A couple of nights before November the sixth, at the common dining room of the Shinshushin Manor where the Kamiminochi police troopers drank in seclusion from the rest of the Kanto district squads...
"Don't get me wrong. Amakusa's fanatical followers truly are extremists to the core. His attempt at portraying himself as the reincarnation of a historical rebel in order to justify his assassinations of top-ranking ex-bakufu officials is also sickening. He's garbage that should be dealt with as quickly as humanly possible."
The massively built Kamiminochi Captain Haruo Nakayama crossed his arms. "Sho what'sh your point, lieutenant?"
"My point is that the Modern Shimabara War went both ways! We may be part of the police force, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we'll simply eat whatever tripe our self-serving government feeds us!" The alabaster-skinned Lieutenant Okami Yamazaki felt his ears and face warm up like wax from a halfway-spent candle, which he inwardly dismissed as mere tipsiness.
"It doesn't excuse the fact that we've been downright abusing our own citizens just because they happened to believe in a different faith from ours. Nor does it excuse Akahori from going overboard by calling in an entire army just to apprehend a peace-loving town full of hardworking folk leading double-lives as Christians. He claimed them all to be insurgents, Captain! I'm fairly sure some of them weren't even Christians, yet we bombed and massacred those villagers too!"
"You had this realization just now, lieutenant? Surely, you must have heard the reports of the cleanup crew at Nagasaki picking out bullets from bodies in order to cover up the one-sided nature of our assault." Officer Oimikado delicately put down his half-consumed cup of wine, licked his lips, and batted his eyelashes at the flushed-looking Yamazaki.
"We had killed an incredible number of innocent people in Shimabara, but the government never did pony up any evidence of their wrongdoing or their connection with Amakusa. This information is just as hard to verify as the rumors of Amakusa's murderous rampage against a thousand soldiers and police, but both these stories are still out there nonetheless."
Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation by Chester Castañeda
Just wanted to take note that the religious and political discussions here are mere flavor text to a straightforward plot.
Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others) are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and Sony. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.
Chapter 17: Monster at the Mansion
In the East Valley of Shinshushin, Soujiro Seta ran. Sprinted. Flew. His thoughts remained jumbled as he went through the familiar motions of his daily sprint to and fro the villages of Shinshu to maintain his stamina; his mind raced alongside his feet while innumerable concepts formed inside the former. Tetsuo Akahori. Shogo Amakusa. The police. Yahiko Myojin and his merry men. Rin. The Fake Battousai Group. Keisuke. The Fake Battousai. Kyoko Sakaguchi. The Real Battousai Group. Satoru Sakaguchi.
By themselves, they represented a jumble of words that only made sense to Soujiro alone or any of the people involved in the Modern Shimabara War's sixth anniversary. Strangely enough, they also summarized the entire proceeding quite well (in the twenty-something youth's opinion, at the very least).
The ground exploded below him as he tore through the landscape. The rising dust scattered in all directions, but he himself remained untouchable. The velocities he achieved, he imagined only the freest and wildest of horses could envision. Any faster, and he'd be a bird flying the heavens of infinite blue that attempted to test the very limitations of its abilities. The god-given gift Makoto Shishio helped him develop had paid dividends for him up to this day, the circumstances behind their eventful meeting be damned.
"Only the strong shall reign, and the weak must serve as food for the strong in order to best follow the natural laws of this world." Although paraphrased, the very essence of Shishio's motto was pumped right into Soujiro's nerves, the network of thin tubes knotting together and constricting into a pulsating mass of instinct and desire every time even a hint of the topic "Might is right" was within his earshot or field of vision. Every. Single. Time.
For a whole decade, that'd been Soujiro's sole truth. His words to live and die by... or words others died for and he lived by. It was so ingrained into his system, it actually, physically hurt him deep down inside whenever the topic was broached.
It took a battle against a powerful yet righteous man so much like him to make him understand just why that one belief pained him so. He had turned off his heart... or his soul; in the Japanese language, there was no distinction between either meaning... to follow Shishio's truth to the letter, only to realize later on that it wasn't his truth.
Himura Battousai even added salt to Soujiro's gaping wound by declaring that he didn't have the ultimate answer either. As such, the most powerful of Shishio's Ten Swords was forced to travel Japan to discover what was his own truth.
Anyhow, Soujiro had a silver-eyed, dairy-haired, and pale-skinned nymph in tow; one that he had to awaken with true love, like a prince in those foreign horror stories about fairies and supernatural beings she regularly read to him. His smile grew wider. What a simplistic thought; like a child's dream.
The fleet-footed man laughed; had he painted a more ridiculous picture in his mind, he would've included mizuchi, gaki, kappa, tengu, oni, oni-baba, baku, goryo, tanuki, umibozu, futakuchi-onna, yuki-onna, and so on in his make-believe world of chivalric nonsense.
Had Soujiro met Rin in different circumstances... for example, had he still remained an abused bastard that was raised by a bunch of spoiled, social-climbing, nouveau-riche rubes... he would've identified Rin as a "snow lady" regardless; his Snow White.
He grasped the person he held in his arms tightly, remembering how Amakusa flung the bag that carried her earlier on like it contained pieces of laundry; he lacked any regard to her whatsoever even as he faced gunfire and cannon blasts while holding the Porcelain Doll of the House of Akahori.
Speaking of Akahori, even Soujiro had to admit that he didn't see that mental collapse coming, especially since it was the Hokkaido Oyakata himself who just attempted to stomp him until he became okonomiyaki batter.
Was it all part of Akahori's convoluted plans? Or did he genuinely go crazy at the mere thought of his daughter's life in jeopardy? It could be either, both, or neither when it came to the Oyakata's machinations.
The ex-Ten Ken seriously doubted that "Beating the one man who can save your daughter's life to a pulp because he suggested that doing exactly what the kidnapper wants is a bad choice," was part of Akahori's schemes. For good or for ill, Akahori really did do unexpected things at times.
Honestly, Soujiro never expected the events that transpired a couple of minutes ago to come to pass. Granted, it was something he had to regularly deal with as the bastard child of a two-timing father and a mistress mother who couldn't care less about him. His stepfamily had their way with him more often than not, but that abuse was in the context of familial contempt.
Soujiro never would've imagined Akahori to break down at that critical juncture of his impending assassination. Say what you will of Makoto Shishio, but at least he didn't beat you to a pulp once you've proven your worth to him. "Evil" mastermind that he was, he respected strength, power, and might in all shapes and forms.
He recalled the constant abuse his foster family handed him, his smile serving as his wince and his laughter serving as his yelps of anguish. He could never look them directly at the time even though he eventually became someone few ever dared confront. The beating Soujiro received in the hands of a desperate Akahori earlier served as his reminder that he hadn't really changed much at all.
He winced. He winced and balled himself up at a sight he hadn't seen in many years: the silhouette of a man ready to punch and wallop him into submission.
Then again, perhaps Soujiro merely underestimated the amount of love and caring that Tetsuo Akahori had for his only begotten daughter and how it even trumps wisdom, savvy, and common sense... what with the boy never having experienced such love in his life. With his foster family, he learned derision. With Shishio's faction, he learned strength. With the House of Akahori, he expected to learn more about logic and reason, so he was surprised to see the normally unflappable Akahori go berserk over his daughter's capture when he could've instead used his ability to think on his feet to rescue her.
The milk-haired snow lady stirred in Soujiro's arms. The rest of her body still felt numb and unconscious, but at the very least, she managed to rouse her mind.
"Thank you for saving me," the girl intoned with irises that shook in place... the kind of eye movement that people usually associated with repressed emotionality, but for Rin, it merely served as one of the symptoms of her medical condition. "I'm sorry for causing you all this trouble. I didn't think things would turn out like this when I first came up with the idea to go to Shinshu."
"You're awake. For a second there, I thought I needed to kiss you to wake you up." Soujiro's body burned red from head to toe, which he supposed was caused by the body heat produced by his midnight run.
True-to-form of an "ice woman", one of Rin's eyebrows went straight up as she tilted her head and asked, "Was that your idea of a joke?" which made Soujiro shrug in the middle of his sprint.
"Just don't laugh even if you found it funny. Your laughter scares me a little," Soujiro confessed, amazed at how clearly he delivered that unthinking reply. He then realized that this was one of the few instances where stumbling upon his words would've yielded better results.
After a few minutes, Rin muttered, "Ah. Another joke."
"I guess..." A cloud of mosquitoes splattered across the bare skins of Soujiro and Rin like grains from a fist-full of sand as they passed through it, which jolted the both of them into uneasy wakefulness.
Back to communal dining room of the Kamiminochi District Police a few nights ago before November the sixth...
"None of what we did compares to the horror of what these Christians did and could do to us. The assassinations of the ex-bakufu are all part of their grand scheme to take over our leadership in the same manner the Ishin Shishi did during the Bakumatsu," Sergeant Askikiga groused, his nose upturned as he shook his head at his supposed superior's unpatriotic allegations.
"Do you want Japan to return to those days of civil unrest and bloodshed? The soldiers and policemen who died on November the sixth deserve our utmost respect. You have no right to speak ill of them at all."
"Excuse me for daring to criticize our 'faultless' leaders! The Meiji Government and the hanbatsu are hardly perfect. You're barking up the wrong tree, Sarge," Yamazaki retorted.
Captain Nakayama harrumphed, his hot breath reeking of hatred and alcohol. "All I ever need to lern about that politically driven cult, I lernd from the Shimabara Mashakur. Have you ever hurd of the Crushadesh? If you haven't, then shut your mouth. You know nothing. I have no interesht in jushtifying the crimesh of those zealot hypocritesh and mindlesh rebelsh. What about the shoulsh of our shons, brothersh, and fathersh who are shcreaming, shcreaming for jushtish and an end to their pain? Fuck them Kirishitan."
"I'm afraid you're wrong, Captain. I think the lieutenant's right. The Meiji Government basically forced us to murder all sorts of Nagasaki villagers in the belief that they were all Christian rebels working under Amakusa."
Kawashi, a man so short he made Captain Toma Kujo of the Gunma District look normal-sized, spoke out while ignoring the teasing remarks of his compatriots that insisted he should stand up when talking despite the fact that he was already standing.
"I was actually one of the survivors of that mission. I don't know what troop you were in, Captain, but we did some very horrible stuff. Some of those people we killed didn't deserve to be killed."
The svelte, bun-haired, and horse-toothed Officer Tanaka also put his two yen into the conversation. "Look, religion and politics are touchy subjects for most people, so I say if you can't add anything to the conversation, then don't bother saying anything at all," as he gave the harrumphing Officer Kawashi a flippant snort.
"War is normally a method used by high-ranking assholes in Tokyo in order to get richer. These campaigns have nothing to do with making the rest of the world respect Japan as a sovereign nation or ridding us of foreign influences like Christianity and the unequal treaties," Officer Tanaka insisted.
"How many of our leaders have been assassinated in the last twenty years? It's a dog-eat-dog government we have right now, so I don't believe any of the bullshit they're feeding us about doing this and that for the betterment of Japan's worldwide influence. War is a cycle they're perpetuating in order to keep their pockets full while the rest of us get burned for following their questionable orders."
"ENOUGH! Remember our promish to Akahori-shan. He will defend our empire. Our future is in hish handsh, sho we will fight theesh corrupt shonsh of bitchesh to the death alongshide him!"
The flaming-red oni that replaced Nakayama's face roared, hot flecks of spittle spewing forth his swollen maw as he metaphorically melted holes on the floor underneath his feet. It had come to the point where the captain's crew weren't sure if his reddening complexion was more due to sake or anger.
"Theesh hidden crosh worshippursh and relijush nutcashesh are all over Kyushu, particularly Nagashaki. They're hidden in plain shight ash Kakure Kirishitan, they come in all shapesh and shizesh, they're prejudished against both the Japaneesh government and the Japaneesh people, and they're definitely not on our shide. I undershtand that some innoshentsh have to pay during war; we paid our duesh, and sho will they. If we weren't in the middle of a fucking shivil riot right now, I'd pershonally hunt those brainwashed, backwardsh-thinking shitheads down myshelf!"
"But is there really a war going on, captain? The Meiji Government doesn't seem to think so, and they're painting the months' long campaign at Shimabara as nothing more than a skirmish," the tall, heavyset, and chocolate-complexioned Officer Yoshida felt compelled enough to comment, but soon blanched as Nakayama spat, "Shut up, you unpatriotic peeshes of shit. I'm not yet done talking," at his pouting, eggplant-shaped face.
Yamazaki and his supporters shook their heads and turned away from Nakayama in disagreement, but did nothing more as the plump policeman continued his chatter.
"Have you fergutten why Lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi banned Kirishitanitee from Japan all thosh yearsh ago? Let me refresh your memory. My own former troop leader himshelf, Captain Ryuzoji, told me that the edict wash made into a fundamental Tokugawa law in order to avoid letting Japan fall into the colonial trap that caught India, Mexico, the Philippinesh, and a whole bunch of other countreesh too far off for ush to even care about!"
Nakayama slammed his fist onto the table, which knocked over his empty bottle of sake and a couple of his compatriots' cups. "Japan wash actually the largesht oversheesh Kirishitan community a good three centuries ago! Theesh are the shavejesh that ate horsh meat and made shlavesh of their fellow countrymen, for goodnesh shakes! Then and now, they've brought dishorder and chaos into our proud nashun by ruining our traditional valuesh, disrespecting out culture, destroying our laws, and corrupting goodness."
The slow and deliberate drawl of the plump man's speech speeded up an ante or two. "We cannot allow thish fundamentally flawed propaganda machine to go any further! Theesh Christians are nothing more than a group of cop-killing terrorists who murdered top officials in our country, over two thousand of our men, and countless more civilians in order to dictate to us their brainwashed, deviant, and immoral views that hurt our society in the long run and force us to willingly subjugate ourselves to foreign rule. We will not throw away our pride as Japanese people! It's our social obligation to either have them renounce their depraved, cultish faith or exile them where they won't be able to corrupt us with their influence!"
The Kamiminochi Captain slumped down his chair, his vein-filled, burgundy face whitening as his exploits in Shimabara came flooding back to him. 'Shit, I'm sober.'
"W-We have to be brave a-and strong. We can't let what happened to us at Nagasaki ever happen again. Our very pride as a people is being questioned here. I don't give a shit if any of you disagree with me; I'd rather lose those Japanese traitors who became Christians than lose any more of our own men. There will be anti-war dreamers who'll say that we aren't at war; well, tell that to Lieutenant Hiramatsu's widow or Captain Ryuzoji's family. As... as a Japanese citizen who's loyal to our Holy Emperor, I care about the suffering of our enemies' innocents as much as they cared about our innocents."
Under his breath, Nakayama cursed and grumbled as he stormed off straight towards his contingent's designated sleeping quarters.
Back to the relative present, at the East Valley...
At that moment, as Rin rubbed stray grit from her eyes caused by her slumber, she asked, "Why did you save me back then and left my father at the mercy of that Amakusa fellow?"
"It was the right thing to do. Why shouldn't anyone do it?" Soujiro reasoned with a smile, a twitch, and a wince.
"Don't give me an answer you'd expect others to say. Give me your honest answer." Rin's trembling, moon-blue eyes pierced into the smiling facade of the young man before her as they did their best to see if the Ten Ken's mask truly had something underneath it.
Though Soujiro didn't stutter, the steady beat of his Reduced Earth Technique did go out of tempo for a second or two. "Because I don't want you to fall into harm, of course. As soon as I can get you to a safe place, I'll finish off the rebel myself."
"Don't do things because it's a matter of principle. By doing so, you're doing yourself and others a disservice," Rin berated, which made Soujiro's facial muscles move from his jovial expression to more a indeterminate state.
She further remarked, "Before you can help others, you must first help yourself. If there's something compelling you to go through this mission, then discover what it is for yourself. Himura Kenshin himself didn't go protecting the weak because he viewed their needs as above his; he did it for the sake of absolution. He defeated Shishio Makoto when he realized the virtue of looking out for his best interests, which wasn't mutually exclusive from his caring for the welfare of others."
"I don't understand. I thought you'd be happy that I saved you. I thought I made the right decision," Soujiro mumbled at Rin as he almost took a turn that would've led him straight out of Shinshu.
"I'm happy that you rescued me, but I'd be disappointed if you did so only because you'd think it'd make me happy or because you did what was expected of you. Think for yourself." Rin cleared her throat.
"The only 'right' decision for you to make is the one you yourself decided to follow. You shouldn't see things as simple black and white or right and wrong, or else you'll get into trouble. What is white for you may be black for others, and vice-versa."
The creaking click-clack of bamboo surrounded the pair as they passed through the outer fringes of the caned forest in a hurried pace.
"For example, here in Japan, white is the symbol of death. In the west, as you've heard father's foreigner associates tell us, the reverse is instead true. Humans are the ones that force the dichotomy of good and evil into certain things, with good symbolizing everything they approve of and evil symbolizing everything they believe is wrong with the world. As with many philosophies, it depends on the individual, so you can't just blindly accept a belief you abhor. It all depends on you."
"You're giving me a headache again, Rin-san." To Soujiro's amusement... genuine or otherwise... Rin began to rub and massage his temple with one hand.
"Why did you save me?" Rin repeated, her ashen body tense and strained as though it were suffering from rigor mortis.
'I felt empty without you. I couldn't feel anything, even though I knew that I was supposed to feel something. I didn't know what to do, think, or feel when I thought you died, as though there was no point in me doing anything else,' was the answer Soujiro couldn't even begin to express.
Instead, he glanced down at Rin, met her eyes, smiled, moved his head forward, focused his attention back to where he was going... the forest of bamboo he identified as the place where he and Yahiko Myojin fought... and shared, "I don't know. I simply wanted to. Should I have a reason for doing so?"
With a quiver of her mouth that, on others, would've looked like a random fidget, Rin breathed, "That's reason enough. As long as you made that decision by yourself, then it should be all right."
From there, they did their respective versions of laughter, which for Rin's part didn't involve actual laughter at all, just silence, a hint of a smile, and an empty stare using the default expression on her face.
At least Soujiro's guffaws sounded heartfelt, even though most people who knew him and his "condition" couldn't tell what constituted as "sincere" for him. Anyhow, perhaps Rin shouldn't even call her reaction as "laughter" at all, but she nonetheless appreciated the irony.
An upcoming tree branch forced Soujiro's attention back to his jog. They were making good time, so they were about to reach the nearest town soon. Should he leave Rin in Kyoko Sakaguchi's care in Shinshu? If he could, then he would've traveled all the way from Shinshushin to the Aomori docks or even straight back to Hokkaido if called for. Alas, he still had business to attend to back in Akahori's Mansion.
For a moment, Soujiro and Rin stopped in the middle of their momentous run as the former leapt up and felt that one fraction of a second stretch for longer than it was supposed to stretch. Just then, a vision that Soujiro saw six years ago and didn't expect to see for the rest of his life winked into existence in the midst of his precarious jump over a hollow log.
Soujiro's agape mouth went dry as he espied a seemingly fifteen-year-old, fiery-haired, wakizashi-wielding young man wearing a blue kimono, a white undershirt, and an off-white hakama with matching black socks who was the spirit and image of a young Kenshin Kamiya (nee Himura).
Were Soujiro not holding Rin in his arms, he would've used his hands to push his heart back down his empty chest from his throat. His muscle memory had him tense his legs on pure instinct, his torso burning with the nostalgia of a bone-crushing pain caused by the impossibly fast lightning strike of a blunt sword. He remembered seeing Kenshin's left foot sink into the tatami, his eyes never blinking at the inhuman feat of strength.
The person in front of him was a Battousai doppelganger in every sense of the word, right down to his red hair and cross-shaped scar. The imposter also wore standard-issue hitokiri garb and apparel as well as a topknot ponytail typical of assassins during the bakumatsu.
However, after Soujiro's brain adjusted itself in order to better perceive the person in front of it instead of the person it thought it saw, the twenty-something noticed differences both subtle and overt from this apparition.
First, the pair of scars was somehow closer to the fake Battousai's eyes than with the real Battousai's. Second, his eyelids exhibited hints of lazy eye while the roots of his hair were markedly darker than the orange coloring of his predecessor. Third, his stance and movement were completely wrong as he dove straight into the descending pair with a burst of speed slower to what Amakusa displayed earlier.
Soujiro compensated slightly with his overshot landing by doing extra Shukuchi steps to set himself upright, which in turn left heavy footprints and potholes all over the landscape, but at the very least he maintained his equilibrium even though his supposed anchor... Rin Akahori... had slipped his fingers.
He turned around after feeling a burst of wind hit his cheek like a light slap: a parting gift from the ghost of Kenshin's former self, the Hitokiri Battousai. With nary a syllable of warning and right under Soujiro's nose, the Kenshin double had used that window of opportunity to snatch Rin in ways that the real Kenshin's Shinsoku never could.
Soujiro looked behind him and smiled, his eyes aflame with a moonlit fire. The imposter Kenshin went to the direction from which the Ten Ken came, back to the mansion full of Kanto district officers.
Back at the front yard of Akahori's mansion...
The side of Amakusa's temple bled while pieces of the broken metal band he wore around his forehead fell along with him. He gnashed his teeth as he landed hard on his left leg, his body tingling with a fresh wave of torture.
After the charismatic Christian radical landed back on the ground while sporting a fresh new bullet wound... the person responsible for it crawling back to the safety of his mansion's study as he struggled to make his lungs work again... a hail of hot lead and bayonets followed.
The lanky redhead thought fast and used battoujutsu to shatter the spears coming at him while diving headfirst into the nearest brigade in order to use them as human shields from the shower of lead. 'Two gone. One left. I've been careless.'
"I went through the trouble of finding a way to kill the devil known as Akahori Tetsuo without involving any of you, yet you threw your chances for survival away anyway." He lopped off a number of ears and fingers in order to get through the crowd and move to safer ground. "The last thing I want to do is involve you, the people whom I have hurt the most, in my personal crusade. However, that ship of mercy has sailed, and circumstances dictate that I try a different approach."
The Kanagawa and Gunma groups struggled to pursue the blabbering yet wounded Christian madman with sabers and rifle fire, but one simple look into Amakusa's dilated eyes had them gasping for air and flinching away at the mere sight of him, as though his presence by itself proved exhausting. He was he sun; a celestial body they couldn't even bear to stare at for too long, untouchable and immovable by mortal whiles and means. If the Christian God or the Enlightened Buddha were to grace their presence among mortals, then either would probably look like Amakusa did right at that moment.
Amakusa gripped the scabbard of his sword so tightly, blood started to drip from his clenched fist. "This is your last chance to save yourselves. From this point on, this mansion is your Sodom and Gomorrah, and every last person that dares defy my will shall suffer a fate far worse than being rained upon fire and brimstone from the sky. You're all sinners in my eyes, and if you try and stop me, you will face the might and wrath of the One True God. No one shall be spared."
More like a tsunami than an avalanche, Amakusa razed through the crowd of stunned police officers from Kanagawa and Gunma by glaring straight into the eyes of the awed coppers and struck at their feet, lower legs, thighs, necks, shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, scalps, and faces with machine-like precision. He got them two, three, or even five at a time, jettisoning the injured, hemorrhaging policemen right behind him to ward off any possible sneak attacks from the rear.
Amakusa speed-painted the yard with the bodily fluids of his enemies, his sword serving as his brush of sorts. Although he rushed his charge in order to attend to a more pressing matter, the slashes that he did land on the shell-shocked officers... which looked more like abrasions than incisions, for some reason... did the job in draining their already pale faces of blood.
On cue, several of the remaining Togakudan immediately took the initiative to distribute ammunition and extra weapons to the mostly untouched ranks of the Kamiminochi and Tokyo contingents while the others carried the injured, disarmed, or dying to the safety of the mansion.
"Those of you from the Togakudan who aren't busy, man that Armstrong cannon again, and get us some more ammo! Those of you in the Kanagawa Troop who haven't fired their weapons, get them ready! The rest of you! Get out of the way so that we can get a clear shot of that terrorist bastard!" In the middle of Captain Yamada's shepherding of the hesitant police force, Amakusa leapt right over the whole lot of them in order to confront the astute Kanagawa district leader face-to-face.
"You're a smart one, Yamada Kuniumi-taicho. You're pretty quick on the uptake," Amakusa appraised in midair before gravity exerted its influence and let him dive right at the unmoving policeman's jugular with a downward, perpendicular strike. "Such a waste, though."
Yamada managed to block the strike with his bayonet-fitted Murata rifle before the sword could hit the vein, but he inexplicably hesitated just as he attempted to either shoot or counterattack with his gun, which helped Amakusa pierce through his chest and lung instead. In the interim, both Yahiko and Captain Ujiki let out stifled, simultaneous gasps after witnessing the assault.
"How'd you know my...?" Yamada hyperventilated, his eyes zigzagging everywhere as he trembled, the nearest of his fellow Kanagawa officers preparing to either shoot or stab at the stationary Amakusa. He then froze. "Holy shit. There's a traitor...!"
In response, Amakusa turned away and kicked Yamada in the stomach in order to gain enough leverage to yank his sword out and jump away from the approaching bullets. Assorted shouts of "CAPTAIN!" and "CAPTAIN YAMADA!" echoed across the yard while asphyxiating blood spurted forth the Kanagawa commander's stab wound like a red fountain.
Amakusa whispered after doing the sign of the cross, "Almighty God, through the death of your Son..."
A sobbing Sergeant Satoru Sakaguchi arrived first to his captain's side, cupping the injury and applying pressure to it the best he could, but his hands merely slipped from Yamada's body because of the growing pool of slick redness surrounding the both of them. Yamada tried to talk, to give some sort of comforting words to his horrified subordinate, but all he could muster was his own blood. He died in mere minutes not from his blood loss, but from choking to death.
A few yards away, three of the Togakudan... the tomato-nosed Nishiguchi, the owl-eyed Okazaki, and the just-a-bit-less-effeminate-than-Minoe-but-not-by-much Minamoto... tried their very best to dig Raedo Nagaoka, the damaged Gatling gun, and themselves out of the impromptu graves that Amakusa created by somehow producing a landslide from the sheer awesomeness of his sword strike.
"YAMADA-SAAAAAAAAN!" Captain Kujo screamed with glistening eyes that he hastily wiped after realizing Amakusa's plan. "What's wrong with you people? You heard the man! Fire at Amakusa as fast and as furiously as you can while the closest of you should either stab at him or regroup from a proper distance! Gunma Squadron! DO IT NOW! That's an order!"
To his chagrin, Kujo identified two of his men... the coffee-skinned pair of the balding Takahashi and the baggy-eyed Hosokawa... running for their lives along with other officers from different contingents and exiting the compound via the wide-open gates.
"C-Captain! I can't explain it, but our l-limbs feel h-heavy. We c-can barely breathe, and this is an open-air courtyard! I d-don't understand it myself," Kujo's trembling second-in-command... the hawk-nosed, pale-skinned, and slit-eyed Teraku Kimura... elucidated after asking the rest of the Gunma company their status beforehand. "I'm not sure w-what Amakusa did, b-but our r-reflexes are slower than usual."
"It's true, Captain. I've heard r-rumors about that man back in Shimabara; something about him p-possessing the hypnotic eyes of a snake that f-freezes p-people int-t-to place, which is part of the reason why h-he killed so many s-soldiers and policemen six years ago!" the bleeding and flushed Officer Aburakoji chimed in between pants and wheezes.
"What the hell are you two babbling about? That's utter bullshit! Hosokawa and Takahashi certainly didn't look at all paralyzed when they scuttled away from here like little pink pussies! You're all part of the Gunma Police, dammit! Don't make up lame excuses for your subpar work! Pull yourselves together, and don't let that one man intimidate you!"
The diminutive Kujo tugged and jerked at his hair in every which way as his immediate subordinates chose the worst time to be superstitious country bumpkins.
"CAPTAIN! BEHIND YOU!" the wide-framed Gunma Sergeant Souta Watanabe warned as he unsheathed his saber and interposed himself between the looming Amakusa and the frustrated Kujo. The thin metal blade appeared to shatter, and Watanabe himself "shattered" along with it.
Pieces of cloth, a belt buckle, a halved hat, blood, guts, internal organs, and shattered bone sprayed across the three Gunma policemen. If only the traumatized captain had enough presence of mind to check himself, then he would've noticed that the kanji for the numbers one, eight, and ten had been painted on his uniform using the mortal remains of his loyal sergeant.
"...Amen," Amakusa murmured before turning his attention to his next target. "Hello. You're Captain Kujo Tomo, I presume? Your time has come." The rebel cleaned his sword with this lengthy robe in front of the blood-splattered captain. "Don't worry, though. Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning."
It happened so fast. Way too fast.
Yahiko's sweat and blood ran cold as, one after another, Akahori's personal army of Kanto district police officers dropped from Amakusa's midst like moths to a flame before he even had the chance to undo the cloth wrappings of the sakabatou. The samurai boy didn't even bother checking if Minoe and Gan followed him as he went to investigate the sudden twist of fate. 'We were fifty-two; three down, forty-nine to go. Dammit. I've failed my promise to protect these people, Kenshin. I'm sorry.'
Red hair. Crossed-shaped scar... or rather, crucifix-shaped scar, but it was mostly the same difference to him. 'Is this the man who massacred the fake Battousai Group save for Keisuke three weeks ago? It sure looks like it. He certainly acts the part of someone who's used to manhandling entire armies! Damn.'
With a shudder, Yahiko concentrated hard to override his instincts and automatic responses to Amakusa's surprisingly powerful and imperceptible aura, particularly the tunnel vision that stopped him from comprehending the course of this Battousai doppelganger's trail.
He felt his head alternate between prickling hot and cold wooziness as all sorts of internal organ processes happened within him, namely the loss of hearing, relaxation of his bladder, dilation of blood vessels for muscles, constriction of muscles for everything else, and acceleration of lung and heart operations. 'Relax. Relax like you did when you fought Psycho-Kid.'
Instinct and forethought fought for about a self-contained eternity as Yahiko's locus coerulus increased its rate of noradrenergic activity to the point where his whole environment snapped into sharp, grotesque focus.
At that moment, the profusion of catecholamines all over his neuroreceptors enabled his body to dig deep into the fighting instincts he'd sharpened for six years straight. The endless hours of physical exertion and waving a bamboo sword to and fro had served their purpose well in replacing his natural instinct to either flee or fight for mere survival.
At that point, Yahiko became aware of just how many of the police officers stood or lay there and, more importantly, just why they couldn't get over their seeming distress at the two confirmed deaths.
'They're not traumatized to the point of being shell-shocked! They've been trained to handle worse cases than this! It's just that this crazy cultist is using his kenki to freeze them into place, just like with Kenshin and Kurogasa! Well, more like Kenshin, less than Kurogasa, because he doesn't outright turn them into living statues or anything.'
"Out of the way, pipsqueak! I have a job to do," Ujiki growled as he elbowed the contemplative sixteen year old to the side. "If you know what's good for you, then get the hell out of this cursed mansion. I saw a number of cowards do just that, and they had guns, sabers, and bayonets handy. I heard you inherited Battousai's toy sword. You better run away."
"You! Don't tell me that you're going to throw away your life for money too! You probably weren't even part of that Modern Shimabara War that everybody's talking about," Yahiko presumed, but this was actually his halfhearted attempt at making Ujiki hesitate from confronting Amakusa while he himself attacked the whirling dervish of pious violence.
"Oh, fuck you. This isn't about money. You saw the moves that Amakusa used, did you not? You must have noticed it too. He's using your idol's Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. The stabbing movements and some other sword style he had threw me off at first, but it's unmistakable. Did Battousai have some sort of lost classmate or student that went bat-shit crazy? Because that describes Amakusa Shogo to a 't'!"
"No, it's impossible! Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu is passed down from only one master to one student! At most, there can only be two practitioners at any one time!" Yahiko reasoned out, feeling somehow perturbed by what Ujiki implied. "Isn't it?"
"Guess what, kiddo? Amakusa fucking Shogo-sama just changed the fucking rules! I never seen Battousai do that avalanche technique before, but I'd know that leaping attack from anywhere. Amakusa is using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. Period." The brusque Ujiki pushed the irresolute Yahiko aside in order to finally meet up with the rest of the Tokyo squadron; he just remembered that didn't have time to argue with children.
'Dou Ryu Sen. Ryu Tsui Sen,' Yahiko ticked off his mental checklist as his disbelief transformed itself into comprehension. He had to face facts; for whatever reason, this Amakusa fellow truly was using the top secret techniques of Kenshin's sword school, and it totally blew the Tokyoite's mind. 'If he is using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu techniques, then what's with the sweeping brushstroke slashes he deploys from time to time?'
"I don't know what the hell Heishiro Mitsurugi Ryu is, but I'm pretty sure that guy over there is practicing Nikaido Heiho," Gan intimated from behind Yahiko with his signature gruffness, which almost earned him a bleeding nose care of a startled teenager's spinning palm strike.
"What do you know about Nikaido Heiho? Do you know who Kurogasa is?" Yahiko grabbed hold of the beefy older man's... gi? Shirt? Vest? Whatever it was, he maintained a tight grip on it and looked deep into the lantern-jawed, slightly fetid, and bandanna-wearing hooligan's mud-brown eyes.
Gan picked his nose as his eyes gazed upward in consideration. "Black Hat? Never heard of him. But I did hear that there were at least two practitioners of the art who were part of the Shinsengumi at one time. One of them became an assassin and the other became a serial killer. It makes one think that this martial art does things to people's heads or something."
Yahiko licked his lips as he continued shaking the mountain of a brute in front of him. "What about the guy who defected into the Ishin Shishi and became a hitokiri?"
"Hey, hey! Settle down, Yoshi-boy." The Ginormous Gan picked Yahiko up and plopped him down like a grown man would a puppy dog. The ruffian-looking hobo... or vice-versa... shrugged. "Sorry. I have no clue. I thought you'd know, what with your man-crush with the Hitokiri Battousai and all."
Yahiko nodded with a sinking heart as the urgency of the situation resurfaced in his mind. "What about Amakusa? Where is he now? I lost him in the confusion. Has he already managed to get into the mansion?"
"Huh? Oh, don't get any ideas, Yoshi-boy! That terrorist is like a whole arsenal of unsheathed swords in the middle of a hurricane or something. You'll get slaughtered if you dare fight him, especially with that toy sword of yours that can't even cut flesh! It's better that you run away now." Even though Yahiko wouldn't dare admit it, the Generally Incoherent Gan made a lot of sense.
Nevertheless, the sixteen-year-old teen chose to roll his eyes and undo the straps of his wrapped sakabatou in preparation for battle. "Never mind. I'll find him myself." The boy set his eyes on the flashes of red in the distance while his body fell into its automatic fighting stance.
When trouble came afoot, his swordsman training taught him to let his instincts and discipline take over. His callused hand loosened up as a familiar calm enveloped him despite the palpitations of his heart and the little voice in his head that told him to run far away from that cavalcade of imminent ruin... a voice he'd long ago ignored even before he achieved mastery of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, when he faced off against a giant with a sword even larger than he was at the time.
"You know, I was thinking... if you really want to get the reward, we can always sneak in the mansion, snatch up old Oyakata-face from his lofty perch, and get the fuck away from... Hey! Where are you going? YOSHI-BOY!"
Forty minutes past midnight, at Akahori's Shinshushin Manor...
"Tokyo troopers! Show these hicks and farm boys how we do things back in the big city! I have one overruling order that cannot be broken: Cover me while I get that Armstrong cannon!" Ujiki shouted out and instructed several Togakudan to make sure his command was distributed across his regimen and the rest of the surviving troopers post-haste.
"Lieutenant Iino! Lead half of our healthiest officers and form a saber squad against Amakusa! Don't engage that insane terrorist directly and always fight as a group! Use as much stabbing motions as possible and then start shooting your rifles as you back away. Sergeant Kazunari! Get the rest of our men who can still hold a rifle and have them cover me and Iino. Shoot at his body because it's the larger target, and shoot as a team! If that bastard ever slows down, take a headshot! Officer Kosaburo, help Sarge out with the shootout!"
Both the big-headed, slab-like, and six-foot lieutenant and the smug, average-sized, yet beautiful sergeant nodded in instant acquiescence to the Tokyo captain's commands. However, Officer Kosaburo Shinichi couldn't help but tilt his neck and body away from Ujiki while asking, "M-Me? But, sir! I'm only an officer!"
The brusque commander lifted his nose at Kosaburo and struck him with an openhanded smack. "You're part of the Kamiya Dojo, aren't you? Then you're probably familiar with how Battousai attacks. That somersaulting asshole is using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. Help our troops figure out the pattern behind his movements with whatever knowledge of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu you possess."
Kosaburo reeled more in shock at his own captain's confirmation of his suspicions regarding the nature of Amakusa's inhuman capabilities than of the suggestion that he take an awfully active part in pursuing that very same religious insurgent. "Y-Y-Yessir! Right away, sir!"
Subsequently, he took aside one of the shinobi... a svelte, eye-patched girly man by the name of Matsuo or whoever... and asked, "Status report. What's going on in the field? Who is Amakusa fighting now and what has happened to our different police groups?" Ujiki resisted the urge to vomit; the diminutive man reeked of blood, so he was presumably assigned by his troop to assist the wounded.
"Tokyo Captain-chi, the rebel has injured nearly all of the Kanagawa contingent, the majority of the Gunma contingent, and he had directly killed Captain Yamada Kuniumi-chi, Captain Nakayama Haruo-chi, and Officer Watanabe Souta-chi. Also, five of the officers had already run away from this place."
"Fucking cowards." Ujiki hacked up some phlegm and spat at the ground. "Wait, what do you mean by 'directly killed'?"
"Quite a number of the officers are on the verge of death thanks to the injuries Amakusa caused, but there are also those who got injured because they were used as shields from the bullets. I believe an officer from Kanagawa died this way," the diminutive man with tousled hair that hid half of his face informed.
Ujiki furrowed his eyebrows. "And what about Officer Souta? How did he get killed?
"He was sliced into pieces in an attempt to save Captain Kujo's life."
"Son of a bitch. He's executing all the captains first, and then everyone else that attempts to stop him." Ujiki gripped his saber tight in either fear or anticipation, his calluses serving as natural gloves within his gloves that numbed his hands' sensation of touch. He understood Amakusa's plans.
"'Kill the head, and the body will follow,' huh? So he had a Plan B after all. Well, fuck that shit. Here's another order I want you to spread to the rest of the squadrons; the next people in command will automatically lead the rest of their respective contingents. If all that's left are officers, they'll be reporting directly to me or to your leader, Nagaoka. Got it?"
"Sir-chi, Raedo-sempai is presently unconscious." The Togakudan spy cringed as Ujiki let loose a stream of crisp curses.
"Then fucking elect a goddamn leader or, better yet, they'll be answering directly to Akahori. If Akahori dies, they'll have no point in being here anyway! Oh yeah, where's the rebel now?"
"Fighting the rest of the Kamiminochi and Gunma troops."
"He'll make mincemeat out of them. Get as many Togakudan as you can to help me setup the fucking cannon. The rest of you, you already know your orders. Move out!"
The Togakudan messenger saluted as the Tokyo captain ran towards the cannon, the air from the sudden movement flipping up his eye patch and revealing an eye with scars beneath it. "Yessir."
Forty-one minutes past midnight, at the portion of the yard strewn with dismembered limbs and lifeless bodies...
The noise of blades whistling into the air and gunfire ripping through the ground reverberated across the yard, which drowned out the scarce, scant tings of clanging metal. Soon after, wet squelches and gurgling screams replaced all of these sounds in a aural cacophony of nightmarish onomatopoeia. Amakusa slid his shining sword into his ebony scabbard while ducking to avoid the nearest rifle shot.
"Shiro Amakusa the Second. That was your name before. It's appropriate, because you're now riding on the reputation of another person that's superior to...!" The top of the speaker's head slid off from his lower jaw from behind his brandished saber that also shattered into a drizzle of steel as well.
Lieutenant Okami Yamazaki identified the murdered officer as Cho Oimikado, the same person who patronized him in regards to his "naive" beliefs concerning the government's hand in covering up the absolute slaughter that the Modern Shimabara War turned out to be. However, irony remained the farthest thing in his mind as he surveyed the bloodbath before him.
He tried not to think about the splayed arms and limbs his feet stepped on as he fell into his Sojutsu stance for the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu with his bayonet-equipped rifle (freshly delivered by the surrounding Togakudan), rivulets of sweat mixing with the dark stain of blood on his blue uniform, eating away at his consciousness and resolve like acid.
Shit, shit, shit. This was really happening. Shit, shit, shit.
Just as Amakusa attempted to take the life of little Captain Tomo Kujo of the Gunma squadron, the remaining Kamiminochi officers led by Lieutenant Yamazaki and Sergeant Isao Askikaga charged at the rebel with blazing guns and withdrawn sabers.
Officers Ronin Kawashi, Hoshi Yoshida, and Hiro Tanaka arrived first with the intention of turning the Kamiminochi Captain's murderer into a bayonet-and-bullet pincushion. Amakusa shredded through them with sharp strikes coming from the oddest angles without so much as a second glance.
Yamazaki resisted his nausea upon realizing just what clung to the underside of his boots at the moment and soldiered on, hoping for nothing but good karma for his deceased compatriots' sakes even though they died ignominious deaths.
He remembered the pint-sized Kawashi's blusterous support of his views on the supposed massacre of the Hidden Christians of Nagasaki, the buck-toothed Tanaka's wishy-washy attitude on the matter, and the gigantic Yoshida's disappointment over the Meiji Government's disrespect over their contributions to the war effort.
In the face of what happened at that juncture, all their words ended up hollow and worthless; the ultimate rebuttal that somehow made the ranting Nakayama's Anti-Christian tirade appear valid and justified in hindsight. This left a sour taste in the lieutenant's mouth.
However, before the surviving Kamiminochi troopers could even react, the remaining Gunma forces... about five of them left, with the others either dead, injured, or fleeing away, Yamazaki reckoned... surrounded the speechless Kujo with a protective wall of bayonets and cocked bolt-action rifles.
To be Continued...
Next: The Wrath of God.
Looks like I'm treading political waters now. I do hope people understand that the views of the characters aren't necessarily my views and so on. I also hope that my quest to flesh out the characters so they don't turn into political strawmen has been somewhat successful.
Oh, and the line about the Christian God or Enlightened Buddha was inspired by a similar line in the last few chapters of Grayson Towler's epic masterpiece, "Relentless". That fanfic is highly recommended. As per usual, Amakusa's quoted dialogue is a sprinkling of bible verses and some such.
Nasaan ang panginoon mo ngayon?
Abdiel