Chapter 79

Present day

The early morning sun was beginning to rise as Yamato marched his way back towards the town. He held his expensive looking helmet tightly in one heavily gloved hand, wanting to feel the early morning wind across his face. He grimaced as thoughts returned to what had happened over the recent days, what he had done to fulfil his pledge. What he had been reduced to.

He waved once at the guard who barely noted his arrival as he walked back into the town. He was glad of that, for he had no time for idle chatter at the moment. He had to figure out what he should do. With any luck Takino and the others would be gone by now, and they would not learn of his failure, they would not know his resolve had weakened. And hopefully that would mean she could still live. Ahead of him stood the crooked house he had been given for the duration of his mission.

He pushed the door open, and all thoughts froze as he saw the white envelope upon the table, the only clean thing in the room despite all his efforts to clean it. With his hands now trembling he picked up the envelope and held onto it for a few moments, his usually dry hands now clammy, and not just from wearing the heavy gloves. Perhaps it was the news he had been hoping for. The only other reason for receiving this would be…

With still trembling hands he opening the envelope carefully, breaking the red seal and pulling out the single piece of paper. In scrawled writing the short message read:

"She is dead."

With a scream he dropped the sliver of paper, and threw the helmet across the room, not caring as it smashed into wood with a great crash. Screaming once more he collapsed to his knees and for the briefest moment began to sob. Almost as soon as he had started, he had finished. Instead he found himself gripping the hilt of his blade. If she was dead, the contract was no longer valid.

As the carriage rattled along the roadway that had seen many better days, Kagesaki was too engrossed to notice the frequent bumps the entire vehicle experienced. Even as Shuzo grumbled something after hitting his head on part of the wooden framework, the scarred man instead found himself looking down at his hands.

Where there had recently been nothing but a ruined stump, now his arm and hand were replaced, by an intimidating steel skeleton. The steel arm, attached to what remained of his original flesh arm had a joint at the elbow and again at the strange looking wrist. Whereas before he had had the normal collection of fingers, instead he now had three thicker steel fingers with three jointed parts, as well as a large thumb that looked capable of causing great damage by itself.

As he sat there he stared even more intently at his new hand, watching as two of the fingers twitched slightly. He glanced over to Sen who he found was observing him with almost as much concentration as Kagesaki had been giving to his fingers.

"Very good, very good," said Sen. "It can take a lot of effort to refine the movements, but you already seem to be doing better then I first did."

"I haven't got time to learn in a relaxed way," replied Kagesaki. "Soon we'll be in battle so I have to learn this stuff now."

"We might not have to engage in battle," replied Kline who didn't look up to face the men. "So far it would appear they have no idea about what we plan to do. And given our…leaders moderate fame around these parts we should be able to waltz in to a heroes welcome" he added.

"Heroes welcome?" asked the unconvinced Kagesaki.

"Well I guess perhaps it won't go that far, but I suspect Takino's return will draw positive attention," said Kline.

"Is attention really what we want or need?" asked Kagesaki.

"Normally I would say no, but in this case we are dealing with someone very important to all of them. At the very worst Takino can distract them with tales while we set about on our mission."

"Will there still be destruction?" asked Kagesaki.

"I fully expect there to be," replied Kline. "Destruction, devastation, death. I suspect all of those old friends will be joining us."

"Good," said Kagesaki. When it became clear the carriage had descended into silence again, Kagesaki returned to staring at his hand and watching as the fingers slowly moved. He felt his thoughts returning back to Sen giving him a quick lesson in how to control the arm.

It was merely attached to the stump of his former arm, with no special connections. He had no natural way of controlling it. Instead Sen had revealed to him first the bony remains of his hands, and then the way in which he controlled the apparently lifeless fingers. Through manipulation of the basic chakra flow within the body strands of the energy could be created to connect to the arm, the fingers and with refinement even each individual jointed part of the hand. Though he currently had crude control over the currently unwieldy arm, Sen had revealed how with practice the chakra strands could become passive in nature, requiring no more thought to move then it would have taken to move his uninjured fingers. However Sen had warned Kagesaki such refinement had taken him years. Kagesaki had days, perhaps weeks- and was certain that he could learn faster the Sen. He was certain he was special- given all that he had survived so far, how could he not be?

"You shouldn't just concentrate on that new hand of yours," said Kline, interrupting Kagesaki's thoughts.

"What?"

"That seal cut into your hand possesses great power," replied Kline. "It is a tool of pure destructive force. It exists only to tear down, rip apart, never to create. It is a tool that offers many ways to kill. A tool to slay."

"Sounds like my kind of tool then," said Kagesaki.

"Indeed," replied Kline.

Yamato felt neither the wind on his face, or any of the bumps as he rode the stolen horse as fast as he could. He carried no food, no water. All he had now was his armour and his sword. He suspected his was galloping towards his own doom, but he had to confront Takino, he had to stop the man. He had gone against his principles and aided the man purely because he had said he could cure his sister of the terrible disease that had plagued her. But no help had ever been forthcoming. His sister had suffered and died while Yamato spent his time away from her side doing deeds he found foul.

Unblinking he galloped onwards. By his hands Takino would die.