After Captain Nakayama died, at the front yard of Akahori's mansion...
Nakayama's forgotten bottle of sake shattered on the pavement of the stone-tiled pavilion as Shogo Amakusa prayed for the officer's gurgling and incoherent form to rest in peace. From there, chaos erupted.
With no further ceremony and before the rest of the officers regained their senses, Amakusa jumped on the nearest tall tree and rebounded from it in order to arrive right on the ledge of the balcony where Tetsuo Akahori lay, his sword unsheathed and ready to go at the unprotected politician before any of the flabbergasted policemen below could cock their guns and take shots at him.
"Away to the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels," the redheaded insurgent recited as he spun and integrated the force of centrifugal motion into his upcoming assault. "For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it."
"This is what happens when grown men rely on fiction and fairy tales to govern their lives. They try to murder heads of state in between fits of delusion." Akahori stood up, rifled through his coat, produced an imported Colt Single-Action Army revolver, and emptied two rounds aiming at Amakusa's forehead.
A flash of brightness that turned nighttime to daylight for a second occurred as Akahori knelt down, took aim, and fired his gun. Had the witnesses to the event not known any better, they would've sworn that lightning blasted right out of the ball of white flame above them.
After an instant of dizzying disorientation, the police officers and the Togakudan spies saw Amakusa fall back down to the pock-marked ground while Akahori scrabbled at his chest and suffered from a nasty coughing fit, the pieces of an unidentifiable substance scattered across the veranda floor.
Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation by Chester Castañeda
Shogo Amakusa wasn't only based on the historical Shiro Amakusa and the real-life religious nut known as Shoko Asahara.
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 18: The Men in Blue and Red
Forty-one minutes past midnight, at the portion of the yard strewn with dismembered limbs and lifeless bodies...
"Protect the captain! Let's make sure that Souta-kun's death isn't in vain! Let's finish off that cultist or die trying!" came the marble-white, hawk-nosed Gunma lieutenant's rallying call to his men as they bowed their heads and trained their eyes at the murderer of their dearly departed comrade, the plump yet heroic Sergeant Watanabe.
Yamazaki's lips quivered as he gave the blood-bathed corpse of his fallen captain a moist and blurry sideway glance along with the rest of his squad.
In turn, Amakusa responded to the challenge by backpedaling in a split-second to give himself a running start, sheathed his sword, fell into a battoujutsu posture, and charged; his eyes black and languid, his mouth a hairline crescent of irrepressible contempt.
"S-Souta-kun..." the listless Captain Kujo whispered before his face paled to the point of nigh-transparency. He barked, "T-Teraku-kun, wait! Don't charge at him at the same time!"
With rifles exploding and bayonets soaring at anywhere within the murderous, rampaging Christian's vicinity, the fearless officers bracing themselves for anything including the avalanche-like technique that the rebel relied upon during tough spots, the cult leader took an earth-shattering step forward and released his blade from its container in a clean, overpowering arc.
Like magic, all five policemen flew back due to the sheer strength of Amakusa's magnificent sword-drawing strike. The nearest of the Gunma officers had their bodies cut in messy halves, their faces frozen with mangled expressions and empty shrieks. The three who escaped instant death still found themselves in a compromising position, the charismatic cult leader's katana slicing bone-deep into their own bodies. Time left no meaning to them.
"T-Toshi-kun? S-Shou-kun?" the seemingly anemic Gunma captain murmured the first names of Officer Konno and Officer Yoshida respectively as their upper torsos separated from the rest of their bodies, the smell of their blood mingling with the caking blood on his skin... Watanabe's blood. His dry mouth shrunk and his left eye twitched as he witnessed Yoshida produce more of a gut-wrenching mess than Konno did because of the former officer's immense girth. "N-No... It can't be...!"
His blood draining from his body at a rapid rate, Gunma Lieutenant Kimura gargled red and white as he instructed his men to, "Get him now. His battoujutsu has left him wide open! Attack! ATTACK!" Unfortunately for Kimura and his surviving men, Amakusa got them hook, line, and sinker with the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu's feinted openings and nearly nonexistent weaknesses.
Kimura found himself cut vertically before he could press the trigger of his Murata gun; his final thoughts had him pondering just how on earth Amakusa sliced him open when the rebel's sword wasn't anywhere near him. Subsequently, the redheaded terrorist used the lieutenant's remains as a macabre cloak of sorts that helped him slice off the limbs of the remaining two officers using the same brushstroke-like swipes he employed against Sergeant Watanabe.
His throat coarsened with dread and dreary acceptance, the Kamiminochi lieutenant snarled to his company, "Brace yourselves. Reload. Fire at Amakusa when ready."
"TERAKU-KUN! SHUN-KUN! RYOZO-KUN! NOOOOOO!"
"Lieutenant, the Gunma police...!" Sergeant Askikaga hissed with grit teeth, but stopped cold after staring into Yamazaki's eyes. The lieutenant couldn't help but wonder what his subordinate saw in his expression. Was it determination or defeat?
"They're as good as dead. Fire. Aim forward, then skyward. Don't leave him any breathing space."
Amakusa pushed the limbless officers towards the approaching gunfire before leaping up to an unbelievable height, his form silhouetted by the third quarter moon. Of course, by this time, the Kamiminochi squad knew the Christian's modus operandi when it came to fighting, so they aimed their guns accordingly toward the heavens. Meanwhile, the lieutenant himself fired the preliminary ground-level shots that forced the terrorist to the sky while also putting the handicapped and dying Gunma officers out of their misery at the same time.
"THEY'RE ALL DEAD! BY THE GODS, they're all dead..." Captain Kujo wailed and gnashed his teeth, his trembling hands scraping at the dirt for no rhyme or reason, his face muddied with a combination of drying blood, tears, and anguish.
Fifty-seven minutes past midnight, near the gunpowder-reeking crater where the Armstrong cannon lay...
Amidst explosions that left the surrounding area stinking with the distinct stench of gunpowder, Ujiki had reached his intended destination. His battle plan to keep Amakusa at arm's length (so to speak) had enabled his Tokyo troopers to buy him enough time to get to the discarded Armstrong cannon.
In contrast to the other policemen present, he didn't have any vested interest in killing Amakusa. He held no grudge against the man himself. However, he immediately volunteered for the mission after hearing that a so-called Battousai Group announced plans for assassinating Tetsuo Akahori. He'd sooner commit seppuku than let an opportunity to go against "Battousai" pass him by, even if these people were just fakers and frauds.
Imagine his delight when he discovered that this religious extremist that they were after actually practiced the sword techniques of Kenshin Himura... or Kenshin Kamiya, if he had to be technical about it... himself! His indescribable delight nearly consumed his sanity. He obsessed about it for weeks, going to the extreme of even learning the specifics of arming the Armstrong cannon and the Gatling gun just in case the members of Akahori's Togakudan were too indisposed to do their job.
With that said, the Tokyo captain still chanced upon a Togakudan spy near the cannon... a big-nosed, tomato-faced man in a garish blue and purple uniform, from the looks of things. "Hey, what's-your-face; is your leader here?"
The frog-like man recognized Ujiki and saluted despite showing off a moue of emotion on his pouted mouth that the Tokyo captain presumed was annoyance. "Nishiguchi Takate reporting for duty, sir. Raedo-aniki was last seen near the Gatling gun, Captain."
"Whatever. Help me set up the cannon. One way or another, we're going to finish off that Battousai wannabe for good and have the honor of killing the supposed One-Man Army of Shimabara," Ujiki beckoned, but for some reason, Nishiguchi did not heed his request.
"Are you deaf, Nishiguchi? Help me arm this thing." Ujiki heard a cannon shell fall to his feet. "What the hell is your problem? I gave you an order, you little worm!" The captain fell silent as he saw the Togakudan's face contort and warp into a parody of its former self. "N-Nishiguchi?"
Half-laughing and half-hysterical, Ujiki howled as Nishiguchi's nose fell off like a clopped tip of a carrot. Afterwards, the sounds from the former Saitama captain's mouth transformed into soul-rendering shrieks that could barely be qualified as human once the rest of Nishiguchi's body followed suit with his nose and turned into a mishmash of meat cubes, guts, and soupy blood.
Behind the deceased Togakudan came forth the cloaked and crouched figure of Amakusa; he used his cape to clean his sword, Ujiki noted with a faint feeling of disorientation and a stomach on revolt.
The captain smoothed his hair and clothes as he struggled to control his breath and palpitating heart, his eyes darting back and forth between the mad rebel and the piece of artillery while making a point to avoid the stew-like remains of Akahori's lackey. "I take it my men weren't able to keep you as preoccupied as I thought they would?"
In response, Amakusa stood up and picked up two darkened, globular shapes from behind him. At that point, Ujiki had to retch and hurl; the Christian just threw to his feet the heads of Lieutenant Iino and Sergeant Kazunari.
"I was looking for you, Captain Ujiki. If only you and the rest of the other commanders just gave up from the very start, then you wouldn't have suffered this many casualties. Granted, if you'd just let me have Akahori when I announced his assassination, then we wouldn't even be in this predicament."
As he wiped his mouth, Ujiki wondered aloud, "It seems that you were able to immediately pick out the commanders from the officers with ease. You had a spy, didn't you?"
Amakusa smirked as he stalked his latest prey. "It doesn't matter if I did or didn't have a spy. A Battousai-obsessed dead man is still a dead man regardless."
Ujiki chuckled as he unsheathed his saber, fully remembering Akahori's words on how to best handle the cult leader. "Your spy is pretty good at spying. Then again, so were my men when it came to fighting. For someone who could take on a thousand men alone, it now looks like you've just taken on a thousand men."
Amakusa snorted as he slashed at Ujiki's stomach while blocking a stab with his metal sheath. "Was this the special plan Akahori proposed in order to protect himself with just fifty-something guards? Making them ask me inane questions?"
"No, no. You don't understand. Akahori has figured you all out. Most of us did, which is why you look like you've just been crucified. You're a one-man army? Don't make me laugh." Ujiki resisted the impulse to wince at the searing sensation his sliced abdomen left; he hadn't been freshening up on the fundamentals of Jigen Ryu's Ni-No-Tachi Irazu for nothing, after all.
"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."
"Another quote from your scriptures? How quaint. You claim to do your god's bidding, but more often than not, your actions run in direct contradiction to your own beliefs... and you know it." Ujiki gave the eerie, doll-eyed heads of Iino and Kazunari a token glance before pointing at Amakusa's gunshot wounds and asking, "Why weren't you able to kill Officer Kosaburo?"
Amakusa flinched before answering, "So that was the officer's name?"
Ujiki grinned, hollered, and nodded as if to say, "Yes, that's the inch I needed to defeat you, bitch." Aloud, he informed Amakusa, "He knows quite a lot about Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. I presume he helped immensely in turning your fetching little caped costume into a holey mess, if you would pardon my pun. I guess your little spy wasn't so good at spying after all."
Amakusa harrumphed as he parried Ujiki's playful strikes and countered with a slash to the neck that the policeman also blocked as well. "Yes, yes, you've got me. So I didn't kill one of your officers. It doesn't matter anyway, because I killed all your senior officers."
"You didn't mean to kill Kazunari, did you? You were planning to, but Kosaburo ended up being a much bigger threat. That's the problem with you, you hypocritical Christian madman; you have this deluded sense of justice and self-righteousness in your actions, although when everything is said and done, you're just another criminal in a world full of them."
Amakusa pressed on with his attack, but like the Kamiminochi sergeant before him, Ujiki proved himself a worthy enough opponent to counter the lower-level techniques of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. He considered trying out higher-tier skills just to get things done and over with as soon as possible, but his body wasn't in the best of shape at the moment; he had to conserve his depleted energy for now.
"Sodomite! I refuse to be defeated by some heathen who went out of his way to interpose himself into a situation he shouldn't be involved with just to make up for a humiliating defeat he suffered in the hands of someone who incidentally shares the same sword techniques as I do."
Amakusa attempted a Dou Ryu Sen, but the captain countered and sidestepped superbly; the wasted effort sapped the Christian's strength and earned him torn flesh as though from a scourging. The Jigen Ryu's powerful strikes prevented him from gaining any momentum.
"Ah, so you did do your research on me after all. Well, guess what? You're probably better off spouting bible quotes than speaking your mind, you brainwashed and insipid terrorist freak! Instead of forming your opinions using some book with outdated morals and stories, how about you make up your own mind and think for yourself for once?"
Then came the untamed Ryu Sou Sen, which the Tokyo captain didn't bother to block strike-for-strike; he instead opted to dodge and attack after the second blow, aborting the Dragon Nest Flash before it started.
"You're calling me a Battousai-obsessed heathen? You have no right to judge me as anything because of your beliefs, you hypocrite! You want to know what I am? I'm a man. A human being. I won't be subjugated to anyone or anything. You have no right to label me, tell me what to do, or impose on me what to believe in; if some god supposedly made me, then show him to me! Don't take his place in proving his existence!"
Sparks flew as Ujiki inched further. "Ever since I was defeated by the greatest hitokiri of our generation, I practiced day and night with all the secrets behind Satsuma's Ni-No-Tachi Irazu of the Jigen Ryu. I thought I lost my chance for revenge when I heard that the Battousai was sick with some sort of disease, but once I learned about you and the fact that you practiced Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu too, I knew that fighting you was a chance that I cannot miss."
Amakusa sheathed his sword and did a battoujutsu strike, but that ended up in failure because Ujiki used his own charging technique to thrust at him simultaneously. In a second, they both ended up back-to-back... facing away from each other... wounded because of their respective assaults.
"You keep on trying to convince yourself that you're the hero of this story, but deep down you've realized long ago that there's nothing heroic about what you're doing. That's how Kosaburo survived; Sergeant Kazunari must have sacrificed his life in order to save the kid, and you were so moved by the act that you spared the boy that almost got you killed in the first place. How does it feel to kill a man who's a much bigger hero and savior than you could ever be?"
Forty-three minutes past midnight, at the portion of the yard strewn with dismembered limbs and lifeless bodies...
To the Kamiminochi officers' surprise, that fraction of a second where they anticipated Amakusa's next move paid off; instead of the rebel executing a leaping slash at the nearest policeman, he instead twirled in awkward positions just to avoid the ripping projectiles surrounding him.
"Sarge! Officer Heiko! Cycle load! Keep that suppressive gunfire going so that Amakusa stays on one spot!" Yamazaki called out, referring to the Kanto police's practice of letting some officers fire while the others reloaded in a continuous loop to keep their bullets flying and their enemies corralled.
"I have a better idea. Cover us, Heiko! We're going in!" Askikaga requested to the Napoleonic officer as he brandished his saber. "You can have my rifle; we're going to do the formation one last time."
"We're going to finish that bastard off before the Tokyo assholes can? Sweet! I'll fill him full of holes!" Heiko grinned as he cocked his gun with malicious intent.
"Lieutenant, help me out with that son of a bitch. I'm going to need your spearing expertise. We'll have to use the formation that the captain taught us again."
"Wait, you're a commanding officer! You're being too reckless," Yamazaki berated as a feeling of deja vu swept him; they'd reversed roles somehow, he and his sergeant.
"It doesn't matter at this point. We're the only ones left, and Amakusa is mainly targeting all the commanding officers. Let's give him what he wants this time. Let him choke on it too." Askikaga chuckled. "Oh, and I told you so. The captain and I were right."
"I still say you're both fucking xenophobe bigots." Yamazaki would've rolled his eyes were he and his men not busy keeping the zigzagging Amakusa from escaping. "Fine. Go ahead and prove me wrong some more. Once this is all over, I'll buy us some sake in memory of our comrades."
The Kamiminochi sergeant winked; unbeknownst to him, a sparkle of wetness fell down on his cheek after winking. "Now that's more like it, pretty boy! Let's make this last attack count, okay?"
After the constant barrage from the three remaining officers... quite a lot of them taken from the unreleased rounds of their deceased comrades' Murata rifles... ceased at last, Amakusa went in for the kill, his sword arm cocked and prepared to behead the indolent Kujo. To his amazement, he found himself confronted with Kamiminochi's Yamazaki, Askikaga, and Heiko.
"Why are you so insistent in digging your own graves? Nevertheless, it doesn't matter anyway. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's." Amakusa jerked his head, sidestepped, and ducked at the shots fired by Yamazaki and Heiko with practiced ease.
"I couldn't tell, because I've never read your book of white man lies, but I'm willing to bet my life that you're a puppet through and through; spouting off the words of men long dead and not realizing it's just imperialist propaganda!" Askikaga launched himself at Amakusa and attacked from the swordsman's blind side.
The Leader of Nagasaki's Hidden Christians countered by using the same whirlwind-like, random-striking technique he deployed against the hapless Kawashi, Yoshida, and Tanaka.
However, Askikaga held up against the unpredictable onslaught quite well by always striking at awkward angles and keeping Amakusa off-balance. "Let me introduce myself. I am Askikaga Isao of Nagano's Chujo Ryu... the legendary sword style mastered by both Toda Seigen and Sasaki Kojiro! You won't be able to finish me off with just halfhearted strikes, you cultist nut."
Amakusa attempted to shift from using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu to Nikaido Heiho in order to keep Askikaga from guessing his next move, but he couldn't get enough time or leverage to transition from one style to another thanks to Yamazaki's constant assists with his sniper shots and expert bayonet stabs. Couple that with Heiko's constant rifle fire, and the zealot had no choice but to fall back on using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu and keep himself on the defensive, which was arguably the weakest aspect of his fighting capabilities.
"HAHAHA! Come at me, bastard! Try and stop me from blasting you full of holes, bitch!" Heiko raged as he continued firing at Amakusa whenever the rebel and Askikaga separated.
Askikaga smirked as he felt his body shiver for some unfathomable reason. "Give it up, Amakusa! Kurogasa's Shin no Ippo... Battousai's Ryu Sou Sen... They cannot possibly compare to Nagano's Chujo Ryu, a sword style that prospered even during a time when the bow and arrow or spear was the norm! The only reason you defeated my big brother was because he had an insufferable hero complex! Otherwise, his technique was impeccable!"
As though in reaction to Askikaga's slip of the tongue, Amakusa sheathed his sword, blocked Yamazaki's strikes, and retreated far away enough to avoid getting blasted by Heiko's gunshots. "Battoujutsu again? Bring it on, you mass murderer!"
"Be careful, Askikaga! I don't want you to end up like those Gunma officers," Yamazaki warned, but then murmured to himself, "Or like Hiramatsu-san."
To everyone's surprise, instead of Amakusa drawing his sword to challenge Askikaga's sword-fighting prowess, he whirled around, tapped his weapon's hand guard with a thumb flick, and let it fly handle-first into Heiko's forehead. The trigger-happy officer got knocked down instantly... a distraction Shogo took advantage of by leaping towards his unsheathed sword, grabbing it, and achieving blurry speeds to finish off his latest quarry.
To Lieutenant Yamazaki's shock, Sergeant Askikaga ran towards Heiko's fallen form, used his saber to block Amakusa's expected Ryu Tsui Sen strike, and protected the downed officer from getting killed while unconscious. The thinner, standard-issue blade could only do so much, so Amakusa's katana ended up cleaving the Chujo Ryu master's left shoulder in a deep, clavicle-cutting diagonal slice.
"Be proud, Askikaga Isao. You're just like your brother-in-law, Hiramatsu; you're both master swordsmen and heroic martyrs to the end," Amakusa deadpanned before he felt Askikaga's trembling hands grab him in a tight embrace.
"NOW, YAMAZAKI! RUN ME AND AMAKUSA THROUGH! AVENGE OUR BROTHERS' DEATHS! AVENGE THE CAPTAIN'S DEATH! AVENGE EVERYONE'S DEATHS IN ONE FELL SWOOP!"
Yamazaki hesitated for about a second... an eternity during circumstances like these... before heeding the Kamiminochi sergeant's death wish and skewering both Askikaga and Amakusa. For the first time since arriving in the Shinshushin Mansion, a lone officer successfully injured Amakusa in a major way.
Alas, although it was only a moment's uncertainty, the Hidden Christian found enough wriggle room to escape Askikaga's grip before getting completely gored by Yamazaki's skilled Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu thrust.
Yamazaki cursed under his breath for not killing Amakusa then and there, his mind telling him over and over, 'Ryuzoji would never have hesitated like that under these circumstances. He's a cold-blooded bastard that got the job done. He's also a raging xenophobe bigot, granted, but he completes his missions,' even though deep down he knew that Ryuzoji himself fell victim to Amakusa six years back, cold-bloodedness or no.
Yamazaki beckoned his right arm to move and aim the spear... he felt it do so... but for some reason, all he had in his grasp was a sliced-off Murata. Upon closer inspection, his face twisted into an unspeakable mess; half of his left forearm, the one gripping the pointed part of his weapon, was missing.
Yamazaki found his severed limb a couple of inches away from his feet, still holding the spear he deployed to finish off the brother of his brother's friend. He proceeded to scream his head off, but more in horror than in agony. Had he already died? He imagined getting an arm dismembered hurt a lot more than this.
Amakusa himself remained in a crouching position, his hand grasping the place where Yamazaki had wounded him. Both Amakusa and Yamazaki were way too injured to finish each other off at that point.
Sooner rather than later, Yamazaki put the chaotic mess that his thoughts had become to order. He knew this would happen, and he had a golden opportunity in his hands to finally get the justice that his brother, his brother's friend, his brother's friend's brother, and their fat friend who became his captain deserved.
He still believed that attacking Nagasaki and slaughtering hundreds of innocent Christians was a mistake, but letting Shogo Amakusa live was an even bigger mistake that needed to be rectified right then and there.
He felt a hand grasp his shoulder. "Lieutenant, can you still fight?" He turned and looked down; Gunma Captain Kujo's determined face greeted him back. He clenched his remaining fist and nodded.
"Let's finish off Amakusa here and now. I've figured out how to beat him and his Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu."
Thirty-nine minutes past midnight, in between the guestroom and the balcony of the Shinshushin manor...
Tetsuo Akahori's eyes bulged out as his nails dug across the floorboard surface. He could hear stridor... a high-pitched whine produced by turbulent airflow from his clogged airways... in each breath of his.
Every breath he took sapped him of his energy, and he had no other choice but to inhale deep yet rapid breaths in order to gather as much oxygen as he could despite his failing respiratory functions. He could barely think, but his awareness allowed him to juggle between two important priorities: staying alive and making sense of his sudden breathing problems.
Akahori found himself in a curious position. Granted, everything that had happened so far was well within his earlier estimations, including all the casualties of the weaker squads. In reality, even though the four Kanto district teams failed to capitalize on finishing off Amakusa while he remained rather hesitant to go all out, Akahori still considered the high amount of damage inflicted on his nemesis as a bonus of sorts.
If the rebel had died then and there, then it only meant that Akahori's theory concerning Amakusa being washed up was true. Missing the chance to kill him immediately was no big loss to the politician because the night was still young and he had a few more tricks up his sleeve.
However, Akahori certainly didn't expect Amakusa to possess the one technique that made the cultist arguably more dangerous than even Makoto Shishio or Kenshin Himura; more to the point, the technique that left the curtain-bearded man suffocating in the middle of a veranda-sporting room even though Amakusa didn't even lay a hand on him.
"Rai Ryu Sen..." Akahori croaked as his eyes reddened and his throat swelled. Yes, the Lightning Dragon Flash... a technique theorized to be the result of combining the closed-quarter capabilities of the Nikaido Heiho with the army-killing proficiency of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.
To be true, the skill could be considered the Flying Heaven Royal Sword Style's version of the Shin no Ippo, except instead of freezing a person in place, it takes away their sight. It fried people so crisply, they snapped like the empty husks of a dead tree.
The image of a dragon glowing with sparks of electricity came forth from the depths of Akahori's consciousness; it electrocuted him while also coiling its body around him like a boa constrictor.
Akahori shook his head to clear it; he could still see fine. The real problem he had involved dank skin with a dreadful pallor to the point of cyanosis, swelling in various regions of his body, watch-glass fingernails, and crackling sounds from his lungs. Regardless, he knew that the bright flash and streaks of lightning he witnessed from Amakusa's shining blade were the earmarks of a successful Rai Ryu Sen.
He'd researched the Kakure Kirishitan's background thoroughly before helping the Japanese Army and National Police form a plan to ethnically cleanse the rebellious religious minority and prevent them from forming an autonomous region policed by their own kind. For example, he knew that Amakusa's father, Tokisada Muto, was a practitioner of Nikaido Heiho. He also discovered that Amakusa's uncle, Hyoue Nishida, was a student of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.
He'd even heard that Amakusa's uncle was the infamous Kirisaki... the Christian swordsman avenger that protected all Hidden Christians from the wrath of the daimyo without once taking the life of any man.
Akahori coughed and grunted, remembering that Shin no Ippo could also be used to suffocate victims if need be; as such, it shouldn't be a stretch of the imagination for the hypnosis-based Rai Ryu Sen to do the same thing. He remembered hearing from the Togakudan that a certain swordsman he knew personally had suffered the full brunt of the perfected version of Shogo Amakusa's signature technique, suffering a lifelong chronic respiratory problem resembling both asthma and tuberculosis.
Then again, Akahori couldn't accept the idea that he had miscalculated Amakusa's current abilities. He shouldn't be able to do the Rai Ryu Sen anymore, much less the more taxing succession techniques of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. There was no way he could've regained his full strength after just six short years of laying low.
Shishio himself needed ten years to again become a threat to the government, and his damaged body couldn't handle more than fifteen minutes of strain. 'You have got to be kidding me. There's no way Amakusa could've recovered enough from the near-death experience he suffered back in the Modern Shimabara War. This is ridiculous..."
Inside Akahori's fevered mind, he saw the image of a bandaged Shishio praying to ancient spirits of evil inside a stone room and in front of a pit of purplish, boiling liquid to revive and turn himself into an all-powerful being; the deceased megalomaniac afterwards received cosmic and spiritual energies beyond mortal ken that undid his wrappings and transformed him into a muscular, blue-skinned, and cackling creature that represented everything that was wrong with the world.
Just as the darkness in the corners of Akahori's vision threatened to shut down his awareness, he felt something prick the underside of his palm. By reflex, his hands retracted as they felt the sharp sting of... something from one section of the floor. The pain jolted him awake, but he still felt too weak and lightheaded to do more than to check out the source of the abrupt stimuli. He smiled a fanged grin; glass. Shards of broken glass everywhere.
At that point, everything clicked. The magician known as Amakusa... the man who used his knowledge of western medicine to trick his followers into thinking that he was some sort of new-age messiah... had almost pulled the wool from under Akahori's eyes. Amakusa's sword glowed only after he took something from under his robe and used his supersonic speed to shatter it open; a glass globe containing certain drugs. Hallucinogens, to be more exact.
Ataxia, incoordination, confusion, delirium, and psychosis; these were the symptoms Akahori neglected to take note of in his vehement attempt to get his breathing back to normal. He'd been flailing all over the place, he couldn't figure out the shards surrounding him were from Amakusa, and he kept going to all sorts of tangents. Speaking of other tangents, he also theorized that Rin herself had been victimized by this new makeshift technique Amakusa developed in order to relive his glory days as a one-man army of sorts.
Even more information flowed into Akahori's head; unfortunately, it had the side effect of hastening his suffocation. 'First thing's first...'
The raspberry-faced Akahori crawled towards his table to get his letter opener inside one of the drawers. Then, without so much as a preparatory gasp, he jabbed the knife straight into his thigh in order to rouse his body from the hypnotic spell of Amakusa's reckless Lightning Dragon Flash.
His constricted lungs ballooned in triumph and relief as he gasped the air he couldn't breathe a second ago. "I was right. Amakusa is a fallen god after all; an archangel with all six of his wings clipped and broken. I may be able to kill a god yet; I can't wait."
Forty-five minutes past midnight, at the portion of the yard strewn with dismembered limbs and lifeless bodies...
Amakusa grit his teeth in frustration. His plan to murder the captains, lieutenants, and sergeants in order to leave the rest of the police in disarray had somehow backfired in the sense that he was forced to expend more effort by actually killing entire squadrons. He'd hoped to keep the bloodshed minimal as possible, but the way certain events conspired against him was beyond his control. 'Indeed, the Lord works in mysterious ways.'
A Kamiminochi lieutenant even managed to stab him in the stomach! According to Morinaga's reports, Shinshushin was supposed to be the weakest team among the four, with Kanagawa, Gunma, and Tokyo way above it in terms of battle experience and law enforcement expertise. Yet here he was, injured by the lieutenant of a low-tier police squad.
Annoyed as he was with the turn of events, he concentrated hard in order to keep his body from going into shock from the loss of blood. After all, he'd gone through far worse than this. He had already triumphed over his personal Calvary, so from that point on, nothing should be able to stop him.
Shogo couldn't do the Hyoki no Jutsu by himself... a self-hypnosis technique reserved only for the successor of the Nikaido Heiho School. Only one man could inherit that skill and the One-Sided Heart succession technique, and that man turned out to be a psychopathic mass murderer.
Amakusa's father, Tokisada, was supposed to replace the crazed Jine Udo as the new inheritor of Nikaido Heiho, but regrettably, he wasn't good enough to carry the mantle of master. The same could be said for his uncle, who didn't have the moxie to kill his own master just to succeed the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.
All the same, Shogo Muto himself... known as Shogo Amakusa nowadays and Shiro Amakusa the Second a good six years back... had somehow found a way to make up for the shortcomings of his two teachers and become the charismatic leader they always wanted him to be. Even though he couldn't use Hyoki no Jutsu the way Kurogasa could, he could still utilize other methods such as quiet meditation and prayer in order to emulate the process and produce roughly the same results; he always found a way.
Because of Amakusa's years of wandering across Asia and Europe, he was able to learn both the esoteric aspects of his faith and the practical applications of medical knowledge. For instance, making use of his fear and anxiety to his advantage through concentration and a keen understanding of how his body worked allowed him to control his acute stress response for his benefit.
At any rate, a more prolonged and powerful release of the locus ceruleus happened inside Amakusa's brain, which in turn activated the sympathetic division of his autonomic nervous system as well as the discharge of epinephrine and norepinephrine from the medulla of the adrenal glands. The increase of adrenaline assisted in making Amakusa's stab wound bleed slower than before because of the chemical's vasoconstrictor properties.
Amakusa opened his eyes and stared at his opponent. During the time he was indisposed, Gunma's Captain Kujo had apparently recovered from his shellshock and had now joined forces with Kamiminochi's Lieutenant Yamazaki in order to produce one last-ditch effort to finish the insurgent off.
From the looks of things, Kujo had finished tying the bayoneted rifle over Yamazaki's severed arm so that the lieutenant could still fight even with a missing limb. Such a pity; Amakusa had nothing but respect for these men who had proven their worth by simply lasting this long against him. It was such a pity indeed.
"I have no quarrel with either of you, although I realize the feeling isn't mutual. However, I cannot allow you to kill me. I still have much to do. Rest assured that your deaths will not be meaningless. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
"Are none of your words your own? Must you prattle along with moral lessons that don't reflect your own actions? I have no problem with Christianity itself, but I certainly cannot allow Christians like you to sully the good name of your faith," Captain Kujo remarked with uncharacteristic malice... a stark contrast to the loving, fatherly captain that just witnessed his supposed sons get killed in three rapid eye blinks.
Amakusa's eyes narrowed as Kujo fell into position; the height-challenged commander had a similar ready stance that the problematic Askikaga used a while ago.
'Another Chujo Ryu practitioner? No, actually, this is Ono-Ha Itto Ryu. Well, as soon as he starts attacking and gains momentum, he'll prove to be a problem. Nevertheless, I think they want to force me to use my double battoujutsu so that they could counter it. Interesting.'
Amakusa sheathed his sword, his trembling extremities and pain-wracked body signaling that he hadn't yet recovered from Yamazaki's assault. 'The Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki is out of the question, especially since there are still two more police units out there, and I have to deal with two opponents at the same time. It's an overkill technique that's impractical for the situation.'
Before Amakusa could ponder his possible courses of action any further, the one-handed Lieutenant Yamazaki had already charged, stabbing away with his bayonet in reckless abandon. In the heat of the battle, the Christian mass murderer made his decision on how to fight then and there.
Captain Kujo moved as soon as he saw Amakusa take hold of the hilt of his sword in preparation of doing a sword-drawing strike. He parried the blade perfectly while Yamazaki himself ducked in order to anticipate the follow-up sheath strike. The Ono-Ha Itto Ryu could withstand and counter any sword strike imaginable because it was arguably the Father of Modern Kenjutsu.
The technique that killed five of his officers in two strikes burned itself into the Gunma captain's irises; a withdrawn blade strike followed by a scabbard cut that somehow sliced Lieutenant Teraku Kimura open from underneath his crotch to the top of his head. It must've been an abnormally sharp and bladed sheath to be able to do that, Kujo reckoned.
However, the second scabbard attack from below never materialized. Kujo looked down; his blade was actually blocking a metallic black sheath with a sharp edge instead of an unsheathed blade. Also, Amakusa was already in mid-pirouette before the captain noticed that something was amiss. This was not the Sou Ryu Sen; it was instead the Sou Ryu Sen Ikazuchi.
The flying apparitions of Captain Kujo's deceased men... Lieutenant Teraku Kimura, Sergeant Souta Watanabe, Officers Toshi Konno, Shou Yoshida, and Ryozo Ito... all smilingly waved at him with transparent bodies and wisps-for-legs as his decapitated scalp flew into the night sky; even the oldest style of Itto Ryu could only do so much if ever the swordsman himself failed to properly anticipate his enemy's next move.
Even in the face of tragedy, the tear-filled Lieutenant Yamazaki soldiered on by aiming his bayonet straight at Amakusa's head before the rebel could follow through his attack. He then felt both his arms cleaved right off of his shoulders at the same time care of the redhead's smooth transition from Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu to Nikaido Heiho.
As the armless Yamazaki fell on his knees and bemoaned his fate, his conqueror also kneeled down and did what he'd been meaning to do but couldn't because he kept getting interrupted; he prayed for the dead and dying.
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they anymore a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they anymore a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun."
"You crazy cross worshipper! Stop praying! It won't bring them back! It won't do a damn thing! Do you feel guilty about what you're doing? You said something like that a while back. I heard it. Well then, STOP!"
The disoriented lieutenant's vision swam as the sticky fountain of his own bodily fluids pooled all around him, his skin getting clammier and whiter by the second.
"Why do you keep on doing this? If you really wanted to repent for all your horrible sins, then why are you making things worse for you and your kind?"
Amakusa slumped his shoulders and sighed. "I told you earlier. You should have gotten out of my way. You only have yourselves to blame at this point."
"FUCK YOU! You killed my brother! You killed his friend! Captain Nakayama witnessed it all, and he has devoted his life to getting even with you! To think that I actually said that they were wrong about what happened in Shimabara... that it was a massacre that shouldn't have happened! But then I realized it was all your fault that innocent Japanese were killed in the first place!"
Amakusa paused for a couple of seconds before mentioning, "So you're the little stepbrother of Captain Ryuzoji Takuya, huh? After fighting against you and learning that you share the same style as him, I think I at last remember what happened to him all those years ago."
Yamazaki blanched. "As if I want to hear how you murdered my brother in cold blood! Leave me be to die; I don't want to hear any of your grisly stories, you fucking serial killer. We demanded justice, and you took it away from us. If you really are a Christian, then you'd confess to your crimes and turn yourself in. Even at this point, your life isn't enough to pay for the lives you've ended. If you can't understand that, then you really are a monster."
"The reason why Captain Nakayama... back then, Sergeant Nakayama... wanted so badly to kill me was because of his guilt. You see, I've seen that formation of yours before. It was a specialty of Captain Yamazaki's troops, I believe. Sergeant Nakayama was supposed to cover Lieutenant Hiramatsu with his sword skills while your older stepbrother went in for the kill. However, he froze up when he met me. He even pissed on himself. He was so scared."
"Shut up."
"It could have been because of my Nikaido Heiho training or because he lacked intestinal fortitude; whatever the reason, he ran away. I jumped at the chance and killed Hiramatsu before he could fire a shot. I didn't know he had a wife. I'm sorry. Then again, I'm also sorry for all the other widows I've made that day."
"Shut the fuck up."
"Nakayama desperately pleaded for his life, begged, soiled himself, and swore up and down that he'll do anything to save his own hide. Disgusted as I was, I attempted to end his misery, but then here comes Captain Ryuzoji. He had few words to spare, but that spearing technique of his truly was superb. Even superior to yours, actually, since he needed no assistance to land his shots against me."
"Shut up! Shut UP!"
"In fact, he should've used a spear because a mere saber isn't suited for the job. He fought bravely even though Nakayama seemed hardly worth the effort. I had to resort to cutting him limb from limb, just like with you. Come to think of it, he may have been protecting Nakayama with you in mind; a little stepbrother he'd never let die, no matter what."
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Foaming in the mouth, Yamazaki charged and kicked at Amakusa's direction comically... ineffectually... embarrassingly... before collapsing in a heap of torn flesh and disillusionment.
Amakusa knelt down beside Yamazaki again and continued. "They also spoke of white man lies and their unreasoning hatred towards my faith and my people. I pitied them for their narrow-minded beliefs, but I can't ignore the fact that they did what they did for noble, if misguided purposes... for what it's worth."
"...Kill me. Please. I can't even kill myself now and die an honorable death." Even if Amakusa didn't honor his request, Lieutenant Yamazaki's foot was already wedged inside death's door anyway.
"Yes. I think it is better this way. Suicide is a sin. Let me take responsibility for that sin you shouldn't commit so that you may ultimately rest in peace."
Amakusa got up and decapitated the one policeman that wounded him gravely before doing the sign of the cross and praying for the recently deceased, his one eye left open just in case any other officers decided to interrupt his prayers.
Twenty years ago, around the time the Shinsengumi-sponsored slaughter at the Ikedaya Inn happened, a fourteen-year-old Kenshin Himura had already met Tomoe Yukishiro, and Amakusa himself was just a mere eleven years of age...
During the bakufu's reign, the nationwide anti-foreigner sentiment went well with the similar anti-Christian one they helped foster for the simple fact that Christianity was considered as just another imperialist tool that foreign powers could use to subjugate Japan like the rest of the world. Then again, the Christian-related fears of the leaders of Tokugawa-era Japan weren't unfounded; after all, Spain's religion-based expeditions to countries like Mexico and the Philippines paid huge dividends for the nineteenth-century superpower in the end.
The pride, honor, conceit, and isolationalism of the Japanese people were eventually broken thanks to the forceful arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry's black ships, so anti-Christian movements went at an all-time high at that point. The shogunate was all too eager to save face and bury that embarrassing show of weakness six feet under by destroying everything that was connected to these outsiders, Christianity included.
During this deplorable era, a young Shogo Muto... the boy who would ultimately become Shogo Amakusa... and his baby sister Sayo... the girl who would later become Lady Magdalia... were currently witnessing the indiscriminate genocide of their peace-loving people simply because of their foreigner-linked faith.
The man they knew as their father, Tokisada Muto... a practitioner of Nikaido Heiho and yet another man who was also named after the legendary Christian rebel of yore... had just managed to summon a Shin no Ippo straight from the bottom of his heart once the bakufu samurai began raiding his very home, freezing all his enemies into place with his kenki in order to give his wife and two children the chance to escape. He considered it a miracle sent by God himself that helped him get past his own human limitations in order to do something extraordinary.
To his son, Tokisada called out, "Shogo, be strong... like God. Become Emmanuel, so that through you, God will always be with our people. Someday, you must come back to Shimabara and protect our people from their oppressors."
That was the first and last time he could ever use such a move, and even though he suffocated and killed outright quite a lot of the petrified shogunate forces before him, he eventually became too spent to fight back once his One-Sided Heart wore off. He was thusly stabbed to death in order to keep his body intact before it was stripped naked save for its undergarments and left to hang on a wooden cross the day after.
Tsuruyo Muto and her two children fled to the caverns that their people had used for centuries-on-end as makeshift churches of sorts in order to rendezvous with the children's uncle, an old swordsman by the name of Hyoue Nishida.
The old man had been protecting Kakure Kirishitan sanctuaries for many decades under the guise of "Kirisaki", the great Christian savior who wouldn't kill, until he retired at age forty, but he had no choice but to come out of retirement and continue his revolution once more thanks to the renewed anti-foreigner sentiment caused by Commodore Perry's arrival in 1853 and the start of the rebellion against the dishonored shogunate.
Forty-six minutes past midnight, at the portion of the yard strewn with dismembered limbs and lifeless bodies...
Yahiko stared at the scattered corpses, speechless at what he had just overheard, frozen to inaction by either Amakusa's intimidating presence or his own bitter-tasting guilt.
The bungling yet flippant attitude he thought the Kamiminochi District had was born out of his own inexperience, arrogance, and ignorance. He blamed them for mishandling the fake Battousai Group case three weeks ago, not realizing that they were too busy actually preparing for the real Battousai Group in the meantime. They were seeking justice and closure, after all.
They weren't rent-a-cop fakers who jockeyed for better positions in the government; they were heroes. They had names, dreams, motivations, and hopes that were shattered by a zealot extremist who himself had all the same goals, yet he still came off as an incorrigible beast because of his unwillingness to apply his inconvenient convictions on his illogical actions.
Most importantly, Yahiko was there because of his consistent failure to keep his promise to Kenshin. Out of the fifty-five people here excluding Akahori and that daughter of his that Soujiro rescued, two whole units had just been completely wiped out, and countless other officers had been finished off. There were no words to how monumental a failure he ended up becoming. 'How many more lives must end before I act?'
Resisting his body's reflexive queasiness, Yahiko looked straight at Captain Nakayama's remains and saluted at him. Afterwards, he gathered his courage to face this rebel that could probably give even the Juppon Gatana or the Five Comrades a run for their money in terms of police fatalities.
To be Continued...
Next: The rebellious history.
In my humble opinion, the amount of research and detail found in the underrated filler episodes of the Shimabara Arc of the Rurouni Kenshin anime was superb. For example, there really was a solar eclipse in Japan around 1878. However, because the writers forgot that RK is an action series with character-driven subplots, that filler arc ended up merely decent, not superb.
Nasaan ang panginoon mo ngayon?
Abdiel