- 40 CHAPTER MARK -
Whoo! I'm honestly so thrilled that I've pursued this story so far...
And thus, a LONG CHAPTER for you all!
Note: If you read ch. 39 before I updated it again, then you already know (ohoho), but if not, then I just took out the second answer to the
WHAT DID I JUST ALLUDE TO?! game...
ANSWER - Series : YOU'LL FIND OUT THIS CHAPTER! (^_^)
DISCLAIMER: Sorachi Hideaki owns all non-OC figures/concepts, and any OC-canon relations are of my own creation. Whoot whoot.
Eyes of Wolves
- 40 -
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
She caught him as soon as he fell, but it was his blood that washed her sober.
.: EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO :.
He lies on the floor, motionless, and the metallic warmth that tickles his skin creeps along the wood panels with apathetically slow progress. He's cold all over, but his right eye blazes like the sun he has never seen openly.
A tear of blood trickles down his face like an acolyte of the absent tears, but he cannot see anything. The fingers of his left hand are stiff, frozen, unfeeling. The wrist is shattered, bent horribly out of position. He waits.
There's a gap in his memory between the time he fades from consciousness to the prickly pain of stitches as he regains the feeling in every single nerve ending. His long, blue-black hair is coated in blood, some dried, some still fresh, and it makes him slick, makes him hard to hold. Yet his aunt grips his head in a strong arm, her fingers caked in red, cradling him as her working hand waves in and out, in and out.
The movement is hypnotic, yet it makes him sick because he can faintly feel the pull of his flesh and the rolling of his eye in its socket. Only the soothing brush of his mother's cool fingers against his own calm him. She sits at his left, stroking the wrist set into a cast, and he suddenly wonders how he, a little boy, can bleed so much, when he realizes that it's not his own blood beneath her fingernails, but her own. A purple bruise lines her left cheek, and it's then he knows that she must've gone after the assassin.
His kind, soft mother, who smothered her Yato blood and would never even touch a fly, with a near-black eye and a split lip. Out of the corner of his good eye, he sees her murmuring little nothings. At her waist, her delicate mauve umbrella stained a pearly, ominous orchid with blood and darkness. She tries not to hide her pain, the unaccustomed sensation of violence, but she fails.
"He was crazy," Zenshi rasps, hoarsely. He's hardly a pip, a squeak, but she squeezes his partially numb hand lovingly.
"I know."
"Lanhua, can you give me that role of gauze? I'm going to wrap him up," Auntie says. Her voice echoes off the walls, ubiquitous and resounding. His consciousness is falling away from him, like water receding from the shore.
"Here it is," his mother says, handing her sister the roll.
There is flickering movement in the darkness, but it's gone.
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
It was Kagura that leapt to her feet and fired three rounds at the assailants, her body language fierce and determined. But her small red umbrella was nothing against their loaded, specialized bullets, and the crowd ducked behind chairs and booths and overturned tables. Several are nowhere to be seen — those that had fled Tsukuyo's impending destructive intoxication had probably escaped out the back.
"K-Kagura." Zenshi, half slumped over Tsukuyo, unhooked his own parasol from his belt and tossed it her way. It slid along the floor until it reached the redhead's hands, where she pulled it quickly to her chest and rolled until she had a clear shot at the enemy.
"Hey," Tsukuyo exclaimed, her voice quavering. She was surprisingly strong, her arms wrapping around his torso and dragging him behind a round booth. He collapsed alongside the back of the chairs, her hands gripping his arms so hard that her knuckles went white. "H-hey" she repeated, unable to break out of her initial shock.
Zenshi reached up to wipe the blood from her face.
"Tell them," he said, coughing. "The bullets are poisoned."
Tsukuyo's eyes went wide, and they darkened, pupils dilated with panic. They were the same hazy lavender, the same dark as his mother's umbrella, except swathed in fear and everything malicious.
"Kagura!" called the woman, relaying the message. When the younger girl could not hear, Tsukuyo tried to stand, but Zenshi vehemently pulled her down. Several figures were now reentering the club, including the Yorozuya men and their partners. The wail of sirens outside was cut short as someone slammed the doors shut and boarded them up.
Harusame kills Yato woman…The war of the ages…
A sudden desperation pushes him to wrap his arms around Tsukuyo and force her down, to shield her, to keep her from running up and away.
"Don't move," he said, "those are snipers that don't miss."
The sound of nearby shooting must've been Kagura, but he couldn't tell. His vision was foggy and a sense of lethargy burgeoned from beneath his sternum. His grip on Tsukuyo was loosening, but to his thickly recognized relief, she didn't leave. If he wasn't hallucinating, the courtesan had just ripped her sleeve off and was pressing it to his shoulder.
A duo of samurai tumbled over to their location, one wielding a sword and the other a gun.
"Gintoki!" exclaimed Tsukuyo. "The bullets are poisoned!"
"So it seems," grunted the silver samurai, ducking behind a table in the vicinity before peeking over the top. The bullets didn't ricochet, but instead embedded or shattered. Luckily enough for Gin, he had flattened himself to the floor as the bullet shattered the glass table and stuffed itself angrily into the couch behind him. The samurai carefully brushed broken shards of glass away from him, crawling back to his armed partner. "Hey," he hissed, "Tatsuma, go left."
"Go left? Oryou-chan's on my right, I hafta go that wa—"
"Just go left!" Gin seized the merchant by his curly brown hair and threw him in the right direction. A bullet flew by with a whiz, and Sakamoto laughed boisterously.
"Ah, that was close," he sighed, as if delighted by the entire ordeal.
"You idiot!" Gin smacked the back of his companion's head before turning back to Tsukuyo. "Oi, is he okay?"
"The bullets are poisoned," Tsukuyo repeated. She appeared to avoid the question, for the panic in her eyes gestured confusion and insecurity. Zenshi's one hand lingered on the hem of her yukata, watching as the patterned maple leaves died in copious rivers of his blood.
"Hey, Tsukki, still drunk or something? You already said that." But Gin was serious, he was concerned. "Does anyone know what type of poison?"
Tsukuyo was too frozen to answer.
Weakly, Zenshi extended his arm from Tsukuyo's lap to point at Sakamoto. Their eyes turned to the grinning merchant with incredulous disbelief.
"Him?"
.: TWELVE YEARS AGO :.
He brandishes his umbrella, pretending his doesn't care.
But he does care, he cares a great deal, because this is the man that hurt his mother, this is the man that caused the pain in her eyes so many year ago, and if there is one thing he hates with unfathomable force, it's the suffering of those he holds dear.
He's taller, stronger, faster now.
And he kills the assassin with little more than a thought, and it is the blood that intoxicates him.
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
"You're trying to tell me that this idiot has the antidote?" Gin raked Sakamoto back towards the group, tugging on the man's coat. "That's impossible. You're nuts."
"Zenshi," said Tsukuyo urgently, "is it the Harusame?"
He nodded. When he shifted, the blood oozed from his shoulder and seeped through the cotton she pressed to his body.
From a distance, they heard the dismayed cry of Kagura.
"Shinpachi!" she half sobbed, half screamed. Zenshi could not turn to look, but from the expressions on their faces, the situation was not bright. Through his lurching haze, the presences of the fifth squad were emerging from their positions and hunting ever closer.
"We need that antidote. Now." Gin shoved Sakamoto upright next to Zenshi, who was now propped up against the back of the booth with Tsukuyo attempting to stifle the flow of blood from his shoulder. The poison ejected antibodies and enzymes that hindered the extraordinary ability of Yato blood platelets to clot. The two parts to the venom would either alter the properties of blood so that the shielded wound clot dissolves to quickly, or digests any utilized platelets altogether.
However, that was the only specifically Yato-targeted side to the poison. For most Amanto, the combined series of lethal substances would kill within the next fifteen minutes, reducing the ability to breathe and stopping the heart. Essentially, it melted wounds and froze bodily functions.
But there was an antidote, one that only the higher-ups of the Harusame carried.
After all, a pawn is a pawn to the organization, nothing more and nothing less.
"Where's the antidote?!" hollered Gin. "Tatsuma!"
"Antidote? I—"
A bullet shredded the back of the booth and flew right through the merchant's left arm.
"—eh?"
"Tatsuma!"
"Get down!"
Simultaneously, Tsukuyo and Gin pulled all four of them down to the floor, laying flat behind the pierced couch. The bullets may not have been all firepower, but they were certainly potent.
"Gin-chan, Gin-chan!" came Kagura's wail. "Shinpachi is—"
"Well," Sakamoto muttered through gritted teeth, "this is unpleasant."
Zenshi reached over and took the gun from his hands, which quivered in vacant spasms.
"Call," he ordered harshly, "now."
Sakamoto laughed shortly, each breath becoming a task. The poison was affecting him faster than most.
"I don't have to," he croaked. "She's already here."
.: NINE YEARS AGO :.
He has made a habit out of sitting in on surgeries and treatments and appointments, under the guise of a student assistant. He's a recent graduate, but for the time being, he's back in his hometown, doing his regular activities: occasionally shadowing his father, though he loathes those moments now; watching the younger kids passing on by to the temple school, an echo of himself several years prior; spending quiet dinners with his mother, who is relieved to have him home; or running errands for the madam down the street, who grows more and more sickly by the day. Yet still, he finds time to learn the art of medicine, crowding around the operating table with the new technology probably invented by some graduate of Ocentisa, some few years ago.
"This," Auntie tells him, "this is dangerous."
It's the root of a plant he's never seen, from a planet that he's probably never visited.
"I see it once in a blue moon, this poison. But I learned a lot about it from your grandfather. It's potent, even lethal, for any Amanto."
"Then how is this man alive?" asks the ever-inquisitive Zenshi, perched on a swiveling stool, eyeing the sleeping patient put to dreamland via countless IVs and anesthetics.
"Because," Auntie says, "I made the antidote."
There is a pause as she motions to a nurse — her clinic has since grown into a lovely small hospital, with well-furnished medical centers and patient rooms — who wheels the man away.
"Right before your graduation," she continues, glancing his way, "I found out that my husband, your uncle, had died recently."
Zenshi is taken aback; though he has never been close to his uncle, he has met the man on many an occasion with Linter. Those are the moments he recalls: a hardworking man who has a stoic daughter at his side. He sometimes wonders if the taciturn attitude is maternal, if he and his little cousin are so similar.
"He's…gone?"
"Yes. He had been sick for some time," sighs Auntie, "and the fool was too proud to come see me. But then again, even I probably couldn't have helped him."
"I'm sorry," Zenshi offers in a low mumble. "For everything."
"Don't apologize," his aunt admonishes lightly. "And speak clearly, my dear. You didn't go to such a fancy school to learn how to mumble."
He nods complaisantly.
"While you were at school, however, I did meet my daughter."
Zenshi snaps to attention, ears perking at this information.
"She was here about half a year before you graduated, I'd say, with a different business and a new job. She's fifteen now." Auntie smiles forlornly. "I wish I'd seen her grow up. But she's a darling, she looks much like her father. I know you've seen her on your political expeditions, and I've probably already asked you all I could about her — but it's just so different to see her in person."
"I think she looks more like you," Zenshi notes quietly.
"Does she?" Auntie looks like she is floating into her memories, but the anchor of reality brutally weighs her down. "She stayed for two weeks or so. It was nice. I can't say much for the Earthling she was with, however. A bit of an airhead, if you ask me. But I liked him, he was very courteous and such a jolly character."
"That's good to hear."
"Oh please, Zenshi, you don't have to reply. I told you to speak up, but that doesn't mean you have to. I know you enough." She smiles, a bit more naturally this time, and cleans up some of her tools. The nurse returns with the empty gurney, and she wipes it down and changes the sheets with complacent ease. Zenshi wipes down the surgery table as she does so, both in contemplative silence.
Auntie finally rests, the day has come to a close, and the setting of the sun on the less rainy days means the Yato are out and about. With luck, there will be few ruffians falling from roofs and injuring themselves, and thus less to care for in the hospital for the night.
"I tried to impart to her as much as I could before she left," Auntie says, continuing her retrospective as they neaten up the waiting room and dismiss most of the staff. "She's such a bright girl. I was so happy to see her."
Zenshi waits, gracing his aunt with his knowing wordlessness.
But instead, she asks a question.
"Do you think she was glad to see me? To come home?"
There is a confound desperation, bequeathed by the misery usually concealed in her eyes and a slight falter to her step. Zenshi decides that he has no clue regarding the origin of their family personalities. His mother's side expresses every emotion with full depth, but most of all, they are hushed, brooding people who wonder what it is that went wrong, and why, and when, and how.
"I cannot answer that for you," Zenshi informes his aunt with considerate coldness. "But I can surely tell you that she misses you. She told me."
"She does?" Auntie's face glimmers, and it almost breaks his heart.
"It means," Zenshi says, "that she loves you dearly. She was certainly happy to see you. Otherwise, she wouldn't have come."
The look then on his aunt's face remains ingrained in his mind always and forever, and he doesn't recognize it then, but it will stay within the pages of his memory because every time he sees his cousin, it's that same face reflected in her soft yet shielded features.
Always, and forever.
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
I tried to impart to her as much as I could before she left.
The blast of a firearm rocked the building, shook the floor, reverberated within their bones. The sound of a revolver was always somewhat different from a loaded Yato umbrella's distinctive noise. The parasols had less of a pop and more of a resounding cannon echo. The handgun was sharp, quick, instantaneous.
"Whoever wasted our money on this party, I will castrate them and they will experience one thousand years of pain." One shot, and there was a snap as the Yato umbrellas opened and they guarded themselves.
"Fire!" came the voice of a pirate, and the Yato were firing again.
"Whoever was dumb enough to get shot, I will also castrate you and you will experience one thousand years of pain." She muttered something about all the trouble her reckless, harebrained, imbecilic captain could cause. As the woman neared, Zenshi pushed himself away from his group of four, propping himself over the back of the couch and aiming Sakamoto's gun in the woman's direction.
He shot past her, skimming the shoulder of a less attentive Yato crewman.
"And whoever shoots at me," she hollered in her dry, apathetic way, "will die."
She began to weave her way over to Zenshi, who hung limply over the couch, wrenching both arms forward in excruciating pain so that he could handle his wobbly aim past her. As the Yato fired, she dodged by instinct and he shot the best he could against them.
Mutsu landed behind their newly formed barricade of chairs, tables, and couches with nimble lightness. From her pocket, a small capsule full of green gel pills emerged.
"That," Gin said, breathless because he had been dragging several cabaret girls to safety, "makes a lot more sense."
"Mucchi," sobbed Kagura, clinging to her bespectacled friend.
But Mutsu ignored them and stared at Zenshi, pointedly noting his shoulder.
"In most of us, there's an important artery right there," she remarked wryly. In a soft undertone, her expression clearly told him that he was an incompetent moron to have allowed the bullet to pierce such a vital spot.
But Zenshi would answer her with a laugh, leaning back in relief when Mutsu handed him the pill to swallow, because it was the exact same thing her mother had told him, twenty long, painful years ago.
ANSWER:
yes.
They are cousins. Ohohoho.
NOTE: Yes, longer chapter, but you should be grateful these aren't Emeralds chapters...aHHH. So long.
OFFICIAL MICROSOFT WORD PAGE COUNT:
approx. 157