::: Disclaimer :::
Sessha does not own Rurouni Kenshin, that he most certainly does not. :)
Justice - There is no personal problem that cannot be solved through suitable
application of high explosives. That is a fact of life.
Katsu - I agree 100 %. ^_^
Sano - ~_~ Don't get Katsu started with the bombs again... Sheesh.
Katsu - Grrrr.... Sano, lay off the bombs already! I told you I quit with that!
Sano - Then why do you still have catalogs of timers and wire and
various explosive compounds...?
Katsu - Er... Recreational reading?
Sano - o.O;;
Kenshin - Keep bombs away from me. I had a bad experience with those, that I did.
Tomoe - Yes, terrible.
Kenshin - O_O Tomoe! How did you get here?! You look so...pale...
Tomoe - Well, now, I wonder why THAT would be so... *looks meaningfully at Kenshin*
Kenshin - *fascinated with a small pebble*
Sano - O_O AAAAHHH! DEAD WOMAN!!!
Tomoe - I am not dead, I'm just...
Katsu - Cold?
Justice - Goth?
Tomoe - ...alright, I'm dead.
Sano + Katsu - DEMONESS!!! *run into streets*
Tomoe - :P Men believe anything nowadays.
Justice - o.O;; *searches for egg roll to console himself*
: REVIEW THANKS :
kenshin_admirer : ^___^ The dream sequence was fun to write, and I am very glad you
enjoyed it. The rest is work-in-progress and therefore secret. o_O Thanks for the
compliments, and please, when you have time, update your fic! I wanna see Hiko bash
Shishio around... o.O
ayumi ikari - Thanks, miss! ^___^ It seems my dream-sequence went over pretty well,
and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
maria cline - Zowie! That dream-sequence went over better than I had hoped! ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
No, it's not the end of the fic; I hope there'll be many more to come! And I will keep it up!
Arigatou gozaimasu!
Lucrecia LeVrai - O_O Everybody loves the dream sequence! ( ^_^ times 10) Thanks a lot,
Ms. LeVrai! I've been trying to work on the spacing, but I dunno if it'll be successful... @_@
the sacred night - Fluff? What's that mean? o.O I figured that Hiko would be a bit more relaxed
in the dream than in real life, as would Kenshin, and the dark-but-uplifting is exactly where I
was trying to go with it. Enishi would still be a child in this fic, but now that I've said something,
I feel the effect would be ruined. ~_~ I shoulda just kept quiet... Ah, oh well. I'll go for an Enishi
fic eventually, so that will be that. ^_^ Thanks for reviewing, and good luck with the poetry! ^_^
MoTaS - O_O You're on Chappy ten now... I'll review 'em right away; been gone so long that
I've not read RK fics for a while. This will be rectified. ^_^ Thanks for the review!
Hitokiri-san - Domo arigatou gozaimasu! And... point taken. Hate Seisouhen. As do I.
This will not end like Seisouhen. o.o Thanks for the review!
Thanks, everyone, for reviewing!!! ^_^
Author's Notes - As mentioned by Miss Levrai, I've been trying to find a way to fix
the darn spacing between lines. Trust me, it never looked like that on my WP.
And everyone else's writing looks so neat... @_@ What am I doing wrong?! OROOOO!!!
I tried making the lines a bit shorter, but that didn't really work, de gozaru yo...
I think it's the matter of FF.net's display - the little bars around the side crowd the text
a tad, and I guess it messes the whole thing up. ^-^ I'm so smart. Or not.
I'll get back to you on that one.
Anyhow, Chappy 6 here, and I hope you enjoy. It's been a while since the last
post, but I've had work, school, spacing errors, and a bit of confusion as to
how I should go next in the story. So many things to choose from... @_@ ORO!!!
BTW, I just read Unseen Watcher's 'Ties of Loyalty' again. @_@ I wanna write that good!
Grrrr... better get crackin'. If you haven't read it, go and do so, for your own sakes.
Further, I'm making a small change; switching to Notepad instead of Microsoft
Works WP... this means a small change in the typist's legend.
" Oro! " indicates speech.
' Oro! ' indicates thoughts.
~~~ Oro! ~~~ indicates dream-sequence or time-lapse.
Further updates as events warrant, de gozaru yo.
The Sword of Seijuro Hiko
Chapter 06 - Ashes and Cinders
----- ----- -----
ORO
----- ----- -----
Sitting in a corner of the small, darkly lit tavern, there was a small group of men who were
clearly not the friendliest of personas. Their eyes were small and intense, and they darted from
side to side frequently, the eyes of men who lived their lives completely on-guard at all times,
even in slumber, no rest whatsoever from the paranoia they had instilled in themselves and
the deeper, more silent terror had come to grip them over the years.
They spoke in hushed, hurried, grating voices that could barely be heard by normal men amidst
the general din of the oft-frequented tavern. An occasional hiss or snarl could be made out in
between hoots of laughter and yells of drunken anger, which, for some reason, was catching
the attention of some drably-clothed men in the other corner of the room. Unknown to those
being watched, the group doing the watching was sliding closer and closer, all the while putting
up an admirable act of being utterly drunk and all but harmless.
All this Hiko noticed without so much as turning his back.
Except the eyes. He had seen the eyes when he had first arrived. They had bothered him on a
subconscious level, but he had brushed away his instincts and ordered them to shut down
to some extent for a while.
He wanted to think a bit.
Staring darkly into the translucent glass full of rice wine, Hiko watched in detached interest
as the liquid rocked back and forth gently in it's container while he gently swayed it from side
to side. Not that he was drunk. He never drank that much. Seijuro Hiko never got drunk.
That would mean being off guard, and Seijuro Hiko was never off guard. Never.
He had, however, had less than he would have liked, and probably more than he should have.
Three glasses so far. No more to go. Or maybe three more to go.
Whichever way he felt like at the moment.
It was a good night to get torched.
This hellish city was torched, too.
And he might as well drink to that.
Throwing his head back, he drained the glass in one gulp, then placed it back down
on the table (rather roughly) and poured another. He drank that as well,
then refilled his glass again.
He did not drink the third.
He had seen many villages burned in his time; truth be told, he'd seen one just about two
weeks ago that had ended up dragging him into a rather fruitful side quest that had served
to further deter and disturb his already troubled mind, but in all his days, he had never seen
destruction like that which had greeted him as he topped the mountains and gazed on Kyoto
for the first time in about ten years.
Letting out a deep sigh, he threw the full glass aside and instead drained the jug.
It was turning out to be a bad night.
Twenty-eight thousand houses burned, not counting barns, businesses, and other buildings.
Thousands dead, thousands more wounded, and, worst of all, the 'patriots' had been behind it.
Curse that fool child for dragging him into this senselessness.
What manner of savagery led a man to burn a city full of innocents to get his way, Hiko would
never know, nor did he ever hope to. It was something that his mind simply could not comprehend,
something that defied all understanding. To claim to fight for the people, for a new era, and to go
about it in such a way; he shut his eyes tightly as he the death toll came back to his mind.
Too high. Far too high.
The sounds of the celebration continued, growing louder and less coherent as time went on.
His eyes narrowed violently as their drunken laughter echoed throughout the establishment,
accompanied by other sounds of obvious revelry. A few curses and insults rang out amidst the
chortling and chuckling and sloshing of drinks.
Without opening his eyes, Hiko flipped his right arm backwards, shifting his hand up and back-fisting
a rather wobbly patron immediately behind himself with a mere flick of his arm and wrist.
Rule # 1 - Never approach Seijuro Hiko unannounced.
It was a fast way to get damaged.
Especially when Hiko was in a bad mood.
The now-unconscious man crumpled to the floor, and the partiers immediately around himself backed
off a good six feet.
Hiko glanced over his shoulder at the nervous men and women, and flashed them a classical Hiko grin
that held absolutely no heart behind it. Turning his head, he quietly stared at the wood grain of the table
he sat at, and the partiers, exchanging fearful glances amongst themselves,
wisely decided to leave him alone.
Hiko closed his eyes and tried to shut out the noise for a moment.
He knew Kenshin was somehow connected to the fire - he had simply felt that Kenshin had been
there when the fires were set, but he knew not whether the boy had been setting fires or putting
them out.
He did not believe that his deshi was so far gone that he would do such a thing, even on the orders
of one of those blasted rebel leaders. Kenshin was, in many ways, a complete baka, but he was
a good-hearted baka, and he'd cut down any man who told him to do such a thing.
Even if his soul was dying.
Or would he?
Either way, he was bringing down more destruction on Japan than even Hiko had ventured to guess.
Such actions he had ruled too rash for even those seeking to overthrow the Tokugawa regime.
In the name of justice and equality, they were slaying their own people and burning their own cities
in an attempt to gain an edge in their little war. Women, children, it mattered not, the cause was at stake,
and what had to be done, had to be done. It was for the future of Japan, and sacrifices had to be made.
Damn them and their hypocritical nonsense.
In their newfound weapon of death and terror, the Battousai, their confidence had skyrocketed
and if they had been mad before, they'd gone insane now.
All around him, the yelling and celebrating continued, the partiers either too drunk to know what had
happened, or simply uncaring. Neither sounded honorable to Hiko, who surveyed the room without
even looking at it. Wildly fluxing life forces, a nigh-unreadable mass of unrestrained debauchery.
Their city burned, their people slain, yet they celebrate like it's a holiday or something.
'What kind of fools are fighting this war, anyhow?! Of all the idiotic...'
His eyes flashed violently, burning with the righteous fury so characteristic of Hiten masters,
his hands clenched into fists so tight that they drew blood from his own hand.
These past two weeks, he had found himself having a problem much like his deshi's; he'd tried
to ignore it as best he could, but with everything he'd been seeing and hearing these past few days,
it was becoming obvious that he was failing.
It was partly due to the events around himself, and partly due to his own resistance to becoming
calloused towards such things.
He was losing his mind.
In his waking hours, he strode in a near trance, using every bit of training and will he possessed to
keep from simply snapping. It was like a nightmare that refused to end, so dark and hopeless
his future looked, yet at least, in the pale light of the sun, his soul found some respite.
Night was infinetely worse; sleep was impossible. His wounded mind was haunted by phantomlike
images of a red-haired shadow assassin, bathed in blood and wearing the visage of Death itself.
The assassin's bloodstained blade would flip upwards, sending a shower of blood into the sky.
As Hiko watched, the assassin brought the blade up to meet just in front of his nose, and
his eyes locked with Hiko's, sending a chill down the older man's spine...
Hiko's eyes snapped open, and he jumped slightly at the sudden hedonistic howls that erupted
from the crowd inside the tavern. Growling at the disturbance, Hiko eyed the crowd with a mixture
of distaste and animosity.
One didn't need much intuition to know what was going on. He had been to more than one
bar in his life, although he had never lowered himself to this kind of degree on any occasion.
'So, not only are they uncaring swine, they're dishonorable uncaring swine.'
A drunken geisha passed by on his right, giggling to herself and smirking suggestively.
Upon spotting Hiko, the woman's eyes widened in shock, and she eyed him in a way
that felt, most especially at the moment, extremely inappropriate. The woman's smirk widened
as Hiko's scowl deepened. Mistaking the venomous look she recieved from the man as
one of lustful consideration, she stepped a little closer and asked, in an annoyingly high tone,
if the service of the establishment was up to his standards.
Hiko's only response was a cold shoulder and a 'feh'.
Insulted, the geisha lingered a moment, then stalked off into the crowd, leaving Hiko to stew again.
"If only all problems were so easily vanquished," Hiko muttered to himself.
Free of the annoying geisha, he was about to close his eyes again when he felt the approach of a
most unwelcome ki.
Hiko's eyebrow twitched.
A moment later, the geisha was again at his table, only this time, she'd brought three friends.
Hiko's eyebrow twitched again.
The four geisha knelt at the table with him, discounting his death glare wholly, all four of them
wearing that drunken smirk and toying with their obi. Eyebrows rose in appreciation of Hiko's
face and long, dark hair, even more so of the powerful, muscular arm that that still held the drained
sake jug, until painted jaws dropped at the sight of his powerfully developed chest.
Hiko desperately resisted the urge to twitch his eyebrow once more.
The four of them began to chat amongst themselves, ranging in subjects from the sake to the floor to
Hiko's hair to... just about anything under the sun. All the while, the four continually watched Hiko's every
movement, a twitch of the eye, a flick of a finger, batting their eyes and blushing prettily as best they could.
Or what passed for it.
Hiko didn't like such skin tones, for his part. And he, for one, was intrigued that any blush could be seen
underneath all that white paint.
This went on for a while, the women yapping away over the crowd's noise, saying some fairly
shocking things, even to Hiko, who had heard much in life, and Hiko did his best to ignore them,
although he couldn't keep the slight blush from his own cheeks at some of the things these women said.
'I'm in my thirties now, and here I am, being shocked by a group of hedonistic geisha. I've been on that
blasted mountain too darn long... or perhaps not enough.'
The talk went on, the women slowly undoing their obi, and Hiko maintained his rather desperate
(and useless) attempt at mental isolation. Unbeknownst to him, he had developed from an occasional
eye twitch to a chronic eye twitch when the women said or did something in particular that displeased
him, but this was taken by the women as a breaking of will, so the teasing and chatting went on, until it
all threatened to culminate in something Hiko had no intentions of participating in.
His eyes met those of the first geisha, who was just about ready to remove her kimono,
smirking lustfully as she gave him a subtle invitation.
What followed was a blunt and rather rude 'no'.
The four geisha scattered in panic as Hiko shattered the table they'd been sitting at,
roaring for all he was worth, and daring any one of them to approach him ever again
for the rest of their natural lives.
Rule # 2 - Don't tick off the strongest man in all of Japan. Especially when he's already ticked.
The crowd had chosen that moment to scream particularly loud, so his maddened roars
went, for the most part, unheard.
Hiko's head turned, and he eyed the mass of humanity behind himself, screaming and dancing
and generally causing an uproar. The women danced, the men watched, and the barkeep
passed out jugs of sake as fast as he could, reeling in the coins of the patrons all the while.
General fun was had by all.
Hiko's blood was hot as he surveyed the lust-driven crowd of pleasure-seeking fools,
the pumping of his heart thunderous in his ears. His eyes darted to and fro,
watching the baseness of the crowd grow by the second, and as he did, his blood ran that
much more hotly.
' Fools! Blasted idiots! They watch their town burn and their people die and they
celebrate anyways! They are not deserving of their pathetic excuses for lives. '
His right hand twitched uncontrollably; he wanted nothing at the moment so much as
to silence the lot of them. They were lower than animals, with no heart for others and no mind
for anything but their pleasure. He turned away from the revelry, unable to watch aynmore,
and his eyes found their way to the table he'd destroyed.
Furious, he thought of his deshi and his idealistic mind in this mess of humanity.
How would the boy have reacted to such things as these? How would he have reacted
to those wily geisha from before?
Likely, he would have found a quick exit, as he had been before.
Of late, he'd most likely kill them.
That seemed a good idea at the moment.
His eyes burned as he gripped his nihontou within his cloak, and he considered drawing it,
for the purpose of rending a few revelers asunder.
That would put a quick end to this little party. A very quick end. Most likely, it would end with the
Shogunate police coming after him, but that mattered little anyways.
Of course, rash action was not his specialty, but that of the Ishin Shishi, evidently. Yet he felt
rash at the moment. He'd long since grown weary of wandering around and thinking.
He wanted action.
Ironically, he got it.
A sudden shift of ken-ki caught his attention, and his eyes widened for a moment before he managed
to curtail his surprise.
' Drank too much... wonderful. '
Shaking his head slightly, he focused his senses on the growing commotion behind himself.
The watchers had descended on their prey, and were currently hustling them out the back door
of the inn, going, for the most part, unnoticed by anyone in the establishment. Those being hustled
put up no apparent resistance, yet their spirits were tense and they seemed to be readying themselves
for a fight. Which was fine by Hiko. A fight sounded quite appealing.
More quickly than any of the partying fools present could see, (even if they weren't drunk)
he leapt into a small recess in the southern corner of the room and sunk low around the wall.
Lacking a little of his usual grace, though.
He narrowed his eyes a bit as he wobbled ever so slightly upon re-entry.
' I *really* drank too much. '
Squinting his eyes, he felt amongst the group for the ken-ki that had caught his attention in the first
place, and found it quickly. Startled, he reeled slightly, and was thankful for the wall he was
crouched against.
The last thing he'd ever expected to find in this city was a truly powerful swordsman, given
all the fools that seemed to exist here. The only real swordsman he thought to live in this
den of evil was his former pupil, and yet here he had found one besides his deshi.
A powerful, discerning spirit, one that was at once confident, furious, confused, and sorrowful.
An interestingly diverse palette of feelings that spiked for a moment and subsided just as quickly.
Emotions aside, it was shockingly strong and tense, and sent the general signal to those
adept at reading ki that he was not one to be trifled with.
It was more potent that his deshi's, less powerful than his own, but somewhere between his and
that of his long-dead shishou. A magnificent fighting spirit, of a caliber that Hiko had not
found since the death of the previous Seijuro Hiko, so long ago. It was, if Hiko's memory could be
trusted, stronger than that of the twelfth Hiten master.
That, in itself, was the second most unbelievable thing Hiko had ever learned.
His curiosity piqued, he slowly stood up from the table, carefully masking his ki, and headed
for the front exit.
After all, no sense directly following them. Not all warriors in this age were
weak and stupid, apparently. It was something to remember.
A man was thrown rather rudely against a convenient wall; said wall collapsed in on itself,
a testament to the impressive physical strength the thrower possessed, and perhaps to the
durability of the man tossed into (and through) the wall, although judging by the victim's newfound
lack of motor control, it was to be doubted.
Said thrower then strode over to the bewildered and damaged man, now sprawled amidst the
wooden wreckage and broken shingles, and picked him up effortlessly. Something was said
between them; it lasted only a few moments, then the captive was introduced to a new wall.
This went on for some time.
Hiko narrowed his eyes in quiet consideration. Stepping a little closer, he tried to get a better
look at the warring parties.
The captor, a tall man shrouded in a hooded cloak, quietly closed in on the position of the
now-quite-embittered prisoner,a rather stocky middle-aged man dressed in a tattered brown
gi with matching dusty grey hakama. The captive threw his adversary a baleful glare, picking
himself up out of the rubble left by his re-entry from a quick and entirely unwilling flight. Hiko
listened carefully to the words that passed between the men. Fortunately, they were now a
fair distance away from the tavern, and Hiko had no problems hearing anything on these streets.
Even though he WAS a little stoned.
"Shogunate dog," snarled the captive, struggling to stand upright despite his injuries.
The tall man stopped within punching distance of his quarry and said nothing for a time, but
watched the captive almost desperately try to maintain his upright stance. Nothing could be
heard for a time except for the ragged breathing of the prisoner and the occasional shuffle
of his feet.
The captor's ki seemed to smirk. " I'm not the one panting, baka. " Reaching out, the captor
took hold of his prisoner's throat and lifted him off the ground effortlessly. " Your little party has
ended this night, and your remaining men will be disposed of shortly." The cloaked man
seemed to smirk again, hoisting his quarry higher off the ground and tightening his grasp on said
quarry's throat. "It's only a matter of time before your entire infrastructure goes under, and then
we will bring you all down like so many dead leaves under a strong wind. You've nothing left to fight
with, so be a good dog and run back to your master, ne?" he mocked, dropping the man to the ground.
The captive yelped as he struck the ground, rolling to one side in an attempt to escape further damage
from the man before him. The captor grunted in derision.
"Shinsei Seifuku, indeed."
Hiko quirked a brow. This could be interesting...
The captive rolled to his feet, glaring at his captor defiantly. "We *will* bring you down, dog! You
cannot escape the wrath of the Divine Conquerors! You will die for defiling the land of the gods
with your soiled hands!" he spat angrily.
The captor chuckled quietly, his shoulders shaking slightly in his amusement. The captive's scowl
deepened as his captor shook his head in derision.
"Soiled hands, is it?" he queried, humoring his captive. "An interesting phrase to hear from the likes
of you, 'conqueror'." he turned to face his captive, who happened to have rolled in just the right way,
so that the captor was looking in Hiko's direction. " You're the one rolling on the ground."
Hiko kept himself from any manner of movement, although he had begun to sweat a little.
There was no perception of a mortal threat from this man at the moment, but Hiko wanted to
hear more of this matter, and it was slightly unnerving to have the person you were spying on
looking directly at you.
Hiko stood underneath a street vendor's makeshift sunroof, twenty feet off from the captive and captor.
It had been a little difficult to slip into this spot whilst going unnoticed, but even drunk, Hiko had
somehow managed it. Now his only problem was to remain unnoticed...
The captor took a step forward, about to speak again, when a sharp *crack* sounded directly in
front of him. The captive jumped, and the captor slid into a kenpo stance so fast that his movement
would have been untraceable by normal men.
Hiko willed himself not to move in the slightest. He had not stepped on anything, and had been too
focused on the scene before him to even know what had sounded. He shut his eyes half-way and
tenatively sensed around himself, looking for the source of...
Oh.
Hiko scowled. What irony. What fortitude.
The captor relaxed a bit as well, seeing a small kitten emerge from the shadows with a bit of fish
in it's mouth. It looked up at the cloaked man, at the ragged captive, then began to saunter
away as only cats could. The tall man chuckled again. Hiko would have as well, if he wasn't
so furious with the cat in the first place.
The kitten continued down the road, oblivious and uncaring of the two men behind it.
The wind chose that moment to pick up, however, in the direction of the kitten's path.
The hood of the cloaked man blew slightly, but did not fall. It was disappointing to Hiko,
who had hoped to get a glimpse of the captor, but that, however, was not the real problem.
The problem was that the kitten sniffed the air, and turned to look at the shadows from whence
he had come; conveniently , Hiko was still there.
His eyebrow twitched yet again. ' Did Kenshin have this much trouble when he arrived...? '
The captor's attention was once more diverted towards Hiko, who was busily cursing every cat
in existence as coarsely as he could in his mind. Considering he was drunk, he could think of
some good terms to use at the moment...
As fate would have it, another sharp *crack* rang out, and the captor stiffened noticeably,
training his unseen eyes on the vendor's tent, and, unbeknownst to him, on Hiko.
The oft-coined phrase, ' I. Hate. Cats, ' repeated in Hiko's mind endlessly.
The silence was tense, Hiko struggling along to survive without breathing much,
while his potential attacker merely watched and waited. Another *crack* made it
that much harder for Hiko to not hate the cat, the object cracking, and just about everything
else in existence.
Having not moved an inch since the noises began, the captive suddenly made a break for it,
lurching to his feet and taking off in the kitten's direction as fast as he could...
...and promptly falling right back where he was.
The captor returned his outswept right leg to it's previous position, as the captive loosed
a string of curses that would make a certain rooster red with embarrassment. The cloaked
man responded simply by kicking his prey in the side; except for a sudden grunt,
that pretty well shut the man up. The captor never turned his head from Hiko's direction.
The silence continued.
Hiko was quite well fed up with the situation, and was about to take a bit of action
and show himself when fate intervened again.
Three more kittens sauntered out of the shadows, each carring their own fish,
and scampered down the dusty street to catch the first one. The four ran off
into the dark streets, their slim, fuzzy tails whisking from side to side.
It was then that a steady stream of kittens began to flow from the darkness around Hiko,
carrying fish and chicken and bread and just about every foodstuff imaginable in their
small mouths, tripping and bumping into one another endlessly, and all scurried away in the
direction of the first four. The cloaked man bit back a roar of laughter as the kittens poured
out by the veritable dozen, scampering into the quiet night.
Hiko now felt he was rather safe from further suspicion, if only they'd stop running over his
feet and landing on his head and...
Hiko thanked whatever divine power had watched over him all those years in Hiten training as a
rather curious kitten ( A/N - Do they come any other way? o.O;; ) discovered a fascination with Hiko's
long ponytail. Clambering up his back, his claws hitched into the silky fabric as the kitten made it's
way up Hiko's cloak, pausing now and then to bat at his hair. It was extremely annoying
to have that fuzzball climbing him like some kind of tree. About this point, he wanted
to scream in annoyance, but due to his training, he could settle for less.
His eye twitched.
The captor stared down at his prey in quiet consideration, then kicked him again. The downed man
grunted, glaring up at the smirking man in the cloak.
" Get up. "
The captive did not respond, but merely spat at his captor. The cloaked man did not move for a moment,
the wind rustling through the dark streets, blowing against the hood of the cloak, but still the hood did not
fall. The captor bent down and grabbed his captive by the throat again, setting him back on his feet
abruptly. The captive, still dazed, tried his best to maintain his footing, backing off about three
feet in Hiko's direction.
Hiko watched intently, trying desperately to ignore the kitten that had now made it's way on top of his
head, and was busily kneading his skull as if it were a pillow. Much to his alarm, he found that
it was indeed bedding down, and it began to eat it's fish in comfort on top of Hiko's distressed hair.
The eye twitch was definitely chronic now...
"You Shogunate dogs are all alike," muttered the captive, rubbing his side in an attempt to rid
himself of the ache left by the cloaked man's kick. "You'd lead this nation straight to Hell
in your foolish notions and idiocy. And your tactics are no better." he added, glancing
down the street in what seemed to be resignation.
"Feh," the tall man snapped, taking a step towards his prisoner. "Our tactics? We weren't
the ones who decided to raid villages to acquire our supplies. Your leadership would
kill Japan more surely than if every single person in the land contracted tuberculosis."
"Likely to happen with you fools in charge," the captain muttered under his breath.
"As if you 'conquerors' are any better," the captor growled, folding his arms across his chest.
"You know very well that you only add to the instability of this nation and intensify the
conflict with your actions. Not one of you cares in the slightest for the people; you're only
after power," he added vehemently, and his voice dropped frighteningly low as he said,
"and you don't care who gets in the way or even if they don't. Never has such violence
been seen in this nation, no, not in this era or even the Warring States era. Not even
*I* have ever seen such heartlessness, and I have seen much of human wickedness."
"It was for the children of Japan," he rasped. "For their futures. For the future of this
nation! For all our futures!" His eyes glazed over, like the eyes of a man who'd heard
the same speech himself over and over. "The land of the gods will shine forth again!
We will take back our homelands and oust the Shogunate, the Emperor, and all
the foreign dogs from our presence forever! We shall all " he puncuated the end of his brief speech
shaking a fist in his captor's face.
The captor's eyes glinted for the slightest moment, hidden from view within his cloak's hood.
The captive was taken aback at the sight, but Hiko remained still. It didn't suprise him that
this man would have a powerful gaze - ki was most easily seen in the eyes, and this man
had a staggering ki.
Quietly, the cloaked man's left hand went for his pocket, and he withdrew a small, bloodstained
piece of parchment from the recesses of his cloak. A flick of his finger, and the parchment unfolded
to reveal a mess of dried blood and smudged ink. Hiko's eyes narrowed as he tried to determine
what the significance of the paper was.
Straining his eyes, he looked as closely as his enhanced senses would allow, and
studied the parchment intensely.
' A letter? No, the pattern's too smudgy. A map? No... what then? '
The tall man spoke quietly. "You say it was for the future of Japan's children."
The captive stood his ground proudly and looked at his captor defiantly, saying not a word.
"And you maintain you were justified in attacking that village," he continued.
His only answer was a glare. The captor lifted the parchment to eye level.
In a deathly cold whisper, he said, "Tell that to the tiny girl who drew this."
The captive's heart froze for a moment, then began racing as quickly as Hiko's had stopped.
The eyes of the cloaked man shone brightly from within the cloak, narrow, violent eyes,
burdened eyes, eyes that promised death; they were harder than diamonds and colder than
the coldest winter storm, but held all the burning wrath of a man who'd watched life die around
himself since his all-too-brief childhood. Gone was the pity in the eyes, replaced only by rage.
Pale, narrow, angry eyes. Amber eyes. A shining, burning amber, verging on... yellow.
The eyes of a Wolf.
Down the street, several voices cried out in unison, and were silenced abruptly. Hiko's eyes
darted toward the screams, but swung back to the tall man nearly instantly, his gaze fixed on
the shining katana the figure now wielded.
Hiko started. ' When did he draw his katana...? '
The captive was taken aback, cringing under the fearful gaze of the warrior before him, but was
unable to tear his gaze from the awful eyes that bored into his black soul. The confident voice,
now brimming with the threat of emotional breakdown, trembled at the sheer force of the feeling
inside himself. His voice, now strained with rage and sorrow, surfaced only three times, as the
wind caught his hood and finally blew it aside, revealing the chipped, forceful features of the
Shinsengumi Third Squad captain, Hajime Saitou.
" Aku, Soku, Zan. "
A short, clipped scream, and the 'divine conqueror' collapsed at the booted feet
of the Wolf of Miburo.
' Aku, Soku, Zan... '
Saitou's gaze burned into the dead man on the ground, his eyes unflinching and cold.
"Shinsei, indeed. All that is holy dragged into such wickedness..." whispered the Wolf.
His burning eyes bored into the dead man at his feet, and a flicker of despair flashed through them.
Shaking his head silently, he raised his head to the stars, as though searching for something.
His katana gave a metallic ring as he quietly returned it to it's sheath, his eyes never leaving
the sky.
"I will not surrender," the Wolf stated quietly. "I will live on and face these evils as long as I can
hold a sword, and I will not compromise on justice, nor allow evil to go unpunished. I *will*
continue until the very end, and I'll win." Saitou's eyes fell to the blade at his side, one of the
finest swords in Japan, his constant, nameless companion. "Aku, Soku, Zan. No compromise
on what is just and pure." he growled. "No compromise, no retreat."
Almost without thinking, Hiko strode forward into the moonlight, his face partially hidden
in the shadows yet, directly in front of the Wolf.
Saitou's eyes shifted instantly from the stars of the sky to the powerful-looking man now
twenty feet in front of himself, unable to keep the suprise out of his eyes at the sudden
appearance. Hiko matched the Wolf's eyes with his own relentless, suprahuman gaze.
The two stood in silent analysis of each other; Hiko, mostly for the benefit of the man before
him, 'Everything I need to know of this man, I just learned, I think.'
For his part, Saitou was perplexed and irritated in the extreme. He gave no outward sign of it,
but he was straining to sense even a trace of the tall man's ken-ki, and failing. Being Saitou,
though, he didn't show it in the slightest; he could mask his ki too, after all.
'But I've never encountered *anyone* who could *completely* hide his swordsman's spirit...'
The silence persisted for a few minutes, but the bigger man showed no signs of speaking. It
was unnerving to Saitou, being unable to detect the slightest thing about his opponent. It was
not something the Wolf of Miburo had ever experienced, nor was it something he enjoyed.
Hiko, on the other hand, was fairly comfortable in the tense silence, his deep amber eyes
burning with a strange kind of recognition. It was like finding a long-lost brother that one
never knew one had; Hiko felt an odd kinship to the man before him, who had squared off
into an ungainly stance that Hiko found somewhat puzzling.
Saitou knew those eyes; they were the eyes of a man in despair, of one losing a battle
against his own sorrow and rage. He'd seen them before. Just for a moment, he'd seen these
same eyes in a very different man...
"...what do you want? " Saitou finally snapped.
Hiko grinned, the first real grin he'd had in months. " Don't really know. "
Saitou's eyes narrowed even further. "What's that supposed to mean, ahou?!"
Hiko couldn't stop his grin from getting wider. "Who are you?" he asked with a chuckle.
"Answer me first." the Wolf growled.
Hiko's grin was so wide, it occured to him that his face might split. "I don't really know
what I want. Honestly," he said, folding his arms as he continued. "I just like what you said.
"Aku, Soku, Zan," and no compromises or retreats. It reminds me much of my shishou."
Saitou's guard did not decline in the slightest. "Exactly who are you, and how long have you
been watching me?" he growled, a hint of a threat in his tone.
"Seijuro Hiko, thirteenth master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu," he replied without missing a beat.
"...and?"
"I sensed you in the tavern," Hiko said, a note of distaste shining through his voice.
Saitou kept the scowl firmly in place. He sensed no deceit from this man, but then, he didn't
sense anything else either. And Hajime Saitou was not one to trust easily in this day and age.
"And you followed from there," the Wolf guessed.
"Actually, I took the long route," Hiko said, gently tipping his head upwards.
Saitou's eyes narrowed in confusion.
"Went topside. Think roof," Hiko elaborated.
Suspicion mounted in Saitou's mind. 'He jumps rooftops and is practically undetectable...'
His scowl deepened. "Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu?"
"That's what I said," Hiko returned, a bit cheerfully. A good mood was overcoming him
little by little. Whatever came of this encounter, he would remember this man for all time.
"I have never heard of a kenjutsu school by that name," Saitou said slowly.
Hiko's grin shifted to a trademark 'Hiko Smirk'. "You wouldn't ever hear it spoken anywhere
in Japan, mister," he said, basso profundo. "It's an ancient style, developed in the
Warring States era."
Saitou grunted. "And your reason for being here?"
"In town? My own. In front of you? It should be obvious. I sensed a powerful ken-ki and my
curiousity was piqued by your little scuffle. Besides," and Hiko sniffed the air, as if reflecting
on the dingy establishment from earlier, "taverns aren't really my cup of tea."
Saitou was silent for a moment. "Whose side are you on?"
Hiko smirked even wider. "I serve the people of Japan, not the Emperor or Shogunate."
The Wolf stood in quiet contemplation. "You don't belong to either the Ishin Shishi or the
Shogunate, eh?"
"No."
"Shinsei Seifuku, I take it?"
Hiko's smirk never faded. "Don't try and compare that trash to me."
Saitou grinned. "A loose cannon, then."
"I'd say more of a 'people's advocate'."
"That sounds pompous."
"Never liked that term, myself." Hiko returned easily. "Try confident."
"Overly so, I think."
"You may think all you like, but I guarantee you've never encountered anyone like me."
Saitou paused. "Show yourself."
Hiko stepped out into the moonlight.
The scowl faded almost instantly from Saitou's face. Hiko grew quizzical as the Wolf made quite
a show of attempting to restrain his reaction to Hiko. Hiko's smirk faded, replaced with an expression
of confusion. It was then that the Wolf burst out in a roar of laughter.
"You're right about that, ahou," he gasped between fits of laughter, "I've never encountered
*anyone* like you."
Hiko was unable to restrain a scowl. What could this man possibly be laughing at?
Hiko was many things, but not comedic in appearance. His eyes tracked left and right as he
struggled to discern the source of amusement, which was clearly not false - the baka before him
was apparently having trouble breathing in his amusement, which only served to irritate Hiko further.
The cursory scan of the area turned up nothing. Hiko's eyes locked again on the yellow-eyed man,
annoyance quickly surfacing.
Opening his mouth, he was about to make some snappy comments to the disabled swordsman,
who was now on his knees, still roaring in laughter, when he felt something tug at his scalp.
Hiko's eyes widened. ' Oh, for the love of... '
The kitten, finishing it's last bit of fish, stood up and stretched out on top of Hiko's head, a few bits of
the small meal falling off of Hiko's head in the process, and then the kitten made its way off the
indignant swordsman, clambering down Hiko's head, onto his shoulder, then making a leap for it
towards the ground.
Hiko's muscles were taught and straining, his eye twitching of it's own accord. It showed
no signs of stopping.
The kitten lit out of the area as if it somehow knew exactly what kind of trouble it was in if it stayed
a second longer. And it *was* in trouble, to be certain.
No one made a fool of Seijuro Hiko.
Especially not a *cat*.
Hiko, desperate to regain a shred of his shattered, tattered, and broken dignity, returned
his twitching gaze to the funny-man swordsman, making a conscious effort not to rend the man
to pieces.
'NO WITNESSES!!! *NO* WITNESSES!!!'
A brotherly kinship indeed. Already Hiko wanted to kill him.
Saitou's mind was screaming at him to get control of himself and stand up, and he tried to obey.
Oh, how he tried. The Wolf was never one to be weak in will, but these were extraordinary circumstances.
It wasn't every day that such fine humor was found in such a hellish place as this.
Saitou regained his feet after a short time, a smirk plastered across his face. Hiko, on the other hand,
was the one scowling now. And oh, how he could scowl.
"Was that humorous enough for you?" the Hiten master muttered in a menacing tone.
Saitou replied only with a smirk as he drew his katana. Hiko's eyes widened a bit at the change
in behavior, then narrowed in consideration of his opponent.
Saitou's strike was swift and strong, a powerful lunging slash from his right side. Hiko leaned back,
crouching low and sliding into an instinctive counter stance, his nihontou gliding out of it's sheath
in a swift, soaring Battou Jutsu. His katana deflected, Saitou whirled into the parried slash,
his blade revolving with him, flying back towards Hiko's unguarded left side at near-Hiten speed.
Hiko's left arm swiftly brought his wooden sheath against the underside of his enemy's blade,
flipping it into the sky and whirling his own katana around himself in a roundhouse counter-slash of
his own. The Wolf leapt high into the sky, flipping himself over Hiko's blade, coming down four feet
beyond Hiko's back. He leapt further back, backing off about ten feet.
Hiko's head fluidly revolved towards his opponent, his eyes tracing his foe's every movement.
The Wolf smirked, and Hiko felt a chill go down his spine.
"I never thought you'd be so daft and comedic," the Wolf snarled, "but it matters not."
Hiko could only stare in confusion.
"I've finally found you," Saitou said, his eyes narrowing in determination, "Hitokiri Battousai."
End Chapter 6
@_@ That took a while to write, that it did. Comedic to me, a tribute to one of my favorite RK
comedies, Hiko and the Kitten. ^_^ That fic is simply a work of genius and discerning wit, no joke.
o.O;; Hiko faces off against Saitou?! Egos collide (or what's left of Hiko's collides with Saitou's
intact pride), sparks fly, and I guarantee some major Hiten vs. Gatotsu action. Considering Hiko's
torched, depressed, and majorly embarrassed, I'd say Saitou has a chance. ^_^
And no, I am not setting out to completely destroy Hiko's dignity. It just happened.
Next chapter will indeed see a mighty battle between Seijuro Hiko and the Wolf of Miburo,
and I promise to work hard on it. I wanna write a good battle scene. o_O Hopefully
it won't take as long as this chappy did, but that's questionable... ~_~
Got another idea for a fic, which I'll start after I finish this one, or maybe during...
Inspiration hits at weird times. It's gonna be a fun piece to write, and it involves
my # 2 fave character, Sano. Coincidentally, Hiko is # 3, and guess who's first?
Kenshin, of course. o.O Kenshin rules. The fic itself is gonna be an action/adventure/humor,
and hopefully, it'll be just as long as the intended length of this one.
Thanks for reading! ^_^
Sessha does not own Rurouni Kenshin, that he most certainly does not. :)
Justice - There is no personal problem that cannot be solved through suitable
application of high explosives. That is a fact of life.
Katsu - I agree 100 %. ^_^
Sano - ~_~ Don't get Katsu started with the bombs again... Sheesh.
Katsu - Grrrr.... Sano, lay off the bombs already! I told you I quit with that!
Sano - Then why do you still have catalogs of timers and wire and
various explosive compounds...?
Katsu - Er... Recreational reading?
Sano - o.O;;
Kenshin - Keep bombs away from me. I had a bad experience with those, that I did.
Tomoe - Yes, terrible.
Kenshin - O_O Tomoe! How did you get here?! You look so...pale...
Tomoe - Well, now, I wonder why THAT would be so... *looks meaningfully at Kenshin*
Kenshin - *fascinated with a small pebble*
Sano - O_O AAAAHHH! DEAD WOMAN!!!
Tomoe - I am not dead, I'm just...
Katsu - Cold?
Justice - Goth?
Tomoe - ...alright, I'm dead.
Sano + Katsu - DEMONESS!!! *run into streets*
Tomoe - :P Men believe anything nowadays.
Justice - o.O;; *searches for egg roll to console himself*
: REVIEW THANKS :
kenshin_admirer : ^___^ The dream sequence was fun to write, and I am very glad you
enjoyed it. The rest is work-in-progress and therefore secret. o_O Thanks for the
compliments, and please, when you have time, update your fic! I wanna see Hiko bash
Shishio around... o.O
ayumi ikari - Thanks, miss! ^___^ It seems my dream-sequence went over pretty well,
and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
maria cline - Zowie! That dream-sequence went over better than I had hoped! ^_^ ^_^ ^_^
No, it's not the end of the fic; I hope there'll be many more to come! And I will keep it up!
Arigatou gozaimasu!
Lucrecia LeVrai - O_O Everybody loves the dream sequence! ( ^_^ times 10) Thanks a lot,
Ms. LeVrai! I've been trying to work on the spacing, but I dunno if it'll be successful... @_@
the sacred night - Fluff? What's that mean? o.O I figured that Hiko would be a bit more relaxed
in the dream than in real life, as would Kenshin, and the dark-but-uplifting is exactly where I
was trying to go with it. Enishi would still be a child in this fic, but now that I've said something,
I feel the effect would be ruined. ~_~ I shoulda just kept quiet... Ah, oh well. I'll go for an Enishi
fic eventually, so that will be that. ^_^ Thanks for reviewing, and good luck with the poetry! ^_^
MoTaS - O_O You're on Chappy ten now... I'll review 'em right away; been gone so long that
I've not read RK fics for a while. This will be rectified. ^_^ Thanks for the review!
Hitokiri-san - Domo arigatou gozaimasu! And... point taken. Hate Seisouhen. As do I.
This will not end like Seisouhen. o.o Thanks for the review!
Thanks, everyone, for reviewing!!! ^_^
Author's Notes - As mentioned by Miss Levrai, I've been trying to find a way to fix
the darn spacing between lines. Trust me, it never looked like that on my WP.
And everyone else's writing looks so neat... @_@ What am I doing wrong?! OROOOO!!!
I tried making the lines a bit shorter, but that didn't really work, de gozaru yo...
I think it's the matter of FF.net's display - the little bars around the side crowd the text
a tad, and I guess it messes the whole thing up. ^-^ I'm so smart. Or not.
I'll get back to you on that one.
Anyhow, Chappy 6 here, and I hope you enjoy. It's been a while since the last
post, but I've had work, school, spacing errors, and a bit of confusion as to
how I should go next in the story. So many things to choose from... @_@ ORO!!!
BTW, I just read Unseen Watcher's 'Ties of Loyalty' again. @_@ I wanna write that good!
Grrrr... better get crackin'. If you haven't read it, go and do so, for your own sakes.
Further, I'm making a small change; switching to Notepad instead of Microsoft
Works WP... this means a small change in the typist's legend.
" Oro! " indicates speech.
' Oro! ' indicates thoughts.
~~~ Oro! ~~~ indicates dream-sequence or time-lapse.
Further updates as events warrant, de gozaru yo.
The Sword of Seijuro Hiko
Chapter 06 - Ashes and Cinders
----- ----- -----
ORO
----- ----- -----
Sitting in a corner of the small, darkly lit tavern, there was a small group of men who were
clearly not the friendliest of personas. Their eyes were small and intense, and they darted from
side to side frequently, the eyes of men who lived their lives completely on-guard at all times,
even in slumber, no rest whatsoever from the paranoia they had instilled in themselves and
the deeper, more silent terror had come to grip them over the years.
They spoke in hushed, hurried, grating voices that could barely be heard by normal men amidst
the general din of the oft-frequented tavern. An occasional hiss or snarl could be made out in
between hoots of laughter and yells of drunken anger, which, for some reason, was catching
the attention of some drably-clothed men in the other corner of the room. Unknown to those
being watched, the group doing the watching was sliding closer and closer, all the while putting
up an admirable act of being utterly drunk and all but harmless.
All this Hiko noticed without so much as turning his back.
Except the eyes. He had seen the eyes when he had first arrived. They had bothered him on a
subconscious level, but he had brushed away his instincts and ordered them to shut down
to some extent for a while.
He wanted to think a bit.
Staring darkly into the translucent glass full of rice wine, Hiko watched in detached interest
as the liquid rocked back and forth gently in it's container while he gently swayed it from side
to side. Not that he was drunk. He never drank that much. Seijuro Hiko never got drunk.
That would mean being off guard, and Seijuro Hiko was never off guard. Never.
He had, however, had less than he would have liked, and probably more than he should have.
Three glasses so far. No more to go. Or maybe three more to go.
Whichever way he felt like at the moment.
It was a good night to get torched.
This hellish city was torched, too.
And he might as well drink to that.
Throwing his head back, he drained the glass in one gulp, then placed it back down
on the table (rather roughly) and poured another. He drank that as well,
then refilled his glass again.
He did not drink the third.
He had seen many villages burned in his time; truth be told, he'd seen one just about two
weeks ago that had ended up dragging him into a rather fruitful side quest that had served
to further deter and disturb his already troubled mind, but in all his days, he had never seen
destruction like that which had greeted him as he topped the mountains and gazed on Kyoto
for the first time in about ten years.
Letting out a deep sigh, he threw the full glass aside and instead drained the jug.
It was turning out to be a bad night.
Twenty-eight thousand houses burned, not counting barns, businesses, and other buildings.
Thousands dead, thousands more wounded, and, worst of all, the 'patriots' had been behind it.
Curse that fool child for dragging him into this senselessness.
What manner of savagery led a man to burn a city full of innocents to get his way, Hiko would
never know, nor did he ever hope to. It was something that his mind simply could not comprehend,
something that defied all understanding. To claim to fight for the people, for a new era, and to go
about it in such a way; he shut his eyes tightly as he the death toll came back to his mind.
Too high. Far too high.
The sounds of the celebration continued, growing louder and less coherent as time went on.
His eyes narrowed violently as their drunken laughter echoed throughout the establishment,
accompanied by other sounds of obvious revelry. A few curses and insults rang out amidst the
chortling and chuckling and sloshing of drinks.
Without opening his eyes, Hiko flipped his right arm backwards, shifting his hand up and back-fisting
a rather wobbly patron immediately behind himself with a mere flick of his arm and wrist.
Rule # 1 - Never approach Seijuro Hiko unannounced.
It was a fast way to get damaged.
Especially when Hiko was in a bad mood.
The now-unconscious man crumpled to the floor, and the partiers immediately around himself backed
off a good six feet.
Hiko glanced over his shoulder at the nervous men and women, and flashed them a classical Hiko grin
that held absolutely no heart behind it. Turning his head, he quietly stared at the wood grain of the table
he sat at, and the partiers, exchanging fearful glances amongst themselves,
wisely decided to leave him alone.
Hiko closed his eyes and tried to shut out the noise for a moment.
He knew Kenshin was somehow connected to the fire - he had simply felt that Kenshin had been
there when the fires were set, but he knew not whether the boy had been setting fires or putting
them out.
He did not believe that his deshi was so far gone that he would do such a thing, even on the orders
of one of those blasted rebel leaders. Kenshin was, in many ways, a complete baka, but he was
a good-hearted baka, and he'd cut down any man who told him to do such a thing.
Even if his soul was dying.
Or would he?
Either way, he was bringing down more destruction on Japan than even Hiko had ventured to guess.
Such actions he had ruled too rash for even those seeking to overthrow the Tokugawa regime.
In the name of justice and equality, they were slaying their own people and burning their own cities
in an attempt to gain an edge in their little war. Women, children, it mattered not, the cause was at stake,
and what had to be done, had to be done. It was for the future of Japan, and sacrifices had to be made.
Damn them and their hypocritical nonsense.
In their newfound weapon of death and terror, the Battousai, their confidence had skyrocketed
and if they had been mad before, they'd gone insane now.
All around him, the yelling and celebrating continued, the partiers either too drunk to know what had
happened, or simply uncaring. Neither sounded honorable to Hiko, who surveyed the room without
even looking at it. Wildly fluxing life forces, a nigh-unreadable mass of unrestrained debauchery.
Their city burned, their people slain, yet they celebrate like it's a holiday or something.
'What kind of fools are fighting this war, anyhow?! Of all the idiotic...'
His eyes flashed violently, burning with the righteous fury so characteristic of Hiten masters,
his hands clenched into fists so tight that they drew blood from his own hand.
These past two weeks, he had found himself having a problem much like his deshi's; he'd tried
to ignore it as best he could, but with everything he'd been seeing and hearing these past few days,
it was becoming obvious that he was failing.
It was partly due to the events around himself, and partly due to his own resistance to becoming
calloused towards such things.
He was losing his mind.
In his waking hours, he strode in a near trance, using every bit of training and will he possessed to
keep from simply snapping. It was like a nightmare that refused to end, so dark and hopeless
his future looked, yet at least, in the pale light of the sun, his soul found some respite.
Night was infinetely worse; sleep was impossible. His wounded mind was haunted by phantomlike
images of a red-haired shadow assassin, bathed in blood and wearing the visage of Death itself.
The assassin's bloodstained blade would flip upwards, sending a shower of blood into the sky.
As Hiko watched, the assassin brought the blade up to meet just in front of his nose, and
his eyes locked with Hiko's, sending a chill down the older man's spine...
Hiko's eyes snapped open, and he jumped slightly at the sudden hedonistic howls that erupted
from the crowd inside the tavern. Growling at the disturbance, Hiko eyed the crowd with a mixture
of distaste and animosity.
One didn't need much intuition to know what was going on. He had been to more than one
bar in his life, although he had never lowered himself to this kind of degree on any occasion.
'So, not only are they uncaring swine, they're dishonorable uncaring swine.'
A drunken geisha passed by on his right, giggling to herself and smirking suggestively.
Upon spotting Hiko, the woman's eyes widened in shock, and she eyed him in a way
that felt, most especially at the moment, extremely inappropriate. The woman's smirk widened
as Hiko's scowl deepened. Mistaking the venomous look she recieved from the man as
one of lustful consideration, she stepped a little closer and asked, in an annoyingly high tone,
if the service of the establishment was up to his standards.
Hiko's only response was a cold shoulder and a 'feh'.
Insulted, the geisha lingered a moment, then stalked off into the crowd, leaving Hiko to stew again.
"If only all problems were so easily vanquished," Hiko muttered to himself.
Free of the annoying geisha, he was about to close his eyes again when he felt the approach of a
most unwelcome ki.
Hiko's eyebrow twitched.
A moment later, the geisha was again at his table, only this time, she'd brought three friends.
Hiko's eyebrow twitched again.
The four geisha knelt at the table with him, discounting his death glare wholly, all four of them
wearing that drunken smirk and toying with their obi. Eyebrows rose in appreciation of Hiko's
face and long, dark hair, even more so of the powerful, muscular arm that that still held the drained
sake jug, until painted jaws dropped at the sight of his powerfully developed chest.
Hiko desperately resisted the urge to twitch his eyebrow once more.
The four of them began to chat amongst themselves, ranging in subjects from the sake to the floor to
Hiko's hair to... just about anything under the sun. All the while, the four continually watched Hiko's every
movement, a twitch of the eye, a flick of a finger, batting their eyes and blushing prettily as best they could.
Or what passed for it.
Hiko didn't like such skin tones, for his part. And he, for one, was intrigued that any blush could be seen
underneath all that white paint.
This went on for a while, the women yapping away over the crowd's noise, saying some fairly
shocking things, even to Hiko, who had heard much in life, and Hiko did his best to ignore them,
although he couldn't keep the slight blush from his own cheeks at some of the things these women said.
'I'm in my thirties now, and here I am, being shocked by a group of hedonistic geisha. I've been on that
blasted mountain too darn long... or perhaps not enough.'
The talk went on, the women slowly undoing their obi, and Hiko maintained his rather desperate
(and useless) attempt at mental isolation. Unbeknownst to him, he had developed from an occasional
eye twitch to a chronic eye twitch when the women said or did something in particular that displeased
him, but this was taken by the women as a breaking of will, so the teasing and chatting went on, until it
all threatened to culminate in something Hiko had no intentions of participating in.
His eyes met those of the first geisha, who was just about ready to remove her kimono,
smirking lustfully as she gave him a subtle invitation.
What followed was a blunt and rather rude 'no'.
The four geisha scattered in panic as Hiko shattered the table they'd been sitting at,
roaring for all he was worth, and daring any one of them to approach him ever again
for the rest of their natural lives.
Rule # 2 - Don't tick off the strongest man in all of Japan. Especially when he's already ticked.
The crowd had chosen that moment to scream particularly loud, so his maddened roars
went, for the most part, unheard.
Hiko's head turned, and he eyed the mass of humanity behind himself, screaming and dancing
and generally causing an uproar. The women danced, the men watched, and the barkeep
passed out jugs of sake as fast as he could, reeling in the coins of the patrons all the while.
General fun was had by all.
Hiko's blood was hot as he surveyed the lust-driven crowd of pleasure-seeking fools,
the pumping of his heart thunderous in his ears. His eyes darted to and fro,
watching the baseness of the crowd grow by the second, and as he did, his blood ran that
much more hotly.
' Fools! Blasted idiots! They watch their town burn and their people die and they
celebrate anyways! They are not deserving of their pathetic excuses for lives. '
His right hand twitched uncontrollably; he wanted nothing at the moment so much as
to silence the lot of them. They were lower than animals, with no heart for others and no mind
for anything but their pleasure. He turned away from the revelry, unable to watch aynmore,
and his eyes found their way to the table he'd destroyed.
Furious, he thought of his deshi and his idealistic mind in this mess of humanity.
How would the boy have reacted to such things as these? How would he have reacted
to those wily geisha from before?
Likely, he would have found a quick exit, as he had been before.
Of late, he'd most likely kill them.
That seemed a good idea at the moment.
His eyes burned as he gripped his nihontou within his cloak, and he considered drawing it,
for the purpose of rending a few revelers asunder.
That would put a quick end to this little party. A very quick end. Most likely, it would end with the
Shogunate police coming after him, but that mattered little anyways.
Of course, rash action was not his specialty, but that of the Ishin Shishi, evidently. Yet he felt
rash at the moment. He'd long since grown weary of wandering around and thinking.
He wanted action.
Ironically, he got it.
A sudden shift of ken-ki caught his attention, and his eyes widened for a moment before he managed
to curtail his surprise.
' Drank too much... wonderful. '
Shaking his head slightly, he focused his senses on the growing commotion behind himself.
The watchers had descended on their prey, and were currently hustling them out the back door
of the inn, going, for the most part, unnoticed by anyone in the establishment. Those being hustled
put up no apparent resistance, yet their spirits were tense and they seemed to be readying themselves
for a fight. Which was fine by Hiko. A fight sounded quite appealing.
More quickly than any of the partying fools present could see, (even if they weren't drunk)
he leapt into a small recess in the southern corner of the room and sunk low around the wall.
Lacking a little of his usual grace, though.
He narrowed his eyes a bit as he wobbled ever so slightly upon re-entry.
' I *really* drank too much. '
Squinting his eyes, he felt amongst the group for the ken-ki that had caught his attention in the first
place, and found it quickly. Startled, he reeled slightly, and was thankful for the wall he was
crouched against.
The last thing he'd ever expected to find in this city was a truly powerful swordsman, given
all the fools that seemed to exist here. The only real swordsman he thought to live in this
den of evil was his former pupil, and yet here he had found one besides his deshi.
A powerful, discerning spirit, one that was at once confident, furious, confused, and sorrowful.
An interestingly diverse palette of feelings that spiked for a moment and subsided just as quickly.
Emotions aside, it was shockingly strong and tense, and sent the general signal to those
adept at reading ki that he was not one to be trifled with.
It was more potent that his deshi's, less powerful than his own, but somewhere between his and
that of his long-dead shishou. A magnificent fighting spirit, of a caliber that Hiko had not
found since the death of the previous Seijuro Hiko, so long ago. It was, if Hiko's memory could be
trusted, stronger than that of the twelfth Hiten master.
That, in itself, was the second most unbelievable thing Hiko had ever learned.
His curiosity piqued, he slowly stood up from the table, carefully masking his ki, and headed
for the front exit.
After all, no sense directly following them. Not all warriors in this age were
weak and stupid, apparently. It was something to remember.
A man was thrown rather rudely against a convenient wall; said wall collapsed in on itself,
a testament to the impressive physical strength the thrower possessed, and perhaps to the
durability of the man tossed into (and through) the wall, although judging by the victim's newfound
lack of motor control, it was to be doubted.
Said thrower then strode over to the bewildered and damaged man, now sprawled amidst the
wooden wreckage and broken shingles, and picked him up effortlessly. Something was said
between them; it lasted only a few moments, then the captive was introduced to a new wall.
This went on for some time.
Hiko narrowed his eyes in quiet consideration. Stepping a little closer, he tried to get a better
look at the warring parties.
The captor, a tall man shrouded in a hooded cloak, quietly closed in on the position of the
now-quite-embittered prisoner,a rather stocky middle-aged man dressed in a tattered brown
gi with matching dusty grey hakama. The captive threw his adversary a baleful glare, picking
himself up out of the rubble left by his re-entry from a quick and entirely unwilling flight. Hiko
listened carefully to the words that passed between the men. Fortunately, they were now a
fair distance away from the tavern, and Hiko had no problems hearing anything on these streets.
Even though he WAS a little stoned.
"Shogunate dog," snarled the captive, struggling to stand upright despite his injuries.
The tall man stopped within punching distance of his quarry and said nothing for a time, but
watched the captive almost desperately try to maintain his upright stance. Nothing could be
heard for a time except for the ragged breathing of the prisoner and the occasional shuffle
of his feet.
The captor's ki seemed to smirk. " I'm not the one panting, baka. " Reaching out, the captor
took hold of his prisoner's throat and lifted him off the ground effortlessly. " Your little party has
ended this night, and your remaining men will be disposed of shortly." The cloaked man
seemed to smirk again, hoisting his quarry higher off the ground and tightening his grasp on said
quarry's throat. "It's only a matter of time before your entire infrastructure goes under, and then
we will bring you all down like so many dead leaves under a strong wind. You've nothing left to fight
with, so be a good dog and run back to your master, ne?" he mocked, dropping the man to the ground.
The captive yelped as he struck the ground, rolling to one side in an attempt to escape further damage
from the man before him. The captor grunted in derision.
"Shinsei Seifuku, indeed."
Hiko quirked a brow. This could be interesting...
The captive rolled to his feet, glaring at his captor defiantly. "We *will* bring you down, dog! You
cannot escape the wrath of the Divine Conquerors! You will die for defiling the land of the gods
with your soiled hands!" he spat angrily.
The captor chuckled quietly, his shoulders shaking slightly in his amusement. The captive's scowl
deepened as his captor shook his head in derision.
"Soiled hands, is it?" he queried, humoring his captive. "An interesting phrase to hear from the likes
of you, 'conqueror'." he turned to face his captive, who happened to have rolled in just the right way,
so that the captor was looking in Hiko's direction. " You're the one rolling on the ground."
Hiko kept himself from any manner of movement, although he had begun to sweat a little.
There was no perception of a mortal threat from this man at the moment, but Hiko wanted to
hear more of this matter, and it was slightly unnerving to have the person you were spying on
looking directly at you.
Hiko stood underneath a street vendor's makeshift sunroof, twenty feet off from the captive and captor.
It had been a little difficult to slip into this spot whilst going unnoticed, but even drunk, Hiko had
somehow managed it. Now his only problem was to remain unnoticed...
The captor took a step forward, about to speak again, when a sharp *crack* sounded directly in
front of him. The captive jumped, and the captor slid into a kenpo stance so fast that his movement
would have been untraceable by normal men.
Hiko willed himself not to move in the slightest. He had not stepped on anything, and had been too
focused on the scene before him to even know what had sounded. He shut his eyes half-way and
tenatively sensed around himself, looking for the source of...
Oh.
Hiko scowled. What irony. What fortitude.
The captor relaxed a bit as well, seeing a small kitten emerge from the shadows with a bit of fish
in it's mouth. It looked up at the cloaked man, at the ragged captive, then began to saunter
away as only cats could. The tall man chuckled again. Hiko would have as well, if he wasn't
so furious with the cat in the first place.
The kitten continued down the road, oblivious and uncaring of the two men behind it.
The wind chose that moment to pick up, however, in the direction of the kitten's path.
The hood of the cloaked man blew slightly, but did not fall. It was disappointing to Hiko,
who had hoped to get a glimpse of the captor, but that, however, was not the real problem.
The problem was that the kitten sniffed the air, and turned to look at the shadows from whence
he had come; conveniently , Hiko was still there.
His eyebrow twitched yet again. ' Did Kenshin have this much trouble when he arrived...? '
The captor's attention was once more diverted towards Hiko, who was busily cursing every cat
in existence as coarsely as he could in his mind. Considering he was drunk, he could think of
some good terms to use at the moment...
As fate would have it, another sharp *crack* rang out, and the captor stiffened noticeably,
training his unseen eyes on the vendor's tent, and, unbeknownst to him, on Hiko.
The oft-coined phrase, ' I. Hate. Cats, ' repeated in Hiko's mind endlessly.
The silence was tense, Hiko struggling along to survive without breathing much,
while his potential attacker merely watched and waited. Another *crack* made it
that much harder for Hiko to not hate the cat, the object cracking, and just about everything
else in existence.
Having not moved an inch since the noises began, the captive suddenly made a break for it,
lurching to his feet and taking off in the kitten's direction as fast as he could...
...and promptly falling right back where he was.
The captor returned his outswept right leg to it's previous position, as the captive loosed
a string of curses that would make a certain rooster red with embarrassment. The cloaked
man responded simply by kicking his prey in the side; except for a sudden grunt,
that pretty well shut the man up. The captor never turned his head from Hiko's direction.
The silence continued.
Hiko was quite well fed up with the situation, and was about to take a bit of action
and show himself when fate intervened again.
Three more kittens sauntered out of the shadows, each carring their own fish,
and scampered down the dusty street to catch the first one. The four ran off
into the dark streets, their slim, fuzzy tails whisking from side to side.
It was then that a steady stream of kittens began to flow from the darkness around Hiko,
carrying fish and chicken and bread and just about every foodstuff imaginable in their
small mouths, tripping and bumping into one another endlessly, and all scurried away in the
direction of the first four. The cloaked man bit back a roar of laughter as the kittens poured
out by the veritable dozen, scampering into the quiet night.
Hiko now felt he was rather safe from further suspicion, if only they'd stop running over his
feet and landing on his head and...
Hiko thanked whatever divine power had watched over him all those years in Hiten training as a
rather curious kitten ( A/N - Do they come any other way? o.O;; ) discovered a fascination with Hiko's
long ponytail. Clambering up his back, his claws hitched into the silky fabric as the kitten made it's
way up Hiko's cloak, pausing now and then to bat at his hair. It was extremely annoying
to have that fuzzball climbing him like some kind of tree. About this point, he wanted
to scream in annoyance, but due to his training, he could settle for less.
His eye twitched.
The captor stared down at his prey in quiet consideration, then kicked him again. The downed man
grunted, glaring up at the smirking man in the cloak.
" Get up. "
The captive did not respond, but merely spat at his captor. The cloaked man did not move for a moment,
the wind rustling through the dark streets, blowing against the hood of the cloak, but still the hood did not
fall. The captor bent down and grabbed his captive by the throat again, setting him back on his feet
abruptly. The captive, still dazed, tried his best to maintain his footing, backing off about three
feet in Hiko's direction.
Hiko watched intently, trying desperately to ignore the kitten that had now made it's way on top of his
head, and was busily kneading his skull as if it were a pillow. Much to his alarm, he found that
it was indeed bedding down, and it began to eat it's fish in comfort on top of Hiko's distressed hair.
The eye twitch was definitely chronic now...
"You Shogunate dogs are all alike," muttered the captive, rubbing his side in an attempt to rid
himself of the ache left by the cloaked man's kick. "You'd lead this nation straight to Hell
in your foolish notions and idiocy. And your tactics are no better." he added, glancing
down the street in what seemed to be resignation.
"Feh," the tall man snapped, taking a step towards his prisoner. "Our tactics? We weren't
the ones who decided to raid villages to acquire our supplies. Your leadership would
kill Japan more surely than if every single person in the land contracted tuberculosis."
"Likely to happen with you fools in charge," the captain muttered under his breath.
"As if you 'conquerors' are any better," the captor growled, folding his arms across his chest.
"You know very well that you only add to the instability of this nation and intensify the
conflict with your actions. Not one of you cares in the slightest for the people; you're only
after power," he added vehemently, and his voice dropped frighteningly low as he said,
"and you don't care who gets in the way or even if they don't. Never has such violence
been seen in this nation, no, not in this era or even the Warring States era. Not even
*I* have ever seen such heartlessness, and I have seen much of human wickedness."
"It was for the children of Japan," he rasped. "For their futures. For the future of this
nation! For all our futures!" His eyes glazed over, like the eyes of a man who'd heard
the same speech himself over and over. "The land of the gods will shine forth again!
We will take back our homelands and oust the Shogunate, the Emperor, and all
the foreign dogs from our presence forever! We shall all " he puncuated the end of his brief speech
shaking a fist in his captor's face.
The captor's eyes glinted for the slightest moment, hidden from view within his cloak's hood.
The captive was taken aback at the sight, but Hiko remained still. It didn't suprise him that
this man would have a powerful gaze - ki was most easily seen in the eyes, and this man
had a staggering ki.
Quietly, the cloaked man's left hand went for his pocket, and he withdrew a small, bloodstained
piece of parchment from the recesses of his cloak. A flick of his finger, and the parchment unfolded
to reveal a mess of dried blood and smudged ink. Hiko's eyes narrowed as he tried to determine
what the significance of the paper was.
Straining his eyes, he looked as closely as his enhanced senses would allow, and
studied the parchment intensely.
' A letter? No, the pattern's too smudgy. A map? No... what then? '
The tall man spoke quietly. "You say it was for the future of Japan's children."
The captive stood his ground proudly and looked at his captor defiantly, saying not a word.
"And you maintain you were justified in attacking that village," he continued.
His only answer was a glare. The captor lifted the parchment to eye level.
In a deathly cold whisper, he said, "Tell that to the tiny girl who drew this."
The captive's heart froze for a moment, then began racing as quickly as Hiko's had stopped.
The eyes of the cloaked man shone brightly from within the cloak, narrow, violent eyes,
burdened eyes, eyes that promised death; they were harder than diamonds and colder than
the coldest winter storm, but held all the burning wrath of a man who'd watched life die around
himself since his all-too-brief childhood. Gone was the pity in the eyes, replaced only by rage.
Pale, narrow, angry eyes. Amber eyes. A shining, burning amber, verging on... yellow.
The eyes of a Wolf.
Down the street, several voices cried out in unison, and were silenced abruptly. Hiko's eyes
darted toward the screams, but swung back to the tall man nearly instantly, his gaze fixed on
the shining katana the figure now wielded.
Hiko started. ' When did he draw his katana...? '
The captive was taken aback, cringing under the fearful gaze of the warrior before him, but was
unable to tear his gaze from the awful eyes that bored into his black soul. The confident voice,
now brimming with the threat of emotional breakdown, trembled at the sheer force of the feeling
inside himself. His voice, now strained with rage and sorrow, surfaced only three times, as the
wind caught his hood and finally blew it aside, revealing the chipped, forceful features of the
Shinsengumi Third Squad captain, Hajime Saitou.
" Aku, Soku, Zan. "
A short, clipped scream, and the 'divine conqueror' collapsed at the booted feet
of the Wolf of Miburo.
' Aku, Soku, Zan... '
Saitou's gaze burned into the dead man on the ground, his eyes unflinching and cold.
"Shinsei, indeed. All that is holy dragged into such wickedness..." whispered the Wolf.
His burning eyes bored into the dead man at his feet, and a flicker of despair flashed through them.
Shaking his head silently, he raised his head to the stars, as though searching for something.
His katana gave a metallic ring as he quietly returned it to it's sheath, his eyes never leaving
the sky.
"I will not surrender," the Wolf stated quietly. "I will live on and face these evils as long as I can
hold a sword, and I will not compromise on justice, nor allow evil to go unpunished. I *will*
continue until the very end, and I'll win." Saitou's eyes fell to the blade at his side, one of the
finest swords in Japan, his constant, nameless companion. "Aku, Soku, Zan. No compromise
on what is just and pure." he growled. "No compromise, no retreat."
Almost without thinking, Hiko strode forward into the moonlight, his face partially hidden
in the shadows yet, directly in front of the Wolf.
Saitou's eyes shifted instantly from the stars of the sky to the powerful-looking man now
twenty feet in front of himself, unable to keep the suprise out of his eyes at the sudden
appearance. Hiko matched the Wolf's eyes with his own relentless, suprahuman gaze.
The two stood in silent analysis of each other; Hiko, mostly for the benefit of the man before
him, 'Everything I need to know of this man, I just learned, I think.'
For his part, Saitou was perplexed and irritated in the extreme. He gave no outward sign of it,
but he was straining to sense even a trace of the tall man's ken-ki, and failing. Being Saitou,
though, he didn't show it in the slightest; he could mask his ki too, after all.
'But I've never encountered *anyone* who could *completely* hide his swordsman's spirit...'
The silence persisted for a few minutes, but the bigger man showed no signs of speaking. It
was unnerving to Saitou, being unable to detect the slightest thing about his opponent. It was
not something the Wolf of Miburo had ever experienced, nor was it something he enjoyed.
Hiko, on the other hand, was fairly comfortable in the tense silence, his deep amber eyes
burning with a strange kind of recognition. It was like finding a long-lost brother that one
never knew one had; Hiko felt an odd kinship to the man before him, who had squared off
into an ungainly stance that Hiko found somewhat puzzling.
Saitou knew those eyes; they were the eyes of a man in despair, of one losing a battle
against his own sorrow and rage. He'd seen them before. Just for a moment, he'd seen these
same eyes in a very different man...
"...what do you want? " Saitou finally snapped.
Hiko grinned, the first real grin he'd had in months. " Don't really know. "
Saitou's eyes narrowed even further. "What's that supposed to mean, ahou?!"
Hiko couldn't stop his grin from getting wider. "Who are you?" he asked with a chuckle.
"Answer me first." the Wolf growled.
Hiko's grin was so wide, it occured to him that his face might split. "I don't really know
what I want. Honestly," he said, folding his arms as he continued. "I just like what you said.
"Aku, Soku, Zan," and no compromises or retreats. It reminds me much of my shishou."
Saitou's guard did not decline in the slightest. "Exactly who are you, and how long have you
been watching me?" he growled, a hint of a threat in his tone.
"Seijuro Hiko, thirteenth master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu," he replied without missing a beat.
"...and?"
"I sensed you in the tavern," Hiko said, a note of distaste shining through his voice.
Saitou kept the scowl firmly in place. He sensed no deceit from this man, but then, he didn't
sense anything else either. And Hajime Saitou was not one to trust easily in this day and age.
"And you followed from there," the Wolf guessed.
"Actually, I took the long route," Hiko said, gently tipping his head upwards.
Saitou's eyes narrowed in confusion.
"Went topside. Think roof," Hiko elaborated.
Suspicion mounted in Saitou's mind. 'He jumps rooftops and is practically undetectable...'
His scowl deepened. "Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu?"
"That's what I said," Hiko returned, a bit cheerfully. A good mood was overcoming him
little by little. Whatever came of this encounter, he would remember this man for all time.
"I have never heard of a kenjutsu school by that name," Saitou said slowly.
Hiko's grin shifted to a trademark 'Hiko Smirk'. "You wouldn't ever hear it spoken anywhere
in Japan, mister," he said, basso profundo. "It's an ancient style, developed in the
Warring States era."
Saitou grunted. "And your reason for being here?"
"In town? My own. In front of you? It should be obvious. I sensed a powerful ken-ki and my
curiousity was piqued by your little scuffle. Besides," and Hiko sniffed the air, as if reflecting
on the dingy establishment from earlier, "taverns aren't really my cup of tea."
Saitou was silent for a moment. "Whose side are you on?"
Hiko smirked even wider. "I serve the people of Japan, not the Emperor or Shogunate."
The Wolf stood in quiet contemplation. "You don't belong to either the Ishin Shishi or the
Shogunate, eh?"
"No."
"Shinsei Seifuku, I take it?"
Hiko's smirk never faded. "Don't try and compare that trash to me."
Saitou grinned. "A loose cannon, then."
"I'd say more of a 'people's advocate'."
"That sounds pompous."
"Never liked that term, myself." Hiko returned easily. "Try confident."
"Overly so, I think."
"You may think all you like, but I guarantee you've never encountered anyone like me."
Saitou paused. "Show yourself."
Hiko stepped out into the moonlight.
The scowl faded almost instantly from Saitou's face. Hiko grew quizzical as the Wolf made quite
a show of attempting to restrain his reaction to Hiko. Hiko's smirk faded, replaced with an expression
of confusion. It was then that the Wolf burst out in a roar of laughter.
"You're right about that, ahou," he gasped between fits of laughter, "I've never encountered
*anyone* like you."
Hiko was unable to restrain a scowl. What could this man possibly be laughing at?
Hiko was many things, but not comedic in appearance. His eyes tracked left and right as he
struggled to discern the source of amusement, which was clearly not false - the baka before him
was apparently having trouble breathing in his amusement, which only served to irritate Hiko further.
The cursory scan of the area turned up nothing. Hiko's eyes locked again on the yellow-eyed man,
annoyance quickly surfacing.
Opening his mouth, he was about to make some snappy comments to the disabled swordsman,
who was now on his knees, still roaring in laughter, when he felt something tug at his scalp.
Hiko's eyes widened. ' Oh, for the love of... '
The kitten, finishing it's last bit of fish, stood up and stretched out on top of Hiko's head, a few bits of
the small meal falling off of Hiko's head in the process, and then the kitten made its way off the
indignant swordsman, clambering down Hiko's head, onto his shoulder, then making a leap for it
towards the ground.
Hiko's muscles were taught and straining, his eye twitching of it's own accord. It showed
no signs of stopping.
The kitten lit out of the area as if it somehow knew exactly what kind of trouble it was in if it stayed
a second longer. And it *was* in trouble, to be certain.
No one made a fool of Seijuro Hiko.
Especially not a *cat*.
Hiko, desperate to regain a shred of his shattered, tattered, and broken dignity, returned
his twitching gaze to the funny-man swordsman, making a conscious effort not to rend the man
to pieces.
'NO WITNESSES!!! *NO* WITNESSES!!!'
A brotherly kinship indeed. Already Hiko wanted to kill him.
Saitou's mind was screaming at him to get control of himself and stand up, and he tried to obey.
Oh, how he tried. The Wolf was never one to be weak in will, but these were extraordinary circumstances.
It wasn't every day that such fine humor was found in such a hellish place as this.
Saitou regained his feet after a short time, a smirk plastered across his face. Hiko, on the other hand,
was the one scowling now. And oh, how he could scowl.
"Was that humorous enough for you?" the Hiten master muttered in a menacing tone.
Saitou replied only with a smirk as he drew his katana. Hiko's eyes widened a bit at the change
in behavior, then narrowed in consideration of his opponent.
Saitou's strike was swift and strong, a powerful lunging slash from his right side. Hiko leaned back,
crouching low and sliding into an instinctive counter stance, his nihontou gliding out of it's sheath
in a swift, soaring Battou Jutsu. His katana deflected, Saitou whirled into the parried slash,
his blade revolving with him, flying back towards Hiko's unguarded left side at near-Hiten speed.
Hiko's left arm swiftly brought his wooden sheath against the underside of his enemy's blade,
flipping it into the sky and whirling his own katana around himself in a roundhouse counter-slash of
his own. The Wolf leapt high into the sky, flipping himself over Hiko's blade, coming down four feet
beyond Hiko's back. He leapt further back, backing off about ten feet.
Hiko's head fluidly revolved towards his opponent, his eyes tracing his foe's every movement.
The Wolf smirked, and Hiko felt a chill go down his spine.
"I never thought you'd be so daft and comedic," the Wolf snarled, "but it matters not."
Hiko could only stare in confusion.
"I've finally found you," Saitou said, his eyes narrowing in determination, "Hitokiri Battousai."
End Chapter 6
@_@ That took a while to write, that it did. Comedic to me, a tribute to one of my favorite RK
comedies, Hiko and the Kitten. ^_^ That fic is simply a work of genius and discerning wit, no joke.
o.O;; Hiko faces off against Saitou?! Egos collide (or what's left of Hiko's collides with Saitou's
intact pride), sparks fly, and I guarantee some major Hiten vs. Gatotsu action. Considering Hiko's
torched, depressed, and majorly embarrassed, I'd say Saitou has a chance. ^_^
And no, I am not setting out to completely destroy Hiko's dignity. It just happened.
Next chapter will indeed see a mighty battle between Seijuro Hiko and the Wolf of Miburo,
and I promise to work hard on it. I wanna write a good battle scene. o_O Hopefully
it won't take as long as this chappy did, but that's questionable... ~_~
Got another idea for a fic, which I'll start after I finish this one, or maybe during...
Inspiration hits at weird times. It's gonna be a fun piece to write, and it involves
my # 2 fave character, Sano. Coincidentally, Hiko is # 3, and guess who's first?
Kenshin, of course. o.O Kenshin rules. The fic itself is gonna be an action/adventure/humor,
and hopefully, it'll be just as long as the intended length of this one.
Thanks for reading! ^_^