December 1884, in Yokohama, at one of many Minakata-owned estates across Japan...
"Ugh! I can't believe that... that... man is my nephew's friend! An ex-samurai of his fame and stature should be exposed to better company and influences, for goodness's sakes!" said Kaneda Minakata of Sho Kojima while wiping his chubby, moist cheeks with a handy handkerchief.
"Making friends with a poor drunkard? Absolutely absurd! He should stay away from such filth!"
Kinta Minakata cleared his throat after overhearing that remark, remembering his drunkard Uncle Tatsuya, the banker of the family. Or the drunkard "friends" the Minakatas had in high places.
So when one was poor and loved to drink, one was a drunkard. If one was rich and loved to drink, one was a connoisseur of the finest alcohol in the land.
At least Sho Kojima could hold his liquor better than Tatsuya Minakata.
"Now, now, Minakata-san. Please give your nephew a break. He must be stressed."
Yusuke Nishimura, the Kanagawa Squad Captain, personally ushered and escorted the rotund lawyer of the Minakata Family back to his quarters while hearing him whine about how he couldn't invite any geisha or courtesans over because of how many guards he had to put up in his home.
Kaneda would've used all those drinks for himself while having a party with all his girls for hire. 'The repugnant man-boar.'
A minute or so after the Yokohama Captain chaperoned the Minakata uncle back to his room upstairs, out came... the same Yokohama Captain at the entrance along with Officer Yukio Sugiura.
Officer Kazuki Matsura and Sergeant Atsushi Dankichi blinked at what just happened, with Matsura asking their superior, "Yo, Cap. How'd you do that? Did you go all the way out the backdoor so that you can surprise us over here at the entrance?"
The sergeant then clapped, "If so, then good trick! Wow! Do it again!"
Captain Yusuke and Officer Yukio exchanged glances with raised eyebrows and half-agape mouths. The shorter, gruffer officer then asked, "Are you two drunk? Did that drunkard hobo slip you some rice wine to drink?"
Officers Kazuki and Shigeru also stared at each other and their fellow policemen. "We just saw you escort Minakata Kaneda-shi into his bedroom just this minute."
"What are you talking about? The captain has been with me the whole time! We just got here! Are you crazy?" complained Yukio.
"W-What if it's a g-g-ghost?" said Sarge Atsushi, his chattering teeth gnawing at his thumbnail by reflex.
Captain Nishimura was about to speak when they heard a loud banging noise come from Minakata's room on a separate wing of the mansion.
It shook the house hard enough to make nearby pots fall to the ground.
Captain Nishimura ordered, "Matsura-kun! Dankichi-kun! Check on Minakata Kaneda-san! Sugiura-kun, you come with me to Kinta-san's room! On the double!"
"Yessir! Right away, sir!"
"I suggest you switch your orders around, Captain," said the little Spanish redhead and foreign companion of Kinta, Abelia La Cerca. "I also saw what they saw. There was another you back with Kaneda-san. They weren't going loco."
Captain Yusuke hesitated for a minute, having no idea what "loco" meant. His brain told him to ignore the little girl and order her to find a safe place to hide, but his gut instincts told him to do as she said instead.
"Fine," said the captain. "Let's see who this other me is. Sugiura-kun, come with me. Matsura-kun, Dankichi-kun, go help out Kinta-san! Find Sakaguchi-kun, Michishige-kun, and that drunkard hobo while you're at it!"
"We're on it, Captain!"
"Way ahead of you, El Capitan!" said Abelia, who ran ahead of the Kanagawa Captain and his officer.
"HEY! KID! Come back here! You'll get hurt!" said Yukio, who ran after La Cerca but was surprised to learn how nimble on her feet she was.
By the time both Nishimura and Sugiura arrived at Kaneda's quarters, their sabers drawn and their guns at the ready, another Nishimura was using the Minakata lawyer as his meat shield, his straight blade that appeared like an elongated steel triangle resting firmly on the Budai look-alike's double chin.
"O-Officers, help me! Your captain, he has gone crazy...!" The Minakata uncle did a double-take. "W-Wait." He looked at the Yusuke that held him captive and the Yusuke who came to rescue him. "W-What's going on?"
"It's you," said Abelia to the man wearing Nishimura's face. "Fabian La Cerca."
"Abelia!" The fake Yokohama Captain asked La Cerca something, probably in Spanish (the officers couldn't tell).
"I'm here to stop you, Papa," answered Abelia, which made the Nishimura doppelganger frown. "You're making a big mistake, attacking Kinta-sama's family. Like you did with Doctor Hans."
"Who the hell are you?" demanded Captain Nishimura.
With squinting eyes and a wrinkled, upturned nose, the sneering Officer Sugiura added, "What the hell are you?"
The Kanagawa captain imposter smirked at the real captain, tipping his cap at him as he answered in perfect Japanese, "There is no me. I don't exist. There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed."
From a distance, they heard the dogs... the shiba inu puppies that Kinta adopted... yelp and bark at some possible invaders who've managed to enter the spacious abode.
Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation Story by Chester Castañeda
Let's meet some of the members of the Brigands Guild, shall we?
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 46: The Brigands Guild
And so, with a swinging attack through a rope on the ceiling and a sharp reverse-grip kodachi on his hand, the Brigands Guild member Kai Hidaka clipped Kinta's shoulder and drew first blood.
Kinta Minakata attempted to counter with repeated supersonic iaijutsu strikes... Half Moon Slashes rather than Full Moon ones... from his Waxing Stance.
However, the contortionist assassin with flexible limbs and a torso that snaked around like a serpent's ducked and weaved from the compound attack as well.
Like bamboo swaying against gale winds, never letting the storm break it apart.
Kai then spider-walked away, of all things, backpedaling to avoid the huge reach of the second rotating Full Moon Slash that ripped through the floorboards and all the way to the ceiling.
However, Hidaka sweated hard from the inside of his skintight clothing, his goggles fogging up. Even after he threw everything but the kitchen sink at Minakata, all he got out of his trouble was a small scratch on the shoulder.
Flashes of steel and clashes of swords happened again, which he avoided every time. By the narrowest of margins.
By ever-narrowing margins.
Like a shark that smelt blood, Kai should've been on the Mimawarigumi Battousai like white on rice as soon as he drew blood, but his battle instincts shouted at him to cover up, block, run off, and keep up the fight from the distance.
Or else.
Normally, when a swordsman missed with an iaijutsu strike, he was left wide open to counterattacks. A quick-draw attack with a sword was not the kind of style used for flashy moves or showboating. Its intent was to hit and slice in an instant. With surgical efficiency.
However, that gap between releasing the blade from the scabbard and not hitting its mark was filled in by Musou Madden Ryu's rotating slashes and follow-through movements assisted by pivoting feet and centrifugal force.
A small cut could become a gash or an amputation in the blink of an eye. An opening could mean the difference between life and death.
Thusly, every strike from Minakata was only a hairbreadth away from touching Hidaka. All this time, ever so subtly, as the Musou Madden Ryu Master found his rhythm and completed his combinations, it appeared like Kai was the one on the run.
The Half Moon Slash was followed up by an unsheathed Full Moon Slash and a sneaky follow-through, paper-thin Young Moon Slash that nicked the side of Hidaka's nose, his mouth and chin dripping in blood.
Dammit. "Iaisai" was varying his attack combos. It was getting harder for the ninja to dodge the strikes since they had no set pattern and every attack could be chained together at differing speeds.
"ABELIA!"
"PAPA!"
Just as the so-called Fabian La Cerca, Abelia's father, was about to slit Kaneda's throat, his daughter threw herself at him in a (sort of) tackle that ended up turning into a hug.
A sweet reunion between parent and child in the most unusual of circumstances.
Regardless, the round Buddha of a lawyer groveled and crawled on his arms and knees towards the feet of his saviors, the Yokohama Police, safe from harm from the master of disguise.
Crying, Abelia asked Fabian, "Are you really my father, Papi?"
"Mi chiquita (My little one), now is not the time..."
"I want to know the truth now, Papi! Please tell me that Cain was lying when he said that you're not our father!"
"DON'T EVER LISTEN TO THAT PENDEJO!" he shouted, which silenced Abelia.
"Captain, we need to SHOOT!"
"Settle down, Sugiura-kun! The girl...!"
"...JUST DON'T HIT THE GIRL!"
"EEEK!"
Sugiura took a risk and fired shots at the Elder La Cerca while he was talking to his supposed daughter, but the Spaniard took cover along with Abelia by upturning the western-style bed, with feathers and cushion stuffing flying everywhere from the shots.
Abelia still did them a favor by ripping off part of her father's mask, making it easier to tell that he was not the captain; his pale-faced complexion exposed underneath the scratched skin.
"Holy shit, is he a noppera-bo?!" remarked Yoshio. The noppera-bo was a creature in Japanese folklore who could make their facial features disappear in order to spook a target.
Before they could reload the rifles, the foreign swordsman drew his sword and disarmed the coppers, forcing them to take out their sabers.
Fabian then drew a dagger from his boot and said, "En garde (On guard)."
Captain Nishimura then experienced déjà vu not only because he was fighting himself in a seeming mirror match of sorts, but also because the other him had fallen into a stance he'd seen once before.
It was the same dual-wielding form used by the Gaijin (Outsider) Battousai, to be more specific. The prostitute-killing Englishman criminal who fought dirty and used poison-soaked weapons to his advantage.
"Why do you want to kill the Minakatas?" asked Yukio.
"It's nothing personal. Just business. Just another mission," said the fake Nishimura. "I'm sure you understand."
"You haven't answered my earlier question, gaijin! Who are you?" asked Yusuke to his impersonator.
"Me? I'm known by many names. Right now, you may call me John Rathbone. Yesterday, I was Seth Merrick. Even further back, I was Fabian La Cerca. It's much simpler if you just called me the Faceless of the Brigands Guild."
'Merrick...' thought Nishimura. 'Why does that name sound familiar?'
'Rathbone...?' thought Abelia. Her father had many identities, but she didn't remember the one where he was called Rathbone. Was it a new persona or an old one?
More importantly, what was this "Rathbone" capable of?
Sugiura and Nishimura attacked together, but it was the captain who was the better swordsman for he was trained in the Nakanishi-Ha Itto Style of Swordsmanship.
"The Faceless...?" repeated Yukio, whose telegraphed swings of his standard-issue saber missed the backpedaling and parrying Nishimura doppelganger by a mile. "What kind of a pretentious name is that?"
"There's nothing pretentious about it," said the Faceless, who almost ran Sugiura through had the Kanagawa Captain not blocked and countered in time, which Fabian also blocked with his waiting dagger.
"It's you Japanese who live in pretentiousness. Always finding ways to save face. You even live two-faced lives in a sense because of Honne and Tatemae."
In Japanese culture, Honne referred to one's true feelings and desires as opposed to Tatemae, which referred to one's behavior and opinions shown in public.
Meanwhile, Abelia found the cringing Kaneda under a table. She beckoned him to escape with her and together they crawled out of the tension-filled room.
Learning from their encounter with the Gaikokujin (Foreigner) Battousai and his poisoned blades, the officers were more cautious with their attacks. Perhaps too cautious.
"This is why I'd rather be known as the Faceless. Free from the chains of society and the doldrums of civilisation. Becoming anything I want, from a pauper to a prince."
Patiently, the Faceless took to the waiting game like a fish in water, pumping his sword arm forward just short of the heads of either the captain or his officer as though he were measuring the distance between them, ready to strike with a stab at any time.
"I am the one hanging nail that you could never hammer down."
'This man's swordsmanship isn't like the Gaijin Battousai,' thought Captain Yusuke. 'No wasted movement. No sloppy slashes. Every attack he does is measured. His footwork is hard to follow too.'
Nishimura attempted to nail the Faceless coming in for a thrust while avoiding his long, sharp, and pointy rapier, but he ended up a half-beat too late.
Lulled into complacency by the regular slow rhythm of poking stabs that never quite hit their mark yet kept the Japanese coppers at bay, the sudden burst of speed from the Elder La Cerca's thrust caught them both by surprise, barely giving them enough time to avoid getting skewered while moving backwards.
Drops of their blood painted the topsy-turvy room red and brown. In fairness, so far it didn't appear like the gaijin's blade was poisoned.
Nishimura's eyes went wide. 'This is fencing! It's the western swordsmanship school of fencing! Their equivalent of kenjutsu!'
"You don't make much sense! You're full of Tatame! All you have are masks because you have no Honne to hide! You're a shallow man hiding behind hollow masks, impersonating everyone else because you have no true personality to speak of!" rebutted Yukio.
With two strokes of his dual-wielded blades, Fabian avoided the saber stab by moving to his right, disarmed the out-of-balance and impatient Sugiura with his rapier, and did a left hook stab to the body with his dagger.
He then stomped on the blade with one heel and snapped it apart with his other heel.
"I disagree. You mindless sheep don't understand me at all, do you? All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. I've played all the roles: A thousand lifetimes lived in one. It's because I am no one that I've become everyone. Savvy?"
"...But out of everyone you've become, is one of them my father?" said a certain female voice from behind the Faceless.
Fabian turned in time to see in Abelia's tiny hands holding some kind of spherical crystal container full of an unidentified swirling powdery substance, not unlike a snow globe.
The same kind of clear glass ball that the Gaijin Battousai had on his person, Nishimura remembered.
"Of course I'm your father. Who else would I be?" countered the Faceless.
"Literally anyone and everyone else, Papi," remarked Abelia.
She dabbed a handkerchief at her moist eyes. "Who is our real mother? Cain's mother?"
"Abelia, I..." John trailed off, although he still kept an eye out for the policemen in front of him.
"Lo siento, Padre (I'm sorry, Father)."
"Abelia! Mi unica hija! (My only daughter!) NO...!"
The girl threw the sphere near her father, making it shatter and produce a mist of chemicals that suddenly made the lamplights seem as bright as a bonfire, like they'd exploded out of the blue.
The orb had magnesium-based pyrotechnic charge that ignited on impact.
She also named it after her deceased caretaker: The Gadamer Gem. The same gem used by Amakusa to enable him to execute the Rai Ryu Sen even though he lacked the ability to do so on his own after surviving the Second Shimabara Rebellion.
A 19th Century flashbang or stun grenade, in short.
"Tidal Wave."
The sly samurai did the first three slashes of the Tidal Wave from a distance to charge forward unimpeded and allow the six strikes of increasing speed and strength to swarm Hidaka within ever-shortening fractions of a second.
Kai ducked, bobbed, weaved, backpedaled, and swung away on his grappling hook ropes as soon as the slashes began to scrape and cut him up, just to keep the whirling dervish of a swordsman from overwhelming him.
The ninth strike... the fastest and strongest wave of the Tidal Wave... cut apart one of his gas-powered mechanisms that allowed him to shoot his ropes.
He only had one gear left.
The door then flew open, and out emerged the Kanagawa Police Squad assigned to guard the Minakatas.
'Maybe I could make use of them to my advantage,' thought Kai.
The ninja escaped from Minakata's wrath by the skin of his teeth and partly because of acrobatics and partly because he knew better than to attack him from behind in his Waning Stance.
Too bad it made him look like a scampering, backpedaling coward who bit off more than he could chew.
From experience, Hidaka knew that some katana cuts were so clean you wouldn't know you'd been hit until it was too late.
Regardless, he had other people to worry about.
"One of the ninja assassins is here! SHOOT 'EM UP!" said Officer Matsura.
"I told you I wasn't seeing things when I said I saw a ninja on the roof earlier!" said Sergeant Dankichi.
The empty samurai armor and the medieval knight armor soon collapsed into pieces as Hidaka dodged a rain of bullets from the Yokohama Police.
Officers Atsushi and Kazuki took turns shooting at the goggled ninja, who jumped from wall to wall and even stuck his clawed hands into the ceiling to get away from the coppers.
Then, before the pair of Sarge and Kazuki could completely reload their rifles, Hidaka shot out his ropes from the one functioning gas-chamber mechanism he had left and hogtied them in such a way that made them aim their own guns at their throats.
After emerging from his thrashed room, it took a second for an out-of-breath Younger Minakata to understand what was going on with the officer and the sergeant before him.
With one Half Moon Slash, Kinta sliced apart the guns before Hidaka could pull the rope tied to the triggers of the rifles, thusly freeing the policemen.
Kai then used that opportunity to distract Kinta with a two-foot, rope-assisted swinging kick that sailed past his head in order to tie him up with more ropes and slingshot him off of the balcony.
The dexterous swordsman, however, escaped and recovered from the throw by cutting the rope that tied him up with his sharp Akatsuki and tumbling down feet-first into a crouch.
"Nephew! NEPHEW! SAAAVE MEE! They've come to take my life! Use your swordsmanship to save your favorite uncle in the world!"
The bad news was that Kinta's sweaty Uncle Kaneda (with Abelia by his side, for some reason) was headed straight for him, right in the waiting claws and blades of one of the most difficult-to-hit opponents he'd ever faced.
Sparks flew as Kinta and Kai raced towards the fat tub of lard bouncing towards them.
The good news was that Kaneda was accompanied by reinforcements. While both the bleeding Captain Nishimura and the hobbling Officer Sugiura weren't exactly in perfect health, their sabers and guns were a welcome addition.
Kinta could've gotten his head scalped by a sneak attack from the Fuuma Clan Ninja had Captain Yusuke not shot at the swinging spider monkey of a shinobi.
Even Dankichi and Matsura got into the action, taking out their pistols now that their rifles were out of commission.
It was bedlam all over the Minakata Western-Eastern-Fusion Mansion.
The shiba dogs that Minakata had been taking care of were howling now. The servants scampered to their quarters, uncertain of what they were supposed to do.
From point blank range, like with Minakata's furious slashes, the Brigands Guild's own Fuuma Clan Ninja danced and swayed from the bullets that ripped apart the wall behind him.
Although it helped that 19th Century firearm technology were infamously inaccurate, thus calling for point-and-shoot, idiot-proof rapid-fire technology like the Gatling Gun or the Maxim Gun that traded quantity for accuracy.
"Find a place to hide, Uncle. We'll handle this," Kinta reassured Kaneda as he sheathed his sword.
The Captain turned towards Officer Sugiura and handed him his saber. "Sugiura-kun, get yourself bandaged and keep guarding Kaneda-san inside the mansion. Matsura-kun, go with him. We'll handle the rest from here."
Yukio winced as he grabbed hold of the weapon, his wound from fighting the Faceless still bleeding. "What about your sword, Captain?"
Nishimura smirked and revealed a sheathed katana on his belt. "I came prepared. I brought a spare."
Outnumbered four to one, Hidaka was soon herded out into the open yard, where he had no ceiling crawlspaces or crevices from underneath the floorboards to escape to.
He spider-walked away from the geysers of earth and lead that surrounded him.
However, the coppers and the swordsman soon realized where Officer Shigeru Michishige, Lieutenant Satoru Sakaguchi, and Sho Kojima were doing all this time since the Brigands Guild struck.
Out in the yard where the koi pond was located were dozens of yakuza armed with cane swords and pistols, their eyes bloodshot, their blades bloodthirsty, and their guns smoking.
"DIE, YA FUCKIN' COPPERS! Fuck you and your shitty, corrupt government!"
"Where is Minakata? We're supposed to kill the Mimawarigumi Battousai, guys! The redheaded one with the scar!"
"Fuuuck, the Battousai is here? That's gonna be a sweet kill, man!"
"Hellyeslet'skilltheBattousai,manlet'skillhimandbecomelegendsman..."
It was through this crowd of drugged-out criminals that Hidaka escaped.
More than a dozen knocked out (or otherwise, Kinta presumed) bodies were strewn all over the yard as well.
A haggard-looking Officer Michishige provided gunfire support to Lieutenant Sakaguchi, who with his saber and his Musou Madden Ryu Waning Stance, took down the nearest gangsters they could get their hands on.
"What's with these yakuza, lieutenant?" Nishimura asked Sakaguchi.
Lieutenant Satoru answered, "I don't know. We just heard a great big crash at one of the walls, and Kojima-san went off to investigate. These gangsters have been shambling in droves inside the compound ever since!"
"Wait, the drunk went off to investigate? Or did he investigate the nearest beerhouse?" quipped Sergeant Atsushi Dankichi. "He might even be in cahoots with these yakuza thugs for all we know!"
"They just came out of nowhere, Captain," added Michishige. "And dammit, they're endless. It feels like we've been taking them down all night."
"What's wrong with them?" asked Sarge, who pistol-whipped one of the Japanese mobsters into submission. "They don't look right."
"It's Hashish," explained Abelia to Dankichi. "That's where assassins... or the Hashashin... get their name. They were called the Users of Hashish or Indian Hemp. They were rumored to carry out their assassinations while drugged out with purified cannabis."
"Impervious to pain or fear," observed Kinta before knocking out another gangster with a sword sheath to the gut.
The Mimawarigumi Battousai eyed his surroundings. Sure enough, he sensed the presence of the Sanada Clan Ninjas and their leader, helping thin out the herd of yakuza through stealth, ambushes, guerilla warfare, and traps all over the mansion.
For every ninja killed in action by the likes of the acrobatic Hidaka, many more were left waiting in the wings, doing their job without anyone even realizing they were there.
Abelia narrowed her eyes. She knew of one other person who'd think of using hemp to turn the yakuza into tougher killing machines. Someone close to her.
Someone who was a part of her as she was a part of him.
Ew, that sounded creepy in her head. Or in any language, actually.
Regardless, she recognized the modus operandi of her "twin". Her "brother".
Then, a certain pompadour-sporting drunk flew in the air and landed right in front of them with a big splash on the koi pond, the dye from his colorful kimono mixed with spots of blood.
"KOJIMA!" shouted Kinta at Sho.
Kojima sputtered and dog-paddled his way unto dry land. "Watch out! The yakuza, they got one helluva backup!"
The perpetrator of the act of throwing Sho into the pond emerged, casting a huge shadow at the Mimawarigumi Battousai, the "Latina" girl beside him, and the rest of the Kanagawa Squadron apprehending the high-out-of-their-minds gangsters.
Like the moon blotting out the sun, this huge gaijin (of course it was another foreigner) eclipsed everyone in sight.
Although he was nowhere near the size of the supernaturally gigantic Fuji from the Juppon Gatana, he was thick, long, huge, and muscular enough to make every Japanese person in his midst look like little children.
On one beefy arm was his trusty ax with the head big enough to cut a carriage or a horse in half. On another beefy arm, he held the masked heads of Sanada Clan Ninjas that the Kanagawa police weren't even aware were surrounding the Minakata Mansion.
"Wer ist der Nächste? (Who's next?)" said the towering, two-meter behemoth from Deutschland, his thick, veined muscles bursting out of his leather armor like an overstuffed sausage.
Kinta grit his teeth. That goliath was probably the man who busted through a wall to get into the yard of the mansion. And he, like Hidaka, was dangerous enough to detect the presence of the Sanada Ninjas and take them out.
Ironic, seeing that once upon a time, the Sanadas and the Brigands Guild were united under a common bond.
He was Hugo Lentz, Abelia remembered: A German lumberjack who somehow ended up being part of the age-old syndicate of thieves, assassins, and masterminds known as the Brigands Guild.
'So Cain brought his friends from the Brigands Guild with him. He even got Papa to join in on the fun,' the young La Cerca thought with a gulp. 'But why are they targeting the Minakatas specifically?'
Abelia stayed close to Sergeant Dankichi, who did his best to protect her from the growing legion of druggie zombie thugs before them.
'This doesn't seem like any ordinary heist or assassination mission the Brigands would usually take if they're all working together like this. They've even done background checks on Kinta-sama and his entire family!'
She remembered the times when the Brigands Guild would split up in teams and compete against one another during those rare times they had a common goal, like when they were treasure hunting or off to steal national secrets.
They were mercenaries for hire, after all. It was only the rarest of occasions when they'd team up; usually when they had a common enemy.
What the hell did the Minakatas do to the Brigands Guild?
As for the wet Sho, he disappeared into the house for a minute to dry himself off and to take one of the bottles of wine still left in the wine cabinet (a half-finished bottle of red wine made of Pinot noir grapes, to be more specific).
"Ah, that hit the shpot! Hic!" he said, hiccupping. "Want shome? Here ya go!"
"Eh?"
He then offered a "drink" to one of the yakuza, cheering, "KAMPAI!" before smashing his empty bottle on the distracted thug's noggin.
Somewhere in the open rice fields and dirt roads of Hiroshima, on December 1884 before the break of dawn...
Munenori Minoe (sometimes known as Kaede Morinaga, other times known as the Battousai of Speed) breathed in and out deeply. He had just finished his morning jog, checking out of the inn that Chizuru Raikouji footed the bill for.
With two sticks on hand (one short, one long), he did warm-ups and fought some imaginary enemies or memories of real ones, particularly the ones that continued living after encountering the likes of him. Or his alter ego.
He concentrated on his footwork while ducking, bobbing, and weaving through two ropes tied like intersecting clotheslines on opposite trees.
He remembered his most difficult fights, matches, and spars against top swordsmen, like his master, Doraku Akatsuki. Or the inimitable one-man army of the Hidden Christians, Shogo Amakusa.
Finally, there was the man whom Shogo called the Bible of Japanese Swordsmanship. A samurai who was hard to hit yet could hit you back with surgical precision.
A pure technician. A finesse fighter who could release the most devastating blows with pinpoint accuracy.
Kinta Minakata.
Minoe fell into his Cancer Stance and worked in his multiple means of defense, from doing the Protective Shell kata (exercise drills) to using his keen Antenna senses to detect the overhanging ropes even with his one exposed eye closed.
He could count on one hand the number of times he was able to hit Kinta cleanly.
He even used his bread-and-butter trick against Minakata, which was to lure enemies to attack at the blind spot from by his eye patch, only for him to detect them with his other senses and counterattack with impunity.
The careful Mimawarigumi Battousai never bit the bait.
It was a waiting game of finding openings when he, the defensive Minoe, and the elusive Kinta sparred. Not exactly an exciting match to watch for bystanders who want a bloody street fight, but it was definitely a tense "shogi" match for the ones who fought it.
However, from the messages he received from Kaede when she took over their body, her fights with Minakata were sights to behold as long as she could last.
She hated fighting against him, though. She called him a coward who ran away and took his sweet time to attack. The again, all she knew was to attack and she had zero defense.
Which probably meant, reading between the lines, that she had an even harder time hitting him clean even as he countered her relentless attacks from the Scorpio Stance.
He then felt the presence of someone sneaking up from behind him.
"I KNEW IT! I knew you were off training somewhere else all this time!" blurted out Yahiko Myojin from behind Minoe.
'What? Yahiko-chi...?' Munenori thought. His eye patch slipped and his wig fell, exposing his short, neck-length red hair as his consciousness faded on that last particular thought.
The Tokyo Samurai Descendant had actually sneaked off from bed after spotting Munenori leave from their inn in the middle of the early morn. "You couldn't be that good if you weren't training your AURK KOFF...!"
"KYAAA! SCORPION NEST!"
Thankfully, Kaede had sticks in her hands instead of blades that would've punctured Myojin like a pincushion.
"Oh. It's you," Morinaga said to the crouching and prostrate Yahiko. "Sorry 'bout that. You scared me."
"S'alright," the black-and-blue Yahiko croaked, still grabbing hold of his family jewels.
She blinked and looked around. "Where am I?" She then dropped one of the sticks she was holding in order to slap her palm into her face. "Lemme guess. Minoe's been training again."
"U-huh."
Ugh. Didn't he know that she was already training hard enough for the both of them? He was going to run their shared body ragged by training "behind her back".
Tapping her long stick on her chin, Kaede then smiled, winked, and asked, "Since we're here and all... Wanna spar, Urchin Head?"
"Urchin Head? You're the one to talk, Carrot Top!"
She licked her lips, picked up the short stick she'd dropped before bouncing into action, her heels never touching the ground. She was on her toes as she swung back and forth, bouncing up and down...
"PERVERT!" She conked Yahiko on the noggin after realizing where he was staring, then crossed her arms over her chest. "Where do you think you're looking?"
"Don't bounce around like that if you don't want me to stare!" complained the Son of Tokyo Samurai while massaging the lump on his head.
"SWARMING BARBS!"
"...AH! Time out! OW! I wasn't ready! OUCH!"
She had some steam to vent. For some reason, she "awoke" in the middle of remembering how frustrating of an opponent Amakusa's Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior) was, always forcing his opponent to press the action while backpedaling.
As expected of one of the few men skilled enough to defeat the great Amakusa in a duel.
That was why in their inner circle, he was known by another Battousai-based nickname.
Back in the chaotic yard of the Minakata Western-Eastern-Fusion Mansion, small snowflakes started falling on the sticky ground filled with splatters of blood.
"Huh? What the hell is this? Who threw a net on me?!" yelped Officer Shigeru, his breath producing a fog.
A couple of (suddenly visible) Sanada Ninjas plus Officer Michishige ended up tangled within a net of ropes woven by the hidden Hidaka.
"Well, well. Look at what my web has caught," said the goggled villain, his thin but sharp reverse-grip blades unsheathed. "Dinner's ready."
Kai was about to make their heads roll with a whirling slash when his blades were parried by the iaijutsu slash of Lieutenant Sakaguchi.
'Who are these other masked people? Friends? Foes?' thought Satoru, realizing that he'd been seeing glimpses of these men in black everywhere all this time.
"YOU!" came the muffled shriek of Kai at Satoru while the copper followed through his quick-draw slash with another slash that freed the ninjas (who disappeared as soon as they regained movement) and his fellow police officer from the net.
"Get in my way, will you? Kudo...!"
"!" was what Sakaguchi thought while sheathing his sword, fumbling a bit as the shinobi crawled at him with gangly limbs and sharp knives. Who the hell were these circus freak rejects?
Wait, did that man just call him "Kudo"?
At any rate, Minakata ended up coming from behind Satoru. They drew their swords in tandem with him... a yin-yang of the Waning Stance and the Waxing Stance... thus scaring the ninja away with the sudden flashes of naked steel.
"Kinta-kun! I knew I could count on you!" cheered Satoru. "Er, I mean, Minakata-san...?"
Kinta frowned, his phantom cross scar that covered his whole face becoming more visible as his facial muscles tensed.
For some reason, the relentless barking of the dogs in the house went dead silent, perhaps drowned out by the clash of swords and firing of guns from the officers of the law and the criminal scum assisting the Brigands Guild.
"TSUNAMI (TIDAL WAVE)!"
The reinvigorated, pink-cheeked Sho threw multiple coins in the air and used them to guide his Tidal Wave strikes with his long stick, his six-fingered hands a blur at catching the Japanese pennies from heaven while at the same time batting away or socking everyone within his reach.
The German lumberjack grinned and grunted something in his native tongue before throwing the heads of the people he'd already killed at the twelve-fingered drunk in order to distract him then swinging his huge ax with two hands instead of one.
Sho screeched (like anyone would) at the pale, blue-in-the-face heads thrown right at his own face, batting him away with his drying-pole-long stick with hollow cracks and thuds. "YEUGGH! You shick, shick man!"
The white-faced Kojima's own head would've been added to Hugo's macabre collection of heads had a certain hatamoto-class retainer and ex-samurai not come to his rescue.
"Hangetsu O Tsuku Nari (Half Moon Slash)."
The Mimawarigumi Battousai and his trusty Akatsuki katana cracked and deflected the ax Hugo held with enough force to make the big lummox stumble and stagger backwards.
"Thanksh, Kagemusha! I owe you one!" said Kojima, who finished another bottle of sake before puking on the nearest attacking, hash-powered yakuza then clubbing him unconscious (not necessarily in that order).
"Careful with that dude! Ya can't put him down in one hit! Believe me, me and your shinobi friendsh tried!"
Guffawing, Lentz bull-rushed Kinta, his huge ax in tow, barreling over yakuza and copper alike in order to slice the swordsman in twain in one fell swoop.
Everyone stayed out of the way of Kinta and Hugo's way.
The hairy, armored man then experienced déjà vu once the Mimawarigumi Battousai continuously dodged to his left (Kinta's right) in a clockwise fashion to avoid his ax blitzkrieg.
He moved fast for a big guy, though.
Soon, many a Grecian replica statue fell and crumbled one by one as Lentz swung his ax in every which way. Every marble figure started to look a lot like the Venus De Milo, with all their limbs amputated and whatnot.
The German chased the Japanese over and over, his weapon slicing up pillars, lawn ornaments, tree branches, bushes, and fixtures as well as splitting the earth open like an earthquake would.
To Lentz, it was like fighting the untouchable, rope-swinging Hidaka. Were the Japanese so cowardly and dishonorable to not stand their ground when fighting?
At least Lucas Grant, a Eurasian mix, had the decency to fight like a man!
Speaking of Kai, it was at that specific moment that the shinobi reappeared from behind the retreating samurai, intending to tie him up so that his comrade, Hugo, would have a clear shot of him to hack his neck repeatedly like with Lizzie Borden's mother and father just eight years later (in 1892) in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Instead of lassoing the swordsman Minakata, Kai's rope ended up tied around the drying pole of an inebriated Sho.
"I'm calling in da favor earlier, Kinta," said Kojima, who pulled at Hidaka's ropes and spooled them into his curved staff. "Let'sh trade. You get da lummox, I get da bug!"
Minakata turned, nodded at Sho, and went back to pivoting on his heels and avoiding the chopping attacks of the humongous Hugo, who at this point looked a lot like Shishio's henchman Senkaku when he fought Kenshin for the first time.
Meanwhile, like a spider against its natural predator the gangly frog (or perhaps a person-sized drunken person), whenever Hidaka attempted to attack the drunkard, he got squashed by a punch, kick, or stick wallop from crazy, unorthodox angles.
Lentz attacked and attacked and attacked, injuring not only the ninjas and the officers around him, but also chopping up several of the drugged-up yakuza. He didn't differentiate much from friend or foe.
Everyone in his way... even his fellow Brigands Guild members... were his enemy.
The relentless golem shouted at Kinta to fight like a man in his native tongue, but all anyone could understand from him were guttural, growling sounds (which was what German sounded like to many who didn't speak it).
That was, until Minakata nailed Hugo with a deep iaijutsu strike to the body: His signature, twice-hitting iaijutsu strike, the Mangetsu O Tsuku Nari (Full Moon Slash).
Hugo was actually telling Kinta, "Hit me, you Far Eastern coward! Hit me with your best shot! HIT ME!" And so the swordsman approved of his request, unwittingly enough.
Damn. That one stung. This man wasn't like the acrobatic Hidaka after all, realized Lentz.
However, even Minakata had to take pause at what happened. This was one of the few times his Full Moon Slash hit someone clean yet he didn't die. Or at least go down.
Not only that, but his opponent's ax managed to clip his turning heel at the last second, skinning it and coating his white sock with blood.
With the Hitokiri Gensai, the man had superb footwork with quick enough reflexes to avoid even the inhumanely quick Blue Moon Slash.
With this... man-beast, it was like slashing through a boulder or solid brick.
Even though Hugo wore leather armor, Kinta still should've cut him deeper. 'What was he made of?' thought the former Kagemusha.
Aside from the aggressive ax-wielding Lentz and the precise surgical swordsman Minakata, one other pair that both copper and yakuza avoided like the plague were Kojima and Hidaka.
They were a tangled web of ropes, gangly limbs, broken blades, bad bug-related puns, blunt force trauma, and drunken stupor.
As though he had eyes at the back of his head, Hidaka ducked an incoming stick strike that would've hit him from behind with Sho's lengthy drying pole weapon.
Then, as Kojima overextended himself, Kai slipped from his twelve-fingered clutches, hooked his grappling hook to a nearby tree, and swung to safety away from him.
The ninja then let his roped knives rain upon the drunk from above.
As Kojima himself dodged, deflected, and parried the falling, ripping steel from the sky, Hidaka wrapped another rope around the tree then let it unwrap so that he'd swing away like a slingshot at his nemesis's blind spot.
Hurricane Kai's reverse-grip blades scraped at the nape of the pompadour-sporting drunk, drawing blood and nearly decapitating him.
However, because Sho had to do a last-minute dodge while off-balance, he flopped and got ripped apart by the raining blades that he wasn't able to avoid.
Regardless, Kojima scrambled up and did his Tidal Wave once more.
To avoid it, Kai did to Sho what he did to Kinta, which was to slip, bob, and weave the first three slowest strikes, get out of the pocket for the last six sudden strikes, then attack at the ninth strike from a distance.
Nevertheless, not only did Kojima break the chain combo mid-strike, he also feinted doing his fastest strikes then pulled at Hidaka's ensuing rope spear counter to cut the distance between them and restart the Tsunami while the goggle-eyed man-spider was caught unawares.
Kai again slipped and slid away from the attack that built momentum after every strike from inside the pocket then tried to again sidestep his way to safety, but Kojima sidestepped along with him to intercept him.
Sho then burped at Kai's face, the scent of booze distracting the ninja.
"BLAAARFG!"
"Aaah! That stinks!"
Thusly, the six last fastest and strongest strikes landed unimpeded.
After the nauseated Hidaka's thin blades broke from the speed of the curved wooden long pole's wallops, he attempted to tie Sho up with a clinch (and then stab him up close) before the ninth "wave" of the Tsunami could hit him.
Alas, the perceptive drunkard managed to control the distance by bending backwards to give him some room to attack then attacking upward from an awkward angle with enough leeway for his ninth strongest and fastest strike to crack the ninja's skull.
That acrobatic dodge was something Kai was used to doing to others, not the other way around.
He never knew drunken kickboxing plus Japanese swordsmanship with an oversized stick could be so dangerous.
The Kanagawa Police Squad plus Kinta, Sho, and Abelia fell back into the mansion, surrounded by the ever-increasing yazuka that were so stoned out of their minds they were immune to pain, herding them into the house, cornering them, and leaving them with nowhere left to run or hide.
Like a medic, Abelia had bandages and gauzes ready for all the men of that unit. She even let them smoke a little marijuana through a hookah to relieve some of their pain.
"This is a good thing. Earlier, they tried to do a divide and conquer tactic by taking out their targets separately before we could get to them," Captain Nishimura reassured his men. "At least now that we're all together, we'll have both Minakatas in our custody and within sight."
"Jusht like I told ya, right?" slurred Sho to the Yokohama Captain.
The police squad and the people in their protection (although with Kinta, it seemed like the other way around) searched high and low for any sign of Kaneda, Kazuki, and Yoshio.
Their worst fears came to realization after getting to the open ballroom, spotting Sugiura slumped to the ground in a pool of his blood and the "Budai" cringing beside him.
"P-Please don't kill me! I'll pay you anything! I'll work pro bono for your criminal defense! Just please, spare meee!" groveled the man-pig.
As for Matsura, he knelt in front of the two officers, his back turned away from them while his trembling hand gripped a broken saber. His eyes staring at nothingness. His skin as white as cold porcelain.
"Captain, officer down! Sugiura-kun's hurt!" shouted Satoru. "Matsura-kun is also in shock!"
Right in the middle of the huge, cavernous quarters was John "The Faceless" Rathbone (also known as Abelia's father Fabian La Cerca and Cain's not-father Seth Merrick), who for some reason swung his rapier and dagger at seemingly nothing.
"What the hell is going on?" blurted out Michishige, his gun drawn and aimed shakily as the... leathery monstrosity before them. "And what the hell is that?"
"Rathbone," said the Kanagawa Captain, recognizing the fencing style. "A gaijin spy with many names and disguises who claims to have no face."
"Papa...!" cried out the Spaniard girl.
"Abelia, mi amor, you've been a naughty girl," said Fabian. "I'll deal with you later, though. Daddy's busy at the moment."
She considered throwing another stun grenade at him, but the room was too big and the man they were supposed to protect, Kaneda, was too far away. Also, her father would expect it this time.
The Faceless had taken off his Nishimura skin mask and substituted it with another mask that looked more like a mask than a disguise: A studded leather one with grills for a mouth and slits for eyes.
His stolen police uniform was also discarded, revealing underneath it an outfit full of chains, straps, buckles, spikes, a corset, and a leather apron. A leather-bound nightmare that was probably a product of Victorian Era repression.
"Come now. Is this the best that the Sanada Clan Ninjas can do?" John said to his imaginary friends. In Japanese, no less. Like the cuckoo that he was.
Then, like magic, a ninja appeared out of thin air, skewered by Rathbone's rapier.
"!?" thought everyone in the room save for Minakata, who'd actually hired the ninjas to do his snooping for him.
"How disappointing. Is this how soft and weak the Sanada Ninjas have become after the Japanese Civil War ended? I fear for the future of Japan and Asia in terms of warfare."
Just as the Faceless was about to finish off the ninja he stabbed, he deflected a kunai to his head with his dagger, distracting him long enough for the injured shinobi to escape in a puff of smoke.
From there, a downpour of sharp steel much thicker than the one Kai unleashed upon Sho rained down knives, daggers, and shuriken at the fencing expert.
"Now that's more like it," appraised John. "Good work, li'l Takae. You do your father proud. You're just like him when he was still at his prime."
"..." thought the invisible Kaita Takae, Rathbone's opponent.
Kinta gripped the handle of his weapon tight. Rathbone was fighting the leader of the Sanada Ninja Clan. The man whose father, the former leader, died while fighting Battousai (or so he heard).
Like an umbrella, the Faceless whirled and twirled his rapier around, deflecting the sharp objects that fell above him towards each other, making them clatter on the ground away from his person.
He was actually doing repeated Doubles, otherwise known as attacks or ripostes that involved doing a complete circle around the opponent's blade that finished in the opposite line.
At the same time, his dagger parried, countered, and riposted against an invisible enemy, with sparks flying all that time.
Most importantly, neither the blades that rained upon John nor the (presumably) ninja that no one else but he could see could touch him at all.
Sho rubbed his bleary eyes, unable to believe what he saw. This leather-bound freak of nature was able to do what he couldn't against a storm of falling rope knives.
The epic battle between the unseen ninja and the fencer were interrupted by shots fired by the Kanagawa forces.
"Oh. How quaint. Welcome back, officers," said Rathbone, who bowed and then did a low Passata Sotto (Pass Under) lunge to avoid the gunshots aimed at him.
He even upturned the high and low tables and tatami mats of the mostly western ballroom with eastern aspects in its design to keep the bullets from hitting him.
A loud crash was heard at the locked entrance of the home, followed by a dozen slipper-wearing footsteps, some of which were heard thumping on the ceiling instead of the floor. It was probably the hulking Lentz and the stoned yakuza thugs plus Hidaka entering the premises.
Minakata grabbed at the air, his hand landing on the shoulder of Masahiro Takae's camouflaged son, Kaita (the one he mistook for an enemy due to his invisibility trick earlier that night).
He squeezed the shoulder tightly and turned the ninja aside before falling into the Waning Stance right in front of this "Rathbone" person. Abelia's father.
"Thank you," Kinta whispered to Kaita before saying aloud, "Take care of the Brigands Guild. I'll deal with this man."
Minakata requested this to not only the officers but also the young (and unseen) Sanada Ninja Leader.
Thusly, before Hugo, Kai, and the rest of their surviving yakuza company figured out what was happening, they were hit with an indoor squall of steel death that ripped them to shreds.
"OW! What the hell is this!?"
"GOT IN HIMMEL! (Good heavens!) Was ist das? (What is this?) HIDAKA! ANHALTEN! (STOP!)"
"Hey, Goggles! Your daggers are falling out of your ass and hitting yer own allies!"
"Those daggers are not mine, you fools! It's from one of those damned ninjas that the Minakatas hired to protect themselves!"
"All right! Fan out and keep those yakuza and assassins at bay, men!" ordered Captain Nishimura, his sheathed katana in tow. "Lieutenant! Stay with me and help me rescue Matsura-kun and Sugiura-kun from the Faceless!"
"Yessir," said Satoru with a salute, his saber at the ready.
"KINTA-SAMA, NO!" shouted Abelia, but Sakaguchi grabbed her hand and led her away.
"Ah. The man of the hour." John smiled after spotting the red-haired, white-garbed Kinta. "I've been looking forward to this."
To Minakata's surprise, the Faceless saluted with his blade, sheathed both his weapons, and offered a handshake to the samurai.
"The famous Mimawarigumi Battousai. Minakata Kinta, I presume? Delighted to meet you. I'm John Rathbone of the Brigands Guild. How do you do?"
"..." Unsure of what else to do, Kinta bowed at John, ignoring his outstretched hand.
Rathbone chuckled. "Very well. Let's fight like gentlemen. En garde."
Meanwhile, Sho took this opportunity to rescue the fat tub of lard who called him a homeless hobo, hefting the sweaty obese man's plump arm over his shoulders.
"Y-You! H-Hobo...!" Kaneda struggled and weakly slapped his sausage fingers at Sho's stubbly face. "Y-You let all these thugs in because you're in cahoots with them, right? TRAITOR...! W-Wait... EEEK! Please don't hurt me! I'LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! MONEY! WOMEN! ALCOHOL! LOTS OF ALCOHOL!"
"...Well, ishn't thish jusht peachy? This ish a perfect represhenshon of Japan culture clashesh, y'know?" slurred Sho, wiping Kaneda's sweaty face with a handkerchief.
Kinta's fat uncle blurted out, "...What are you mumbling about?"
"Hic. The poor lifting the ungrateful, shelf-entitled rich on their backsh. Geddit?" The hiccoughing drunkard grinned. "How doesh it feel to be shaved by a filthy peashant?"
The lawyer turned away and swallowed hard, his face grimacing from the bitter aftertaste of his own words.
"You're welcome," said a smirking Sho. "I'm kiddin'. Thish ish thanksh for the booze."
The captain and his lieutenant went to Sugiura and Matsura's aid in the meantime.
Captain Nishimura slapped Matsura and shouted, "Snap out of it! You're a man! Act like one!"
"Can you stand?" asked Satoru to Yoshio after Abelia was done bandaging him.
Sugiura nodded, murmured something under his breath, then requested for a cigarette and a gun. "I wanna kill that freak of nature."
The lieutenant chuckled. "I'm sorry, Minakata-san has dibs. Get in line."
However, Satoru soon grit his teeth and chewed on his nails after seeing the Mimawarigumi Battousai's normally precise blows parried by the Faceless's sturdy and lightning fast rapier.
'Dammit. What's going on, Kinta-kun?!' thought Lieutenant Sakaguchi.
Thanks to his looser stance and his longer reach, Rathbone never fell for the countless feints of the Japanese swordsman, his interrogative thrusts allowing him to tell what was a feint and what was a fully committed attack every time.
And the fencer had a lot of room for him to backpedal with. The light-on-his-feet Rathbone danced in and out of Minakata's strike zone in a way that few Japanese swordsmen would dare.
Although they were both hard to hit with seeming perpetual movement that relied heavily on footwork, John didn't waste any movement the same way that Kai would.
Actually, John's conservative style of swordsmanship resembled Kinta's way of fighting more than Kai's rope-based acrobatics. Only Rathbone was somehow... better at it than either Hidaka or Minakata.
For one thing, Kai himself noticed how, unlike him, the Faceless managed to land a lot of hits and near-hits all over the former Kagemusha's body while at the same time slipping a lot of Waning Stance slashes.
Minakata decided to increase his aggression on the backpedaling fencer and shift to the Musou Madden Ryu's Waxing Stance, which looked more like a normal sword-drawing stance compared to the back-turned form that hid the blade from the opponent's view.
Because iaijutsu wasn't a flashy style for showboating and missing strikes from that particular stance could lead to certain death, he only used sword-drawing as his opening salvo to start his drawn sword combinations. He did more unsheathed strikes than sheathed ones this time around.
However, the average Japanese swordsman simply wasn't used with the multiple layers of complexity of duelist fencing.
Even though whenever Kinta landed, he made the stronger, deeper strikes that lacerated Rathbone, he didn't land enough and his offensive stance opened him up to parries, feints, ripostes, and counters, which were the average fencer's bread and butter.
Whenever Minakata did a Simple Attack, Rathbone answered with a Parry and Riposte. Whenever Kinta feinted an attack to draw out the parry (a Compound Attack), John either recovered and did a Reprise or executed a Counterattack during the feint itself.
The Mimawarigumi Battousai adjusted and parried every counterattack so that he could land his own riposte (or kaeshi in Japanese), which in fencing terms meant he was doing a Counter Time.
However, Rathbone countered that counter by feinting a counterattack and countering the parry, which in fencing terms was called the Feint in Time.
Minakata soon figured out that a Simple Attack could defeat a Feint in Time, but John's reaction time was so instantaneous, he could turn a Feint in Time into a Parry and Riposte in half a heartbeat, his dagger serving as his backup shield.
Thus they completed the whole Tactical Wheel.
Regardless, the Faceless's fencing mastery made the Mimawarigumi Battousai's swordsmanship look simple, slow, and primitive. Amateurish.
The Japanese swordsman looked like a student sparring against his master. His better.
It didn't help that Kinta reacted to every Appel (Foot Stomp Feint) from John, mistaking it for a Ballestra (Jumping Lunge) and leaving him open to counters and parry-ripostes.
At the corner of his eye, while dealing with the drugged-out yakuza horde, the acrobatic spider ninja, and that huge muscleman lumberjack, Yokohama Captain Nishimura observed the fight between the two sword masters, their swords tapping at each other with countless parries.
In terms of speed, the gaijin fencer and the former samurai were about equal. However, thanks to the fluid motion and movement of the ninja-like fencing expert, he made Kinta look too rigid, all his major blows blocked by John's relaxed, lightweight style.
He couldn't believe his eyes, but he had to accept facts. The Mimawarigumi Battousai had finally met his match overseas.
'I have to do something. Minakata-san might lose!'
As Minakata stumbled, the captain switched places with him, holding his bloody katana vertically in front of him with his two hands in true Nakanishi-Ha Itto Ryu fashion.
"I'll cut your flimsy sword down to size!" Yusuke said, swinging his Japanese blade to test the might of the foreign weapon the same way the Gaijin Battousai assessed the hardness of what he called "overrated knives the size of cutlasses" (to paraphrase).
His concentration high and his blade much more lightning fast than a mere saber, the traditionally trained swordsman captain feinted and attacked the one-handed, lightweight, and looser stance of the Faceless.
However, the rapier wasn't the flimsy weapon that the Japanese thought it was. It held its own against the rigid and sharp katana... the same weapon known to be able to cut brick-hard ice blocks cleanly in half like an ax... with every parry.
Furthermore, for every beat (a simple preparatory motion) and strike that the swordsman did that moved him forward, the fencer backed off, maintaining the neutral distance before them.
This allowed Rathbone to see the strikes from a mile away and deflect them with a series of deflections. Then, as they approached a corner, he sidestepped and finished with an easy Beat Parry Thrust that defused the off-balance copper's attack, stabbing the officer to the knee with a Passata Sotto thrust.
"!?"
Nishimura dropped down like a sack of potatoes, not knowing what had hit him.
"Your strikes are too rigid. Too predictable. Like your personality. As expected of Orientals."
Actually, sidestepping and hits to the thighs and knees were illegal when it came to fencing as a sport (with guards, head gear, and a blunted epee tip).
In kendo with a shinai (bamboo blade) or a bokken (wooden word), you weren't allowed to throw the weapon at the opponent or hit below the belt as well.
However, this wasn't fencing as a sport or kendo with rules. This was pure swordsmanship as used by assassins and warlords with a license to kill.
Before Rathbone could deliver his coup de grace (which was actually another feint) on Yusuke, Kinta charged and let his sword fly out of his scabbard.
Then again, the Faceless was expecting this.
Rathbone did a double-bladed block from his dagger and rapier that was reminiscent of the Scissor Grip from Munenori Minoe's Cancer Stance, catching the sword before it could complete its arc and deliver a Full Moon Slash.
"A rematch so soon?" asked John.
"..."
To Rathbone's surprise, Minakata then began mixing up his offense.
Instead of using the Full Moon and Half Moon Slashes that telegraphed his intentions the same way a spinning roundhouse kick or a wild haymaker would, he started using the more sublime moves in his arsenal.
For example, Kinta utilized the rest of his slashes that were based on the phases of the moon, from the Waxing Gibbous and Waxing Crescent Slash to the Waning Gibbous and Waning Crescent Slash.
They all varied in strength and speed, with the weakest strikes being the fastest and the strongest strikes being the slowest.
He even threw in the Young (Waxing) or Old (Waning) Moon Slash that were his fastest strikes but could only produce flesh wounds.
Most importantly, all these moves had the same preparatory iaijutsu stance, so it became harder for the Faceless to counter or parry them because he wasn't sure which strike was coming.
These were mind game tactics to confound even a counterattacking fencing expert like Rathbone, Tactical Wheel or no.
Once Lentz got the opportunity to see the Mimawarigumi Battousai and the Faceless in action for the first time, he realized who Kinta reminded him of in terms of his fighting style.
Minakata's defense-heavy, conservative, yet accurate swordsmanship reminded him of John Rathbone's own pinpoint-perfect fencing abilities.
'They're the same,' Hugo realized. 'Cut from the same cloth. Swordsmen masters. Verdammt. Can Grandpa Merrick win against this younger version of himself?'
From there, the real duel began.
To Be Continued...
The Faceless was actually saying a famous Peter Sellers quote at the end of the cold open. Anyway, I do love interesting antagonists like the ones found in Batman's Rogues Gallery.
Also, yes, Lentz here refers to that Lentz from the infamous Black Knights Arc of the Rurouni Kenshin anime (hence the presence of the Sanada Ninjas).
Salamat,
Abdiel