"Deep down, I think I always knew something like that was going to happen. Me and relationships, we don't get along too fondly."
- Seno Nakakami; 'Dragon of Hinata'

Chapter IV:
Premonition!

First Blood is Drawn!

July 26, 2006
Apartment Complex, Hinata, Japan
1756 hours, local time

A young woman knelt in a darkened room, her eyes shut and concentration creasing her expression. The faint scent of incense filled the air, accompanied by the light haze of smoke drifting near the ceiling. She winced suddenly, as if she had been stabbed.

Darkness, hatred, despair, anger, loathing, jealousy, betrayal, shame. Her mind's eye was a study in every negative emotion a human being could experience. She saw blood, heard the cries of pain and fear, and felt the cold bite of a sword's blade cutting into her. So much pain, both physical and of the heart. And beneath it all, a cold black pit of malice. Calculated vengeance.

Slowly, she lifted her left hand and placed it over her heart, pressing down in an attempt to ease the twisting pain that had gripped her. She had always been extremely empathic, to the point where she could often pick up on strong emotions from those around her. But whenever she saw someone in her meditations, she could always feel exactly what they were feeling.

Her eyes opened, the chocolate-colored orbs vibrating in both pain and panic as she struggled to regulate her breathing. She could not afford another of her infamous fainting spells, not now. Every time she passed out, she always lost her train of thought. And even though she strongly doubted she would ever be able to forget the images she had seen, and the emotions she had felt, the time lost in between would be too much.

"Why now, of all times?" she asked no one. "For all these years, it has remained dormant, and there have been no overt signs of its presence. Why is it now beginning to stir?"

She stood up swiftly, with an agility and grace that would surprise anyone who knew her, and crossed to the far end of the room. Throwing open the curtains that she had drawn shut over her windows, she stared out into the city, her eyes fixating on the not-so-distant Hinata apartments. The sun was already low on the horizon on the other side of her apartment, casting a bloody red glow across the Hinata. An omen.

"More importantly, what can I do to stop it?"

Hinata Apartments
2006 hours, lotal time

"We're back!"

Kitsune lifted her head from where she was laying on the couch. "Welcome back," she said. "How was your date?"

Seno grinned. "Are you kidding? Keitaro and Naru in a darkened theater for two and a half hours? I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't watch ten seconds of the movie."

Both Tokyo University hopefuls flushed crimson. Naru, though, was quick on the uptake. "Oh yeah? What about you and Motoko?" She leered at the other couple. "Do we need to go buy childproofing kits for the house?"

The swordsman felt Motoko stiffen under his arm. He gave her a reassuring squeeze, then waved off Naru's comment with his free hand. "Really, Naru. Stop projecting your own fantasies onto us. We all know it's only a matter of time until we've got little bookworms running around here."

By then, Kitsune had levered herself up to lean against the back of the couch, watching the conversation with strong interest as she cupped her chin in both hands. It's times like these when I really love my ability to spark these little spats.

Before the conversation could degenerate any further, Shinobu came down from upstairs and spotted the two couples. "Oh, welcome back," she said. "How was the movie?"

"It was a very good movie," Keitaro quickly spoke up, thankful for the opportunity to change subjects.

"Yeah," Seno agreed. "Completely blew away the first one." He tossed a grin over at Motoko. "And somebody developed an instant fangirl crush on a certain savvy pirate."

The swordswoman blushed and elbowed him in the side. "His sword skills were admirable," she muttered, attempting to talk her way out of it.

"His sword skills consisted of letting Will and Norrington fight each other, and trying to steal the key while they weren't paying attention."

"Wait, wait," Kitsune interrupted. "Norrington as in Commodore Norrington? From the first movie? He came back?"

"Yeah," Naru replied. "And get this? He's a pirate now! Or at least, he was. Until he sold out Jack and the others."

"Okay really," Seno said, "who didn't see that coming?" He paused, then nodded to himself. "Other than Keitaro, who didn't see that coming?"

"Hey!"

"I didn't," Naru replied with a scowl.

"I had an inkling," Motoko said. "It made sense. You know that your pirate captain has a chance to receive a letter of marquee from the owner of the East India Trading Company. You discover that your captain is searching for the heart of Davey Jones–"

"Though in all honesty, I have no idea what Jack was thinking in that he'd be able to barter his survival from Davey just because he had the squid-man's heart," Seno interrupted. "The ending clearly showed that Davey had very little in the way of remorse over feeding his own heart to the kraken in order to get rid of Jack as well."

"Then what was with that outburst when he saw that his heart wasn't in the chest?" Motoko asked, abandoning her earlier train of thought.

"He was only so pissed off because he didn't have it on hand to hide again," Seno replied. "There was also the consideration that there's an off-chance that the kraken would digest the heart, thus killing Davey. But of course, in that regard, it was neither proven nor disproven that destroying Davey's heart would kill him. It's a safe assumption, true, but recall that we're dealing with the supernatural. Nothing is as simple as it seems."

The other three moviegoers nodded agreeably.

And as the quartet continued to discuss the plotline and characters of the movie, Kitsune and Shinobu exchanged dumbfounded glances and shrugs of confused acceptance. They had no idea what any of them were talking about, since they were discussing it in a fairly roundabout manner without much in the way of direct explanations of the scenes.

Kitsune turned back to try to lead them back to the earlier, more amusing, topic, when something hanging around Motoko's neck glinted golden at her as the swordswoman shifted her position, causing the object to reflect the light of the setting sun. "Ack! What's that you're wearing, Motoko? I thought you didn't like jewelry?"

"Oh, this?" the swordswoman asked, reaching up to wrap her hand around the object. Her cheeks flushed just slightly.

"It's Aztec gold," Seno explained, matter-of-factly.

"Oh," Kitsune said. A full second ticked by. "WHAT? Aztec gold as in, the Aztec gold?"

The swordsman's grin widened. "Yes, indeed it is," he said. "But since it was I that picked it up and gave it to her, I'm the one with the curse, not her."

"C-c-curse?" Shinobu stammered, fear written all over her features.

For Seno, the opportunity for a practical joke was like blood in the water. "Ah, then you've never heard of the cursed treasure of Cortez?" he asked slyly, grinning.

"No…" the young girl replied, holding tightly to the banister.

"Well, back in the early days of Spanish exploration of the Americas, there was a conquistador named Cortez who ran into the native tribes of the Aztec Indians," Seno explained. "Now Cortez, he wasn't a nice guy. Instead of trying to broker a deal or something like that with the Aztecs, he decided it'd be easier to kill them all and claim the land for Spain."

To the surprise of both himself and Kitsune, none of the others had spoken up to stop him yet. He was clearly out to scare Shinobu, judging by the predatory look on his face and the venomous tone in his voice. Perhaps they wanted to see how far he'd take it.

"The exact amount of time he spent killing them has been lost to history, but there's one thing we do know for certain. At some point, the Aztecs decided upon trying to buy off Cortez. So they gave him a stone chest filled with eight hundred and eighty-two pieces of their gold. Blood money to stem the slaughter he reaped on them with his armies."

Naru raised her hand to her forehead and Motoko shook her head slowly as Seno, predictably, began slipping into quotes from the movie.

"But the greed of Cortez was insatiable," Seno said, slowly stalking up the stairs toward Shinobu, who was frozen to the spot, riveted by the tale. "So the heathen gods placed upon the chest, a terrible curse. Any mortal who dares take but a single piece of gold from the chest, would be cursed for all eternity."

Unnoticed by Shinobu, Su had snuck into the area and had slipped the swordsman a skull mask while he'd been telling the story. With a grin and a thumbs-up to the hyperactive girl, he slipped the mask on, keeping his back to Shinobu.

"But…but that's just a story, right?" Shinobu asked, her voice shaking with fear. "There's no curse to be afraid of is there?"

Seno chuckled and turned toward Shinobu, whose back was still toward him, and knelt down until he was at eye level with her. "Aye, of course you'd think there's nothing to be afraid of," he said. "But I've got just one thing to say to you."

"W-w-what?"

"Have no fear of cursed treasure, says ye?" Suddenly, he grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her to face him, forcing her to stare directly at his skull mask. "Properly warned ye be, says I!"

Seno's words and the skull mask he was wearing on his head registered at the exact same time in Shinobu's mind. The poor girl let out a terrified scream and began to backpedal rapidly away from what she saw as the vision of horror. Unfortunately, she soon ran out of room to run as the landing gave way to the stairs leading down to the bottom floor. Her retreating foot suddenly hit air, and then she was sailing down, toward a hard impact with the ground.

Motoko was instantly in motion, reaching out and catching Shinobu before she could hit the ground and hurt herself. After ensuring Shinobu's safety, she glared up at Seno. It was a glare familiar to all the Hinata residents, one that was usually followed by a shout of one of her blade skills, and then by Keitaro making a human-shaped hole somewhere in the building.

"That was unnecessary and cruel," she hissed. "Take that mask off."

The swordsman was already in the process of reaching up and pulling the mask off his head, which he then tossed down into the commons area. "Yeah, I really overdid that," he said, then leaned forward and planted both hands on his knees. "Hey Shinobu? I'm sorry that I scared you like that. There's not really a curse. Hell, there's not even really any treasure. They made it all up for the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie."

Shinobu blinked at the pair, trying to fight back the tears. She caught sight of the gold medallion hanging around Motoko's neck. "If none of it is real, then what's that?" she asked, pointing to it.

Smiling, Motoko reached up and squeezed the medallion between both hands, then pulled her hands apart. She lowered her right hand, revealing that the medallion had split open along a very well-hidden seam. "It's a locket," she said. "It's patterned after the gold coins from the movie, which were much larger than this."

Sitting up, Shinobu reached up and gently held the medallion in both hands as she closed it and inspected it. "It's pretty," she said. "Well, except for the skull." She looked up at Seno. "Where did you get this for Motoko?"

"There were some guys at the theater dressed up in costumes," he replied, "giving those out. I was lucky enough to get their last one, and gave it to Motoko."

"That's so sweet!" Shinobu said, smiling widely. "Are you going to put a picture of Seno and yourself in it?"

Motoko smiled in return and patted the younger girl on the head. "As soon as we get one, yes," she answered. Her smile vanished as she turned a glare on her boyfriend. "If I forgive him, of course."

"Don't stay mad at him, Motoko," Shinobu pouted. "It's my fault for not seeing the movie in the first place." She turned to Seno. "You've got it on DVD, don't you?"

He nodded.

"Then I'll forgive you for scaring me if you let me watch it!" she said with a smile.

Seno smirked and gave her a thumbs-up. "Deal."

July 27, 2006
Hinata Apartments, Hinata, Japan
0004 hours, local time

The night that fell upon the Hinata apartments was a dark, moonless night. A heavy fog set in over the hot springs town, obscuring the stars from view as well, and reducing one's ability to see to a handful of feet ahead of them. All in all, it was a perfect night for ghost stories and all manner of things usually reserved for horror movies.

In the Hinata apartments, the tenants all slept as soundly as if they had been afflicted with a sleeping spell. It was silent as the grave within the building, with not one living being active within the apartments.

An atmosphere of ill will and hatred clouded the third floor, stemming from the room nearest the stairwell, occupied by the resident swordsman and gamer. The swordsman himself was completely oblivious to it; his state of unconsciousness was just a step above clinically dead.

There was a flash, and then a black mist began to emanate from the sleeping swordsman's body. Anyone with the slightest sensing ability would know immediately that the mist was a spirit, and anyone who knew Seno would likewise know that the hatred and hostility emanating from the spirit was not that of the good-natured swordsman.

After a few moments, the mist cleared his body entirely, and then began to coalesce. It almost immediately took on the shape of a man with young, boyish features, nearly a head shorter than Seno himself, clad in clothing typical of the Meiji revolution era.

Then a sinister smile carved across the man's face as his form blurred and darkened. The mist-shrouded body grew no taller, but when visible features once more solidified from the maelstrom of dark gasses, the spirit looked identical to the sleeping swordsman, down to the dark blue military-style physical fitness shorts and white muscle shirt he wore.

A sinister, disembodied chuckle echoed throughout the room as the doppelganger knelt down beside the sleeping swordsman and brushed his hand over his face. Or more accurately, brushed his semi-corporeal hand through Seno's face. The swordsman's reaction was immediate; he flinched violently at the contact, his face contorting almost into a painful scowl. But he did not awaken.

"You got careless, Nakakami," the spirit's voice intoned, though its mouth didn't move. "You were never consciously aware of it, but deep down, you've always managed to avoid attaching yourself to the things I could use to destroy you. But you've made a serious mistake, getting involved with that girl now, especially since it's time for me to awaken. Now, you'll pay for your mistake. Pay with your life, and I shall be released from this prison."

With another evil laugh, the spirit doppelganger rose and turned away from Seno. The door out to the hallway was left open; for reasons that apparently Seno himself didn't know, he never closed his door at night. This often proved to be somewhat hazardous to his health during the winter time, considering his permanent choice of sleeping attire was decidedly not made for containing body heat; though, to make up for that deficiency, he usually slept beside a portable heater during the winter.

Its feet never actually coming in contact with the wooden floor, the spirit exited Seno's room onto the hallway curving along the outside of the Hinata. It turned to the right, toward Motoko's room.

In the room it had departed, Seno groaned and shifted restlessly in his compelled slumber. "No… bastard… leave her out of it…"

Three rooms down from Seno, Motoko slept soundly in her futon, one arm tucked beneath her pillow, the other securely holding the medallion that he had given her. The incense candles she'd lit on her dresser before going to bed had long since gone out, casting her room into pitch blackness.

Her left eye slipped open slightly, her mind caught in that transient state between sleep and full wakefulness. She could sense that she was not alone in her room, but she could neither move nor determine who was in her room. Part of her mind told her that it was just another nightmare, but another part told her that she should be trying much harder to awaken.

The unexpected visitor walked to the side of her futon and knelt down beside her. She recognized the sleepwear of Seno, and then his face lowered into her vision. He reached out a hand and brushed it against her cheek. If she had been capable, she would have shivered violently. His hand was as cold as a block of ice.

"…Se…Seno?" she uttered, finding her voice, though it was meek and quiet.

"Shh," his voice answered. "This won't hurt for long."

Her intent had been to ask him what he had meant, but as she felt the covers being dragged off of her, the words died in her throat. No, she thought. This has to be a nightmare. This can't be happening. Wake up, wake up, wake up!

Despite her best efforts, she remained trapped in the horror of what she feared was about to happen to her. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and then forced them open. Under normal circumstances, she was always able to awaken herself from any point in any dream or nightmare by doing that.

But the absolute darkness of her room didn't go away. She both heard and felt shifting fabric, followed by the demoralizing feeling of one's limbs being moved and positioned with the owner being physically unable to do anything about it. The cold, spiky rush of panic and adrenaline surged through her, but her body still refused to obey the commands of her mind.

She felt another sense of cold then, the feeling of her attacker's cold hands grasping her bare legs and repositioning them. Gasping at the contact, she once again commanded her hands to push him away, but her fingers didn't even twitch.

I… I can't believe this is about to happen… Her vision swam out of focus as her eyes filled with tears, soon overflowing and streaking down the side of her face. Why? Why is he doing this to me? I thought he loved me…

Pain suddenly coursed through her body without warning, like that of a blade piercing her flesh magnified a thousandfold. She managed to choke out a short scream of pain before tightly squeezing her eyes shut and biting her lip to draw her focus away from the pain in the lower regions of her body.

Though the initial pain, akin to a gunshot wound, had begun to dull, the pain of forced entry and a harsh rhythm was just beginning. Her hands knotted in the sheets of her futon, tightening until her knuckles had blanched white from the exertion. More tears, caused by physical as well as emotional pain, streamed down her face, staining the pillow and mattress below her.

"Relax," his voice whispered into her ear, causing a shiver to run up her spine despite the pain. She easily caught the malevolent note in his voice.

This can't be my Seno… He wouldn't do this to me…

"Don't worry, you'll be enjoying this before I'm done."

He could not have been any more wrong if he had tried to be.

0615 hours, local time

Morning came silently and, some could have argued, reluctantly to the Hinata apartments. The morning birds that usually greeted the day with their sweet songs were apparently taking the day off, and the sun itself seemed to be subdued as it poured its light onto the building.

This happening was not lost on the tenants of the building. The breakfast table was equally silent that morning, and missing one of the resident swordmasters. There was no banter or idle chatter that morning around the table, the only sounds being utensils coming into contact with food bowls. Even the normally-hyperactive Su was restrained, daresay even drained, as she slowly picked at her food.

With his chopsticks halfway to his mouth, Seno once again cast a depressingly-bleak look toward the main stairway. But there was still no sign of Motoko. He sighed again, and turned his attention back to his meal.

Across the table, Naru discreetly watched her friend, her own mood bordering on depression. Where could Motoko be? she wondered to herself. She's never missed breakfast before. And Seno looks so sad…

Upstairs, Motoko winced as the bright morning sun rose from behind a tree, hitting her in the face. She opened her eyes slowly, groaning, and rolled onto her right side. Every part of her hurt, from her head to her feet. Deciding that a good soak in the hot springs would help soothe away the pain, she threw the covers of her futon aside. When her eyes registered what they saw, she gasped aloud.

Her pajama pants were missing entirely, and blood was splattered on her futon, her legs, and the lower part of her upper body. Blood wasn't the only thing her lower half was covered in, however. She leaned forward, staring at the mixing red-and-white fluid, and suddenly it snapped together in her mind.

"No…" she whispered. "It…it really happened… Seno, he…"

Just as it had the previous night, her vision washed out of focus as she began to cry where she sat, burying her face in the palms of her hands. A million thoughts ran through her mind, most of them involving key words such as "betrayal" and "heartbreak."

Lifting her head toward the ceiling, she let out a wail that could be heard halfway across the city.

In the dining area, the other tenants of the Hinata looked in confusion toward the source of the cry, but Seno was the first to react. Jumping up from his seat, he grabbed his sword from where it leaned against the nearby wall and leapt over the table in a single bound, racing up the stairs toward Motoko's room as fast as his legs would carry him.

Barely a moment later, Kitsune was the second away from the table, and thus started the exodus of the entire group upstairs. As they rushed up the stairs, Seno's footsteps could be heard pounding up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

In less than a quarter of the time it normally took him to get from the dining room to the third floor, Seno was throwing open the door to Motoko's room, barely winded from having run the entire distance. "Motoko! What's the…"

He trailed off as he saw her sitting on her futon, partially covered in blood and an unidentifiable substance, missing her pants. "What the hell happened here? Are you okay?"

Motoko lifted her face to meet his eyes, her own shimmering with tears. Then, as fast as one changed channels on a television, her expression changed to pure rage. "YOU!" she screamed, her right hand shooting to the side and grasping the Hina blade. In a single smooth motion, she drew the blade from its sheath and shot to her feet, racing across her room at the swordsman.

Seno instinctively raised the Shinaijou, still held in its sheath, and blocked the blow. The residual strength he felt coursing through his arms told him that she had been fully intent on splitting his skull open with that strike. "Motoko!" he shouted. "It's me! What are you doing?"

She snarled as she lashed out with a vicious left uppercut, catching him in the jaw and sending him sliding back along the floor several feet away from her. "How dare you?" she hissed. "I trusted you, loved you, and this is how you repay me?"

Shaking off the dizziness caused by the strike, Seno held his sword loosely in his right hand, the sheath still covering it. "What are you talking about, Motoko?" he asked slowly. "Please, calm down and let's talk about this."

"There's nothing to discuss!" she snapped back, drawing her sword across her body in a stance he recognized well. "Zanganken!"

She struck out with her sword as she shouted, sending a wave of ki rising off the blade and hurtling toward the other swordsman. He quickly rolled to the side, smacking into the railing of the stairwell and going down to a knee.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others making the final turn on the landing up to the third floor. Taking his attention away from his enraged girlfriend, he held out his left hand toward them. "Stop!" he ordered. "Stay down there, something's wrong with–"

He found his words cut off as Motoko's outstretched left hand seized his face, slamming him down and backwards into the floor. As the other Hinata residents watched in horror, Motoko raised her blade high above her head, clasping it with both hands as she swung it down with all her strength to deal a deathblow to the stunned Seno.

The clash of metal against hard wood and leather indicated the failure of that strike, as the residents saw he had raised his sheathed sword to block her strike. With his left hand on the hilt of the sword, he pushed the sheath up toward Motoko as he drew the sword, then swung it laterally to force her to retreat.

She quickly leapt away from him so as not to be gutted by the singing steel blade of the Shinaijou. Taking advantage of her distance, Seno rolled backwards and up to his feet, switching his sword to his right hand and holding it behind him, staring across the intervening distance at Motoko.

Naru was the first to notice the state that his sword was in. There was no glow of love coming from the weapon, and a series of minute cracks were scattered across the blade. As the swordsman stood with the blade held out of his sight, Naru watched a steady flow of moisture drip from the point of the blade nearest the ground.

She pointed this out to Keitaro, who then looked from the sword, to Motoko, to Seno. "It's crying," he whispered. "Shinaijou is crying. Motoko must be heartbroken. But why?"

Cringing past the migraine growing in the back of his head, Seno looked into Motoko's eyes and nowhere else. "Motoko, please tell me what's wrong. I can't help you if you don't tell me what happened."

An angry scowl marred her face, but Kitsune, Naru, and Keitaro all noticed immediately that she appeared to be on the verge of tears. "As if you didn't know," she whispered menacingly, then raised her blade above her head. "Raimeiken!"

The residents all instinctively ducked; they remembered her Raimeiken attack from the battle against Tsuruko in Kyoto. It was a bright, flashy, distracting attack, but not exceptionally powerful. It was usually followed by a more powerful attack.

Seno, however, had not previously witnessed this technique, and thus had no knowledge of what it entailed, or how to defend against it. In the blink of an eye, Motoko was sailing through the air toward him, her sword held behind her, energy coursing over the blade.

He swung Shinaijou to intercept the blow, and was unpleasantly surprised when the two blades connected. The charge of lightning energy contained within her blade instantaneously traveled to his, ran down the length of the sword, and coursed through his body. An explosive heat shockwave from the transference of energy blasted him backwards through the air. He hit the railing at the far end of the open corridor, flipped over it, and crashed onto the laundry deck.

Motoko was in hot pursuit, leaping up onto the railing and balancing with the grace that a professional acrobat would envy, and then propelling herself up to the deck with a strong push from her legs.

As the others rushed to following the fighting couple, they heard Motoko cry "Hyakkaryouran!" accompanied by a strong gust of wind. Almost immediately afterwards, Seno's voice called out "Tatsumaki!" and an even stronger burst of wind was the response.

When they finally reached the laundry deck, a vortex of swirling wind surrounded it, a dirt-colored wall of spiraling air interspersed with hundreds of red sakura petals. Most of the tenants recognized that the flower petals were a result of Motoko's Hyakkaryouran technique, but only Keitaro realized that Seno's answering Tatsumaki had caused the tornado to form in a defense against Motoko's attack.

The two swordfighters stood on opposite ends of the deck, their hair and clothing whipping wildly around them. It was obvious that the pair seemed ready to return to blows at any moment, and the tenants wisely remained on the stairs leading up to the deck.

"Why, Motoko?" Seno asked, a hard edge in his voice as sharp as the blade of a sword. "Why are you so intent on killing me? What did I do?"

Her expression finally changed from abject hatred, softening into a mixture of pain and anger that squeezed Seno's heart even harder. Tears collected in the corners of her eyes, threatening to break free at any moment. "I loved you, Seno," she said. "I gave you my heart, and if you had only waited, I would have given you all of me, willingly."

The swordsman's mouth dropped open. "You mean…"

She began to tremble as she closed her eyes, the knuckles of her right hand turning white as she gripped her sword tightly. "You couldn't wait, you bastard. You had to have me now. You raped me."

As it fell from his numbed fingers, Shinaijou never got the opportunity to clatter to the deck in proper dramatic form. It shattered midway down, the shards of the blade getting caught up in the swirling winds. The swordsman fell to his knees, his face filled with shame and self-loathing.

On the stairs, the residents of the Hinata couldn't have been more shocked if a bomb had exploded in the building. Not one of them thought for an instant that the kind-hearted Seno was capable of such a repugnant action, that it had to have been a nightmare on Motoko's part. But the swordswoman could surely tell the difference between a nightmare and reality, couldn't she?

Closing his eyes, Seno let his head droop forward, hanging limply above his chest. "Although I have no memory of this, I am responsible for it," he said. "Motoko, please kill me. I do not deserve even that much mercy."

As Motoko raised her sword above her head to comply, the tears suddenly broke and streamed down her face. Her sword arm wavered slightly, and she tightly shut her eyes. When she opened them again moments later, she couldn't even clearly make out Seno's kneeling form before her, so thick were the tears flowing.

Despite everything, she knew she still loved him and could not kill him for what they both believed he had done. Slowly, she lowered her sword back down to her side. "I… I can't…" she whispered. "No. I won't kill you, Seno. I…"

The swordsman rose to his feet as she spoke, slowly walking toward her, smiling wistfully as tears rolled down the sides of his face as well. He laid his left hand over her right, and for a moment, she allowed herself to believe that they could make everything right again.

Then she felt a hard tug on her arm, the stiff resistance flesh gives to a blade, watched a pained grimace appear on Seno's face, and heard Shinobu let out a short, bitten-off gasp.

Her eyes widening, Motoko looked down to see her blade disappearing inside Seno's stomach, his blood already staining the white shirt a deep red. Grunting in pain, Seno tightened his grip on her hand and pushed himself toward her until she heard the sound of the tip of her blade piercing the other side of his body.

"SENO!" the tenants all shouted as one.

Immediately, Motoko pulled back on her sword with all her might, but the strength of Seno's grip made the task impossible. Tears rising anew to her eyes, she looked up at him and tugged softly on the blade, whispering, "Please…"

At that, he let go of her hand, letting her pull the blade out of his body. With the supportive weight of the sword disappearing, he began to slump toward the ground. Throwing the bloody blade aside, Motoko caught him in both arms and gently lowered him to the ground, turning him to rest his head across her lap.

She tried to speak, to ask him why he had done that, but her voice failed her as her tears dripped down to his face.

Raising his trembling right hand, the mortally-wounded swordsman gently brushed away tears forming at the corner of her left eye. "Don't… cry, Motoko…" he breathed.

She grabbed his hand with her own and held onto it for all she was worth, squeezing tightly. "No…" she whispered. "Don't do this to me, Seno. Don't leave me alone…"

"I won't… leave…" He smiled softly up at her. "I'll… watch over you…" He coughed, causing a thin trail of blood to leak out of his mouth. "I hope that you can… think of me one day… without… hating me…"

"I don't hate you!" she insisted. "I love you!"

"I'll… always… love you, too… Moto…"

Before he could even finish his sentence, his hand fell away from hers, dropping limply onto the deck as the light of life vanished from his eyes. Unable to tear her eyes away from him, Motoko simply stared at his half-smiling face, tears streaming unnoticed from her eyes.

It was nearly a full minute before she comprehended the laughter. Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her head to stare up at the semi-transparent, dark-colored figure floating in the air above her. The figure was a male clad in Meiji-era clothing that looked as if he could be mistaken for a young boy. A sinister smile was curved on his lips.

"That plan couldn't have gone more perfectly if it'd been scripted," the figure said, staring contemptfully down at Motoko. "Ignorant girl. Fooling you into believing that your beloved Nakakami had raped you was much easier than I'd anticipated. But thanks to your predictable reaction, Nakakami is dead, and I'm finally free of being chained to that pathetic fool's soul."

The figure laughed aloud, raising its arms toward the sky dramatically. "As thanks for setting me free by killing your so-called boyfriend, I promise that when I get around to killing all of you, you'll die first and relatively fast."

With that last, sinister remark laid down, the spirit faded away into nothingness, leaving the stunned, shell-shocked residents of the Hinata behind to try and come to terms with what had just happened.

For her part, Motoko stared down at Seno with growing horror. It… it wasn't Seno? I was only tricked into thinking it was? No… I can't… Seno… I… I'm sorry…

Overwhelmed by her grief, Motoko threw back her head and screamed her agony into the early morning air, screaming again and again until her throat was raw and couldn't produce any more sound.

Why… Seno…