"She was your SISTER!" the Doctor raged, as Ken'i regarded him coolly.
"Another casualty of war," she said, wiping the blade with her scarf. The Serpentine Lord roared, flames filling the air above him as he gave a mournful, angry bellow. Ken'i hesitated.
"Recognize that rage, do you?" the Doctor menaced. "Do you understand what your sister meant now? Do you know who you've been fighting?" Ken'i took a step backwards.
"Father?" she stammered in shock as the Serpentine looked down on her sternly.
"That's right," the Doctor confirmed. "These are the Senzi people of the past. Their souls caught in a temporal anomaly, unable to die. They were able to come back, only in the form of dragons. All they wanted to do was be accepted by you, to go back to their old way of life, but your 'attack first and ask questions later' diplomacy prevented that. They were forced to kidnap their loved ones, spirit them away to try and get them to remember." His voice quivered with rage. "They just wanted their lives back, but instead you perceived them as monsters and attacked without hesitation."
The villagers were silent, mesmerized by the revelation that their loved ones were, indeed, alive. Truman, who up until that point had been cradling Kazuhira's body, looked up at the Doctor. From where he was, the Time Lord looked absolutely menacing, the most frightening thing in existence. His rage crackled around him as he burned brighter than a million suns. Truman was absolutely, unequivocally fearful of his life.
Ken'i fell to her knees, tears running down her face as she dropped her blade. Truman regarded her carefully, but could not tell whether it was the severity of her crime or the Doctor's rage which caused her penitent pose. The Doctor walked towards her, his very presence causing the soldiers behind their submissive leader to throw down their weapons. His anger leaped and bounded off the walls, penetrating everything in sight with its sheer intensity.
"And not only have you destroyed your ancestors, you've just murdered your sister." His voice was barely above a whisper, and yet resonated throughout the cavern. "There are evils reserved for loathsome, despicable creatures like you in the furthest depths of oblivion." No one dared to speak, in fear that his very anger would incinerate them as the words left their mouths. He looked down at her, the small, insignificant being she was, and stared.
Then he walked away. The intense anger dissipated as quickly as it had come about, and Ken'i breathed a sigh of relief. That was all too much for Truman.
The anger transferred itself to him, filling every crevice of his being as he carefully laid Kazuhira down and picked up her sheathed katana and took it from its casing.
"Truman, what are you doing?" the Doctor's eyes bore into Truman, both pleading and ordering him not to do this.
"She destroyed the only woman I've ever truly loved! My Tardy Woman is dead because of her!" he shouted, tears pouring down his face as he held the blade to her neck. The great leader whimpered as the Doctor tried to reason with Truman.
"I know it hurts Truman, believe me, I know the pain," the Doctor assured him. "But you cannot sink to her level. You just can't. We need to be strong for her."
"I AM SICK OF TAKING THE HIGH ROAD!" Truman cried, his hands shaking uncontrollably. "I have always been the good guy, the dutiful son, and it has never worked in my favor. I can't keep seeing terrible people win and I can't keep losing. I just can't…" His voice disappeared, and he collapsed in a heap in front of Ken'i. He sobbed silently as the Doctor walked over to comfort him.
Ken'i, furious over having been dominated by two men in front of her people, grabbed at her fallen sword and raised it over her head, poised to strike down Truman Nedry where he lay. She brought the sword down…
Only to have it collide with another sword. There, bloodied and pale, stood Kazuhira, her unsheathed sword blocking the advance of her sister's twin blade. With surprising strength for the amount of blood she had lost, she pushed Ken'i's sword backwards away from Truman.
"I am sorry for being late, Truman," Kazuhira said softly. "But I could not believe your name for me." Two of the soldiers grabbed Ken'i and shackled her, while two more helped Kazuhira to a nearby rock. Truman looked up from his ball of sadness, and ran to Kazuhira in an embrace until she winced in pain.
"I could use that Band-Aid you offered," she said dryly, causing Truman to laugh in relief and look at the Doctor. He was smiling at them, obviously happy that she had survived. However, Truman noticed his eyes weren't corresponding to that emotion. Instead there was a darkness, an oblivion so black that Truman gave a quick prayer that he would never see it manifest itself again. Windsor came over to the two of them, snapping Truman from his trance.
"How in the bloody hell did you survive that wound? I could've sworn it went right through your heart," he marveled as he regarded her injury.
"I have a stronger heart than you give me credit for," she stated as the medics that had arrived with the army attended to her. Windsor walked away, leaving the medics, Truman and Kazuhira. "A heart that is strong enough to lead my people." Truman looked at her, absolutely crestfallen.
"But I thought you would come travel with us," he said, his heart sinking as he realized she could never leave her people.
"I need to lead my people," she asserted, caressing Truman's face comfortingly. "And I forbid you from staying. You are needed with the Doctor, that much had become clear to me. You need to ground him, and ensure that he stays on the path of light. I do not trust your friend Windsor with that task." Truman begrudgingly nodded, but fished in his pocket for something.
"Here, I want you to have this to remember me by." He handed her his grandfather's pocket watch, which gleamed brightly as Kazuhira looked at it. "This way you can actually be on time once." Kazuhira smiled at him, the first time Truman had seen her do that since he had known her.
"And here is something for you to remember me by," she said as her lips joined with his. In that one instance there was nothing else in the world, no TARDIS, no Windsor, no Doctor and no adventures, just Truman and his Tardy Woman.
"Ok, was never too comfortable in these situations," the Doctor interrupted, grabbing Truman from his love drunkenness. "You'll make a great leader, Kazuhira. I just know it."
"We will thrive with our ancestors," she affirmed, crossing her arm in front of her face at the Doctor. "You will always be welcome by the Senzi and the Serpentines."
"Ok, let's go before Truman decides to start snogging the queen again," Windsor said as he ribbed Truman. "Tardy girl, eh?"
"It's WOMAN, first off," Truman replied. "And at least I have a girl, especially one that can beat you to a pulp."
"Alright, you two," the Doctor said cheerfully as he placed his arms around their shoulders. "Let's get back to the TARDIS."
The control room was a godsend to Windsor, who was frankly quite ready to have the comfort of a bed to sleep on instead of a prison cell.
"Where's the next destination, Doctor?" Truman asked, as he fondly reminisced about his kiss.
"Well, we can go anywhere we want, really," he reasoned as he tossed his psychic paper onto the console. Windsor tapped on the console, which caused the Doctor to stare at him intently.
"What did I say about the tapping?" he asked crossly, and Windsor shook his head, as if shaking off a trance.
"Sorry, didn't realize I was doing it again," he said, brushing it off while the Doctor continued to stare.
"Doctor, there's something appearing on your psychic paper!" Truman pointed out, and the Doctor grabbed the paper and read it.
"You have GOT to be kidding me," he said, dropping the psychic paper in frustration. Truman bent over to pick it up, and read what it said.
"'Telltale heart, you are cordially invited to solve a mystery with me.' What does that mean?" Truman wondered aloud, as the Doctor scratched his head in frustration.
"It means," the Doctor began, hesitating to finish his sentence, "that Edgar Allan Poe needs my help. AGAIN."