the case in classier houses at The Forbidden City, but in Shanghai, you chose the woman before heading to a room,' he explained, tapping his feet.

Sakura straightened up, shuffling involuntarily where she stood. She was again reminded of the day they first met, of the way he had bought her virtue, dragging her to a dirty room. She clenched her fists inside her pockets.

'You seem very knowledgeable on the matter, huh,' she couldn't help the remark.

'Well, I've certainly past the point of spending every night with the same concubine, attaching myself to her,' he answered, raising one eyebrow.

'Hmph…' Sakura shook her head, rolling her eyes. 'We're in this mess because you attached yourself to a concubine, aren't we?'

'I've already told you that she was not a concubine,' he heaved a sigh, looking down and away from the building they've been watching. 'But you're right! I'm obsessed with her. And you were also right to say that I'm trying to fix something that can't be fixed. So we'll solve this issue with the City Guard because it's a security matter, and go back to our duties.'

Sakura looked to her feet with a tight-lipped smile. 'If we can make this city a better place, even if just a little, for people like her, it's already worth it, isn't it?'

'I'm not doing all of this for her.' Xiao Lang frowned. 'I'm just making justice and dealing with traitors who tried to kill me and killed a fellow military.'

Sakura smirked knowingly. 'You didn't really need to take over the City Guard Office and re-establish the rounds for that.'

'I just hate slackers,' he said, avoiding to face his pupil. 'It's not because the victim of a murderer was a whore that she doesn't deserve justice. Plus, murderers are a danger to us all and can't be allowed to roam around freely. Only the Emperor and those empowered by him - his arms throughout his lands - have the right to take a life.'

Sakura was about to call him on his nonsensical sense of pride - as if she hadn't seen him sweep that rotten city up and down after the girl whom she had been - when Shirong left the building, followed by three other men.

The conversation was over. They crept through the dark streets and alleyways in pursuit of Shirong and his companions.

The four men scuttled their way across the city, jumping at their own shadows with fear of encountering the City Guard patrols.

Sakura and the General almost lost the thugs' track when a beggar intercepted them, asking for money, but luckily Shirong had stopped at the front door of a quarantined building and knocked.

Sakura felt her blood run cold in her veins at the recognition of the place. " You have got to be kidding me!"

'How ironical,' Xiao Lang muttered echoing her thoughts.

The four men entered Quang Dan's brothel.

'That damn place isn't really quarantined, is it?' she snarled, clenching her hands to stop them from shaking.

'It might be but they're too desperate to care,' he replied, going around the building toward a back alley. He stopped suddenly and took a moment to look up at the highest windows. 'It's really high,' he muttered, thoughtfully and huffed with laughter. 'Damn headstrong girl…'

Sakura looked up, finding without any difficulty the window from where she had escaped. If she closed her eyes, she could see the red bed-coverings hanging on the wall. The gods had got to be kidding with her to make her go back into that damned place. Or maybe they were punishing her.

She shook her head, looking to the General at hearing a muffled smashing sound. He had broken a window on the ground floor and got in. Taking a deep breath, she got in after her commanding officer, though what she really wanted was to turn around and get as far as possible from there.

Following the General's lead, she drew her sword as they sneaked around the penumbra of the empty house. There was no one inside the sealed building, not a single sick person who was supposed to be kept isolated from society to justify the quarantine.

Sakura heard altered voices in what seemed to be the middle of a heated argument.

She and Xiao Lang got to one of the doors of a large room where their foes kept yelling at each other, unbeknownst of their approaching mortality. They took a stealthy look at the interior of the room, seeing Shirong, his three companions and two other men. They didn't seem like soldiers. Not well-trained ones, at least; none of them seemed particularly skilled and their weapons were currently over a table, out of their reach. They were distracted and at least one of them seemed to have been drinking by the way he was swaying. It would be rather easy to end them.

She looked at the General, seeing a somewhat feverish look in his eyes. She noticed how he was worked up and could hardly contain his eagerness to get some action. When he looked in her direction, she nodded once ready to act on his signal.

The General narrowed his eyes and they were about to attack when their enemies dropped a familiar name on their discussion.

'General Mao must be seen publicly if we expect to continue with our dealings! We won't be able to keep him hidden for long. Not with that bastard Li turning the city upside down trying to find his body,' Shirong raved, desperately.

'Are you out of your mind? If we let Mao go, he would expose us all!' Replied one of his associates.

'Mao doesn't even know who he is anymore. His mind has been broken by the opium. We have him under our control for as long as we keep feeding his addiction,' Shirong argued. 'If Mao shows up, General Li will have no more reason to remain in the city and we'll be able to resume our operations.'

Xiao Lang gritted his teeth at the new information. That was why he considered opium to be an even worse enemy to China then the invaders ravaging the land. It was underhanded, shady and couldn't be defeated by his sword. It was infiltrating every tier of their society - from homeless, beggars and whores to soldiers and high-ranking officers to Nobles and dignitaries. No one was paying any attention to that poison that left the Empire in the hands of thugs, thieves and murderers because of the war against the Huns but he feared that, when it finally became an issue, it would be already too late.

'If Mao shows up addicted to opium, he'll be removed from his position, which will render him useless to us,' said another man. 'We've only kept him alive to maintain the correspondence with the Emperor. I say we dispose of him, then get rid of General Li.'

Shirong groaned, unhappy with the others' decision. Two of his associates headed upstairs, which probably meant General Mao was being held in that building.

Sakura and Xiao Lang exchanged a brief glance, nodding to one another before springing into action. Abandoning any attempt to remain out of sight, they barged into the room.

'What the–?' cried one of the men, caught by surprise.

'It's General Li!' Shirong warned, going for his weapon just like the other three thugs still with him.

Sakura followed Li straight toward the stairs.

The General blocked a sword that came swiping in his direction and expertly bashed against his attacker, knocking him down on his arse. Next, Xiao Lang upturned a table at the bottom of the stairway, creating a makeshift barricade and held position against the charging enemies.

Sakura went up without even looking back. She trusted Xiao Lang to cover her back and knew that he could handle the four men downstairs. Her job was to reach General Mao before it was too late.

As she reached the second floor, she came face to face with one of the men who had climbed the stairs moments before.

She frowned at recognising him from the City Guard Office. She was fed up with those traitors to the Imperial Army.

The man lunged at her like a stupid monkey with a sword.

She blocked the thrust, barely feeling the recoil from the hit, pushed him back and repeatedly pummeled his face with the hilt of her sword. She had a feel of the damage done by each blow: the cracking of his cheekbone as it fractured, the snapping of his jaw being dislocated and the flopping of his left eye as it practically jumped out of its eye socket. While he was stunned, she quickly impaled him on her blade, pulling the weapon free as he collapsed on the floor with a whimper.

She cleaned her bloodied hand on her clothes, purposefully striding through the hallway. Most doors were closed and she eyed the darkness inside the open rooms with suspicion as she passed. It wouldn't do to be caught by surprise.

She was on edge, beads of sweat broke out on her forehead at the familiarity of that hallway. That place, like the city of Shanghai, still haunted her in her nightmares.

Sakura swallowed the lump in her throat and tightened the grip on her sword. She was not helpless anymore. She was armed, she was strong, she was trained. She was a soldier, a Captain of the Empire. That innocent girl - who had been dragged to that filthy place thinking… believing that she was being taken to meet her fiance, no matter what an unfortunate match it might've been - was dead.

She stopped in front of a closed room, seeing light under the door. When she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, she felt the distinctly intense flowery smell of opium coming from the room. General Mao would most probably be in there.

Taking a step back, she kicked the door wide open with no prelude.

Then she froze in place with her eyes wide open. 'Shit…' she muttered at coming across with none other than Quang Dan at the other corner of the room with a damn pistol at the ready, aimed at her.

The shot cracked loudly. For a fleeting moment, she thought she was done for. As she waited for the pain of death to sink in, she loathed herself for dying by the hands of that bastard. She hated Li for taking her there and she was annoyed at whatever deity thought it fair to make her go through all of that just to end up dying there of all places.

It took her an extra second to realise that the shot had missed her completely, piercing the wooden sill of the door near her left shoulder.

Sakura looked up at Quang Dan and saw his ashen face contort in fright. He let the pistol - now useless - drop to the ground and drew a dagger.

Before he could act, she had hurtled toward him with her sword. She was seething at the thought that he could have actually killed her and that it had been sheer luck that he seemed to be a crap-shooter. She needed to be smarter than that, dammit! With a swift movement, she latched on to the hand holding the dagger, twisting it at an unnatural angle till he dropped the weapon. She jabbed his larynx with the handle of her sword.

Quang Dan dropped to his knees, holding his neck and unable to breathe.

'Hello again, you bastard,' she couldn't avoid the contempt from seeping into her voice as she held him at a sword's point, her blade scratching his neck. 'You don't recognise me, do you?' She sneered, looking him straight in his eyes.

She heard a heavy wheezing sound and looked up finally noticing General Mao's presence in the room. The man was in a deplorable state, shrank back at a corner with arms wrapped around himself as he shook from side to side. She thought back to when she saw the General the last time he'd been to The Forbidden City a few months ago: a strong, intelligent and, seemly, honourable man and then her thoughts went to his family, to his wife who had been grieving by his disappearance. Now, his eyes were bloodshot and glassy and he was babbling nonsenses and laughing like a crazed man until he suddenly broke into a coughing fit. His weakened body wouldn't resist much longer.

She clenched her jaw, facing Quang Dan with renewed hostility and clobbered him over the head with the butt of her sword, sending him sprawling across the floor.

'Tsk, tsk, tsk… You shouldn't have messed up with the army.' She approached him, like a predator after its prey, and pressed her knee over his thorax to immobilise him. 'Unlike the women you "acquired" before, we're not helpless. You can't just pay 250 coins to buy your way out of this. And there will be no auction to save your life, either.'

His panicked eyes went wide in shock when he finally realised her identity. 'You…' he wheezed, trying to move. As if discovering that she was a woman turned her incapable, somehow.

She just pressed her knee harder against his ribs, making them crack near the breaking point.

'You're a crazy whore,' he said through clenched teeth.

'I'm not a whore,' she hissed and brought her blade against his neck, just enough to pierce the skin and draw some blood. 'I'm an Imperial Captain, you dirtbag.'

Then she slit his throat. She stood up and took two steps back, her glazed eyes never leaving the thrashing body.

That's when she heard a clatter from the door behind her and turned around, tightening her grip on the handle of the sword, ready to defend herself. She felt her blood run cold in her veins at seeing Xiao Lang enter the room and wondered if he had heard anything she'd just said.

His eyes took a brief glance of Quang Dan's corpse, before focusing on General Mao, who was still laughing, out of his mind.

'I've heard a gunshot…' Xiao Lang mentioned, pointing to the dead man's body on the floor. 'Was that the brothel owner?'

'Yes, it was. He had a pistol, for whatever good that did him,' Sakura said, still in a daze. She gritted her teeth and spit over the corpse. 'Bloody idiot!'

Xiao Lang looked at Kinomoto, narrowing his eyes at his pupil's uncharacteristically cruel countenance. Touya was one of the most skilled soldiers he'd ever met, deadly, though inexperienced, but he was never disrespectful. 'How do you know he was the panderer?' he inquired. 'I thought you've never been to a whorehouse before I took you to see Daidouji.'

Sakura felt her body freeze momentarily and turned to face him with her big green eyes wide open due to her oversight. Swallowing hard, she tightened the grip on her sword and took a step back, straightening herself up. She pulled a piece of rag from her pocket and studiously wiped clean the blood from her blade thinking of an excuse, before calmly sheathing it.

'Only a pander would think of calling the Captain who has a sword against his throat "the General's bitch"...' she grumbled, scowling at Li when he snickered.

The General shook his head, trying hard not to smile. It was better not to provoke his young friend. At least while he had such a murderous look on his face.

To be continued.

p.s.1: Dialogues in italic in the first scene indicate that the characters were speaking in French.

p.s.2: Also, the way of dealing with blowfish poisoning was made up for the purposes of this story – don't try that at home!

Edited on November 29th, 2019.