Freedom Samurai
New and old characters, new cities, new sorrow, and a new Hukari. But all have one goal; to kill Rau. SEQUEL TO STRIKE SAMURAI you must read Strike Samurai before reading this story. KiraxLacus AthrunxCagalli ShinnxStellar MwuxMurrue DearkaxMiriallia YzakxRaine NicolxSparrowxMeyrin AndyxAisha
Sorry for the late update!
Disclaimer:
Me: He ho! Sorry for my late update, hehe…
Olivia: She's been staying up late and eating chocolate for the past three days,
Alex: (Yawn) and bouncing of the walls and being super hyper-
Chelsea: While we can't get any sleep at all…
Me: Hohohohahahahaha! (Giant crash)
Alex: (Turns head around lazily, then looks forward again) There goes the chandelier…
Olivia: That make five things she's broken in five hours,
Chelsea: First the fridge, second the kitchen table,
Alex: Third the large screen TV in Sam's room,
Olivia: Fourth the tree house out back,
Me: And now FIFTH THE CHANDELIER! HOHOHOHAHAHAHAHA! (Another Crash)
Alex: SAM! YOU NEARLY BROKE THE PS2!
Olivia: AND INUYASHA FEUDAL COMBAT! We just have to beat Sesshomaru's chapter without dying and we unlock Demon Inuyasha!
Chelsea: Then beat one mission mode to get Naraku's Castle!
Me: And this will stop me how?...
All Co-Hosts, and an angry mob: …Get her…
Chapter 5 Fierce Encounter
The crescent moon shone into the small clearing of the forest where three figures surrounded a fire. Two were men dressed in black and staring into the flames, while the third figure lay a little off to the side, their wrists bound behind her back.
Lacus's eyelids winced, and opened slowly, and widened when she saw different scenery. But events of the afternoon swam back to her, and she tensed alertly. Trying to remain silent, she slightly tried to move her hands, but found they were bound behind her back. She frowned angrily as memories from her previous capture came back to her. But she didn't struggle much with the ropes, nor did she have time before a shadow appeared before her. She froze, and turned her eyes behind her to see the violet eyed man standing over her.
His eyes were cold, but she could also sense some sort of sadness behind them, but she didn't know why. "Glad to see you're awake," he said blandly as he crouched down and grabbing her shoulders, pulled her up into a sitting position. He sat back down in his previous position with his companion sitting across from him. Lacus looked at the blonde in confusion. "Who are you?" she asked.
He looked over to her, "Dearka Elthman." he answered nonchalantly. The silver haired man glared at the man and sighed heavily. Dearka pointed over to him, "And that's the high and mighty Yzak Joule." Yzak sent a fiery leer towards the other man. "Dearka! We kidnapped her to get that cure! Not to socialize! And now you're going and telling her our names? How stupid can you get?" he shouted. Dearka sighed lazily and lay down with his arms behind his head like a pillow. "Yzak, you really know how to bore a person," the man's words seemed to make Yzak angrier, so he crossed his arms and mumbled colorful curses under his breath.
Lacus was completely confused with her captor's behavior; she was expecting rude comments, gruff exteriors, and unsocial idiots. She did get idiots though…She turned to Dearka. Yzak had said something about needing her for a cure, what did he mean? Would it be anything like Rau's, 'Experiment'? Deciding to just act polite with them, she cocked her head towards the tan skinned boy. "Uh, Dearka?" she asked uncertainly. His violet orbs looked over to her, "Yeah, what is it?" he asked blankly. Lacus looked into the fire, "Why exactly do you need me? What was the point in kidnapping me?" she asked. The blonde looked back up at the stars. "I-We, need your help," he began. Yzak mumbled something, and Lacus looked back over in interest. "With what?" Dearka lost the bored look in his eyes as they reflected the bright lights of the stars.
"The Princess of the Martius Region has fallen ill with a strange disease. No one has ever heard of it before, and it is proving fatal." Lacus had her full attention directed towards him. "And me and Yzak are assassins, we were sent to kill her," "But you couldn't?" Lacus interjected. Dearka nodded, "Yeah, instead I want to find a cure, but the cure alone won't be enough." Lacus began placing the pieces together. "But we needed the healing powers of the Hukari of the Orchid." The pink haired girl looked up into the sky, her blue eyes reflecting the majesty of the stars. "You needed my help, but how did you know where to find me? Why didn't you grab Stellar? Cagalli? Or Kitsu even? It could have been an easy mistake," Yzak interrupted, "Actually we heard in a Tavern about some group of people with a pink haired girl who healed a man's bear wound." Lacus looked over to the blue eyed man. Lacus pondered a bit, was her pink hair really that distinguishable?
Dearka sat back up. "We have you, now all we need is the cure. It's a flower called the thistle root," Lacus recognized the name of the plant immediately. "Thistle root? That plant was very common in my old village; it grew everywhere so we thought of it as a weed, until we found it was poisonous." Yzak's and Dearka's eyes widened, "It's poisonous?" they both asked. Lacus looked at them both, but then continued, "Yes, but the toxins that flow through the plant's xylem can be reversed, but it is a very difficult process, and one wrong turn could cause the drinker of the potion to die nearly instantly. The poison causes vital organs to slow down into painful dysfunction, and then it starts blood clots throughout the veins in the chest and legs." Dearka and Yzak were surprised, and party disgusted by how this girl knew about the flower. Lacus seemed to be in a daze as she remembered her village; she hadn't thought about it till Jean came back to her and told her to wake up, along with that woman with black hair. "Yes, but then it works its way to the heart and basically turns it inside out, ultimately causing terrible pain and killing you." she finished.
Yzak thought about it, and realized something, "And this all happens nearly as soon as you drink it?" the blue eyed girl nodded. Dearka had a frozen expression on his face. That could happen to the Princess, and it must be ten times worse than what she's going through now. Lacus noticed his worried expression, and reassured him with a smile, "I've practiced brewing the potion plenty of times, there's no need to worry," Though he thought it didn't show, Lacus saw the relived expression on his face. "The only problem is finding the flower," she added sadly. Yzak and Dearka looked towards her. Yzak's eyes were suspicious looking, "What do you mean? I thought you said they grew like a weed in your village," Lacus shook her head.
"Some months ago, the Red Samurai came on the night of the Moon Festival, and destroyed the village. I was the only survivor," she lied. Yzak had a surprised expression on his face; Red Samurai had attacked her village? The last of the Red Samurai had joined their organization, the Black Dragons, a little while ago. Lacus looked back to Dearka. "But I do know that there is a plateau in a valley by the River of Scor where they also grow. But the trek up the mountain side is dangerous, and would require top notch climbers to scale it." Dearka smirked. "Well, we got you, a big mouth jackass, and an over cocky idiot. I think we're more than qualified." he stated proudly. Lacus smiled a bit embarrassedly, while Yzak fumed. "That no good son of a Shepard," (Do you know where that line is from? A piece of chocolate ice-cream cake if you guess right!) Dearka laughed at his friend's antics. Lacus smiled as well, but a frown crawled onto her face as she remembered the others. They had to be worried about her, especially Kira.
Another tree received unjust and cruel punishment as the brunette Hukari swung the Freedom blade at it. Kira looked around wildly as he tried to find another suitable tree. He leapt at one and sunk the steel into the trunk deeply, and then brought up his foot and kicked the side of the tree while pulling his blade out. It cracked through the center and tipped over. Shinn was watching under orders from Cagalli incase he did something irrational. His red eyes were wide as he watched the twenty year old run around and abuse trees. Kira was panting heavily and his eyes were wide in frustration and anger, the red outline burning like lava.
Shinn felt someone approach behind him and turned to see the Tiger Lily Hukari. "How is he?" she asked sadly, staring at her younger brother. Shinn pointed to a few trees, "He'll be arrested by the Tree Hugger's society, which is if he doesn't crack them in half…" he added. Cagalli sighed, and began walking towards him, "Kira…?" she asked as she got closer.
He turned towards his sister with an angry frown on his face. "Cagalli, I don't understand! How could I let her slip through my fingers? She wasn't even five feet away from me!" his eyes returned to their normal state and he sat on his knees, clutching at the lavender orb around his neck. It worked as a great stress ball. "It's okay Kira; we'll find her, just like last time. But sooner," she added, though it wasn't a very helpful sentence. He sighed defeated and stood up, sheathing the Freedom, and followed Cagalli and Shinn back to their meager campsite.
Athrun was in a foul disposition and had Kitsu on his back messing with his hair, and some sort of goo,… uh-oh. Cagalli held back a laugh as Shinn went over to Stellar who was sitting with Mizu. Kira just stood against a tree, looking up at the stars. Mizu had his eyes closed and seemed to be searching for something, he was deep in thought, and Stellar was a bit weirded-out.
"If I can focus on my spiritual powers, maybe I can find people's dreams without touching them," he told himself as his mind searched, throwing out vines of thought to catch the dreams of others and weave into his web of thoughts. When it worked, he was quite surprised.
"Wow, I can see dreams that people at least twenty miles away are dreaming!" He told himself excitedly. "This must be one of Mizutri's spirit powers," he concluded, and searched the thoughts and dreams, looking for something familiar.
He came across many different varieties of dreams, and some not too pleasant and much too mature to admit on the 'T' rated context. He quickly ran from those, and noticed something, and urge, growing stronger and closer.
"What is this, feeling, it's a sense of familiarity, it must Miss Lacus!" he shouted to himself happily. He focused harder and found a surprising image. It was the image of a blue orchid, drifting in a pool of clear, almost silver, water. But the water was changing from the silvery mass to a dark purple flame, and back to the silvery mass with each ripple caused by the flower. "I wonder what this is, but it must be Miss Lacus, it has to!" he urged himself. "But just to be sure," he added, he searched into the conscious minds of his fellow Hukari, and found that they all shared a similar scene, and he couldn't read their thoughts. "I must have only been able to read Miss Lacus's thoughts when her Hukari powers hadn't awoken yet," he reasoned. In Cagalli's mind, he had found a tiger lily swaying in a breeze, bit the tall grass around it turned from a reddish golden glade, to bright flames, yet they never harmed the flower. With Athrun, there was an Emerald Lily growing close to the ground, but it was also raining hard. But there rain seemed to shower peacefully over the soft petals, for a larger plant with wide spread leaves was blocking away the rain. With his own sister, he found a sakura tree in full bloom, and four figures sat underneath it, all happily in each other's arms. He recognized them to be their deceased parents, and the beautiful scene changed to a charred village surrounding the cherry blossom tree; which was still prospering with many smaller chrysanthemums flowing around the base of the trunk. "Mother, and Father, this must be mine and Kitsu's split mind," the boy figured sadly, the longing for arms to hold him and Kitsu and tell them they loved them. The two shouldn't be growing up without their parents, it was all unfair…
"But I will get my revenge on the Red Samurai, for me and my sister," he pledged silently.
Finally in Kira's mind, the boy found a lavender lotus, and like the orchid, it was floating in water, but the water was blood red, and seemed to stain the lower areas on the petals of the bloom. The blood changed to a light blue, and washed the blood away continuously, just like Lacus would heal his heart when he felt the burdens return to him.
Opening his eyes, Mizu looked towards Kira. "Kira, I know where she is," he said urgently. The brunette's lavender eye widened and he turned to look at Mizu wide eyed, the red outline beginning to form. In his mind, he saw his purple lotus grow into a larger flower with red and black vines. "Where is she Mizu?" he asked with the slightest hint of desperation in his voice. Mizu pointed towards the east. "Twenty miles east, we'll get there by day break if we hurry," he said. Kira nodded and turned to the others, his eyes though in bloom mode, still begging. They all nodded, except Athrun. "Mizu is going to carry this, this, 'thing', or I'm not coming." Mizu walked over to him and pried his younger sister off of Athrun as he reached up to touch his hair, it was sticky and as he lifted his hand, amazingly all the goo came off at once, but was now jiggling in his hand. "This looked, and feels, very wrong." he commented as they took off.
The sun had just barely sent any rays out over the tree tops before Lacus opened her eyes slowly. She was lying on her side and sat up quietly and rubbed her eyes, when she noticed her wrists were no longer tied behind her back. She glanced over to the forms of the sleeping men, and saw the thin cords that had held her prisoner lay on the ground near Dearka. She cocked her head inquiringly, and watched as he slowly rose from his sleep as well. He looked over to her lazily, and his eyes widened, slightly though, very slightly. "You're still here?" he asked as he sat up in a cross legged position. Lacus raised an eyebrow and asked, "Yes, why wouldn't I be?" the tan skinned man smirked. "Well, I untied those ropes since you obviously wanted to go back to your companions," Lacus shook her head with a smile. "I said I'd help you get the thistle root, and that's what I plan to do. Your Princess needs it more than I need to escape from you and your friend. I'd just get lost in the forest anyway," she added under her breath.
Dearka turned a shade of red at, 'Your Princess,'. Lacus had pieced that part of the puzzle in last night. Yzak began to awaken and the first thing he noticed was that Lacus was no longer restrained. "Dearka you jackass! She can escape any minute! What the heck do you think you're doing letting her sit there?" the assassin shouted fuming. Dearka looked over, and waved. "Good morning to you too Yzak, bestest buddy in the whole wide world…" "Aw shut your trap Dearka." he mumbled as he stood. Lacus and Dearka followed suit. "Well, the River of Scor lies east of this area, so let's get this over with," Dearka ordered, and was about to walk off in the right direction when a figure rushed through the trees and nearly cut off the tan man's head with their sword. Dearka had taken his sword out as soon as he turned, and was able to deflect the attack. The antagonist had short brown hair and enraged lavender eyes that Lacus knew all too well. "Kira!"
Okay, I am really sorry for the super late update…What? You should all know I couldn't do Pre Algebra for broccoli! And I hate broccoli…Well anyway, I plan to make the next update soon, I hope, let's hope I can pass my test on Monday if I take that long to update, hehe. Bit also, if you watch Inuyasha, I wrote a little fic with a lot of humor, and please read it! It's called the Kohsanmir Chronicles, and please leave a review telling me just how demented it is!
And in other news, part of my little break included drawing some Fanart for my own story! I've got all the Hukari, (Cough, except Rau, cough) and as soon as I get my mom's darn scanner working, I'll be in business! Oh yeah! If you want em, just leave your e-mail address in your review and I'll send them to you via e-mail ASAP!
POMH! Sam