Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation Story by Chester Castañeda
Yes, that was Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo being referenced by the homeless storyteller (or at least the first half of the movie) last chapter.
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 42: The Prodigal Son Returns
Back in the markets of Fukuoka City, in the middle of a bandit attack by out-of-work Fukuoka samurais...
"How dare you call yourselves samurais while acting like criminals. Have you no shame? You dishonor what samurai stood up for!" screamed Yahiko Myojin, son of a low-ranking samurai from Tokyo, at the swordsmen-turned-bandits before him.
Kaede Morinaga, while still wearing Minoe's wig, threw the man who copped a feel on her earlier. 'That honorable idiot. Is this why he's holding back?'
Even Gan, in the middle of his escape from underneath the samurai dog-pile atop him, went motionless in order to hear "Yoshi-boy" out. 'What is that kid thinking? Those bandits won't listen to you! No hungry man would care about shame once push comes to shove!'
"Shame? Why should we feel shame? The whole nation turned their backs on us as soon as the new age started and the Meiji Era happened," said the leader of the pack, "Iwamatsu-sama", with a sneer. "We revered the Emperor and expelled the foreign barbarians, but in return, what did we get for all our troubles? Nothing. We became trash. Our positions in society dropped. Even peasants laugh at us now."
Yahiko had no answer to that. He was among the last people around who'd ever defend the self-serving acts of the Meiji Government.
"That's right! That's right! The Shizoku Jusan (Samurai Reformation Policy) was worthless! It was the government that took away our swords! Our pride! We might as well be burakumin (outcasts). We might as well be the untouchables!" said one samurai
"The only samurais that actually remained in power are either those who have close ties with the Satsuma Domain and any of the Meiji Patriots or those who've sold their warrior spirit for cash by becoming greedy merchants!" said another samurai.
Because Yahiko deployed kendo moves designed more to score points in competitions instead of actual finishing blows that brought men down for the count with the blunt end of a reverse-edged sword, the discontented swordsmen rose up from their beatings instead of staying down.
The bandits attacked anew, and still Myojin refused to fight with his Revisal Techniques. He instead fought kenjutsu with kendo, using moves that hurt but not enough to knock them down. No, he wanted them conscious enough to listen to him.
"What the hell do you know about samurai, boy? Just because you're waving some toy sword around, it doesn't mean you understand the plight we're going through! The lands we lost! The legacy they've soiled!" said one more samurai.
"I'm of samurai lineage myself! My father died during the war! My mother died trying to support me afterwards! The Shizoku Jusan did nothing for me too! So don't tell me I don't understand!" retorted Yahiko.
"Then why are you fighting us? Join us instead! Our group is growing in numbers! Or are you just another samurai coward who'd rather cower and bow at the government's feet?" said a different samurai.
Myojin almost rejoined, 'I'm not a bandit! I'm not a crook!' but he choked on his own hypocrisy at the last minute, remembering how, had it not been for Kenshin freeing him and Kaoru adopting him, he'd probably still be working as the yakuza's pickpocket errand boy.
These samurais were just like him, forced into crime because of an uncaring government and changing times. Lost all their pride to survive. Lost their place in society. The Meiji robbed them of their power, and this was the only way they could get it back.
How could he strike down samurais no better than he was?
"HAPPA!" cried the Great Gan, his dog-pile turning into a seeming trapeze act with all the bodies flying above him thanks to his explosive technique.
Emboldened by the fact that Yahiko refused to use the sharp side of his blade or even its pointed tip, the samurais swarmed the kid by throngs, with them more than willing to run him through or chop him up into bits.
"An opening! Die, you naive son of a...!" said yet another samurai before getting a face-full of sheathed Swarming Barbs care of Kaede.
Morinaga then told Yahiko, "I understand how you feel, but there's no point holding back and preaching to these clowns. They've long ago abandoned their honor. They're bandits, not samurai."
"The privileges we used to have went down the drain because of the new Meiji Ruling Class!" said the first samurai who spoke up earlier. "Instead of shogun and samurai, we have fat cats, oligarchs, and swine in the Daijokan or whatever it is they call it now, running the show!"
"...Stop it. Is that what you believe being a samurai is all about? Privilege? Power over peasants so that if they looked at you funny, you have the right to cut them down? NO WONDER THE GOVERNMENT ABOLISHED THE SAMURAI CLASS!" rebuked Yahiko.
No. These men were not like him. He didn't kidnap women, stole money en masse from honest, hardworking people, or killed innocent civilians to compensate for lost privilege. How could he have been so blind?
"I was so insulted the first time I heard someone essentially called all samurais spoiled brats who abused their power, but you're all proving him right!" said Myojin. "If the only reason you've turned into criminals is to gain back privilege and power, then I have no sympathy for you! You are not true samurai!"
"Goddamn you, you sanctimonious little brat...!"
Boom. The samurai fell down in one swoop, his jaw cracking against Yahiko's blunt blade.
However, in all the commotion, a young boy ended up in the hands of one of the bandits. Or did, before the wig-wearing Kaede ripped them apart. The only thing that saved them from certain death was their hostage, who fell into Morinaga's waiting, blood-covered hands.
"Run," said Kaede after setting the boy down. He didn't even have time to thank her before she turned into a whirling dervish of pain and destruction.
Just then, Yahiko caught the glare of contempt from Morinaga before avoiding getting skewered with his shirahadori (sword-snatching by hand) techniques.
A glare that said, 'If you're not going to finish them off, I will.'
Blood flew everywhere while Kaede's sword-wielding hands became a blur of naked steel. The bandits fell like flies while the Battousai of Speed plowed through them. Unlike the Ten Ken, they had no Shukuchi to save them from the endless barrage.
"Who is that crazy midget in a wig, goddammit!?"
"...Is that the best you can do? You pathetic excuses for men! I might as well cut your balls off, none of you deserve them! DEATHSTALKER STAB! SWARMING BARBS! HAHAHAHA!"
'Hahaha...?' Myojin thought with a gulp. He also heard the talk about ball-cutting, but he simply didn't want to repeat the vulgar words in his head. 'Uh oh.'
"P-Patches? Are you...?" asked Gan before he got overwhelmed by a second dog-pile. "Aw shit, not again...!"
The ex-samurais fell. Screamed. Curled up on the ground. Gnashed their teeth.
"M-My bone... i-it's sticking out! AHHH!"
"Please, have mercy! GWURK!"
"ARGH! The bitch is crazy! She almost took my eye out!"
"You all act so tough, waving your little swords around like you know how to use them, then cry like babies at the first sight of blood!" said Kaede with pinpoint irises and an unblinking stare.
The bandits, instead of pursuing Morinaga, stumbled backwards and ran from the walking death. Squirting blood like a leaky bucket full of the water, one of them begged, "No, don't! Please spare me!"
Kaede licked the blood on her face and spat it into the face of her closest target. "How many kidnapped girls did you and your compatriots enjoy back at your camp? What did you do to them afterwards?"
The man gulped and shrunk back from Morinaga's piercing glare. He couldn't answer her question. Beside him were some of the newest members of the guild, their faces as white as sheets.
"I thought so. And now you all get to feel what those girls felt."
"N-No, wait! I just joined because I have no money! I never kidnapped any girls! I swear!" said on of the newcomers.
"MORINAGA KAEDE!" shouted Myojin.
"Myojin Yahiko is right. None of you deserve to be called samurai. SCORPION NEST!"
"STOP! You're going to kill them all!" Yahiko ran towards his fellow Sanbaka, his steps stuttered by the memory of her blade stuck deep into his shoulder, which nearly led to him bleeding to death.
Morinaga hesitated ever so slightly, which gave Iwamatsu the opening he required to attack from behind with his longwords.
"DOUBLE HADACHI!" Yahiko grabbed the blades just in time and broke them both apart with his bare hands using the ultimate Kamiya Kasshin Ryu shirahadori technique.
"!?" came the bandit leader's wordless reaction, but he had enough presence of mind to block the follow-up sword-drawn strike from the bleeding-handed Yahiko with the remaining, broken blades.
A whistle was then heard, followed by lots of footsteps while a female voice cried, "The police! The police are here, at last!"
"Dammit, so soon? We wasted too much time on that brat and his friends! Everyone, move!" ordered the dual-wielding Iwamatsu with broken "longswords" no longer than katana blades.
Morinaga stopped her assault cold. The "leaky" man who begged for his life (and discovered that Kaede was a she) then grabbed a rock and hit her upside the head before slinging her small body on his shoulder.
"You want to know what happens to the girls we kidnapped? You're about to find out firsthand, bitch!"
"Uh, dude. I didn't know you're into little boys..."
"THAT'S NOT A LITTLE BOY! That's... never mind, the cops are here! I'll tell you later!"
"Morinaga...!" Myojin began, only to spot the supposedly unconscious Kaede open her eyes, stare at him, and wink before closing her eyes again.
So she was only pretending to be captured? Those poor samurai bastards.
Then again, when she went berserk, all bets were off. Inwardly, Yahiko didn't know what made him cringe more; the samurai bandits or the Batousai of Speed. 'May the gods have mercy on their souls.'
"PLEASE, DON'T KILL THEM!" he shouted at Kaede, for all the good it would do.
Iwamatsu's lackeys carried with them as much loot as they could in short notice. Some of the bandits (who were still on their feet and conscious) loaded their stolen goods on carts, while others merely ran or hauled their loads on foot or on beasts of burden.
Of course one single speech from some kid who didn't know better wouldn't change their minds.
An out-of-breath Chizuru ran towards Yahiko and whispered, "The cops aren't here yet. I bought a toy whistle and had several of the onlookers pretended to be cops by marching back and forth. Run away now before the bandits find out!"
"...What? Are you serious?" whispered Myojin back.
"YOSHI-BOY! YOSHI-BOY! They got Patches! Those goddamn bandits took him away!" the Sniffling Gan said.
"YOU LET THEM GET PATCHES? I mean, Minoe-chan?" Chizuru slapped Yahiko. "How could you? Bring him back, or so help me, I'm the one who's going to charge to their base with an army of hired bodyguards to get him back!"
The blood drained from Yahiko's face. 'It's all my fault. If only I didn't hold back from the start and let my feelings over samurai get the better of me, none of this would've happened.'
There were two worst-case scenarios at play here. One, the bandits would get away and Morinaga would become part of their collection of kidnapped women. Two, the scenario of the Battousai of Speed repeating her castration and massacre of Keisuke and his Fake Battousai Group. Forced to kill once again.
Both options left a bitter taste in his mouth. He had to save both the bandits and Kaede from each other.
Although maybe he should just let them die in Morinaga's hands. They deserved as much, didn't they?
"Um..." Two of the Three Stooges (plus Chizuru) aimed their weapons at the sole samurai bandit left in the scene. It was the newcomer bandit who begged Morinaga not to kill him earlier.
His hands raised in surrender, he said, "I know where they went. I know where their base is."
Inside the maze-like passageways of the Fukuoka ghetto full of shanties and outright property squatters...
"Don't hurt gramps!" one of the kids cried before being backhanded by the bandit leader. "Seibei Enjiro" attempted to shield the kid, but he got held down on the ground, his head bleeding with bits of glass, most likely from the jar he used for donations that was smashed on his noggin.
"Hold still, old fart! We don't need you, we need the kids! Nobody gives a fuck if you die!" warned one of Iwamatsu's men. Something then fell from the old man's knapsack. "The fuck is this?"
"Hey, check this out, boss!" said one of the men who snatched up the folded paper that purported the senior citizen to be a samurai. "It says here that the old coot was born in 1844! So, he's, like, forty years old or something!"
"Ha! Bullshit! This toothless old goat, forty? He looks more like a hundred to me! This shit is obviously fake!" another samurai bandit tore Enjiro's birth certificate apart. "Which samurai did you steal this from, rojin?"
"N-No! You destroyed grandpa's papers! He won't be able to prove he's a samurai without it!" The child who said that had the taste slapped out of his mouth.
"You retarded brat! Your gramps has been lying to you! That's not his birth certificate! He's just a harmless old peasant pretending to be a samurai!"
"D-Don't hurt those children! Why are you doing this? Are you not samurais? Have you no honor or shame?" asked "Enjiro". "Even if I'm not, you are! Be the better men!"
The samurais began kicking the old man around. "You sound just like the holier-than-thou little snot we fought earlier! Dammit, even now, remembering him keeps making my blood boil!"
Another bandit harrumphed. "Jeez, nowadays anyone can claim to be samurai, and no one would bat an eye. Back when you were young, you could probably get beheaded doing this shit, old man."
Iwamatsu unsheathed his two shattered, "tipless" longswords. "Who says he can't be killed now regardless? Impersonation remains a grave offense even in the Meiji Era."
The children screamed "NOOOO!" at the bandit samurais, begging them to stop, but the criminals easily pushed them aside and held them back.
"...When I was young, I used to look up to you people," the toothless "Seibei" said. "Samurais were supposed to be heroes. Honorable warriors whose social privilege allowed them to become better men absolved from insecurity. People to look up to. What happened since then?"
Iwamatsu had his men put the old man in a bowing position, his neck exposed. "You want to know what happened, old man? The Meiji Era happened. The Bakumtasu happened. Samurai became a joke. The government took away our swords, our stipends, and our pride. That's the reality of the situation that won't be changed by pretty words."
"Y-You're not samurais! You can't be! The samurais I know would never stoop so low as to hide from the police like roaches and use old men and children as shields! You aren't heroes, you're monsters!"
The bandit leader exposed the elderly man's neck to his blades. "If you hate us for becoming the monsters we are, then blame the government for it. At any rate, you're about to be killed by one of the samurais you idolize. How does it make you feel?"
"Seibei" shut his eyes and looked away, holding back tears while the children who regularly gathered around to hear his stories were taken away from him, kicking and screaming.
"Please tell me it's a lie. Please tell me you're not samurai."
However, before Iwamatsu finished the old man off, Yahiko came of nowhere and attacked with the Men: Midareuchi that hit the top of the bandit leader's head wit a loud crack.
Reeling, Iwamatsu pushed one of the novices into Yahiko's striking range, letting him suffer through the follow-up strikes at the left and right temples, wrists, and abdominal body blow in one long combo.
Myojin then said to the old man. "It's a lie. That man is no samurai as far as I'm concerned. And even if he is, please don't hate all samurais. We aren't all like these assholes."
"...Kid!" croaked "Seibei". "Y-You're a samurai too?"
"Yeah, and I wish you were samurai as well," said Yahiko. "I'd rather you be of swordsman nobility than any of these bozos."
"You again? I'm beginning to think you're as big of a samurai wannabe as this old man!" the wincing Iwamatsu said while cradling his head. 'Damn that kid.'
"Are you really samurais? Are you really interested in change? Or are you people trying to find an excuse to do anything you want because you couldn't adapt to this new era?" asked Myojin.
"We don't need to justify our actions to some naive little puke!"
"That's enough preaching from you, kid! You have no idea what we've been through! You probably never had a day of hunger in all your life!"
A Dou Gami from out of nowhere exploded from beneath the feet of Yahiko, producing the same effect that Gan's Happa had, thus making the nearest bandits fly around in all directions. Flying samurais ripe for the picking with Gan's handy metal bat.
"Nope. Like I said, I've been there," said Yahiko amidst the smoke, rubble, and devastation. "I could've grown up and ended up like you guys. However, there's nothing more despicable than people who couldn't change with the times preying on the successful ones that could!"
"Now that's the Yoshi-boy I know and love! You tell 'em!" praised the Grinning Gan before he batted away the falling (and not-so-heavenly) bodies headed his way. "KATTOBASHI! KATTOBASHI!"
More samurai bandits came out of the woodwork, crawling out of the crevices like cockroaches. However, before they could make it to Yahiko, a familiar face arrived with a kendo stick on hand, blocking their advance.
"Wha...? You're that okonomiyaki chef from before!" said Yahiko. "You're a swordsman too...?"
The yattai vendor from earlier chuckled. "Who do you think gave Hayashi that ol' birth certificate? It was certainly worth more to him than it was to me by the time the samurai class was abolished!"
"You're Seibei Enjiro?" Myojin's jaw dropped. Meanwhile, the Seibei impersonator murmured to the real one, "I knew you'd come."
The okonomiyaki-cooking Enjiro saluted with his kendo stick. "Like the kid said, even though there are rotten samurais around, don't hate all of us samurais. Some of us can live up to our reputation as heroes."
"S-Seibei-sama," the homeless man cried while the children gathered around him.
With a smile, Yahiko mowed down the samurais who double-teamed, triple-teamed, quadruple-teamed, or quintupled-team him with endless Dotou no Ken to the wrists to disarm them and Ichijin Sou Fuu Satsu body blows to weaken them.
However, he only had enough gripping strength for one more Tsui Gami thanks to the double Hadachi earlier.
"You've made a fatal mistake using that shirahadori technique so soon," said Iwamatsu while crossing blades with the samurai teen. "You can barely hold your blunt sword. It's only a matter of time before you let go."
Only after the bandit leader saw Myojin favoring his hands did he attack in full force instead of letting his men do his dirty work for him. Not that he was above letting them gang up on him.
"He'll make it in time," said Gan, who ran interference against Iwamatsu's men so that the whole fight would be more of a one-on-one duel. "You can bet your ass on that! VICIOUS TIGER CLAWS!"
The self-proclaimed Soba King traded knockout blows, survived numerous sword stabs, and bashed in heads while collecting dislodged teeth as his trophies. Like Benkei, he stood his ground, taking the waves of punishment like a cliff would the crashing tides.
"What the hell, man? Why won't you go down? Why don't you die? Why do you try so hard to live? Do you enjoy pain?" said one of the bandits, his face a swollen mess.
The Swaggering Gan answered, "Pain don't hurt," before headbutting the man.
Nevertheless, Iwamatsu dragged his fight with Yahiko on as long as he could, never committing to his strikes unless Myojin's arms or hands looked tired enough for a disarmament attempt.
Yahiko cursed under his breath and clenched his throbbing fists; his Hadachi was a technique he could only use once with healthy hands. Now both of his hands were damaged.
The teenager got cornered by a series of (what he identified as) Niten Ichi-Ryu combos from Iwamatsu, using the two-sword classical swordsmanship school conceived by the sword saint himself, Musashi Miyamoto.
The Tokyo Samurai Descendant lost feeling in his hands. Meanwhile, the real Seibei and Gan were themselves pushed back by the growing throng of disgruntled, unemployed samurais even while they beckoned the fake Seibei (Hayashi) and the children to escape.
More ex-samurais came to the forefront, trapping the three. Just how many of these criminals were there anyway? They were endless!
However, the unexpected happened. The swordsmen turned on each other, some of their reinforcements doing a one-eighty.
"What the hell? You're supposed to be on my side, idiot! Stop pointing that sword at me!"
"After you guys abandoned me when the police were supposed to arrive? Fuck you! There really is no honor among thieves! Good thing it was all a ruse!"
"Are you kidding me? You should've escaped and rejoined us when you found out that was the case! Why are you fighting for these people? We're all going to get jailed at this rate!"
"I don't care. The kid is right. We're samurais. We should be doing something better with our lives than become common criminals!"
"He actually gave enough of a damn about us to save us from that crazed lunatic midget with the short and long swords!"
"It's a protection scam! The ol' good cop, bad cop routine! They're allies who tricked you into thinking your lives have been saved when it wasn't! They both want you dead!"
"They don't! They held back all this time!"
"I don't want to be a bandit anymore. I want to be a samurai! A warrior that doesn't dishonor the blood and lineage of his ancestors!"
"Me too! I want to be the kind of person my parents could be proud of! Not like this..."
"I've done so many horrible things... too many, in fact... I know this isn't enough for reparation, but at least let me do this one thing right!"
"YOU'VE ALL GONE INSANE! Samurais are dead! They don't exist anymore!"
"SAMURAI BLOOD FLOWS THROUGH MY VEINS! Even if the title of 'samurai' is gone, I will remain one till I die!"
"THEN DIE, ROOKIE! DIE AND MEET YOUR DAMN SAMURAI ANCESTORS!"
The real Seibei himself said, "It's times like this that I'm glad to be born a samurai in the first place."
"...The hell?" blubbered Iwamatsu. The reinforcements he thought he'd gathered from the men he abandoned to the police earlier yet escaped capture must've turned into police double agents to escape jail time!
Speaking of cops, whistles were again heard and footsteps filled the narrow Fukuoka City alleyways. Hearing about the "trick" that Chizuru and the others pulled the first time around, the samurai bandits who remained loyal to Iwamatsu charged, expecting to acquire new hostages for their trouble.
They ended up in front of the business end of rifles, bayonets, katana, and sabers instead. This time around, it wasn't a ruse, although the police were led to the hideout care of Chizuru, her whistle, and the map handed to her by the newbie bandit who changed sides and turned himself in.
"It's all over for you, Iwamatsu!" said Yahiko, who did a leaping "Men" (Head) attack. The bandit boss then ended up on the receiving end of a Men: Midareuchi that should've hit several of his vital points to the head, torso, and wrist.
On one hand, since that technique wasn't nearly as instantaneous as the Kuzu Ryu Sen, Iwamatsu headed off that combo attack at the pass with a cross-bladed block. On the other hand, that was exactly what Myojin banked on him doing.
The recoiling blocked Men strike turned into a "DOUBLE TSUI GAMI!" in an instant, and finally Yahiko had a rough idea of how effective his technique would be against the Cancer Stance's Scissor or Vise Grip.
Both blades broke by being hit three times fast on one point, and the resulting sakabatou blow to the head cracked Iwamatsu's skull and gave him a crimson mask.
The reverse-edged sword dropped on the ground along with the bandit boss's knocked-out body, Myojin's twitching hands too damaged to pick it up back again.
It was finally over.
Except it wasn't.
After tying the sakabatou back into his unresponsive hands and fingers using his teeth and wristbands, Yahiko sprung into action and moved right into the abandoned warehouse, with Gan, Enjiro, the police, and the swordsmen who switched sides at the last minute hot on his heels.
Myojin didn't know whom he should be more worried about: Morinaga or Iwamatsu's Fukuoka samurai bandits. 'I hope I'm not too late. Those bandits deserve anything Morinaga Kaede can dish out, but...'
Because Yahiko had trouble getting his damaged fingers into the edge of the warehouse sliding doors, it was Gan, Seibei, and several other samurais who defected from the Fukuoka gang who pushed the gates open.
'I don't want her to get more tainted by their filthy blood. She isn't just an attack dog trained to kill! She's more than that! I want to protect her smile...!' decided Myojin.
The Fukuoka Police, the samurais, two of the Sanbaka, and Chizuru braced themselves for what came next. Perhaps a warehouse full of bandits remained to be fought; the only "reinforcements" that Iwamatsu's immediate bandit army had came from the turncoat samurai instead of from his home base, after all.
"MORINAGA!" shouted Yahiko.
"MINOE-CHAN!" screamed Chizuru.
"PATCHES!" cried Gan.
One of the Fukuoka policemen asked the trio, "How many of your friends were kidnapped by the bandits? One or three?" The same copper's jaw then dropped along with everyone else's jaws at what they saw.
Bodies flew everywhere, but there wasn't any explosion of debris from the ground that caused their flight, like with Yahiko's Dou Gami or Gan's Happa.
Instead, a force of equal parts mass and acceleration ripped apart all the swordsmen foolish enough to remain inside Iwamatsu's headquarters. A red blur of whirling steel that could give Masakichi Hananuma Inoue's Eye of the Storm a run for his money ran amok.
Amidst the devastation and pools of blood came forth a warrior with red hair, twin blades, and a cross-shaped scar that turned Iwamatsu's headquarters upside-down.
"I-I'm not the only who's seeing this right? I'm not seeing things again, aren't I?" asked Chizuru while grabbing hold of Yahiko's sleeves tightly. "T-That's the vagabond, isn't he?"
"K-Kenshin...?" Myojin gulped aloud. No, wait. That was impossible, obviously.
She almost had him almost fooled. That damn blue-kimono-wearing swordswoman with a daisho and a (short) topknot at the noggin (she'd recently cut her hair, after all). From afar, or even up close, the wigless, eye-patch-less Morinaga looked a lot like Kenshin, from her cross-shaped scar to her girly physique.
Yahiko wouldn't have mistaken Kaede for Kenshin had she still worn Minoe's kimono (he didn't know that she could turn the uniform inside out and end up with a "new" uniform altogether... like an honest-to-goodness turncoat would).
Sure, her pair of intersecting scars were closer to her eye than Kenshin's cheek scars, her left "lazy" eye was more tarime (sagging eyelid) than tsurime (sharp, upward slanting eyelid), her hair had remnants of dye that hadn't faded out, and she might actually be even shorter than the already short Kenshin, but...
"S-Strong! T-That bitch is too...!" the perverted man who brought the wigged Kaede into the warehouse in the first place (whom, unbeknownst to him, allowed herself to be captured) rasped, his battered body at death's door.
But not quite.
That was the thing. She didn't kill them. She... She listened to what he said? Yahiko couldn't believe it. No doubt, she ripped those bastard bandits apart to the point of hospitalization, but as he requested, she didn't finish them off like she did with Keisuke and his False Battousai Group.
Damn. She listened to him!
Her mercy, most of all, made her the most Kenshin-like he'd ever seen her be. She was more like Himura right now than when she had long hair and an Edo Era hairdo (Kenshin had also cut his ponytail).
Also, was it his imagination or did Kaede's Scorpion Nest look like the Dragon Nest Flash or Ryu Sou Sen from a distance? It must've been his wishful thinking.
"Yoshi-boy, is that... Samurai X?" asked Gan, remembering the redhead with the x-mark cross underneath the eye back in stately Akahori Manor.
The copper again asked, "Seriously, how many of your friends did these bandits kidnap? If you're talking about the same guy, how many aliases does he have? Is he a criminal himself?"
"Y-You don't understand, officer," Seibei said, his eyes widening in realization. "Look at his red hair. His cross-shaped scar. Don't you recognize who that is? It's...!"
"...And so the Hitokiri Battousai finished off the rest of the bandit samurais right here in the heart of the Fukuoka ghetto, in an abandoned warehouse, saving many people from these horde of hooligans. However, something bizarre happened. The dead were brought back to life. Or rather, they were never killed in the first place. The Battousai held back and showed them mercy."
Gathered around the fake Seibei (actually, a homeless man named Hayashi whom impersonated the real Seibei) were the ghetto kids who witnessed the whole battle as well as their rescuers: An ex-samurai from Fukuoka turned okonomiyaki chef, the son of low-ranking samurai from Tokyo, a rich Tokyoite heiress, some idiot with a metal bat from Okinawa, and a wigged and eye-patched weirdo with androgynous features.
"Just as quickly as he came, Battousai disappeared without a trace. The 'have-not' bandits who've been terrorizing the 'haves' of Fukuoka gave themselves up and faced their charges with as much dignity as they could muster. They had a lot to answer for, from armed robbery to kidnapping, especially their bastardly head honcho mastermind. However, as far as some of the defected samurai are concerned, defecting was their chance of redemption: A way to get back the dignity they lost."
Yahiko felt Minoe shake beside him. The descendant of samurai couldn't blame the "boy" with multiple personalities for bristling with rage; it was awful convenient of the samurai bandits to regain their honor, but what about the women they kidnapped and terrorized? The best the police could do was file a report, put in prison those responsible (it might as well be all of them), and move on from there.
To Yahiko's relief, the Minoe inside the bloodthirsty Kaede heard his pleas and had woken up in time to keep herself from outright murdering anyone. Sure, many of them almost died, but they ultimately didn't.
"It was the first time I've seen her hold back so much in such a volatile situation! I'm so proud of her! I'm glad she listened to you, Yahiko-chi!" Munenori had said, and Myojin agreed.
At least no one was castrated afterwards. On top of being killed. Not that the Tokyo Samurai Descendant would've blamed her for doing so.
Earlier that evening, outside one of Fukuoka's many inns (Yahiko didn't have time to set up a tent in the wilderness after everything that transpired)...
Myojin handed the wigged ninja wannabe his sword guard eye patch with cupped hands. "I believe this is yours."
Minoe picked up his property, put it on, and bowed at Myojin while brushing back the lock of hair that hid his scarred eye. "Thank you, Yahiko-chi."
"Maybe we should've killed all of them after all," Yahiko blurted out, remembering that many of those rescued girls in the samurai bandits' hideout had been missing for months.
Munenori avoided Myojin's gaze and stared at his intertwined hands with a wan smile. "I'm just glad all those kidnapped women are free. At least the mastermind is behind bars."
Speaking of which, because "Battousai" swooped in to save the day (thanks to Minoe's wig slipping, revealing Kaede in all her Kenshin-like glory), Raikouji began speculating that Kenshin Himura and his sister were in the Hakata-Fukuoka area.
She also considered the heartbreaking prospect (for her) of the vagabond being a girl.
"WAAH! I'm just glad you're safe, Minoe-chan!" Chizuru had said during her reunion with Minoe while rubbing her cheek against his, not realizing Kaede and him were one and the same person.
"I don't know what happened, but I'm glad the vagabond or his sister was able to swoop in to save you and the day!"
Minoe gasped for air, squirming at Raikouji's tight embrace. "Mochiron! Whoever that redheaded stranger was sure was something else!"
"Saaay, Yattai Guy!" Yahiko overheard the Nicknaming Gan address Seibei while stuffing his face down with the vendor's okonomiyaki, "Is everything that Homeless Guy says in his stories true? I mean, sure, he fibs and exaggerates here and there, but his latest story is quite close to what actually happened."
Seibei shrugged while making a fresh batch of Japanese pancakes. "I guess. What about it?"
"So were his adventures he described while pretending to be you true? You really did make two warring gang members supported by corrupt officials fight each other to the death?" Gan asked.
Enjiro guffawed and slapped Gan's back. "Well, it actually happened, but I'm not the one responsible for it! I'm just one of the samurais that assisted the ronin who masterminded the whole divide and conquer plot. He was a fierce looking fellow who had a child who tagged along with him. His alias was Doraku, I believe."
Right then and there, Minoe himself choked on his spit.
"You all right, Minoe?"
"I'm fine, Yahiko-chi. I just... breathed too quickly, I guess." Munenori cleared his throat.
Regardless, long after the Sanbaka left Fukuoka City and Hakata City for Hiroshima, the homeless Hayashi had a new story to tell.
About what it meant to be samurai in the Meiji Era.
Back in September 1884; in (British Colonial Era) Hong Kong, China...
"Bloody hell. I hate looking for Merrick in the middle of one of his goddamn heists, the tricky bastard," murmured a yawning, blond-haired, and blue-eyed twenty-something young man after finishing his spot of tea.
He had a nose with a higher ridge than the typical Asian man (or so the Chinese would say) but also had eyes sharper and more slanted than a typical Englishman (or so the English would say).
Tea culture in Hong Kong started in this period and evolved into yum cha (Chinese-style morning and afternoon tea with dim sum dishes). The British and Chinese obsession with tea was probably one of the few things that crossed the cultural gap between Eastern and Western Hong Kong.
'Merrick is his name this time, isn't it?' The young multiethnic man couldn't remember. The fellow he was searching for had changed his name so many times, he practically lived multiple lives in one lifetime.
The young adult was one to speak; he himself had two names, from two different countries.
He sneered at everyone who stared at him on his way to the Hill District, particularly those with lingering looks and shaking heads at him. The Hong Kong community loved half-breeds like him like the Devil loved Holy Water.
Colonial Hong Kong, like Victorian Era London, had a definite societal and geographical divide. East Hong Kong was mostly occupied by the British. It was filled with polo fields, cricket fields, barracks, parade grounds, race courses, and every last thing that was non-Chinese and non-oriental in nature.
As for the western portion of "Little China" or "Chinatown within China", it had tea houses, restaurants with the ever-renowned menu of various Chinese cuisine hailed by the world, crowded flea markets full of silk merchants and jade traders, Feng Shui consultation establishments, and other Chinese shops.
Those were the two faces of Hong Kong, a place which, by 1880, would handle 27% of Mainland China's export and 37% of its imports.
While riding a Kowloon rickshaw (human-powered carriage), he heard whispers of "half-caste", "half-breed", and "human mongrel" among both the Chinamen and the Englishmen pedestrians that they passed by at every stop.
No one dared look him in the eye and say such things to his face, though. In fairness, because he had his hair dyed, fewer people identified him as mixed race until they got a good look at his facial features.
He also heard the slur "Chi-Chi" or "Chee-Chee", even though that was mostly used against the Anglo-Indians than Eurasians that were East Asian hybrids.
These were the whispers he'd heard all his life. In both Chinese and English. Then again, this was Hong Kong. It was already a melting pot of cultures way before he was even born.
Sometimes, they acted like he wasn't supposed to be there. Like he wasn't supposed to exist.
Long story short, thanks to the First (1839-1842) and Second (1856-1860) Opium Wars (with opium being the only product that Chinese actually had interest in getting from Britain), the British Empire seized control of Hong Kong Island.
They were also allowed to trade in every which way they wanted through what China would later describe as "Unequal Treaties" (such as the Treaty of Nanking or Nanjing).
As a side note, China's humiliating military defeat in the Opium Wars served as a wakeup call for Japan that Western powers were strong enough to humble the dominant power of the region.
Commodore Matthew C. Perry's arrival in Japan in 1853 to open trade markets mirrored what had happened to China. This also led to the signing of humiliating treaties (like the Convention of Kanagawa).
With that said, there was a theory circulating around Hong Kong put into print by Ernst Johann "EJ" Eitel (1838-1908), a German Protestant missionary in China, in the late 1890s.
He claimed that the half-caste population of Hong Kong were mostly offspring between European men and outcaste ethnic group women such as the Tanka people of China (a seafaring minority group who lived on junks in the coastal parts of Zhejiang, Hainan, Guangdong, and Guangxi provinces as well as Hong Kong and Macau).
Later on, author Henry J. Lethbridge refuted this theory in his 1978 writings about Hong Kong, saying that the myth was perpetuated by xenophobe Cantonese to explain the Eurasian community in Hong Kong.
However, Eitel's theory had support with Carl Smith's study on protected women during the 1960s. More to the point, it made sense that European men would have liaisons with Tanka women because Tankas experienced restrictions in the social structure of Qing Dynasty China.
They weren't allowed to intermarry with Cantonese and Hakka-speaking populations. They didn't have bound feet. Shore settlements were limited. They weren't tied to Confucian ethics compared to other ethnic groups, so it was less of a taboo for this marginal group's women to intermarry or even simply deal with the Europeans.
Free of social pressure and stigma, these Tanka boat girls saw English intermarriage as an opportunity for respectability and financial security within Hong Kong instead of a risk for being ostracized.
Colonial Hong Kong was the Hong Kong wherein Eurasian or "half-caste" children became more common... and were also stigmatized as the symbols of the degradation of morality and racial impurity by both the Chinese and European communities.
To the Europeans, he was an offspring of barbarian Orientals. To the Asians, he was a spawn of foreign devils. The worst of both worlds.
Earlier, after eating his breakfast of tea, barley, and congee with fish, he chanced upon a Eurasian girl (no older than seven or eight, by her looks) back at the nearby hotel he stayed at.
She asked him (in Queen's English, no less) why people hated them for having parents of mixed heritage. The conversation went something like this:
"You're like me, aren't you, Mister? You're English and Chinese?"
"Well, English and Asian. What of it?"
"Tell me, why are they always so mean to us?"
She didn't even have to explain what she meant by "they". He understood immediately. The cute little mixed race kid couldn't fathom why both communities would hate them for being born from different racial parentage.
He scratched the back of his ear, shrugged, and said, "Isn't it obvious? There is no place for a traitor." The girl stared at him blankly at the time (probably in incomprehension), but he nevertheless continued.
"Isn't it true? Are we not hated by both the races we're supposed to belong to? We're both Asian and European, yet we're considered neither."
"B-But I didn't do anything!" she protested, then cried, and the Eurasian man with blond (dyed) hair ended up fleeing from the scene of the "crime" once the Tanka Dragon Lady that the girl called a mother went after him, squawking at him in Cantonese and Pidgin English for making her baby cry.
The little girl had a point, though. How did they, the product of their parents' love (or lust, whatever) be at fault for their own existence? Who exactly did they betray? Why were they branded traitors?
The short answer was that this world was full of idiots. Shortsighted, bigoted, and racist idiots. The long answer was, as far as his own life experiences taught, the European community at the time viewed mixed race offspring like himself "tangible evidence of moral irregularity".
Also, as far as the Chinese were concerned, the act was a sin against humanity. Bad karma was supposed to befall those who bred with another race for betraying their own kind. Thus justifying the marginalization of their mothers and fathers.
"Barbarian" from Grecian lips only contained an iota of the derision that the Chinese had over these... half-breeds. Canine mongrels had more respect in Hong Kong.
He exited the rickshaw at the foot of the Hill District and started jogging and climbing, strapped behind him a wrapped-up staff or cane of some sort. The district included Mount Austin and its Victoria Peak, the area around Magazine gap, Mount Kellet, and Mount Gough.
The normal means of transport there as far as the wealthy British residents who frequented the place were concerned was through the sedan chair or litter (human-powered, no-wheel transport).
He could've pretended to be British and ordered a sedan chair to lift him to the peak (hiding his eyes with shades), but that would've defeated the purpose of visiting his old comrade-in-arms.
Why be lifted on the shoulders of transporters when you could run and leap ahead further and faster on your own power?
He kept on ascending Victoria Peak, the burgeoning vacation area frequented by Hong Kong's British Elite thanks to its panoramic view. It was already full of half-built and finished western-style colonial summer homes of Victorian Era design.
He intended to reach the summit and enter the former summer home of the Sixth Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Richard McDonnell. At any rate, the manor had a (generic) name: The Mountain Lodge.
"Halt! Who goes there?" asked a guard. "Speak up, intruder!"
"Over there! Follow me, lads! There's another one of those filthy Chinamen robbers!" said another guard.
"Let's bring him down and put him inside an earth bath!" was yet another guard's Nineteenth-Century way of saying they should put the young man to rest in an early grave.
"Wait, no! He's blond! He can't be a Chinaman! Is he a fellow Brit?"
"Who cares? He's still trespassing in private property!"
'Another one? So they've spotted or caught Merrick already? He's getting rusty in his old age.' He hid behind the rocks while the designated colonial mansion guards fired at him with rifles and whatnot. "Back to the ol' grind, then."
Showing mercy (for once), the Eurasian half-breed leaped into the middle of the riflemen to force them to awkwardly shoot at pointblank range with their long-range weapons (because they could end up shooting each other instead) and pummeled them with his elongated weapon wrapped in cloth.
After everything was said and done, a tooth or two clattered on the steep hill overlooking the McDonnell summer home.
The half-Englishman looked down at the pile of bodies and pools of blood at his feet. "Today's your lucky day. I'm in a good mood, mates. You get to stay alive!"
The Mountain Lodge a mere stone's throw away from him, he stole a rifle from one of the guards and had both his wrapped-up staff and gun on either shoulder of his.
"Where in blazes are you, Merrick? I want to talk to you. I have some important news to tell you, Old Man!"
The Eurasian man stopped at a nearby tree near the sheer cliffs after seeing three other guards hanged there. 'Hmmm.'
On a whim, he unwrapped his lengthy package... a bastard sword (which he named Arondight) with a one-and-a-half-hand handle that could be wielded with one hand or two... unsheathed the blade, and chopped the ropes tethering the swaying corpses on a branch.
They fell like sacks of meat or potatoes with dull thuds on the ground.
"...Merrick? MERRICK! Doko ni iru (Are you there)? Did you do this?" The blond shifted languages, from English to Japanese, before repeating what he said earlier.
A roped hook almost stabbed the blond half-breed's eye out. He dodged with a tilt of his head, caught the rope, and tugged at it hard in order to pull the bastard who threw the weapon at him.
The perpetrator behind the assault cut the rope with the knives he had with him before landing on the ground like a cat ready to pounce, his whole body covered in black clothes and his mask sporting huge, eerie goggles over his eyes.
"Oh, look at little Lucas Grant, all grown up." His accent was thick and he pronounced the Letter L as the Letter R, but the grammar was otherwise passable.
"Oh. It's you." The young man identified as Lucas Grant rolled his eyes and spoke in English-accented Japanese. "Don't get in my way."
Grant stabbed his unsheathed sword on the ground, held the rifle he stole from one of the guards with both hands, and fired at will at the man with piston-shot grappling hook ropes dressed in black.
Every last shot missed, the gangly oriental man with elongated limbs avoiding every bullet (and even the rifle itself after a frustrated Grant threw the gun at his head).
Wearing some sort of gas-powered contraption, the man in black blasted another hook into a nearby cliff and swooped away from Lucas's reach.
"I'm busy right now, kid. What do you want?" called out Grant's nimble opponent, crawling across the mountainside with his hooks, knives, ropes, and clawed gloves serving as his means of scaling the rocks.
Lucas himself bounded from boulder, to tree trunk, to rock face with his bastard sword in tow. With a quick, one-handed swipe, he chopped the rope that held the black-garbed bandit and had him grounded once more.
"Are you busy robbing the summer home of the Hong Kong governor? Is this how low you've become? Some brigands member you ended up to be!" mocked Grant.
Teeing off at will, the blond young man's sword flew and every which direction, but the otherworldly reflexes of the nimble robber allowed him to block, dodge, weave, and slip through the chopping blows by mere hairbreadths.
"You didn't stand a chance against me six years ago, and you don't stand a chance against me now!" said the gawky burglar-to-be and already-murderer.
Lucas couldn't get a hit in and ended up kicked, scratched, and stabbed for his trouble before he got fish-hooked by the mouth, tied by the neck, and thrown face-first into a tree.
"Go away before I hang you like those guards whose nooses you cut. Hyakunen hayai ze (You're a hundred years too early for)...!"
The masked, black-dressed bandit paused, his gas-powered apparatus that allowed his grappling hook to function exploding into pieces after merely being clipped by one of Grant's many missed sword swings.
"Is that all you've got?" said Lucas, his nose bleeding, his smile broken, and his teeth a mess of red and white. "So where exactly is your Japanese pride? 'Yamato damashi', was it? It's what Englishmen call 'dash-fire', I believe. Manliness and machismo. Aren't you supposed to be a ninja?"
"..."
Lassoing the nearest treetop with his rope the old-fashioned way (like American cowboys did), the shadow warrior pulled at the tree, bent it backwards, then released the rope, letting the plant slingshot him to the air while he unsheathed his deadly knives.
His Arondight slung over his shoulders while he awaited the rotating limbs and shining razors of his whirling dervish of a nemesis, Lucas said, "Come at me, Hidaka Kai of the Fuuma Ninja Clan."
Back inside the Mountain Lodge, on September 1884...
"Governor Marsh? My pardons, but what brings you here at this time of night? It's already autumn; you shouldn't be here," one of several guards remaining inside the summer home compound said to Sir William H. Marsh, a balding, white-mustached old man wit a monocle.
Marsh was the Colonial Secretary and the Governor of Hong Kong from 1882 to 1883 (his successor was Sir George Ferguson Bowen). "And why shouldn't I visit my summer home? Just because I'm not governor anymore, it doesn't mean I'm off-limits here! Balderdash!"
The guards looked at each other, nodded, and one of them confessed, "Sir, our apologies, but there are bandits lurking among us! These two Chinese hooligans have taken out our men and have entered the compound! You are not safe in here!"
William twirled his walrus-like mustache and cleared his throat. "Well, we can't have that! Don't just stand there! Help me take these paintings down! And those Ming vases! Handle them with care!"
"S-Sir...?" the other guard who'd remained silent until then probed.
"We won't let those hooligans do whatever they want and take away the most priceless of our possessions! I have a sedan car waiting for me!" insisted Marsh while waving around his finger and taking down some of the paintings on the mantle of the Mountain Lodge's fireplace himself.
Aside from Sir Marsh serving as Colonial Secretary and then the Acting Governor from 1879 to 1886, his wife, Missus Marsh, also advertised "at homes" at Mountain Lodge. In short, among all the previous governors of Hong Kong, the Marsh couple was the most active in maintaining the integrity of the Victoria Peak real estate.
Not knowing what else to do, the security detail of the summer home of the British Elite of Hong Kong did as the former Hong Kong Governor requested... nay, demanded... taking down all the furniture, artifacts, and heirlooms they could grab on short notice.
"We don't have time to empty the house, for obvious reasons, so take what you can! Everything that's not nailed down to the floor! We should have the most priceless ones under my care... Be careful with that! Your lifetime salary won't be enough to replace that!"
Like a cop directing traffic and carriages on a busy interchange, William H. went to work getting the most expensive property in the Mountain Lodge out of the robbers' reach.
"Have the authorities been contacted in regards to our would-be thieves? We're almost about done with the packing," Marsh asked his guards while he finished up stuffing his suitcase full of cash, jade, and opium.
"They should be here within another...!" a guard said before tumbling down and almost breaking the Ming Dynasty vase he had on hand. Something else shattered in front of them, though.
Swinging from a rope and while carrying his sword like some sort of swashbuckler, Lucas (literally) crashed into the main window of the Mountain Lodge, right in front of the gathered guards (who had their hands full of priceless antiques and furniture).
Jaws dropped and faces paled upon seeing the scuffed-up visage of a ragged breath but manic-faced Grant, who licked his chapped, bleeding lips and brushed back his dyed blond hair that also had a tinge of red on it from the head blows he got from Kai of the Fuuma Clan.
"D-Don't you dare drop those! Set them down carefully or I'll have both of you stuffed and mounted in their place!" screamed Marsh while grabbing at the white tufts of hair left on his head.
"S-Sir? T-The bandit is...!"
However, while Ex-Governor William Marsh was concerned about what happened to the millions of pounds' worth of vases, silk, paintings, and furniture from both east and west, from every colony that the British Empire conquered.
A ripped painting canvas, broken Ming vases, chopped up paper bills, shattered jade, ripped silk, and trashed furniture later, and the guards collapsed in a bloody, black-and-blue heap.
Foaming in the mouth, Marsh cried in a corner, unable to register what had happened. Lucas went in front of the elderly colonial secretary, his bastard sword Arondight raised high above his head.
"...Sir Marsh, look out!" one of the barely conscious guards spat.
William blocked Grant's heavier sword with a rapier and disarmed the blond man in two swings.
Grinning till his gums bled, Lucas grabbed the sword's naked blade barehanded to push it away and... ripped Marsh's face.
The guard fainted after seeing what lay behind the former governor's skinless face.
"Miitsuketaaa! (I foouund yoou!)" said Lucas to "Marsh" in a singsong voice. "I was almost fooled for a second there. Brilliant acting, as always, Seth Merrick."
"I've planned this heist for months. Explain yourself or else we'll have a duel to the death," said the monocle-wearing Seth, who put on his William Marsh mask on his face once more, although he took off the rest of his "fat suit" all the same.
"Fine. Listen to me, Old Man..." began Lucas.
Lucas Grant's target for today, one of the more notorious members of the Brigands Guild, had more than one alias. A man of many names. Of many lives (either stolen or fabricated).
Decades ago, he was Fabian La Cerca the Spanish Shipping Magnate and Count.
Years later, he became Sirius the Drug Lord with an unknown nationality.
Then he became known as Michael Bullock the American (Illegal) Prizefighter and Boxer.
He was also the quixotic Sir Roland, a wannabe, time-displaced Templar Knight "Paladin" in the Nineteenth Century.
Or Francois Lacroix, the French Arms Dealer.
Or Haruka the Japanese Burakumin Bandit.
Or the Outcaste Zafar, the Untouchable Indian "Hashashin" (Assassin).
And those were just some of his known aliases, from lives he had no choice but to abandon after he was "found out". At any rate, he was now Seth Merrick, the Gentleman Thief, named after the infamous Joseph Carey Merrick, the Elephant Man. Or so he claimed.
Joseph Merrick started making rounds all over Britain last month, August 1884, as "Merrick the Elephant Man", a traveling human novelty exhibition.
However, Seth Merrick and his (supposed) son Cain had already used the name Merrick many years previously before even knowing about the now-famous Joseph.
Of course, since being named after the Elephant Man made for a more interesting story (to those in the know) than having the same name through happy coincidence, the former was now Seth's "official" story of how he got his latest name.
As expected of a man who lived and breathed lies all his life. He rejected reality and substituted his own. Half of the lies he told, he probably believed.
At least, that was the case until he changed his name again, of course. That was the kind of man he was: Fiction and fantasy always blended with folk like him.
The man, however, had one unchanging name as far as the Brigands Guild was concerned: The Faceless.
A man who had no face of his own, so he wore a thousand masks instead.
"By the way, where's Hidaka?" asked Seth.
Lucas licked his lips, still tasting his blood from battling Kai. "He's hanging around."
Merrick cleaned his monocle and sighed. "Quaint."
"I have a new mission for you, Merrick," said the half-Asian to his old friend and mentor from the notorious international group of mercenaries known as the Brigands Guild.
"I already have a mission right this instant, Lucas," the multilingual, multicultural Seth Merrick (among many other aliases) said. "I don't need another mission."
"No. This one is different. It's far more interesting than a simple heist for sport. About just as rewarding, if not more so," said Grant.
The Faceless wagged his finger at Lucas's face. "It's not about money, dear boy. It's about the challenge. The thrill of the hunt."
"Hear me out then, Old Man." Grant took a deep breath, his body shaking from the effort. "It's the mission I've been training for all my life."
Seth uncrossed his arms and rubbed his chin. "You don't mean...?"
"Yes. That man finally wrote to me, asking me to eliminate his enemies." Lucas clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. "My enemies."
Merrick sat back down on the chair and deflated like a zeppelin with a leak. "...Ah. I see. So did he finally contact you after all these years?"
"Yes." Grant nodded. "And he told me who was responsible for the death of my parents."
Seth closed his eyes in remembrance of the scrappy little kid who picked fights against boys and teenagers many times his size back in England. How he'd grown after so long.
"I... see. Good for you, then," said Seth while rubbing the white beard of the face he "borrowed" from a former governor.
The Eurasian assassin before Merrick grabbed hold of his shoulder and squeezed it tight.
"Forget about stealing from these fat cats or playing around with Inoue's Sanhehui, Old Man. You're better than this. This time, you'll get to attend something more deserving of your expertise. Come with me and have a mission of a lifetime!"
"Oho. Really now? And what does this mission of yours entail exactly, young lad?"
"We're going to have ourselves a Minakata Clan genocide. In Japan." Lucas raised his blade and turned the nearest table into splinters by chopping it up repeatedly with the weapon, laughing while he did it.
"Hock whatever you can get from this lodge for traveling money and brace yourself." The blond young man looked out the foggy Hong Kong sky from the huge broken windows and chuckled. "Their prodigal son can finally return to his place of birth."
To Be Continued...
Minoe: Hey, hey, Yahiko-chi! How come you call the Kenshingumi using their first names, but call me by my last name?
Yahiko: Eh? You want me to call you "Munenori" instead, Minoe?
Minoe: (blushes) M-Mochiron. If you don't mind, that is.
Yahiko: ...Nah. "Minoe" is shorter.
Minoe: Nyo-ron.
Anyway, that's Lucas Grant for you: The poster child of "Sonno Joi" (Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians), "The Namamugi Incident" (the murder of British nationals due to unintentional disrespect to samurai), and "Kirisute Gomen" (the legal right of samurai to cut and leave lower-ranked samurai and peasants who've disrespected them).
Arrivederci,
Abdiel