Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation by Chester Castañeda
When Soujiro met Rin.
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 32: Blind Justice
Around five years ago, in 1879 (Meiji 12), after a year of wandering north ever since Kenshin Himura defeated both him and Makoto Shishio at Mount Hiei...
At last, Soujiro Seta had arrived on the outskirts of Sapporo, Hokkaido.
Although Seta was accompanied by a handful of fellow hitchhikers in the dirt road that led to what was once known as Ezochi, there was not a familiar face in the crowd he was in.
It felt surreal how he went from traveling along with Shishio and his growing number of followers to him traveling in his lonesome, with money he earned doing odd jobs by unsuspecting employers who didn't realize he was the murderer of the great Toshimichi Okubo (his favorite job was being a courier, because he was usually the fastest person to deliver his packages even without the aid of trains, carriages, or horseback riding).
However, he was no penniless vagrant. He'd long ago uncovered Shishio's hidden wealth, got enough of it to last him a lifetime, and distributed the money to different private merchant banks scattered across the country.
He could settle down and live on the lap of luxury, if he wanted. He could also fund his own rebellion with the cash he had, if he so chose. He couldn't live with himself by following either decision, though.
Nobody gave him a second glance as he strode into one of the coldest regions of Japan, especially since he opted to start using an easy-to-hide cane sword for his little pilgrimage of self-discovery.
What a difference a year made. The Ten Swords were scattered across the nation and even beyond it. After the death of Shishio, they were now serving different masters: Their former enemies, the Meiji Government.
If he remembered correctly, the Wrath of God Yukyuzan Anji was serving time in a faraway Hokkaido prison. Moreover, Fuji himself was there to help lay the first railway line on Japan's second largest island.
Also, if the information he gathered from Katana Hunter Cho Sawagejo was correct, then even Goro Fujita, known better by the name Hajime Saito, had started investigating some government-related anomalies and corruption in Hokkaido, particularly concerning a high-ranking government official.
For whatever reason, Hokkaido appeared to be the place where most of the people involved in Shishio's Coup D'etat... either for or against the former Ishin Shishi hitokiri betrayed by his own employers... were presently gathering.
If Soujiro didn't know better, then he would've sworn that even Kenshin and his group, the so-called "Kenshingumi", were also going to end up in Hokkaido one way or another.
However, he did know better. Thanks to his correspondences with former-Juppon-Gatana-member-turned-undercover-cop Cho, he was able to keep tabs with what had happened to Kenshin and the rest of his allies. The Ten Ken knew there was no way they'd end up in Hokkaido because, like with what happened to the Ten Swords, the Kenshingumi themselves had already parted ways.
Soujiro lacked the specifics regarding the breakup. He also only had the vaguest notion of what Kenshin and his comrades had to contend with after their fight against Shishio and the Juppon Gatana; something about Himura's past life catching up to him that somehow involved the Shanghai Mafia Arms Dealers (the same organization that Shishio depended on to supply him with armaments and his ship, the Rengoku).
That wasn't the most unbelievable part of the story that Cho told Sou, though. The fact that the wild man of the Juppon Gatana, Iwanbo, was nothing more than a spy working for another one of Kenshin's past enemies that wore a suit made of cadavers was what blew the Ten Ken's mind. Absolutely no one could've imagined Iwanbo to be some sort of mercenary shinobi-for-hire. Perhaps even Shishio would've been surprised. Maybe.
'I wish I could talk to Himura-san and tell him about what happened to me so far. Maybe I can even challenge him to a duel,' was what Soujiro hoped to accomplish before his decade-long wandering ended. He heard Kenshin had already married his sweetheart last year, but gave it no mind, knowing full well that Hajime Saito himself had a wife but didn't let that fact stop him from practicing his lifelong motto, "Aku Soku Zan".
Makoto Shishio and Kenshin Himura: These two men wandered across Japan and found two diametrically opposing truths. Neither was absolutely wrong or absolutely right in regards to their ideals, Soujiro concluded.
He had called the ex-hitokiri cruel for not letting him follow his footsteps and ideals the same way he did Shishio. He now realized that this was for his own good. Himura wanted him to discover for himself what he truly wanted to do with his life and the god-given talents in swordsmanship he possessed.
Soujiro felt and heard his stomach rumble. Sapporo... which was once known as the Ishikari Plain, home to indigenous Ainu people... was a city established as recently as 1868, the same year he met Shishio. The same year he killed his stepfamily. In self defense.
He rubbed his blurry eyes. Dust particles must've gotten into them somehow.
'I wonder what I should eat...' Sapporo was also renowned for its Miso Ramen as well as other dishes like the eponymous Sapporo Ramen, Hakodate Ramen, and Asahikawa Ramen, which were all perfect hot delicacies for a place known for its cold northern climate. He knew. He did his research before even arriving there.
He never imagined himself wandering across Japan as a financially solvent young man. He could've sworn he'd end up the lifelong houseboy of the family that was forced to adopt him. Then again, he didn't expect to become the swordsman assassin par excellence of Shishio's Faction.
He merely took his destiny in his own hands... or that was what his old self would've said. Every time his mind flashed back to fists or sticks pummeling him to submission as a young child, it'd blank out before he so much as winced.
Unfortunately, the opposite happened whenever he remembered the feel of Shishio's wakizashi slicing his abusers apart, as though his heart wouldn't let him forget it no matter how hard he tried. Even the women and child weren't spared.
Before he had a catchall motto to cover for all his past sins: His absolute, infallible truth. But now that this wasn't the case, his memories of his past killings regularly come back to haunt him, one-by-one. Many of the people he killed didn't even realize what had happened till it was too late.
Every time he slept, he saw his victims staring back at him. They fixed their eyes at him. Never blinking, never wincing, never moving, and never talking. They just stared, and for months-on-end, he had trouble sleeping. Was it the same for Kenshin Himura? Were these nightmares the reason why he had stopped killing altogether?
'What am I doing? What am I supposed to do now?'
Kenshin told him to not blindly follow his path. So Soujiro didn't. He instead learned more about the man the more he traveled across Japan so that he'd have a more informed opinion of his exploits.
He heard stories of a Battousai as a hulking brute who practiced a style other than Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, a Battousai working for the Tokukawa Shogunate who went against the Four Butchers of the Bakumatsu, a retired Battousai who took care of children and ran a one-man orphanage, and a Batousai who traveled Japan as a wandering swordsman who didn't kill.
Obviously, the stories concerning the pacifistic rurouni were the ones Soujiro followed the closest. Like the vagabond Battousai, he fought against bandits and terrorists, protected rural villages like Shingetsu that were forgotten by the Meiji Government, and fought crime whenever the police weren't enough to handle a situation.
He then heard an even louder rumble from the distance that wasn't in any way gastronomical in nature. He turned and saw from afar a cloud of billowing smoke that covered the distant horizon as well as the unmistakable sound of hoof beats.
Murmurs and whispers abound the people around him. Someone hissed something about bandits frequenting these undeveloped parts of Sapporo. To be true, Hokkaido at the moment was the Meiji Government's "pet project" of sorts; the brave new frontier of the Land of the Rising Sun.
Formerly the place where Tokugawa loyalists had their last stand with the newly established Meiji Government during the Boshin War, Hokkaido was commissioned for development (with the help of foreigners and their technological know-how, at that) in order to secure the land before the Russians extended their control of the Orient beyond Vladivostok.
After their initial shock, all of Soujiro's fellow travelers to the Hokkaido Capital ignored the incident occurring before them as they turned a blind eye at the scene and went their merry way, as if nothing happened.
It had nothing to do with them, after all. Soujiro now had a rough idea why no one was there to save him the night he killed... or was "tricked" to kill... his abusive stepfamily.
No one cared about him or other weaklings like him as they got bullied by the opportunistic. People only cared about themselves and their own affairs. Japan itself was a culture centered on honor and saving face. In order to save face, it was best not to get involved in a sticky situation that had nothing to do with them since it was always somebody else's problem.
Fine. Instead of asking Battousai or warriors like him, "Where were you when I needed you the most?" Soujiro had instead become the "hero" he'd been looking for all his life. At the very least, Shishio would approve of him taking matters into his own hands.
For one reason or another, the faces of his victims lying within the surface of his consciousness began laughing at his thoughts while bathing in a river of their own blood.
Using a telescope given to him by Shishio to make his spying missions a lot easier, Soujiro espied a carriage being raided by four armed men on horseback as the dust settled. One of them (presumably the leader) carried a scattergun.
By Soujiro's estimations, the horses were spooked, the coachman was injured, unconscious, and bleeding, and the outlaws had the runaway stagecoach surrounded. They were ready to either board or make the carriage crash.
He hopped in place for a couple of minutes, slinging his bag on one shoulder while slipping his sword cane into his cloth belt, before he blasted off with his supersonic Reduced Earth or Shukuchi technique. He didn't even need to go top speed in order to catch up to the criminals, opting instead to go three steps below the Shukuchi.
Strangely enough, as the Shukuchi-aided chase tousled his hair and made his surroundings turn into a blur, it reminded him of his last major assassination target, Home Minister Okubo, before he was stabbed postmortem by the Kanazawa Domain Samurai led by Ichiro Shimada.
"YOUR HEAD IS MINE, AKAHORI! Come out here and fight, you gaijin lapdog! Your death will show everyone in Japan that the Jiyu Minken Undo means serious business!" screamed the leader of the marauders as he fired another shotgun round at the stagecoach, blasting one of its doors open.
"Boss Tokuyama, we've got company!" was the last words of one of the bandits... or rather, armed members of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement that would later cause an even bigger uproar by being linked to the Chichibu Incident five years later... before he got forcibly dismounted from his horse care of a sheathed sword cane to the throat.
"Tsuruhashi! What the hell is going on?" asked Tokuyama before he ducked from return fire from within the driverless carriage. Afterwards, out emerged a bearded, mustachioed, and bespectacled middle-aged man that was wearing a mix of eastern and western garments while sporting a bandolier full of ammunition and a Colt Model P. Peacemaker, also known as a Colt Single Action Army Revolver.
"Rin, stay inside!" said the man as he went beside his fainted coachman, took the reigns, and did his best to halt the spooked horses.
"Okay, Father."
The shots that the Jiyu Minken Undo assassin leader avoided went straight for his other comrade, who also ended up getting thrown off his horse.
"Tsuyoshi! Holy shit!"
While the remaining (apparently militant) members of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement were distracted, their bearded target steered the horses towards the other direction, right back into the city limits of Sapporo.
There were only two of them left, but Tokuyama had a shotgun. "Toshiaki, take care of whatever it is that's tailing us. I'll be the one to finish the mission."
"Roger that, Boss," said the police-cap-wearing Toshiaki, its visor shielding his eyes as he took out his own Murata Bolt-Action Rifle and aimed at the happy youth who was actually keeping up with the galloping pace of his horse. "I don't know who you are or how you're keeping up, kid, but stay out of this!"
"I'm sorry, but that's not an option."
As soon as Toshiaki fired, the boy disappeared in a puff of smoke. The next thing the misidentified bandit knew, his saddle came loose and ended up underneath his horse and its hooves.
Soujiro's sweat turned cold as he circled back to check on the criminal, only to see him none the worse for wear save from some bruises from almost being trampled to death by his own horse. The Ten Ken heaved a relaxing sigh, took a breather, and then went full tilt with the two steps before the Shukuchi.
Tokuyama had just reloaded his shotgun by the time Soujiro caught up with him and the runaway carriage. "Japan has no place for your foreigner-loving ways! For the sake of preserving our culture, I'll send you and your daughter to damnation, you traitorous son of a bitch!" he spat as slate-gray eyes peered though one of the holes that the assassin made with his buckshot.
Soujiro only had two options of attack from the angle he was coming from. He let his sword fly out of its scabbard, sawing the shotgun's barrel off and shortening its range as Tokuyama fired.
The bad news was that the sawed-off shotgun's destructive power doubled at the short range, blasting apart one of the wheels of the stagecoach as the recoil hurled the Jiyu Minken Undo terrorist off of his steed.
'Four down, one to go,' thought Soujiro as he accelerated even further than the speed that the two steps before the Shukuchi allowed, and grabbed the harness on one of the horses while the bearded man concentrated on halting the other out-of-control horse down.
By the time the three-wheeled stagecoach (the carriage lost its damaged wheel midway the trip), Soujiro had already arrived in (or in the attacked passengers' case, returned to) Sapporo.
The police arrived just in time to round up the four Jiyu Minken Undo attackers while riding on horseback. The chase was on.
"Akahori-san! Are you all right? I didn't expect bandits to attack you from out of nowhere," said an out-of-breath white-haired, wizened policeman that Soujiro guessed was the Sapporo Police Chief. "Thank goodness those criminals weren't actually able to hurt you or your lovely daughter. We'll get you a new carriage as soon as we can."
"Bandits, you say?" The gaunt, bearded man on the reigns harrumphed while adjusting his dark glasses. "Don't forget to bring Nakahara-kun to the nearest hospital, Chief Ozawa. He's hurt badly. I'll cover the expenses for his treatment."
"Of course, Mister Akahori." The aged chief whistled at the nearest officers and medics to assist the knocked out stagecoach driver and stop his bleeding.
"Actually, they claimed that they're from the Jiyu Minken Undo, Chief," informed Soujiro while dusting off his hakama and replacing his slippers with spares (few of them were tough enough to take the wear and tear of his Shukuchi).
"Well, that's preposterous, young man!" guffawed Chief Ozawa once he noticed the "Good Samaritan" that had assisted Tetsuo Akahori in stopping the carriage from careening to the nearest buildings. "You must have misheard. The Jiyu Minken Undo is nothing more than Count Itagaki's brainchild liberal political movement. It's not a terrorist organization."
Akahori rubbed his beard. "On one hand, there has been talk in the government concerning the Jiyu Minken Undo's more radical members. It's not merely a political movement, and not all those associated with it see eye-to-eye. On the other hand, I don't think the group had anything to do with this attack either."
"Well, if you need anything, just give us a call back at the station. Those bandits, terrorists, or whoever will be squealing soon enough once we get our hands on them," pledged the chief as he tipped his hat and bowed at both Akahori and Seta.
"In the meantime, I'll leave you and Rin-ojousan with several police escorts in case those criminals have any more of their comrades lurking about. I'll see around, Akahori-san."
"Likewise, Chief Ozawa. Thank you for your assistance." Akahori bowed back before turning towards the young man who saved him. "I don't believe we've been introduced. My name is Akahori. Akahori Tetsuo."
"Seta. Seta Soujiro. It's a pleasure to meet you," Soujiro bowed again.
Tetsuo adjusted his glasses so it covered his eyes, hunched forward, put his elbows on his knees, and rested his face on his interlocked hands. "Soujiro, huh? Did you know that's the childhood name of Okita Souji, the Captain of the First Unit of the Shinsengumi? Are you related to him in any way?"
"Ah, I don't think so," chuckled Soujiro, remembering that it was his mother who named him, and it was quite likely that she only picked up that name from newspaper articles concerning the Okitas of the Shirakawa Domain. Either that or it was merely a huge coincidence.
"Are you a student of the Tennen Rishin Ryu? That was some interesting swordsmanship skills you demonstrated back there, boy."
"No. My sword skills are mostly self-taught, but I knew a swordsman who helped me hone them to perfection."
"I see. Fascinating. Ever since our original family yojimbo retired and settled down with his own family about a decade or so ago, it's been tough protecting myself and my family from all these marauders, bandits, and discontented former samurai."
The sun's glare on Akahori's glasses prompted Soujiro to look away. "I owe you my life and my daughter's as well. There are not enough words to express my gratitude. Would you be interested in taking the role of bodyguard for my family?"
Soujiro laughed again. "Tempting as the offer may be, I'm not even sure I'll be staying in Sapporo for too long. I just got here. I'm flattered by your offer, though."
"If you ever change your mind, you can find us at this address," Akahori offered Seta his card. "Our residence is near a local inn and a stone's throw away from the Sapporo Agricultural College. It's hard to miss."
As Soujiro accepted the card... a custom originating from foreign countries, which gave further credence to the "gaijin lapdog" remark from one of Tetsuo's assailants... his head turned in time to meet the shaking irises of the daughter Akahori was talking about.
"Oh, where are my manners? Let me introduce you to my daughter, Rin. Akahori Rin."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," said Rin in a flat tone that belied the sentiment of her words.
From the darkness of the carriage sat the whitest girl Soujiro had ever seen. She was even whiter than Yumi was when she put on her geisha-like oiran makeup. Her pearl-like complexion seemed to radiate a light of its own even as she stayed in the shadows. Even her creamy hair reminded the young swordsman of liquid gold. She also wore tinted spectacles, like her father.
Rin coughed primly, which made Soujiro realize he'd been staring at her for too long. "I'm guessing you're expecting a thank you from me too."
Soujiro waved her off, insisting, "Thanks aren't necessary. I only wanted to help."
"Did you now?" Rin deadpanned. "You could've finished them off any time during the chase. Why didn't you?"
"You exaggerate, Miss. I couldn't possibly have killed men on horseback who were carrying guns. Besides, it's the police's job to handle criminal elements."
"You're lying. I saw you cut a shotgun in half while sprinting beside a horse and keeping up with its speed. You could have just as easily sliced that gunman in half."
"Again, you must have been seeing things, Akahori Rin-san." Seeking to change the subject, Soujiro beckoned to the young lady whom he guessed couldn't have been any older than he was, "Please get out of that carriage. It's unstable from all the punishment it took earlier."
"I-I can't."
"Why not?"
"The sun. It's bad for my skin."
Was she serious? "The sun is a lot less deadly than being trapped underneath a collapsed carriage, Miss Rin."
"For me, it is, Seta Soujiro-kun."
Soujiro scratched his head and laughed at Rin's statement. His laughter died as soon as he realized that Rin didn't plan on joining in. So that wasn't a joke after all.
As the illegitimate son of simple rice farmers, Seta couldn't even begin to fathom the vain and eccentric habits of some of the rich and privileged families of the Meiji Era. Getting a bit of sun never hurt anyone, and it certainly was preferable to getting punched, kicked, and hated for existing.
An apologetic Tetsuo explained, "Don't misunderstand, Seta-kun. She actually has a skin condition where..." but he himself kept his mouth shut as soon as his daughter interrupted, "Who told you to save us anyway?"
Soujiro paused. "Um... I did?"
"I don't believe you. Nobody does anything without wanting something in return."
Was this girl for real? "I honestly wanted to save you, believe it or not," said Soujiro.
"Why?" asked Rin.
He knew exactly why, but he didn't want to tell some stranger the reasons behind his actions. Ironically, those reasons somewhat proved what she was saying about him was correct. "I wanted to do the right thing."
"Like an honorable and heroic samurai, I suppose," said Rin. Soujiro couldn't tell if she was mocking him or if she was simply making an observation thanks to her pokerfaced stare and lack of a derisive snort. "Why are you following perfect ideals in an imperfect world?"
"Pardon me?"
"Samurais have ceased to exist way back in the Tokugawa Era. Don't believe the whitewashed stories people tell you about these supposedly 'brave', 'principled', and 'infallible' warriors either. They're merely reminiscing about a bygone age that doesn't really exist except in their nostalgic minds."
Before Soujiro could answer, one of the guards that Chief Ozawa left to protect the Akahoris announced, "Your new carriage has arrived, Mister Akahori Tetsuo! Miss Akahori Rin!"
"I guess we'll see you around, Seta-kun," said the Elder Akahori while the police escorts from behind him undid the harnesses on the horses attached to the damaged stagecoach and the Younger Akahori wrapped a shawl over her neck and face, adjusted her dark spectacles, and opened her parasol to keep the harmful rays of the hated sun away from her supposedly sensitive skin.
As Rin passed Soujiro by, her parasol rotating in her hands, the Porcelain Doll of the House of Akahori said to the boy without bothering to look at him, "Here's a word of advice from me to you. If your swordsmanship is self-taught, then that must mean you're not samurai-born at all, right? Stop trying to be someone you're not. You're only setting yourself up for disappointment. Remember that, Seta Soujiro-kun."
Tetsuo also whispered, "I apologize for my daughter's behavior. She always had a hard time talking to people. She's been through a lot and she doesn't get out much, you see. I hope you're not offended. We really are grateful for your help back there."
"No problem, um... Akahori-san. I understand," Soujiro lied to Tetsuo while mulling over the words of the Akahori daughter.
As the imported, foreign-made, and four-horse Concord Carriage (complete with new coachman) made its way into the town center... the final destination of the dilapidated, three-wheeled, and holey stagecoach they were on that was on the verge of collapsing after suffering from multiple shotgun blasts... the pale, parasol-carrying teenaged girl asked her father, "Those people were after 'that', weren't they?"
Akahori turned and waved at the departing Soujiro, who waved back, before answering, "Not exactly. I've long ago retrieved 'that' from their hands and I've even memorized its contents. What they actually wanted to do was to silence me before I leaked to the press what 'that' entailed. I'm onto the hanbatsu and their schemes, and they know I don't scare easily."
"Be careful, Father. Remember what happened to Saigo Takamori and the hitokiri-turned-traitor that they burned alive," said Rin as her father helped her up their new carriage.
"Yes. Shishio Makoto. I know, my darling." Akahori frowned as something familiar surfaced inside his head regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of Toshimichi Okubo last year.
Rin remarked, "I wouldn't even know who Shishio was until you told me about him," which awoke Tetsuo from his musings.
"The Meiji Oligarchy is scarily efficient when it comes to propaganda, saving face, and erasing all evidence that you even exist. History is written by the victors, after all."
He should know. He was among those tasked to cover up the fact that it was one of Shishio's men who killed Okubo instead of the official story fed to the press: That he was killed by discontented Kanazawa Domain Samurai.
'Didn't the classified autopsy of Okubo show that he was killed minutes before Shimada-shi and his men stabbed him to death near the Sakurada Gate? That means someone from Shishio's Faction had somehow intercepted the carriage in the middle of its ride before it got halted by the Kanazawa Domain Samurai. Someone as fast or even faster than a horse-drawn carriage...'
As Tetsuo himself settled into his seat inside the carriage facing opposite his daughter, he adjusted his tinted glasses and asked her, "Weren't you a bit too harsh on that boy who saved our lives from those rogue gunmen? Even though he's naive, he still saved our lives."
While staying in the dark corner of the carriage, the curtains drawn over the window, Rin confessed in monotone, "He bothers me. His smiling face is like a mask. I can't read his intentions at all."
To Rin's chagrin, her father was in stitches by the time she finished speaking. "What's so funny?"
As he took off his shades and wiped the tears off his eyes, Akahori said, "That's a hilarious thing to say, coming from you."
Rin said, "I don't get it," her dull facial expression unchanging as she tilted her head and blinked.
"Never you mind, my dear. Let's just say not everyone is easy to read," Tetsuo said as he put his glasses back on and recovered from his fit of laughter with a shake of his head and spontaneous guffaws. "As they say in the western world, still waters run deep."
Soujiro considered his options on what he was supposed to do next. He could either visit Fuji and his railroad work, Anji while he (willingly) rotted in prison, or Saito and his Keishicho-sanctioned business here in Hokkaido.
With the first two options, he didn't want to be a bother to Fuji's job, and he could always visit Anji later rather than sooner (the mad monk of the Juppon Gatana wasn't going anywhere). As for the Former Captain of the Shinsengumi's Third Unit, Seta doubted that "Fujita" had loose enough lips to blab about his assigned mission from the Japanese Metropolitan Police Department to a former enemy and wanted fugitive.
Although if he wanted to, he could always challenge Saito to a duel to see if he'd give the lieutenant the honor of arresting him. The idea intrigued him, especially since he never had a chance to cross swords with the ex-Shinsengumi. He always wanted to try the Anti-Hiratsuki tactics taught to him by Shishio against a man who'd mastered what was arguably the ultimate Hiratsuki Sword School, the Gatotsu.
In the end, Soujiro chose to stay at the inn near both Akahori's western-style Sapporo Mansion and the SAC or the Sapporo Agricultural College. By his estimations, Tetsuo was probably part of the Meiji Government's Development Commission headed by the Hokkaido Colonization Office Chief Kiyotaka Kuroda.
'So why was he being targeted by the Jiyu Minken Undo if that's the case? What does the urban development of Hokkaido have to do with the Freedom and People's Rights Movement? It doesn't make sense,' thought Soujiro as he ate his donburimeshi at a local restaurant, savoring his bowl of rice topped with sea urchins.
It was a good thing he was able to withdraw some of Shishio's money that he stored in his own account prior to making his trip to Hokkaido. It allowed him to indulge in delicacies such as this, plus his earlier chase left him famished. He had the eating habits of people twice or even thrice as large as he was, yet he was able to maintain in shape thanks to his high metabolism and the calorie-burning prowess of his Shukuchi.
"LEARN YOUR PLACE, WOMAN!"
"Please, don't! Darling, no...!"
Everyone in the restaurant went silent as a wailing woman with a black eye ran away from an obviously inebriated, red-faced, and disheveled man. "You cheating, lying slut! I'll kill you! I swear I'll kill you!"
"Please listen to me! It was all a misunderstanding! AH!" Her male companion tugged at her hair and pulled her towards the exit. Her screams pierced everyone's ears, prompting Soujiro to stand and lose his appetite.
"Hold on a second there, friend!" said someone garbed in western-style clothes as he kept the tall, muscular man from backhanding the female by grabbing hold of his wrist. "What seems to be the problem? Maybe we can talk this through."
"Fuck off, you foreigner-loving toady. This issue doesn't concern outsiders. The problem here is that I caught my wife red-handed, cheating on me with some other man! Do you have a problem with me teaching her a lesson?" said the more traditional, kimono-clad alcoholic with a jug of wine, reeking breath, and a stubbly beard.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know," the kowtowed (although snappily dressed) man said as he bowed almost to the point of prostrating himself. "Please, don't go threatening to kill her. Surely there's a better way to resolve this..."
"I'm telling you, that's not what happened! Please, let me explain! Jo, you're making a scene...!
"Adulterers deserve death!" spat the drunkard as he slapped his wife to shut her up, then pushed the interloper to the floor. "If you hadn't run off and tried to escape, we wouldn't be making a scene, bitch! Now tell me his name before I beat his name out of you, Junko!"
"NO! I BEG YOU! Please, don't...!"
The restaurant went abuzz. "That's what she gets for being a cheating whore," said one.
"I can't believe they're making a scene here of all places. Take it back to the bedroom," said another.
"It's all this foreign influence that's making the women looser. Whatever happened to traditional Japanese values?" said one other person.
"Somebody call the cops," said yet another person, although no one ever did heed that advice.
The side comments eventually died and people sat back down to enjoy their dinner as the woman was dragged at the back of the restaurant by her violent husband. Like nothing happened.
Why were people always like this? Why were they such cowards?
With clenched fists, the Heaven Sword attempted to sit down and enjoy his half-finished donburimeshi meal like so many of the other restaurant patrons that elected to keep out of the lover's quarrel. However, the next thing he knew, his feet moved on their own towards the exit in time to see the husband beating his wife within an inch of her life.
Images of him being pummeled to submission by his stepbrothers, father, and other members of his stepfamily superimposed themselves with the gruesome scene before him. He couldn't breathe. He clutched his chest.
The more pain he felt from the beatings, the more he smiled. The more he smiled, the more they beat him up. This time around, they were really going to kill him, false smile or no false smile. His gums bled. His ears rang. Their knuckles thudded over his head and face over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again.
When Soujiro came to, he took a look at his clenched fists, which were stained with blood. 'What happened?'
The wife shrieked at him and tried to claw his eyes out. He backed away in time to see her husband's puffy, bloated face.
"Get away from here, you monster! Get away from my husband!" the wild-haired woman rasped, her throat sore from all her screeching earlier as she covered her beaten husband with her own black-and-blue body.
"Your husband tried to kill you. I saved you from being pummeled to death," said Soujiro with a wide smile.
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND JO LIKE I DO!" she cried. "He only misunderstood what had happened. He's very jealous and it was my fault for not... for not making him understand. He got the wrong impression..."
"Junko. Junko, where are you? What happened? I can't see," the bleary Jo moaned, the area around his eyes swelling so badly that he couldn't open his eyelids at all.
She kissed her spouse all over his throbbing face while hugging him. "I'm here. Don't worry, Darling. Everything is going to be fine."
Soujiro's grin stretched from ear-to-ear as he wiped the blood on his fists with a handkerchief. "I was only trying to help."
"LEAVE US ALONE! Nobody asked for your help! Stop sticking your nose into other people's business!" admonished the raspy woman.
The Japanese gentleman from earlier who wore the foreign ensemble of a top hat, suspenders, shirt, coat, vest, cravats, gloves, and trousers had with him several of Sapporo's finest with the intention of arresting the abusive alcoholic husband before this case of domestic violence escalated into murder.
To his surprise, the lady whom he wanted to rescue from the clutches of her abusive husband was sprawled alongside the drunkard, the both of them battered beyond recognition. "Officers, arrest that boy! He assaulted my husband!" she claimed, which further perplexed the man sporting Men's Victorian Clothing.
"Uh, Madam, what are you talking about? You and your husband are the only ones here," said one of the coppers. Seta was nowhere to be found.
Soujiro sprinted across Sapporo as soon as the policemen arrived. Why was it so hard to do the right thing? What was he doing wrong?
The battered woman named Junko said nobody asked for his help, which reminded him of Rin Akahori telling him the same statement, more or less.
He looked as his hands as he avoided pedestrians and speeding buggies by instinct, gathering enough momentum to scale the newly built buildings and monuments of Sapporo, Japan's brave new frontier.
The bloodstains remained. No matter how much he wiped or scrubbed them, he couldn't get rid of the smell, the redness, or the memories.
Back when he was with Shishio's Faction, he only needed to depend on one truth: That in this world, the weak were food for the strong. If you were strong, you lived. If you were weak, you died.
As long as he had that truth, the entire world made sense. What he did to his family and all the people he killed under Shishio's orders weren't crimes or sins, but a microcosm of the greater truth, the macrocosm of the Laws of Nature.
What he did wasn't wrong. He was merely following the laws that govern the world around him.
So why did he cry back then in the rain after killing the stepfamily he hated so much? Why did this so-called truth hurt so much?
'I didn't want to kill them. I thought I was following the Law of Nature by killing them, but all it showed was that I'm a murderer with no convictions of my own.'
That realization cost him his match against Kenshin. Had he avoided this horrifying epiphany, would he have prevented Yumi Komagata or Makoto Shishio's deaths? Or, in a lesser degree, Houji Sadojima's suicide?
'It was the weakness of your heart that allowed Battousai to defeat you. Nothing more, nothing less," the Shishio within Soujiro answered.
'But I didn't want to kill my stepfamily. I wish I didn't. As much as I hated them, I didn't want them to die, especially by my hand. I wish there was some other way...'
'Did you really hate them? Was the reason why you didn't want to kill your abusive stepfamily the same reason why the woman you rescued stepped in to save her abusive husband?' came Shishio's piercing questions.
'I don't know. Maybe I should've died that night, instead of them...' thought Soujiro.
'You wanted to live. To survive. There's no denying that. Stop lying to yourself.' Soujiro had no idea why, but the Shishio he envisioned sat on a throne of bones that lay in a mountain of skulls, with Yumi sitting beside him in pure bliss.
'You and that abused woman are both weak and needy. Desperate for love and affection to the point that you're willing to delude yourselves into thinking that a lack of abuse means love and the fact that your abusers are using you means they need you as much as you need them.'
Soujiro had no answer to that. Shishio continued. 'What you're forgetting is that your stepfamily, like that piece of shit husband whom you beat up, deserve death.'
'I wasn't strong. I was actually weak. I heaped one lie upon another, and it all came crashing down when Himura-san proved me wrong by defeating me. He proved you wrong as well, Shishio-san.'
'How wrong was I?' Shishio smirked, peering at Seta as though he could see right through the boy. 'Does it really scare you? Does it really bother you how good it felt to kill those wastes of space, Sou?'
Another voice echoed inside Soujiro's consciousness to refute Shishio's claims. 'If winning and being strong makes you right, then it should be Shishio whom you should believe.'
'Himura-san...?'
Soujiro turned away from the dark ghost of his past and appealed to the one person who bested him in combat, 'Himura-san, what am I supposed to do? I try and try, but I could never live up to your example. Why can't I save people? Should I even bother saving people who don't want to be saved?'
The Kenshin in his memories replied with the same cruel answer he gave Seta a year ago. 'If you could find the truth by fighting once or twice, then everyone's way of living would be right. The true answer comes not from fighting, but by living your life as you atone for your sins.'
He was a harsh man, Himura. He wouldn't even allow Soujiro a simple answer, unlike Shishio.
By the time Soujiro completed his lap and again arrived at his starting point, which was the back alley of the restaurant he left behind earlier, the abused woman, the husband, the stranger in foreign clothing, and the Sapporo police offers were long gone.
He slowed down his pace and wiped the sweat that formed on his forehead, face, neck, and forearms using his bloodstained handkerchief. He jogged instead of ran towards the Sapporo Agricultural College, scaling the walls and gates of the school with ease by using his natural speed in sudden bursts.
He considered giving himself a quick tour of the SAC campus with his Shukuchi when all of a sudden, he stopped dead on his tracks while admiring the apparition before him.
Strolling across the grounds of SAC was Rin Akahori, her light blue kimono billowing thanks to the northern winds of Hokkaido, her slate gray eyes shining as the moon made her sparkle like a classic Grecian marble statue.
She said in monotone, "Oh. It's you."
"Good evening, Akahori Rin-san," greeted Soujiro while bowing down and catching his breath. Strange, he wasn't even panting after running a veritable marathon across the newly developed city. Perhaps he should add more endurance exercises to his daily training regimen. Clearly, he needed to improve on his stamina.
"We meet again, Seta Soujiro-kun." Her shaking eyes that went in direct contrast to her stony face looked at the young man from head to toe. "Who are you running away from?"
"Uh..." Soujiro looked at himself. Even after wiping all his sweat, the front and back part of his shirt were slightly drenched. "Would you believe, the police?"
"Why? Did you save another damsel in distress that ended up being more trouble than she was worth?"
"...Were you watching me all this time?"
"No, but apparently I guessed correctly." Rin's lips curled as she... panted and covered her mouth while shivering at the same time.
"Are you okay?" Maybe she had allergies? Or she was undergoing a spontaneous asthma attack thanks to the cold Hokkaido climate?
"I'm sorry. I apologize for laughing at you."
'That was laughter?' was the question Soujiro never bothered to ask Rin. She looked like was having a seizure or was struck by lightning.
"What are you even doing inside the SAC campus at this late hour?" he queried.
Rin replied, "I could ask you the same question."
"...I asked first."
"Fine. My father has connections with the President and Vice-President of the college. He's good friends with Mori Arinori-san and he works directly under the Vice-Chairman of the Hokkaido Development Commission, Kuroda Kiyotaka-san. Father allows me to take late-night walks in SAC provided that the guards stationed here know where I am at all times."
"That's not what I meant. I didn't ask how you got in, I was wondering what you were doing here, of all places." Soujiro scratched his cheek as Rin sat down on one of the nearby benches.
"I like the night. It's a lot less painful than the day. Also, this college is quite near my home and my father's office. Father feels safest when I'm here. I can't go anywhere else because of all the people who are after our family."
"Okay, but do you know what time it is? This is hardly the time for a young girl like yourself to be up, especially with terrorists lurking about," Soujiro reasoned.
"You sound like my father," retorted Rin.
"Going out during the night, avoiding the sun like the plague, having pale skin and gray eyes... What are you anyway, a vampire or something?" asked Soujiro.
She tittered again like a broken windup doll jerking all over the place. It horrified and fascinated Soujiro at the same time. "Hmmm. I've been called worse."
Soujiro raised his hands up in seeming surrender. "I didn't mean to offend. I forgot that your father mentioned something about you having sensitive skin."
"The sun did this to me. These are all sunburns."
She then showed a slight burn mark on her forearm and shoulders by undoing her kimono slightly, which ironically made Soujiro's cheeks "burn" as well, prompting him to turn away.
The patches of skin looked like they were islands on a map. "Maybe I am a vampire. If I stayed any longer amidst daylight, I might even turn to ash."
She wasn't kidding when she said she hated the sun. "I'm sorry. I didn't know," said Soujiro.
"It's okay. Few people bother to ask," assured Rin, her jittery silver eyes darting to and fro as though she were about to tear up as she adjusted her clear, non-tinted prescription glasses.
Soujiro asked before she realized he was staring at her, "What is this college for, anyway?"
"It teaches the American way of growing profitable crops because the Northern Japan climate is quite similar to some of the colder parts of the United States. It also features some of the most advanced teaching courses in agricultural sciences and botany. Hokkaido should be able to become a self-sufficient part of the Japanese Empire by the turn of the century."
"That doesn't have anything to do with why Jiyu Minken Undo extremists are after you and your father, does it?" Soujiro cut to the chase.
"No. No, it doesn't. But the reason why we were attacked is in a strict 'need to know' basis. You don't need to know, I'm afraid."
"Fair enough."
"I will tell you this, though. They already captured two of the four criminals. The Jiyu Minken Undo denied any connection with them by telegraph, while they themselves denied saying they were Jiyu Minken Undo in the first place."
"What does that mean?"
"Their mentioning of the Jiyu Minken Undo was nothing more than a red herring. Had they succeeded in killing me and Father, they would've disappeared and let the rumors regarding the involvement of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement spread across the masses."
"Why even mention the Jiyu Minken Undo at all?"
"It's elementary, my dear Seta-kun. They dropped the name of Jiyu Minken Undo because the true perpetrators of the assassination attempt on my father hates that political party and wants to give it a bad name, so to speak."
Soujiro's eyes narrowed, which made him look ecstatic because of his smile. 'The only ones who constantly bring up the specter of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement and are deathly afraid of an uprising from them are...'
One of the guards from the school spotted them, but Rin signaled to him that everything was okay. To Soujiro, she said, "How about you? You keep trying to save people, but in the end, who will be there to save you?"
Seta shrugged. "I don't need saving," he replied, unsure of how true that statement was.
"No one needs saving. Everyone should instead learn how to stand on their own two feet. The only one who could save you is yourself. You shouldn't be out there, rewarding the weak and punishing the strong."
A wave of deja vu filled Soujiro, feeling as though he'd already had this conversation (albeit one occurring entirely in his head). "What's wrong with protecting people? It's a nobler pursuit than killing the weak and defenseless to prove that you're strong."
"What's wrong with it? For every person you rescue, one has to die. If you're protecting the weak, then you're enabling them to continue being weak and completely dependent upon you."
"The point of being a hero is to be the one to protect those who couldn't protect themselves."
"There are people who never even asked to be protected. What gave you the right to save them? Why should they be grateful about something they never asked for in the first place?"
Soujiro winced, remembering the woman who rebuked him for helping her out. He also remembered the people he failed to save and the people who ended up in a worse situation because of his efforts to help.
"You never answered my question earlier. Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of this? Why do you keep trying to save everyone?"
"To save myself."
Rin paused for all of five seconds before asking, "Has it worked?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you feel like you've 'saved' yourself by saving me and my father or any of the other people you've rescued all this time?"
Soujiro didn't know how to answer that.
"At the very least, I'm doing something a lot more constructive than what I did in the past. I'm atoning for my sins. Someone much stronger than me told me that the only way for me to learn my truth is to live my life as I atone for my sins."
"Are you really? If you haven't realized why you committed all those sins of yours way back when, you're doomed to repeat them, no matter how pure your intentions are."
"How arrogant are you? You think you know all of the answers?"
"I probably don't. But at least I'm not naive enough to follow one answer or another without questioning them first. Are you even doing something you want to do or you think you're supposed to do?"
"Then what am I supposed to do? All year long, I've been trying to do the right thing. I've been rescuing people. Helping them. Saving them. You're telling me that I'm wrong? That I'm not supposed to save them? I am looking for my own answers the only way I can!"
"The only way you can or the only way you were told you could? Do you even care about these people you save, or are you saving them for your own sake?"
Rin adjusted her glasses and stared straight into Soujiro's eyes.
"Look harder. Don't be afraid to question these ideals of yours or try to make sense of them instead of doing them without any understanding about why you're supposed to do them."
"Ojousama, your time is up! Your father wants you to go back to the mansion now!" said a guard not from the school but instead from Akahori's Sapporo Estate.
"Okay, just a minute!" Rin turned in time to see that Soujiro had already disappeared. She whispered to void that Seta used to occupy, "What are you running away from?"
Tired beyond words, Soujiro rolled up a futon and slept... or rather, closed his eyes and engulfed himself in darkness while still fully conscious... wondering how Kenshin would've answered the Akahori daughter's impudent words and accusations.
Knowing how humble he was, Himura probably would've accepted a couple of her arguments. Those who didn't wish to be saved need not be forced to be saved. He shouldn't be blindly saving people if it could possibly worsen the situation. He shouldn't be rescuing everyone for his own sake.
No, Kenshin wouldn't have cared about whether he was right or wrong. What he cared about was the welfare and wellbeing of those around him. He'd been gifted with the strength of a wolf, and he used it to protect the lambs.
'I'm not wrong. Protecting weak people in need instead of claiming some sort of sense of superiority over them isn't wrong. There's nothing strange about wanting to do good deeds without expecting anything in return.'
From being the Hitokiri Battousai, Kenshin recovered his humanity piece by piece every time he protected the smiling faces of the people around him. He swore not to kill and found a new strength.
Soujiro nodded to himself. He'd prove Rin wrong. He'd show her that he could gain the strength that Himura possessed by protecting the weak and the closure that Kenshin achieved by picking his rurouni self over his hitokiri self.
'No matter what, I will prove Himura-san right. Like him, I will protect those in my midst. He found his happiness by helping strangers in their time of need, so I'll do the same. I will not stand idly by and see the people around me get hurt or suffer while I'm gifted with this sword skill. This power. I will make something out of myself, just like Himura-san did.'
As he succumbed to slumber and saw his victims staring back at him, he heard a cackling voice atop a mountain of skulls mock, 'How ironic. Battousai himself told you to stop blindly following my teachings and find your own truth, and yet here you are, desperately clinging to his words and blindly following him.'
'I was too hard on him.' Even Rin knew that much as she covered herself up with the thick blankets of her Victorian-style bed. 'Did he even understand what I was trying to say? My bad habit has resurfaced again. I've said too much. He may have gotten the wrong idea.'
She shouldn't be sleeping, actually. It was around this time that she'd be reading her father's books under the lamplight. Even though she had bad eyesight, she was nearsighted, so reading books right in front of her face wasn't a problem.
She usually slept in the morning, while the sun was up. Yesterday was an exception because it was one of the few times her father wasn't busy at work, so they both decided to take a ride around town. Big mistake.
Then again, she couldn't help but feel tired from the conversation she had with Soujiro Seta. To think, she was sharing a time zone with the motherlands of the Oyatoi Gaikokujin (Hired Foreigners) that frequented Hokkaido and were tasked with its urban development...
She grunted and blew her bangs upwards. She felt like tearing entire tufts of her white hair at the memory of the naive, bobbed-hair boy, her pale complexion becoming as light pink as a carnation, from what the moonlight revealed. Maybe it was her bad eyesight in action, making her see things that weren't there; she wasn't sure.
Strangely enough, she didn't even mind Soujiro calling her a vampire. She thought that was a cute and on-the-nose observation. It made her laugh, at least. She hadn't really romanticized her condition that way, although she probably should've been more insulted by the remark than anything else.
No, it was the way he clung to these beliefs without a second thought (or a first thought, at that) that rubbed her the wrong way. Like sheep to the slaughter, he believed his ideals were right without realizing the pain or damage he was doing to himself and others by following them.
'He means well, but he shouldn't stick his nose into other people's business recklessly. He might even make their problems worse. He really thinks he could save everyone, not realizing it's at the cost of himself. He won't be able to save himself that way.'
The hairs on the back of her thin, snow-white neck stood on end as they felt a prickly heat that scratched her skin raw. It reminded her of the darkness, and the creatures that lurked there.
Even though she hated the light of the sun, she despised the darkness too. In the dark were monsters... real ones... she couldn't even begin to comprehend, doing things to her that left her confused and loathsome. They were worse than vampires.
She closed her eyes and dreamt of the sun, burning away her clothes, hair, skin, and bones, turning her into ash. From the ashes stood a new her, like Suzaku, reborn and without hatred or fear of the light. Away from the monsters lurking in the darkness.
However, instead of heaven, she saw hell. The sun burned too hotly, too painfully. Her skin felt like it'd melt. She didn't turn to ash, but it felt like she was being skinned alive until only her muscles and exposed internal organs remained.
The darkness had retreated, but in its place was damnation itself. She opened her eyes, and the blurry fires didn't go away. Was she seeing things again? Smoke surrounded her room as the flame ate away everything.
Rin coughed as she drowned in hellfire just short of the brimstone. Everything was real. Horribly real.
Teary-eyed and suffocating from the fumes, she screamed, "FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE! PLEASE, SOMEBODY HELP!" she screamed, but the roar of the flames drowned out her voice. "ANYBODY, PLEASE! FATHER! FATHER, HELP ME!"
Soujiro awoke to the sound of a bell clanging. It was a good thing he hadn't unpacked his things yet in his first night at the Sapporo inn, for the guests were already leaving thanks to a fire that had already spread around half of the building he was staying at.
He walked with the milling crowd, his duffel bag in tow, until he reached the exit, where firefighters and local volunteers went hand-in-hand in helping out extinguish the flames.
"What's going on?" Soujiro asked one of the volunteers who were passing pails of water alongside the firefighters who were hosing down the flames.
"A nearby mansion was caught in flames. Nobody knows how the fire started. It's owned by some hotshot daijin working under Governor Kuroda," he said, then added, "Between you and me, I believe foul play was definitely afoot. I heard the state minister ad his daughter was almost assassinated by the Jiyu Minken Undo extremists. They probably came back to finish the job."
The blood on Seta's head drained from his face as he clenched his fists until his bloodstained knuckles turned white. The Akahoris. They were probably trapped inside their burning mansion after the remaining (and alleged) members of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement served as the arsonists that started the fire from the get go.
As Soujiro was about to unleash his sprint of sprints in order to make a quick beeline into the Akahori Mansion, he heard a mother cry out to one of the members of fire brigade. "My baby! My baby is trapped inside our room! I went out to buy some dinner for him, but when I came back... Please, please save my baby!"
"Where is he located, Ma'am?" asked the fireman.
"On the second floor, on the west wing of the inn. The third room to the right of the stairs. Please, hurry!"
The firefighter took his hat off and grabbed the mother's shoulder. "I'm sorry to say, Ma'am, but the fire had already spread across that portion of the inn."
"No! NO! If you're not going to rescue him, then I will!" said the mother, which prompted the firemen and some of the volunteers to hold her back. "LET GO OF ME! I'M THE ONLY ONE HE HAS! I DON'T WANT TO LOSE HIM LIKE I DID MY HUSBAND BACK IN NAGASAKI!"
Soujiro disappeared, moving at top speed towards the burning house. Three minutes later, the soot-covered Ten Ken emerged from the flames (because he was afraid of what would happen to his "shipment" had he run using the full Shukuchi speed), walked towards the hysterical mother, and smilingly asked, "Is this your baby?"
The mother embraced and kissed Soujiro's cheeks as she retrieved her beloved and crying infant son from his hands. The firemen and the volunteers applauded Soujiro for his deeds... one of them scratching his head, wondering how exactly did this random boy know where to go and what had happened to the woman's baby... before hearing the edge of the inn's west wing collapse and the fires start eating at the center and east wing of the building.
"There are still several people trapped inside the east wing!"
"MAMA! PAPA! They're still inside!"
"Has anybody seen my husband? He's a tall, thin man wearing western clothing!"
Soujiro grabbed hold of a firefighter and asked, "The mansion where this fire started, has it already burned down to the ground? Didn't the firefighters make it in time?"
"Uh, it probably will be the last building standing, to be honest. It's fully insured and holds one of Sapporo's most influential people inside it, so most of the fire brigades should already be there, rescuing people and stopping the blaze from spreading!"
Seta let go of the fireman and made his decision right then and there. 'I still have enough time. Just you wait, Akahori Rin-san. I'll save you. I'll save them. I'll save everyone and prove you wrong.'
Next: Secrets of the past.
The Meiji Government wanted to cover their tracks and bury the skeletons inside their closet, unaware that one of their own is presently gathering all those secrets for his own personal gain.
Say my name,
Abdiel