"Deathstalker Stab!" screamed Kaede Morinaga as she hurtled her katana at Soujiro Seta and blindsided him, his momentum leaving him wide open.
The mental picture of where Soujiro was going and how fast he'd get her within his striking range enabled Morinaga to sidestep the decapitating upward slash and cleaving side slash that tore her afterimage apart at the last minute by a hairbreadth.
As the law of physics dictated, an object in motion would stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. She still had the edge.
Even if Soujiro forced himself to slow down or stop, it'd take its toll on his internal organs until his bones broke. Stopping wasn't an option. The momentum of his Shukuchi would be his downfall.
Seta beamed as he took a third option and stabbed his sword to the ground, using it to pivot his body and make a sharp turn straight for Morinaga without losing his balance.
The impact of Soujiro's shoulder tackle to Kaede's ribs flung her to the floor like a rag doll, which bought him enough time to sheathe his sword and do a battoujutsu strike that caught her from the hip and dug all the way between the valley of her modest breasts.
Morinaga curled into a ball and took advantage of the momentum of her flight to crash to the wall before the Heaven Sword could finish her off.
'It's just as he said. I can sense where he's going or what he's going to do but my body isn't fast enough to react to his speed!' she thought as she bit her lip and let the pain wash all over her aching body.
Disoriented but still alive, she got up and went on the defensive, catching as many strikes as possible from Soujiro with her Protective Shell, Scissor Grip, and Vise Grip while backpedaling away from his wrath.
'Wait a second. His reaction time has improved. Not only is he moving faster than me, he's also able to see my own movements no matter how fast we're both moving. His eyes can perceive quick movements on top of being able to make his powerful legs gallop like a horse's.'
At that point, Kaede remembered from her days as a rebel spy that it was Soujiro who revealed the secret to the Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki's power (it was battoujutsu that was executed on the left leg instead of the right) to Shishio back in their stronghold at Mount Hiei. It took her sometime to figure it out herself while sparring against Amakusa.
'He has the ability to decipher movement at high speeds, huh? Is there nothing the Ten Ken can't do?'
"So who's the one-dimensional fighter now, Battousai-dono?" mocked Akahori as Kaede stumbled all over the room, the nigh-invisible Soujiro hot on her heels.
How was she supposed to deal with this monster?
Her blood sprayed everywhere, soaking her clothing and dying them a reddish brown. Had she received any more wounds from the Heaven Sword, she'd be bleeding as badly as... Myojin Yahiko.
She gulped. She still couldn't look at the place where Yahiko fell after she stabbed and sliced him apart with her Sasori Gatame.
Munenori Minoe's new friend, Yahiko.
She dared take a peek at the scene of the crime... her crime... while flinging her wakizashi in the air at the other direction, its curving arc headed straight for Akahori's chest. That bought her enough time to stare at what was going on behind her without risk of exposing herself to a Ten Ken counterattack.
It took a second for Morinaga's brain to register was what happening, but the image became crystal clear nonetheless. Akahori's daughter, Rin, had torn the sleeves of her kimono and tied the frayed pieces onto Yahiko's shoulder like ropey bindings while she pushed down on him to stop his bleeding.
Rin Akahori. How could Kaede have forgotten her? The girl that looked like a porcelain figure brought to life. The one who told the Heaven Sword to stop pursuing the truths of others and to think for himself. Endangering her life was the only way to make Soujiro...
Morinaga blasted off from where she stood, retrieved her wakizashi, then threw it right above where Rin was. She afterwards felt it: Soujiro's sakki. His faint but unmistakable urge to kill.
Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation by Chester Castañeda
The mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others) are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. 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 27: A Fragile Mind
'I can feel your anger, but you don't really give a damn about me right now... Do you, Ten Ken?'
The hang time of the airborne, reverse-edged wakizashi gave Seta the option to cleave Morinaga (who only had her lone uchigatana to protect herself with) in half before deflecting the weapon, yet his halfhearted bloodlust betrayed feelings that the Battousai of Speed could read and exploit at her behest: Rin's safety came first.
They raced towards the falling blade, Rin not moving an inch from the spot where she was seated while she tended to Yahiko Myojin's wounds, her tunnel vision and generally poor eyesight keeping her oblivious of the emotional tug-of-war happening before her.
As Soujiro deflected the blade from hitting the young Akahori's head, Morinaga took that opportunity to detect his presence thanks to his wavering sakki, hunch down, and stab his foot to keep him in place. She tried slashing him with her sword as well, but he parried her attack using his sheath. Furthermore, he also pierced the same forearm she used to wound him, which kept them stuck together at another impasse of sorts.
"AAARRGGGHH...!"
"Eh? Seta-kun...?" rasped Rin as she felt the spray of blood trickle down her pasty face. A small gasp escaped the Akahori daughter's throat while Kaede screamed her head off in pain. Meanwhile, the Ten Ken himself kept a level gaze at both his opponent and his boss's child.
Morinaga's shriek turned into a fit of cackles a moment later. She remembered the time when Seta took the female Akahori away from Amakusa's hands and when her words of encouragement and his thoughts for her safety gave him the resolve to revert into his Heaven Sword mindset.
Kaede knew the reason why Rin's existence affected him so. As someone who'd been in love, of course she'd know.
"You're in love with her, aren't you?" Kaede mouthed to Soujiro.
"..." replied the Ten Ken with a smile and a piercing glare.
From there, they wordlessly decided to release each other by plucking their weapons off of their injured limbs before trying to kill one another again.
Minutes earlier...
Rin Akahori removed as much dirt and debris from Yahiko Myojin's punctured shoulder as she possibly could to avoid the risk of infection. What bothered her the most was the fact that aside from the wound on his shoulder, the boy also had multiple lacerations all over his body. How was he even able to stand, much less fight, in his condition?
She didn't see what was happening behind her because she was too busy saving Yahiko's life, but judging by Morinaga's frustrated grunts, her father's mocking words, and Soujiro mentioning how much stronger he was than the Fake Battousai, it looked like Seta had finally made up his mind and chose which destiny to take.
She narrowed her eyes and winced to get a better view of what she was doing. She could smell blood everywhere. The endless clangs of steel and repeated beats of Soujiro's Shukuchi echoed all around her. Nevertheless, she maintained her focus at her task at hand. After all, she was the one who dared Myojin to attack the Battousai of Speed even though he was no match for her.
That surprised Rin, actually: The fact that the Fake Battousai was a girl. This small person no taller than herself (and who was built like herself to boot) fought in a way that was worthy of the man whose name and face this midget adopted.
The redhead even gave Seta, the assassin of Toshimichi Okubo and Makoto Shishio's Right-Hand Man, a run for his money, forcing him to become the Ten Ken once more. How could someone so petite be so strong and hard to kill? It blew her mind.
She bit her lip as the sounds of battle drew close. Her advice to Soujiro (in not so many words) was to think for himself and choose the truth that best suited him and his situation.
So that was the truth he chose. Makoto Shishio's truth. The Survival of the Fittest.
Yahiko moaned as Rin's dainty hands strayed and put pressure on his fresh wound. She murmured an apology and rectified her mistake, the boy's thick, dark blood already beginning to coagulate and clot somewhat, stemming the stream of blood loss. Afterwards, her mind wandered anew.
If that was Soujiro's truth, then why did she feel so disappointed about it? Did she hope for something else? Did she want him to choose the path of atonement and righteous martyrdom that Kenshin Himura took? Did she want him to become her White Knight? It shouldn't have mattered either way. She wanted him to stop second guessing himself, right?
What was she dithering and whining about? She knew the reason why she was upset. Soujiro chose a truth and path she didn't figure into all that much. The strong would survive, and the weak died... and who was weaker than a pale-skinned, cream-haired, nearsighted girl who bruised easier than a crate of oranges? She had no place in Charles Darwin's World save for prey or extinction.
She'd heard from Seta himself what had happened to Shishio's lovers. One was a crossdressing man who looked like a woman. By Soujiro's accounts, she reckoned that the ex-hitokiri used the gay man's affection to his advantage. The other was a former, high-class courtesan. The shadow manslayer also used her to land a fatal blow on Battousai, killing her in the process.
Was that how love was treated when one followed the Laws of Survival of the Fittest? Was she prepared to become food for Soujiro's strength? Of course, she would. She never once gave a second thought to her life: Amakusa knew as much. However, the Soujiro of the past was different from the Soujiro of today. He wasn't moving forward at this point, but merely regressing to his terrible past.
Furthermore, knowing what he knew now, could he even become what he was back then? Because she knew that he knew that he wasn't the mindless, soulless automaton Shishio tried to turn him into. He had feelings and emotions. What would locking them away at this point accomplish? Another breakdown waiting to happen?
Why had Soujiro Seta chosen Shishio's truth over Battousai's truth? Had he even really made his choice already? Or was Rin merely hoping against hope for a Yin-Yang balance between the two opposite ideals that might or might not exist?
She felt Yahiko's head stir on her lap. He was already awake? As expected of a swordsman. With blurry brown eyes and quivering lips, he weakly grabbed hold of her shoulder and tugged at it. Why was he doing that? Did he want to fight some more? She then heard a ringing clang from above her head. As she looked up, she saw a spinning something whirl away from her noggin.
She squinted to get a better look at what was happening before her, only to flinch as something wet, sticky, and tangy splashed on the face. As the liquid dripped down her mouth, she licked her lips. It tasted salty and metallic. 'Blood...?'
As her vision cleared, she saw a curious sight: The Battousai of Speed on the floor, screaming like she was burning alive, her wakizashi sunk deep into Soujiro's sandaled foot, while the Ten Ken had his own Kikuichi Monji pierced right through one of her forearms.
"Eh? Seta-kun...?"
The smile Soujiro wore was the same as before, which was no surprise, but something was amiss with his eyes. Rin couldn't tell if it was because of her bad vision playing tricks on her perpetually moving eyes, but like with the livid Morinaga earlier, the Ten Ken's eyes were murky and lightless. Like doll's eyes.
Kaede mouthed something to Soujiro, but Rin couldn't read her lips from that angle. Seta didn't even flinch, but his gaze stayed right at his enemy. It was the first time the Akahori child ever witnessed a smiling glower that didn't look like a glower, but Seta somehow made it possible.
Kaede kept her cool, the fire of her temper from earlier on extinguished in the midst of a cold-blooded swordsman who gave her all that she could handle and more. He'd even solved the Shukuchi's weakness when it came to last-minute hairpin turns and sidesteps. No wonder a half-strength Shogo Amakusa fell at his mercy; he was just that good.
She couldn't stop smiling. Was it because Soujiro's smile was that infectious? No, not quite. For quite sometime, she had problems keeping up with the monstrously strong people in her life like her master and her present liege, Shogo. Being able to keep up with someone as good as the Heaven Sword... the person who almost killed Battousai and broke the sakabatou that she had a blacksmith turn into a short sword... made her heart flutter.
In order to kill the man whom she thought killed her mother, she took him up on his offer and helped him in a number of bounty hunting expeditions and political assassinations. For a couple of years, she was nothing more than an annoying load who, from time to time, got kidnapped or almost killed by her master's myriad of enemies. 'I was just like Myojin Yahiko when he was a child, I bet.'
But not today.
All those years of being bullied by Doraku Akatsuki and humiliated by Shiro Amakusa the Second had finally borne fruit. She killed merely a fraction of the people those two monsters did, but now she could etch a trail beyond their considerable shadows. This was her real debut as a warrior. She had found her rival. Even without the Akahoris' lives at stake, she'd want to take him on and beat him.
She guessed because of the combination of Soujiro's hesitation and the pain from his wounded foot (not to mention the damage inflicted by Amakusa on his hip and thigh), his Shukuchi backpedal became a hair slower. By the smell of his puddles of blood alone, she could sense where he went.
Besides, because a Shukuchi user tended to blast off with what seemed like the speed of light, Soujiro had a smaller window of opportunity to attack without stopping because he charged too fast, especially if his opponent moved around as well.
She retaliated against the stab on her forearm with a Deathstalker Stab of her own to the face and a Rising Tail Stinger to the body. She grit her teeth and bore through the pain and swelling of her stabbed left forearm.
The high-low combination made the Ten Ken's footsteps stutter, and she smelled blood. Lots of it. He avoided getting his head split open by turning, but his forehead nevertheless bled with a single cut. She hurt him. She knew she did, and so did he, since he opted to retreat right then and there. He wiped the blood off with his sleeve before falling into his fighting stance.
Once his back was pressed against the wall, Soujiro attempted to push the Fake Battousai away with his self-taught battoujutsu. This time around, she caught the strike cleanly with her Vise Grip, pulled the sword away from his grip, and hooked another Rising Tail Stinger at his body and a Falling Tail Stinger to his neck at close range.
She managed to hit a couple of combination Claw Strikes and Scorpion Nests at Seta before he swung and missed with his scabbard and ran to retrieve his Kikuichi Monji. He almost slipped and stumbled on the uneven, splintered ground thanks to the pooling blood from his foot as he grabbed hold of his weapon.
It didn't matter that he'd chosen Shishio's "gospel" and became the Ten Ken once more. It didn't even matter that his sakki was all but gone now, and even then, his emotions remained in check.
None of that would save him now. His self-assured smile was nothing more than a mask. The rest of his body... particularly his heaving chest and shivering limbs... was more honest than his masked face.
Ironically, by subscribing to the philosophy of "Survival of the Fittest", Soujiro had shot himself in the foot (pun unintended). He'd hung himself with his own rope, because now, she was stronger than him, and by his own beliefs, he was about to become food for her and her rise to stardom as an elite member of the Battousai Group.
Even the Swarming Barbs, which she had a hard time hitting him with earlier because of his damnable Reduced Earth technique, were also landing at present.
He sprinted away the best he could, practically hopping on one foot, as every slice and stab he shot at the advancing Morinaga were swallowed by the raging metal tides of Scorpions Nests and Swarming Stabs.
She laughed and laughed as her strikes started to land at will. After hitting nothing but air, skin, and cloth for the most part, her hacks and slashes now had a satisfying, solid feel to them. She felt like she could take on the world now.
Soujiro smilingly reeled after taking a clipping Deathstalker Stab to the clavicle as well as yet another Rising Tail Stinger to the throat that marked a red cleft on his tapered chin and almost formed a fish gill on his neck that he could breathe through. The tables had turned. He wasn't able to land a single strike on the Battousai of Speed all throughout that particular exchange.
Meanwhile, a frowning Akahori squatted on the ground, his hands clasped as he considered Soujiro's options. Even when his bodyguard wasn't injured and on the defensive, the Battousai of Speed was still winning their exchanges and surviving his onslaught. As long as she took full control of the space surrounding her, he'd still be cutting things close.
'Even with the Shukuchi in his arsenal, when Seta-kun moves around, he can't really attack, he just moves around. All Battousai-dono really needs to do is wait for him to come to her. He looks totally out of sorts trying to figure out a way to penetrate her defenses without her countering him.'
The pain the Heaven Sword felt and endured as he fought the Battousai of Speed had a nostalgic tinge to it. It reminded him of the "bad" ol' days when his adopted family from his father's side would beat the living hell out of him. Back then, he'd smile no matter how much the beatings hurt or how bad they got. He hadn't quite changed since then, even after his eye-opening duel with Kenshin Himura.
Things were so much simpler back in the days when Soujiro still followed the laws of the jungle and the Darwinian principle of Survival of the Fittest. He didn't have to follow any morals, rules of conduct, or society's expectations at all. He only had to think about whether or not the person he was dealing with was stronger or weaker than he was, and then he'd let nature take its course.
"Think for yourself," was what Rin more or less said to Soujiro. He shouldn't let others think for him and dictate his actions; that was what she was trying to tell him back in the East Valley.
When he was with Shishio's Faction, he didn't have to worry about the unfortunate implications of killing his foster parents, or the fact that through Shishio's urging and his blind faith in the rebel's words, he became one of the world's youngest serial killers in existence.
It didn't matter whether or not he killed his stepfamily... three men, two women, and one child... out of revenge or self-defense. It didn't even matter that he didn't want to kill them at the time either.
All that mattered was that he was strong, so he survived, and they were weak, so they died. That was it. End of story. That was why he didn't cry that rainy night he murdered them; it was just rain that happened to enter his eyes.
'Stop lying to yourself. You were crying back then. And it does matter that you didn't want to kill them. We don't live in a black-and-white world where the strong is free to abuse the weak, Seta Soujiro,' said a voice from inside of him with a familiar face... because he bore the same face as the gleeful, wild-eyed, and bloodthirsty terrorist that was trying to kill him at the moment.
'Himura-san.'
Wasn't it Kenshin who told him to search for his own truth as well instead of blindly following the redhead's example and becoming a vagabond that didn't kill? He called him cruel and arrogant back then. Up until now, he had discovered no specific truth that gave him a purpose-driven life.
'Stop being so spoiled. It's not as if I could spoon-feed to you the secret to happiness,' retorted a Battousai Soujiro never knew, a sarcastic and insensitive one that went against the meek and humble Kenshin that everyone in the Juppon Gatana knew from the gathered intelligence reports of their spies. 'There are no easy answers to life, only endless questions.'
That memory of Kenshin was enough for him to ignore the bolts of electricity sent directly to his spine every time he put his wounded foot down and dashed away from Morinaga's midst, with her none the wiser. As she grinded the ground and walls where he once stood to dust, rubble, and splinters, he worsened the slash he already gave her earlier on the back.
By instinct, she moved counterclockwise and threw another Flying Tail Stinger in the air, no doubt to again make him react and betray his presence to her. 'Had you been the Heaven Sword that I knew, you wouldn't let this amateurish Battousai wannabe manhandle you so. Where's the cold-blooded Sou-kun that I'd come to trust?' said another recognizable voice in his head.
'Shishio-san.'
Unlike the conceited Himura, Shishio was someone who outright gave him a simple solution to all his problems. It was a saying that never betrayed him, a motto he followed with the zeal of a monk or the patriotism of a Shinsengumi Member reciting, "Aku Soku Zan" to all the traitors to the shogunate's rule.
The Kenshin in Soujiro's mind said, 'He also trusted you, Shishio. He trusted you like a child, and yet you betrayed him and used him for your own nefarious purposes. You made him into a murderer and a killer like you because you brainwashed him into thinking that all of life's problems can be solved through murder and bullying. How can he come back to normal society thanks to all he trauma you made him go through?'
With her nostrils flared and her teeth clenched, the cross-scarred swordswoman parried Soujiro's blade aside. The Flying Tail Stinger she flung landed nowhere near Yahiko, Tetsuo, or Rin. It instead stabbed the Ten Ken between the shoulder and tricep while Morinaga's antics kept him in place. He'd been swindled again.
The Shishio in Seta's mind answered, 'How did I betray him? Even until now, what I said to him applies to his situation. You beat him because you were stronger than him, and it took four of you to beat me because I'm stronger than you all. Even now, as the boy himself has seen, the Meiji Government is trying its best to be stronger than all the neighboring Asian countries around it. The strongest does survive. The weak does serve as their prey.'
As Morinaga attempted to grab hold of the short sword embedded on Soujiro's arm and plunge it deeper into it as she pulled him across her and gutted him, turning the Flying Tail Stinger into a Scorpion Death Lock in an instant, he took his saya from his obi and hit her right on her damaged left eye, the blood from the cut above it flowing anew. She screamed and retreated in pain while plucking her wakizashi along with her.
'Is that what you really want, Soujiro? Do you really want to live in a world of killed or be killed? Can you handle abandoning your humanity once more?'
'What is this humanity you speak of, Battousai? You're the one living in a fool's paradise. This is a dog-eat-dog world. '
As his damaged foot went numb and his blood didn't pool across the floor anymore, Soujiro became untouchable. Morinaga's jaw dropped as she desperately searched for his presence just short of tearing tufts of red hair off of her head. She sniffed the air. Waved her blades around as though she were a blind person with two walking sticks. She couldn't find him anywhere.
'Stop wishing that Battousai was there to save you back when your foster family almost killed you. Take your destiny into your own hands. Become strong enough so that no one on earth can ever bring you down. You shouldn't protect the weak either, because you're enabling them to continue being weak.'
The room became a blur as Soujiro paced himself and gathered speed. To his eyes, Morinaga's movements were nothing more than the fumbling motions of an infant as he ripped her apart like a surgeon. She went from predator to prey, staying right in place, parrying everything around her with her Protective Shell, and avoiding all that she could with her Crypsis and Crabwise Stalk.
'Your foot is numb, but that doesn't mean it's impervious to damage. It's still being torn apart even though you can't feel the pain. Your heart is numb, but the same can be said for it. Are you really like Shishio Makoto? Are you willing to sacrifice everything to become the strongest?'
The worst thing about the debate in his mind was that neither Kenshin nor Shishio were absolutely right or absolutely wrong in regards to their points. Did he want to become Kenshin, who'd risk life, limb, and soul to save the people around him? Or did he want to become Shishio, who'd instead sacrifice everything around him to come out on top and become the master of his destiny?
Soujiro ripped apart the Battousai of Speed's abdomen with sweeping slashes that her short-distance speed couldn't avoid or react to in time. He didn't only use his sword, but also his scabbard to counteract the Fake Battousai's double-bladed defense. Soon, Kaede's left eye went red and swelled after the Ten Ken's repeated sheath strikes to it.
He knew what was going to happen next, though. With her back against the wall and the tables turned to his favor, the Battousai of Speed would surely resort to her dirty tactics once more by threatening her hostages and intentionally provoking him. It didn't matter to her if it were Tetsuo, Yahiko, or Rin she threatened as long as she got an emotional response from him that she could manipulate.
However, it did matter to him who the Fake Battousai threatened.
'You're in love with her, aren't you?' was what Soujiro believed Kaede told him a while back.
Oh, so that was what had been bothering him all that time. Interesting.
If he were Kenshin, what would he do? From what he'd seen and heard, the Hitokiri Battousai's great strength came from his desire to protect people. Shishio would probably wave that off as nonsense, but Soujiro saw firsthand Himura's undeniable power and determination.
He wandered around like Kenshin did, but he had yet to touch the lives of the weak and helpless the same way the ex-rurouni did. "Normal" people were scared off by him and his smile after they got to know him for longer than a day.
Had Yahiko not gotten up again during their duel at the bamboo-filled East Valley, he might've also fought against one of the few friends he made in Shinshu, Kyoko Sakuguchi. Like he told Nonoko Sakaguchi, he was no angel.
"Didn't we promise each other if I found someone I can openly laugh with, you'll then find someone you can openly cry with too?" was what Kyoko more or less told him after she spilled the beans regarding Keisuke's assault against her.
But the Ten Ken wasn't Kenshin Himura. He wasn't an enigmatic man who was both a pacifistic vagabond and a machine-efficient assassin at the same time. He didn't gain tremendous resolve and might whenever the weak were threatened, especially his loved ones. In fact, he didn't have any loved ones to protect for the longest time.
All he knew was pain and how to mask it. He might not have wanted to kill his father, his stepmother, his two grownup stepbrothers, his infant stepbrother, and his paternal grandmother, but he had no affection for them. He never even knew his biological mother, his father's mistress, at that, because she abandoned him altogether.
Then there was Rin. She fit the bill of everything Shishio abhorred and everyone Kenshin wanted to protect: Weak, helpless, and prone to abuse. She was just like him back when he was seven years old. She also had a poker face that gave Soujiro's a run for his money.
He felt his body heat up as he ran circles around Morinaga while she figuratively stumbled in the dark for him, like someone trying to catch a shadow. She herself became a shadow from time-to-time when she wasn't clamming up her defenses, but otherwise, she couldn't get a hit in. Instead of stopping to admire his work, Soujiro kept on running, his foot and thigh be damned, sticking and moving for two more minutes.
Even Kaede's Crabwise Stalk and counterclockwise movement were rendered moot now that he could make hairpin turns using his sword as a pivot. However, it came with the disadvantage of alerting her when he was going to attack (around the time he'd plucked his sword from the ground), so they were still at a deadlock of sorts. 'Not for long, though.'
Was Morinaga correct in her assumptions? Was Soujiro in love with Rin? He honestly didn't know. Was Rin in love with him? He had no idea. Did it matter? It got him excited, sure, but was that proof of his love? He wanted to protect her, but did that mean he loved her? He didn't know what love was. He'd suppressed his feelings for so long, he didn't know how to handle them when they came out, as proven by his last mental breakdown six years ago.
However, people did make bad decisions when they were emotional. He at least had the advantage of thinking straight without letting his emotions affect his judgment. Without the veil of emotions, what did he want to happen?
Because Soujiro was moving so fast, none of Kaede's Flying Tail Stingers got anywhere near Tetsuo, Rin, or Yahiko. They all kept whirling back at her, as though her hostages where surrounded by a Shukuchi Force Field of sorts. So she started moving. She moved at a speed that would've impressed the original Battousai and her Lord Amakusa. Then she moved faster. She caught up with him inside his indistinct dimension of perpetual motion.
He needed to win this fight. Why? To save the Akahoris. Why? Because they were important to him. Why? Because they reminded him of his past before Battousai and his cohorts turned his life right-side up (Shishio was the one who turned it upside down first), destroyed Shishio's Faction, and disbanded the Juppon Gatana.
Tetsuo reminded him of Shishio's tactical brilliance, although he lacked the monstrous strength that came along with it. He owed the politician a lot in helping him fit back into polite society even in light of his lifelong trauma. In turn, Rin reminded him of himself, or at least what he used to be before Shishio taught him the values of Survival of the Fittest.
Kaede surpassed her limits to fight him, which made Soujiro's heart skip a beat. The last few times he felt this excited in a fight was whenever Shishio obliged him for a sparring match, when he and Kenshin used their respective succession techniques against each other, and when Yahiko broke his sword. They traded strikes at the center of the room, with sparks, blood, and bits of clothing flying in all directions.
Could he become like Shishio instead, whose diabolical mind, clear insight into human nature, and unerring philosophy got him even closer to conquering Japan than Takamori Saigo and his doomed rebellion ever did? Could Soujiro, like Shishio, use Rin to his advantage instead of letting her become his weak point, which she clearly stated that she didn't want?
Although Morinaga could only see through one eye at that point, she fought as though she was used to it. Then, finally, she did her Crypsis disappearing act that fooled even Soujiro's eyes as she went straight for Rin, her blades crossed into a Scissor Grip aimed right at the pale girl's neck.
Could Soujiro let Rin sacrifice herself for him so that he'd win against Morinaga the same way Yumi Komagata did for Shishio's fight against Kenshin? Could he stomach manipulating her fondness for him the same way Shishio did Kamatari Honjo? For all intents and purposes, Akahori's daughter brought nothing to the table.
All Rin did was remind Soujiro of what he didn't want to become. Her very presence kept him from finishing both Morinaga and Amakusa off. Her father's life was in danger because he himself was willing to risk his life to save hers. She was a liability in every possible way. It was illogical to keep her around beyond emotional attachment.
Did that mean he should use her as his human meat shield or as a timely distraction in order to stab Morinaga by surprise? Of course not. More than anything, she had become the main reason why he continued working as Akahori's bodyguard in the first place.
He wanted to protect her, not because she was weak and she needed protection, but because he wanted to. Whether that was love or not was irrelevant to him.
Kenshin and Rin had both told Soujiro to think for himself. Well, that was exactly what he was going to do now. With his mind clear, he knew what he must accomplish.
'I can't believe it. He's starting to be on the same level as Shogo-sama was at his peak. Like an unstoppable force of nature...' thought Kaede. As that bastard Tetsuo predicted, as long as Soujiro used the Shukuchi, he'd almost be impossible to beat, let alone touch.
Almost.
She had to use everything she got in order to run at the same speed as the Shukuchi, but she could only do so at a limited time. Had she kept on fighting at those velocities, something in her tired, battered body would break. 'He's reacting too quickly to everything I'm throwing at him. I have to slow him down somehow.'
If anything, she reckoned she just needed to hold on and turn the duel into a war of attrition. Something in Soujiro's foot and legs had to give, and even up until then, he couldn't finish her off because occasionally, he'd become off-balance because of his damaged limbs.
She herself had to use a bit of the bandages wrapped around her and tie the wakizashi into her hand because her grip had become loose ever since Soujiro stabbed her forearm. Her left eye nearest her cross scar had swollen to the size of a marble. Their health and skills were both in jeopardy. It had now turned into a contest of endurance.
The fight was too close and too early to call. She needed something to shift the momentum to her favor altogether. Again, she turned towards her safety zone, her hostages, for help. Although Akahori was her prime target, Soujiro kept his guard up the most when protecting him. It was when she was attacking Rin when the Ten Ken dropped his guard altogether, showing the same amount of desperation to save her as her father would.
Hell, if Morinaga were lucky, she'd have both the Heaven Sword and the Oyakata running to save Rin: She'd be able to kill two birds with one stone, except the stone was also a bird, so that was three birds.
However, the strangest thing happened as Morinaga prepared to do a Scissor Grip and Crisscross Claw combo right below the Akahori Daughter's sharp chin. She didn't feel Soujiro react at all. There was no rise in kenki or sakki. 'Wait a minute. What's going on here?'
Did Soujiro suddenly decide to abandon the girl that he loved and let her die so he could fight Kaede on even terms? That asshole! And here she was, expecting something better from him!
Rin closed her eyes as she felt the cold bite of steel reach her neck. This was it. This was what she had feared. Now that Soujiro had realized his own truth, she now had no place in his life. The only thing he'd be concerned about now was becoming the strongest swordsman in Japan after Battousai retired. She wished she could say she had no regrets, but...
"RIN!" hollered Rin's father.
The Fake Battousai stopped short of wounding Rin's thin neck as she felt something grab her ankle. Below her was a watery-eyed, trembling, and groggy Yahiko. She stomped on his hand and turned to see where the Heaven Sword went, her twin blades still a short hair away from the cream-haired young lady's jugular. "Ten Ken! Where are you?"
"As you if you would really do it."
Morinaga's blood grew cold at what she saw: Soujiro standing right beside the prone Amakusa, his sword mere inches from his throat. He placed himself before Shogo as she placed herself beside Rin. "You wouldn't dare...!"
"I've been thinking," Soujiro interrupted. "If you were to kill either Rin-san or Akahori-san, who would stop me from killing you? Looking at you right now, I can say you have one foot in the grave already."
"You're the one with the damaged foot, not me!" spat Kaede.
"Don't do anything hasty, Seta-kun!" cooed Akahori without a hint of irony, his mind once again unhinging at the thought of somebody endangering the life of his precious baby daughter, his paternal instincts at full swing. Inwardly, he commended his bodyguard for using Morinaga's cowardly tactics against her.
"Touch one hair on Shogo-sama's head and your half-blind girlfriend's dead!" warned Morinaga as the whole guestroom was filled with her bloodlust, bile, and murderous intent. Meanwhile, Rin's white skin turned light pink even under the dim light of the moon, although her face remained as blank as ever.
"Your hands will be flying off your arms before that happens. And your precious Lord Shogo would be dead too, at that..." Knowing that Soujiro was perfectly capable of that bluff, Kaede didn't even let him finish his sentence as she disappeared from Rin's midst and reappeared in front of the Ten Ken with a blitzkrieg of stabs and slashes.
Soujiro was supposed to mention that he was going to win their bout in the end because without the hostages, Morinaga had no leverage against him whatsoever and she could barely keep up with him already when facing the true Shukuchi, much less the Shun Ten Satsu. Regardless, he'd demonstrate to her his point.
He felt the stale, tangy air part and turn into an arctic wind as he burst into top speed once more with the Reduced Earth and turned Morinaga into a sitting duck. He reached such dizzying velocities that his strikes could now probe the brief openings in her Protective Shell. To him, she moved like tar now.
Come to think of it, this might be the second time Soujiro would have the opportunity and pleasure to take down a strong and worthwhile enemy.
Kenshin, regardless of the excuses Seta had for losing, beat him fair and square. He never once fought Shishio seriously in reverence and fealty to him, while the two other strongest Juppon Gatana... Usui Uonuma and Anji Yukyuzan... merely acknowledged his strength without directly confronting him about it. He didn't have the opportunity to test his mettle against Hajime Saito either.
'I want to beat Morinaga-san and prove that I've become more than what I was before. I'll fight her as if she were Himura-san himself, and this was our rematch!' thought Seta. At the very least, Morinaga already looked the part.
With her sight compromised (ruining her ability to gauge distances and her peripheral vision on one the side of her face) and the pounding vibrations of the Shukuchi long gone now that Soujiro opted to use its full speed from the start, the only things that helped Morinaga keep track of where the Ten Ken was and what he was going to do were his flight pattern (he tended to head hunt and charge forward) and the stench of the blood from his foot.
All trace of his earlier anger disappeared, replaced with a palpable sense of anticipation she herself felt. So for a change, she was now flinging her Flying Tail Stinger at Soujiro himself instead of the other people around them while following it up with Swarming Barbs and Deathstalker Stabs. Long range attacks were the order of the day as she rifled through her mind for other avenues of attack.
Because Morinaga kept her distance from the Ten Ken and deployed a better variety of long-range moves, this prompted Soujiro to charge instead of dance around and pick his spots. In turn, instead of him sticking and moving away from a boat that was dead in the water, he instead fell right into Kaede's traps and landmines in the form of Scorpion Nest counterstrikes.
Both Akahoris winced as the number of metal clangs increased, the two combatants invisible to the naked eye. In light of the fact that throughout most of the bout, Soujiro was the attacker and Kaede was the defender, these sounds only meant one thing: His strikes were being blocked and parried continuously.
'Even after Seta-kun solved the weakness of his Shukuchi and sealed away several of the Battousai of Speed's enhanced senses, she's still finding new ways of outsmarting him. More and more as the fight draws on, she's memorizing his rhythm and habits. I've never seen two more evenly matched foes in my life. Where the hell did Amakusa find this woman?' Tetsuo thought.
The politician then remembered the six-year-old rumor of Amakusa teaming up with Battousai. 'Was that her...?'
'Don't blame yourself, Seta-kun. You've got your epiphany. You're fighting with your full potential. You may have gotten even better than before because you're thinking before acting now. There's no shame in losing like this...' Rin thought.
The ghostly looking maiden then pinched herself with blood-caked hands and stated as loud as she could, "Seta-kun. It's not yet over. I want to see how the real Seta-kun would've fought the Hitokiri Battousai!"
Kaede settled into her groove after landing a Deathstalker Stab at Soujiro's side, but her overconfidence almost cost her an arm and a leg as she barely had time to block his battoujutsu strike from out of nowhere. He also sheathed his sword so quickly that the ringing it produced made her eardrums hurt. 'Looks like he heard his princess's pleas.'
Soujiro's smile grew wider, and so did Kaede's. They had the same idea in mind. 'Finally, I've found a worthy opponent. I can't wait to completely annihilate him/her.'
Morinaga pawed at Seta with Swarming Barbs and used her short-distance speed to avoid a sword-sheathing technique disguised as a swipe. She afterwards caught the expected battoujutsu strike with a Vise Grip, pushed it away, and attacked with a combined Deathstalker Stab and Rising Tail Stinger, their fanged bite tearing the flesh off of the Ten Ken's chest.
'She's adapting to the Shukuchi already? How exciting! She's even starting to catch my battoujutsu strikes with her Cancer Stance moves again. I better mix it up, then.' Soujiro promptly turned up the heat by blasting off with the Shukuchi and taking advantage of his building momentum to add power to his shots.
Morinaga's Protective Shell parries buckled against the might of Soujiro's inertia-assisted strikes, their force of impact driving her back. She tried harder blocks like the Vise Grip and the Scissor Grip, but they could only block one strike at a time, and when she did catch the blade, Seta would always knock her back with his sheath.
As he trapped her against a corner, he bombarded her with Dragon Nest Flashes and, as she unsurprisingly retaliated with Swarming Barbs, he ducked and attacked with a Rising Dragon Flash he saw Kenshin deliver against Senkaku back in the Shingetsu Village.
Soujiro nearly amputated her arms and face away, but instead skinned the underside of her arms and elbows. In order to avoid falling into a predictable pattern, Seta also varied his offense, from one-two striking combos to a whirling dervish of zigzagging slashes that kept Kaede guessing.
She couldn't even smell the blood on him anymore because he moved too fast for her to get a good whiff, and the entire room was already filled with the smell of blood anyway. Faint tremors and vibrations from the air were all she had left, but even then, he still moved faster than she could react.
'Then how about this...?'
Morinaga herself disappeared from everyone's sight, including the fast-moving Soujiro. For everyone else watching the duel, nothing unusual happened because the two of them were moving too fast for them to see anyway.
But for Seta who had been outpacing Kaede time and again, seeing her vanish without a trace even while he ran at top speed and deciphered his surroundings regardless (his eyes were trained to recognize objects in motion because of all the running he did as a child) was more than a little bit disturbing.
Soujiro kept on moving and searching for the girl through every nook and cranny of the room. If he didn't know better, he'd say she ran off from the mansion and took Amakusa with her, never to be heard from again. Obviously, because he could decipher fast movement, the Fake Battousai was using some other technique to hide her presence.
From out of the blue, Seta felt a stab at his thigh, which drove him back and made him backpedal before the blade could do some serious damage. 'Oh, that's right. She has that Crypsis technique of hers that camouflages her movement. I thought it only involved making it hard to gauge when she's within striking range. I didn't realize it can also make her disappear like a ghost!'
He didn't have the keen senses she had save for his sense of sight, but he did train long enough under Shishio's guidance to learn how to use his sixth sense: Detecting a swordsman's presence. Curiously, Morinaga's sakki and kenki were spread evenly across the room. He checked his blind spots and saw movement from the corner of his eyes.
If he had to guess, Morinaga was trailing behind him at top speed and moving in the shadows or through his blind spots in order to stay hidden, waiting for the right chance to strike like some sort of ninja. He then tested his theory by copying Kaede's tactics earlier and running towards the unconscious Amakusa in order to turn him into a shish kebab.
He felt the widely spread aura of bloodlust and sword energy converge into a single point... and it came in the form of the flickering afterimages of a one-eyed, red-haired, and irate lady that suddenly attacked him from behind.
"SHOGO-SAMA! NO!"
They had a wild exchange of blade strikes and thrusts alongside a bookshelf and wall that quickly turned into a mishmash of shredded paper, carton, hardcover bindings, pieces of wood and wood shavings, nails, plaster, paint chips, and concrete. Kaede bathed in blood, but every attempt Soujiro made to finish her off was parried by wakizashi stabs and uchigatana slashes.
"I guess by your logic, you're in love with Amakusa-san as well," murmured the smiling Soujiro while wiping the droplets of blood on his forehead.
Morinaga rebuked, "Shut up! You don't know a damn thing about me or Shogo-sama, Ten Ken!"
Soujiro leaped back, sheathed his sword, then charged with a battoujutsu strike that quickly turned into a flurry of metallic swings. As his Shukuchi gained momentum, he again broke down her different Cancer Stance techniques while also avoiding her Scorpio Stance attacks. The cut above Morinaga's swollen-shut eye started bleeding again, adding insult (and further injury) to injury.
Kaede staved off the Ten Ken's attack by fighting fire with fire and letting her wakizashi fly towards her nearest hostage, which was Tetsuo. As Soujiro moved to deflect the blade, she used her Crabwise Stalk to intercept her short sword before him and redirected it towards Rin.
"You really thought that I'm going to stop threatening the Akahoris just because you can threaten me using Shogo-sama? Well, you have another think coming! You still have to deal with two people, while I only have to worry about one!"
"You also need to worry about yourself, Morinaga-san."
After Soujiro parried the weapon by throwing his saya at it without running towards it, he attacked the one-sword-wielding Kaede with impunity, her Protective Shell only half as efficient as before, and her Scissor or Vise Grip nonexistent.
Morinaga kept Seta at bay with Deathstalker Stabs the best she could. They then disappeared in a flash and reappeared with their respective sheath and short sword.
She threw Swarming Barbs at Soujiro, and again none of them hit him because he could see and avoid every one of them with his sheer speed... or that was supposed to happen had she not hidden several of the stabs with her Crypsis camouflage, which allowed her to land telling blows on the Ten Ken's body as he ran into those shots care of his Shukuchi.
As she moved in for the kill with the Scorpion Nest, he blocked her attacks with the Ryu Sou Sen and countered with another battoujutsu strike that clipped her knee, slashed her thigh, and made her legs buckle. He would've decapitated her had she not blocked him with the Scissor Grip, slashed him with the Crisscross Claw, and drove him away with a Deathstalker Stab and Falling Tail Stinger combo.
'She has an answer to everything I throw at her, but in the end, it's still my 'one-dimensional' Shukuchi that will decide the winner of this fight.'
Soujiro again vanished with the Reduced Earth and Morinaga reacted in kind by hiding herself with her Crypsis in order to lie and wait for her opponent. To those who chanced upon it, they'd all agree that her swollen eye and the cut above it were grotesque. Her ears were ringing, the smell of blood stuffed her nose, and her body was growing numb from blood loss. She could barely even think straight. Had Soujiro won the war of attrition?
The disappeared Soujiro attacked from the blind spot created by Kaede's bad eye even as her Crypsis failed to hide her presence (her body was too damaged to do the complex, watery movement required to blend with her environment). The only times she could sense the Ten Ken was when he attacked, but she also used that to her advantage, attacking and stabbing at the dark whenever she felt something stab or slash at her.
'Like I said earlier, even if I can't sense you in any way possible, I'd still continue to fight.'
However, even with her bluster, she still fell as she traded shots with Soujiro and she couldn't catch him at all thanks to the in-and-out motion of his undetectable Shukuchi. This time, she really was a sitting duck. For over a minute, as Seta tore Morinaga apart, she couldn't throw much of anything at him, her vision compromised and her body remembering how he time and again struck first before she could even counterattack.
'It's frustrating, isn't it? Knowing where I am and what I'm about to do yet not being able to do anything about it.'
Another minute passed, followed by one more. Without the Crypsis to counteract Soujiro's Shukuchi, all Kaede had left in her arsenal was her Crabwise Stalk.
However, because her Antennas (or her multiple enhanced senses) went kaput, every attempt she made to escape the Reduced Earth's wrath happened too early or too late. Her timing was off. She had no idea where Soujiro went.
She could see, hear, feel, smell, or sense no Soujiro Seta. If she could only taste him in order to detect his presence, she would've, but of course, that was ridiculous. She hadn't a clue where he was or what he was going to do her, and he thusly picked her apart piece-by-piece.
She dug deep down to find a way to detect the undetectable Heaven Sword, because if she didn't, the next exchange could be her last. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as her blood-soaked skin was filled with goose flesh. Something prickly, hot, and steamy went straight for her from behind.
She turned and crossed her blades in time to see a red-faced and damp Soujiro almost slice her head apart from her left eye onwards. Steam came out from his ears, his mouth, and from every other orifice in his body, his clothes damp with his sweat.
"Seta-kun!" came the muffled exclamation of Rin, her bloodstained hands covering her mouth. 'To think you'd go this far to win against the Battousai of Speed. It's as if you believe you were born to fight this duel and nothing more!'
'I knew his body was about to break down sooner or later, but where is all that smoke and steam coming from? Don't tell me...!' Akahori wiped the cold sweat on his forehead. 'He was traveling so fast that the friction from the air made his body temperature rise, to the point that the sweat on his skin is evaporating into steam!'
Morinaga fired off a Deathstalker Stab that reopened the wound on Soujiro's forehead, which gave him a smiling crimson mask of sorts. She tried to follow through with Swarming Stabs, but the reckless Ten Ken exploded with another, full-speed Shukuchi that attacked her from multiple directions, her wakizashi slipping from her cloth-wrapped grip.
'I don't know who's going to win anymore. Your apprentice has surpassed my wildest expectations, Amakusa,' thought the Elder Akahori.
Even through ragged breaths, Morinaga smiled as she picked up her short sword. She only needed to hold on for a little while longer as she used Seta's rising body heat to detect his presence and show her where to fire off her counters. She also had one last trick up her sleeve, although she revealed it a bit earlier than she planned thanks to Yahiko Myojin's interference.
Soujiro shared the same sentiments as Kaede. He was almost there. The finish line was in sight. More and more of his strikes were penetrating through Morinaga's defensive techniques, her movements dulled by fatigue and her stance filled with openings. He was too careless, though. He wasn't even sure he could walk after this fight was over. Nevertheless, he needed to finish what he'd started.
Their next exchange... possibly their last... began typically enough. Morinaga again flung a Flying Tail Stinger into the air that could land on anyone of the three people present: Tetsuo, Rin, or Yahiko. Despite the fact that Soujiro moved so fast that his sweat was evaporating on his friction-burned skin, he still decided to dash around with another Shukuchi.
"DAMMIT! YOU'RE BOTH HUGE IDIOTS!"
Someone caught Kaede's wakizashi and threw it back at her. The same person then swung his fist into the air and punched Soujiro's cheek in the middle of his Shukuchi run, the latter winking into existence as a spray of red and white flew everywhere.
"Wake up, you moron! You're making Rin needlessly worry about you!"
"M-Myojin Yahiko...?" blurted out the Oyakata. Where did the boy come from? Wasn't he supposed to be prone and unconscious on the floor beside his daughter?
"...Myojin Yahiko!" sputtered the flabbergasted Morinaga, which led her to almost drop her reverse-edged wakizashi right after catching it.
"Ah," said Rin as she glanced at where she left Yahiko, only to see a half-dried pool of blood and no Tokyo Samurai Descendant.
Yahiko winced as he shook his sore fist around as though he broke it. He muttered choice words only a street-smart ex-pickpocket like himself knew as his shoulder wound acted up again. He looked up to see everyone looking at him as though he suddenly stripped naked and peed himself. 'Sounds about right.
At any rate, the teenager decided to punch the twenty-something Soujiro in the face after he remembered what Kenshin did to himself to revert from his Battousai self to his more agreeable rurouni persona after his duel with Saito ended in a draw.
It didn't look like it worked, though. Seta was still smiling.
Soujiro rubbed his jaw, his smile unwavering as he at last found time to wipe his bloody forehead clean. "I'm amazed you can still stand up, Yahiko-san. You're not pushing yourself too much, are you?"
"Says the steamed lobster!" Yahiko grabbed himself and shuddered. The punch didn't even faze the psychotic oddball? What was Soujiro made of? Was he even human?
"I don't know what's worse. You moving so fast you could steam dumplings by holding them or you barely flinching from a punch in the middle of your invisible dash!"
"I've been hit with worse."
"That's what's so fucked up about it, Psycho-Kid!"
"I missed you calling me that! I was worried I'll never get to hear you say that name again because you looked as good as dead when you got stabbed!"
"That was what you were worried about? Stop smiling like a crazy person!"
Yahiko had a new goal in mind after dealing with Shogo and Kaede. As soon as his body was healed, he was going to wipe that creepy grin off of Soujiro's face even if he had to carve it out with the sakabatou's reverse edge.
"Get out of our way, Myojin Yahiko. We're in the middle of a duel," the last statement... said by Morinaga... silenced the banter between Yahiko and Soujiro.
"No. You can go to hell."
Without further adieu, Yahiko made his way in front of the curtain-bearded Akahori, held his sakaba sword in front of him, and assumed the most fundamental posture in kendo, which was the Chudan-no-Kamae or the Water Stance.
"It's obvious that you want to protect your girlfriend more than you do the Oyakata, Psycho-Kid, so I'll take care of saving this bearded bastard's hide for you. You can thank me later. Stop falling for Morinaga's stupid hostage trap!" Yahiko admonished Soujiro.
Next: Chaos theory in action.
The views expressed in this chapter doesn't necessarily reflect mine, but instead reveals some fictional characters' own perspectives and opinions. Instead of telling you, the reader, who's right or wrong, I'll let you decide for yourselves.
Also, I'll be using inches, yards, and feet instead of the historical shaku as the units of measurement for this story. Call it a translation convention. Finally, the Shukuchi's inability to sidestep is a weakness I've borrowed from the Prince of Tennis series, particularly from the Shukuchi-using members of the Okinawa Higa Team.
Open your eyes,
Abdiel