The much-debated "dream" fight between expert fencer versus samurai master wasn't actually an unprecedented, mostly theoretical event.
There were actual historical records of Portuguese swordsmen crossing swords with Japanese swordsmen (mostly of the Wako or Wokou pirate variety).
In fact, many a nihontou (Japanese sword) broke against the swords and even the daggers of these dual-wielding European fencers.
During the 15th Century, European blacksmiths and metallurgy were many leagues ahead of their Asian counterparts, producing better weapons at a faster rate with fewer impurities than Japanese "pig" steel.
Also, a big part of why dueling was outlawed in France around that time was because most duels ended with both participants dead from rapier stabbings, so the country started running out of nobles thanks to the dangerous tradition.
Indeed, rapiers were quite the deadly weapons.
However, the nihontou itself was a feared, formidable blade by anyone who'd ever tasted its sharpness.
While the Japanese sword made of reinforced impure steel and sprinkled with powdered carbon usually broke against the superior, naturally carbon-rich European steel of the Portuguese's espada, a chipped or broken katana was still quite the sharp, dismembering sword.
Therefore, most matches between kenjutsu and fencing masters also ended in the mutual destruction of both participants more often than not.
Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction Continuation Story by Chester Castañeda
The Faceless's Rathbone persona is based off old-timey English actor and champion fencer, Basil Rathbone, best known for his role as the famous detective's detective, Sherlock Holmes.
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 47: Family Feud
December 1884, in Yokohama, at one of many Minakata Mansions across Japan...
The snow started pouring thicker and thicker, the patches of white dyed with splotches of red.
Kinta Minakata began deflecting John Rathbone's pendulum-like thrusts with his Young Moon Slash from the Waxing Stance or Old Moon Slash from the Waning Stance before sidestepping to his right to avoid full reprisal, waiting for the opportunity to counter.
This offset John's probing, range-finding strike that set up all of his complex fencing moves and tested whether the Japanese swordsman was fully committed to attack or not.
As for the parries and ripostes of the Faceless, even though kenjutsu (classical Japanese swordsmanship) and kendo (the sport version of kenjutsu) lacked the attacking, feinting, blocking, and counterattacking complexity of fencing, it still had an equivalent to ripostes (attacks following blocks, parries, and openings) called the Kaeshi or Gaeshi.
The kenjutsu equivalent of the riposte was a return slash or thrust following a parried, deflected, or missed attack as well as a follow-up action to keep an opponent from taking advantage of an opening. So the gaeshi wasn't only a riposte but could also serve as a reprise, remise, or counterattack.
The kaeshi was also seen in action in the signature move of the famous Japanese swordsman Kojiro Sasaki: The Tsubame Gaeshi (Swallow Return).
At any rate, as complex and elegant as fencing appeared compared to the more utilitarian kenjutsu, sometimes simplicity was best and the more streamlined technique that didn't require overthinking things tended to win the day.
This was certainly the case for Kinta as he shifted from the more aggressive Waxing Stance to his favored defensive Waning Stance, countering everything that Rathbone threw at him with smart feints, slips, sidesteps, and an almost telepathic usage of the kaeshi at the right place and time.
Minakata had drawn out enough of Rathbone's different techniques and Tactical Wheel mind games to figure out his fighting style.
The fencing master had indeed met his equal.
"You show him who's boss, Mimawarigumi Battousai! YAMATO DAMASHI (JAPANESE PRIDE)!" were Sergeant Atsushi Dankichi's words of encouragement while struggling against a cane-sword-wielding yakuza.
"My, my. Aren't you the rambunctious rapscallion? So young, yet already so skilled. The experience of an old master with the reflexes of a young man. A swordsman in his prime." Rathbone chuckled. "Blimey, I'll be honest. I haven't had this much fun in ages."
However, throughout all their exchanges, the Mimawarigumi Battousai couldn't land his killing blow at Rathbone. His normally precise strikes always missed their mark by a couple of inches. Somehow.
In response to this change in tactics, from bouncing around on the balls of his feet, Rathbone began breaking his rhythm to something less predictable.
Sometimes he walked and stalked Minakata, other times he returned to his seemingly perpetual state of Passe Arriere (Pass Backwards or backpedaling). He bobbed and weaved, moving around without a specific pattern so that he couldn't get timed by a master swordsman who himself was a genius counterattacking expert.
This old dog still had a few more old tricks up his sleeve.
From then on, they waged a war of attrition. In prizefighting terms, they ended up shadowboxing each other instead of sparring, their excellent defense and psychic ability to read each other's moves offsetting their normally accurate offense and counters.
They couldn't even touch each other any longer.
They couldn't even do their parries correctly, their swords missing each other by hairbreadths as they attempted to slip in more attacks and counters, which also missed more often than not.
By now, they knew each other's tactics so well it looked like they'd choreographed a sword dance where neither of them could get hit.
Kinta never allowed Rathbone to go beyond the Simple Attack to Compound Attack stage of the Tactical Wheel. The Faceless's every attempt at a Counterattack, Counter Time, or Feint in Time was reset by a sidestep followed by an attack, counterattack, or gaeshi on what was supposed to be a fake opening.
John responded by keeping his distance to better gauge the speed of every similar-looking slash and kaeshi without counterattacking too early or too late. He also started picking his spots more often to avoid getting cut up by Japan's razor-sharp version of the cutlass.
Unnoticed by the two swordsmen who were stuck in their own little world, the outnumbered Kanagawa Police Squad... plus three civilians: a Hispanic(?) girl, a fat cat lawyer, and a drunken hobo... had fallen back near the ballroom while the hashish-high yakuza army marched forward along with their ax-wielding German giant and rope-dart-throwing goggled ninja.
In between shooting at each other with guns or crossing saber blades, the squadron of cops and horde of mobsters marveled at the duel before them between two evenly matched, evenly skilled foes by the periphery of their visions.
The duel soon culminated to the Mimawarigumi Battousai taking a chance and slashing apart the Faceless's leather mask within the dual wielder's striking range just as Rathbone, in turn, reopened part of the faint cross-shaped scar on the Kinta's own face with his dagger.
Rathbone's mask fell to the ground, replaced with a featureless face with no mouth or eyes.
This time around, he truly was the Faceless.
"..."
"You've taken off my mask but you haven't taken off yours. Seems a tad unfair," said John.
Kinta answered, "I have nothing to hide."
"Oh, but you do. Your mask... your Tatemae (Public Facade)... of an honorable, incorruptible samurai who rights wrongs hides your Honne (True Feelings) as a weeping orphan who inherited the sins of his parents, rejected by the rest of your family and society, your reputation soiled and broken forever."
For the first time, the implacable Minakata shook, and Rathbone started landing strikes again.
"I know about your history and heritage. About your adulterer mother. Your cuckold father. About the Minakatas and the Akahoris. About your never-ending quest to bring honor to the Minakata name. The lengths you've gone in order to clear your soiled name impresses and saddens me, you personification of Japanese guilt and shame culture!"
His face scar fully visible, painted red by his own blood, Minakata took one look at Rathbone and said, "You've worn so many masks. Lied to yourself so many times. Do you even know who you are anymore?"
He then cut the distance between them using iaijutsu and chaining moon phase slashes together to smother his opponent with attacks before he could counter.
"Ohoho. That's adorable. Turning my own words against me. Like you Japanese say, it's a hundred years too early for you to do that to me, you li'l whelp," said the elderly man after doing a deflecting, semicircular Double on the Akatsuki (Red Moon) sword to break the combo.
While it was Kinta who landed the deeper, deadlier blows, it was the mobile John who landed more often, so much so that they each lost the same amount of blood and had roughly the same amount of damage.
Their breaths ragged and their sweat mixed with their blood, they just stood there, waiting for the other to attack.
It was a deadlock. A perfect yin-yang of a duel. Quantity versus quality.
"I do apologize, Luke ol' chap. I'm enjoying myself far too much. If I go anymore overboard with this duel, I might end up taking away your prized prey and claiming him for my own," said the leather-bound, dual-wielding Rathbone to no one in particular. "Such a shame. You two are so much alike... Well, at least in certain aspects."
'Luke...?' thought Kinta. What was this mumbling old man talking about this time?
A scream was heard, waking the two from their reverie. They were so concentrated in hitting each other, they didn't realize they'd long ago exited the ballroom and traveled all the way to the foyer overlooking the body-strewn yard.
"DIOS MIO! Not the puppies! No! Who would do such a thing? WHY?" cried out none other than Abelia La Cerca while doing a sign of the cross; the alleged daughter of John Rathbone (formerly Fabian La Cerca) had discovered something grisly in the garden.
Minakata went pale. He had a bad feeling ever since the puppies he'd been taking care of after his childhood pet Moriya passed away had gone silent.
In all the commotion, one of the priceless antique vases (Satsuma yari or porcelain) that Kinta's grandmother Mieko had broken apart when Kinta was little (in her anger over Moriya breaking one of them and her grandchild lying to save his dog from punishment) was again smashed into bits.
It had been put back together using gold repair (gluing everything together with gold lacquer), but this time around, even kintsukuroi might not be enough to restore it.
This was because inside the vase were the remains of a Shiba inu (dog), sliced apart to fit the container.
But that was just one puppy, and there were more Satsuma vases available.
Abelia wailed, hugging the vases but never daring to open them.
Then, from out of the shadows, came forth the man responsible for the canine massacre, probably waiting all that time for someone to see his handiwork.
With hair as dark as a crow and skin as white as a dove, Cain Merrick strode into view, his wrist, neck, hands, and daggers (or a dagger and a broken sword) completely bloodstained.
The psychopath smashed another one of the Satsuma yari while chanting, "And all the King's Horses and all the King's Men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again."
"It's the Gaijin Battousai!" said Shigeru Michishige, one of the Yokohama police officers. "That psycho is still alive?"
"YOU! You're the one who did this, you MONSTER!"
Abelia threw a fake hookah at Cain's feet, which contained a cocktail of incapacitating agents that included chloroform and horse tranquilizers.
Had it smashed open, it would've produced a knockout gas and kayoed her brother then and there. This was just like the flashbang bomb of a Gadamer Gem he threw at her father.
However, the Foreigner Battousai caught the bottle and threw it into the bushes. He then smiled, which was never a good sign. "Oh, don't get your knickers in a knot, luv! I'll get to you soon enough... you daffy bint."
"Cain," exhaled the Faceless. He then withdrew as he saw... felt... Minakata's own face contort and harden, the x-shaped mark that intersected on the bridge of his nose completely visible like the wrinkles of a clenched fist.
"...Instead of fixing something that isn't broken, I'd rather revel in the ensuing train wreck," Cain said to Kinta in Japanese before calling out to Hugo Lentz in English, "What was it called again, Lentz? The German word where you derive pleasure in the pain of others?"
The busy brute thought for a minute and answered in German, "Ja, ja. Es ist Schadenfreude, Cain."
Hugo then struck back at the buzzing invisible ninjas that threw shuriken at him, knocking out one of them with a blind, meaty fist to the chin.
"Ah, danke," the Younger Merrick thanked Hugo and turned to Kinta with a face-splitting grin. "There you go. You are my Schadenfreude. Don't you just love Deutschland and their austere worldview?"
Just as Cain said those words, the Mimawarigumi Battousai charged in an eye blink, screaming bloody murder. Throwing technique out of the window in favor of ruthless aggression.
"CAIIIIN! KISAMAAAAA (BASTAAAAARD)!"
Even with his unperturbed face, Cain felt cold sweat drip to the nape of his neck after the Akatsuki broke the surface of his Adam's apple skin, drawing blood like a shaving blade.
He didn't expect Minakata to get that angry. 'Wait till he gets a load of what I've been up to, then.'
However, as the Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior) of Shogo Amakusa was about to deliver his coup de grace at someone he should've finished off long ago, his tunnel vision and Waxing Stance kept him from detecting the rapier that suddenly stabbed him from behind.
"KINTA-SAMA!" screamed Abelia. "Papa, how could you!?"
"Took you long enough, Old Man! Jolly good show!" said Cain, cackling loudly, his voice filled with grit. "About time you stopped toying with your prey, Merrick!"
Kinta slid off of John's blade and fell face-first to the ground, his blood pooling underneath him while his attacker could only look at him with an eyeless stare through a featureless skin mask, his voice like a heavy London downpour.
"I do apologize, my gallant fox. You left yourself wide open. I couldn't help myself. You should've known better and dodged like you usually do. Like you always did."
"Ah, but that's rubbish," drawled Cain. "That bloody popinjay was too busy questioning his lifelong morals for him to notice you backstabbing him in true Brigands Guild fashion. You're welcome, by the way."
"..." Even then, Rathbone couldn't bear looking at this dishonorable creature that was supposed to be his "son". Even for a mercenary, Cain crossed the line.
The Homunculus... one of many "clones" of the narcissistic Alchemist, Masakichi Hananuma Inoue... really was a Quasimodo. A half-formed man with warped morals (or lack thereof).
Kinta went on all fours, his breath wheezy as he coughed hard. Spewing blood from his mouth.
His vision then swam with wavy images of his childhood pet, the puppies he bought in memory of him, and the maid who taught him that anything broken could be fixed and made even better than before.
Abelia gulped, remembering what happened months ago when Kinta fought her twin brother back in the Namamugi Market. 'Oh no. Kinta-sama can't fight in this condition!'
She went in front of Minakata, another hookah bomb in her hand. The Kanagawa policemen and Sho Kojima, who had their hands full with yakuza, struggled to get to them.
"Worry not, you abomination of nature. I don't want the Kagemusha to die here. I want him to live." Cain licked his lips, his black marbles for eyes sparkling. "I want to see his breaking point. I want to see his point of no return."
"...So you want him to become as ugly and twisted as you are?" asked John, also known as Seth Merrick. "You're swine. You'll never be half the man he is."
"Thus spoke the Faceless," said Cain with a smirk. "I can make him half the man he is, if you wish."
The Younger Merrick then dodged, parried, and nicked the Elder Merrick's attempt at a jumping lunge with his neurotoxin-laced dagger blades.
"In the bible, Seth is supposed to be the replacement of Abel. You can be Abelia's replacement. Die in her place."
Thanks to that one scratch, the normally inferior swordsman Cain managed to stab the better fencer Seth with his dagger, the latter paralyzed from neurotoxin.
Rathbone... or rather, the older Merrick... closed his eyes, remembering the time when he first met Cain, whom he was tasked to take care of by his fellow brigand member Inoue.
As a child, Cain had asked Seth why he had so many names.
Merrick at the time lied and said it was so the little boy could pick whatever last name he wanted from him as a sign of their camaraderie.
Smiling, the cherubic Cain picked Merrick, the Faceless's name at the time, thus he came to be known as Cain Merrick.
To match Cain's name change, the Faceless started calling himself Seth Merrick in turn (before, he was only known by his last name).
This all happened before Cain's little "sister" Abelia was "born", though.
Was her birth the exact moment when everything went wrong?
"You've slowed down. What's the matter, Old Man? Has your age caught up with you?" asked Cain, waking Seth from his reverie.
"...It has not, I'm afraid," said Rathbone, his hands becoming blurs.
A geyser of blood erupted from the neck of the Gaijin Battousai, making him even paler than usual. His so-called not-father had hit a vein, apparently.
As he collapsed, Cain cursed, "You old fossil. We had him. Him and his fat pig of an uncle. What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm teaching you a lesson, you undisciplined bad seed. Your treachery has disgraced us all."
The Young Merrick cackled and gurgled at the same time. "Disgraced? You want to do the honorable thing now? Bollocks. There is no honor among thieves or the brigands."
"It doesn't matter. You made my daughter cry," said the Elder Merrick. "As they say in Japan: Yurusenai (Unforgivable)."
"You'd rather her survive than me? That abomination who haunted my nightmares? That half-formed freak of nature that was excised from me?" Cain spat out bile along with his cursed blood.
"Which one of you is the monster, I wonder," said Rathbone.
"P-Papi," mumbled Abelia, unsure of what to think before the wheezing Japanese swordsman from behind her turned into a blur; a whirlwind that tousled her bright red hair.
Despite his respiratory troubles, a desperate, out-of-breath Kinta took that opportunity to attack the distracted Faceless with the Musou Madden Ryu's ougi (succession technique).
An eye for an eye, as the Code of Hammurabi stated.
"Aoitsuki O Tsuku Nari (Blue Moon Slash)."
However, unlike Minakata, John was aware of his surroundings at all times despite his age; a true veteran of dueling and warfare.
Despite doing twin Full Moon Slashes in one attack, all John needed to do was slip and sidestep the initial strike at the last second, allowing Kinta to hit nothing but air and go off-balance with his forward momentum.
Just like how Gensai Kawakami survived the Musou Madden Ryu ougi once upon a time.
From there, Rathbone backpedaled and cocked his sword arm back. He prepared to do another backstab lunge, unaware that the Mimawarigumi Battousai wasn't suffering from tunnel vision any longer and had actually fallen into his rear-facing Waning Stance.
Swinging downwards while facing away from the Faceless, Kinta exploded with a Waning Gibbous Slash by doing a cutting movement that sheathed his Akatsuki blade back into its scabbard: A perfect follow-up gaeshi and sword-sheathing technique.
"Magnificent," mouthed the Faceless before he fell on his back with a spray of blood over the thickening snow, making it rain red and white all over.
Abelia shrieked, "PAPA!" She didn't know which side she was supposed to be on an that point.
John could've parried that counterstrike had his wounds from Cain's broken Durandal not paralyzed him, the pufferfish neurotoxin quickly taking a hold of him due to his excitement and quickened blood circulation.
Curse his shameful, yellowbellied "son" (of a bitch).
Afterwards, the Homunculus got up and attempted to also take advantage of this distraction too, only to end up hoisted by his own petard because he himself ended up too distracted to notice Abelia throwing a second hookah at him, the ensuing knockout gas leaving him unconscious.
Amidst this melee between swordsmen, mercenaries, gangsters, coppers, and ninjas, another unexpected development happened.
"Everyone FREEZE! Stop in the name of the LAW!"
"What's going on? Where did all these other coppers come from!?"
The confused yakuza mob was then surrounded by a throng of police: The Tokyo Metropolitan Police, to be exact.
Captain Yusuke Nishimura took Sho's advice and requested for backup after arresting Shuichi Hasegawa and company then locking them up.
"About time you got here," said the Kanagawa Captain under his breath after knocking out another yakuza by pistol-whipping him.
Armed with Gatling Guns and revolvers as well as sabers and katana, the coppers quickly overwhelmed the gangsters in short order.
The cavalry had finally arrived.
However, at this inopportune time, because he had gone above and beyond his limits once again, the Mimawarigumi Battousai coughed long and hard, as though he was choking on his own blood that bubbled to his throat.
It was at that exact moment that Lentz charged at the sickly Kinta, ignoring the bullet wounds that'd landed on his body as he swung and plowed down one officer after another with his mighty ax, intending to bisect the ex-samurai from where he stood.
"ICH TTE DICH (I'LL KILL YOU)!" Hugo roared.
Sho intercepted the gigantic brute, his drying pole in tow.
However, his pole wasn't any ordinary wooden staff but actually the Tsukikage (Shadow Moon): A sword cane the size of a nodachi (Japanese longsword) made by the same blacksmith of Minakata's Akatsuki.
"SHINGETSU O TSUKI NARI (NEW MOON SLASH)!"
"VERDAMMT! Verfluchter Japanisch! (DAMN! Cursed Japanese...!)"
Kojima unsheathed his blade but instead of doing a Full Moon or Half Moon Slash, he hit the lummox in the gut with the tip of his released sheath and used his own momentum to throw him clear into the house.
It was a sheathe-drawing technique rather than a sword-drawing one: A circular judo-like counter thrust that lacked use of any shining blade, hence it being named after the moon phase where the moon was hidden from view.
"That'sh fer throwing me around like a rag doll earlier! Hic!" said the drunkard to his defeated foe before sheathing his nodachi back into its weaponized scabbard.
Seeing his fellow Brigands Guild members fall like flies along with the drugged yakuza, Kai Hidaka discontinued his melee with the Sanada Ninja Clan and their leader (who was as much of a hidden weapons expert as he was).
Kai then blasted a piston-shot rope spear unto the roof and escaped through that avenue, before any of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police could get him, sparing a long look at Lieutenant Sakaguchi's back (who himself was busy taking down yakuza thugs).
Abelia went to the bleeding Rathbone's aid, bandaging her father's wounds despite him being an "enemy" to her "clients", the Minakatas.
"I don't understand you, Father. Everything you do is so contradictory," Abelia said. "Are you here to protect me or hurt me? Are you one of the good guys or the bad guys?"
"I can't help it, mi amor. I am whoever I have to be," said Fabian, his English tinged with a Spaniard's accent. "Even these so-called normal people have different roles to play. I just happen to play them all."
With a sniffle, Abelia then asked John, "Why did you betray Doctor Hans? I thought he was your friend! He did so much for you! For... us!"
Doctor Hansel "Hans" Gadamer. The miraculous surgeon who was responsible for separating the teratoma that eventually came to be known as Abelia La Cerca from Cain Merrick's body.
The man whom the Gadamer Gem was named after. The Hands of God of the Brigands Guild.
Even underneath his mask, what little of Fabian's facial muscles that were seen clenched and twitched. "...I was merely following orders."
"The doctor saved my life and Cain's! Why would you do that to him? Is your mission more important to you than your friends? Your familia?"
"The Brigands Guild is my family, my dear. We are as thick as thieves."
"...I don't even know you anymore."
With a literal poker face, the Faceless answered, "That makes two of us."
With moist eyes and a frog in her throat, Abelia got up and turned her back on her bewildering father in order to attend to the medical needs of Minakata.
As the Minakatas, Abelia, and Sho were ushered into a getaway carriage, the arrested and chained Faceless called out to the coughing, wheezing Kinta, "Your Prodigal Son, Lucas Grant, has returned, and he doesn't want to be welcomed back to your wicked family. He instead wants justice. He wants revenge."
'Prodigal Son...?' thought a half-delirious Kinta while Abelia forced him to breathe in higher amounts of Indian hemp through an actual hookah to relax his tired lungs and return his breathing to normal.
Then, to the chagrin of the coppers who intercepted him, the Faceless undid the shackles wrapped around him a la future escape artist Harry Houdini and threw the knockout gas hookah from Abelia (that he found in the bushes earlier) at them.
"I beg your pardons, good sirs. You'll have to excuse me, I still have a prior engagement. Toodle pip," said John Rathbone before he outright submerged himself unto the shadows like one of the Sanada Clan Ninjas would.
Back in Hiroshima, on a December morning in 1884...
Munenori Minoe cracked an eye open, the rays of the morning sun hitting his face as they penetrated between the leaves of the tree he lay under.
He felt like something was amiss, which made him scratch his rust-colored hair. 'What happened...?'
The winking young(?) man(?) then patted the ground for his sword-guard eye patch and garish wig with his bandage-wrapped hand after realizing they were missing.
After finding his "props" and putting them on, he sat up and dusted himself off, only to wince in pain. His clothes were in tatters, exposing some of the... less masculine parts of his body.
Yikes.
He then turned to see Yahiko Myojin's sleeping (knocked out, actually) face, his clothes also torn apart to the point that he looked almost half-undressed.
"AAH! YAHIKO-CHI...!"
"AHH! MORINAGA...!"
"...Morinaga?"
"Oh. Oh! It's you, Minoe. Er, welcome back?"
Ah. So that was what happened.
Minoe espied bamboo sticks (or what was left of them) and sighed. "She's responsible for this, isn't she?"
Yahiko himself sat up and shrugged, part of his ripped kimono dropping down from over his shoulder to his bruised bicep. "Yup. But then again, I did ask for a sparring partner, so..."
Munenori covered his face by palming it. "I apologize. She can be quite reckless."
"No prob. I got what I asked for," said Myojin while scratching his cheek. "She whupped my butt good, but she should really work on her defense. I got in some good counters because of her recklessness."
"Mochiron (But of course)," said a nodding Minoe with a resigned sigh and shoulder slump against the tree behind them. "I told her the same thing, but I guess she never listens."
"You two can talk to each other? How?"
"Uh, sometimes. After the fact. By writing each other letters."
"That's... fascinating." The Tokyo Samurai Descendant looked away, his hand absently gripping his shoulder and the scar of his stab wound.
Naturally, neither Yahiko nor Minoe addressed the pink elephant in the proverbial room regarding Kaede Morinaga being part of Shogo Amakusa's Battousai Group with the codename, "The Battousai of Speed".
"MINOE-CHAN! YAHIKO! I've been looking all over for you two...!" began Chizuru Raikouji, a shawl over her shoulders and her ribbon bouncing along with every step she made as she trudged on her western-style boots before she realized what she was looking at and made an about face.
"...Sorry for disturbing you two. I'll take my leave now!"
"H-Hey! CHIZURU! W-What do you mean by that? It's not what it looks like!" shouted Myojin after Raikouji while putting his sleeve back on his shoulder. "I CAN EXPLAIN...!"
"Whatever, kiddo. Don't explain things to me, explain things to your girlfriend back in Tokyo. I wash my hands off the whole thing!" said Chizuru without bothering to turn around to face Yahiko.
"TSUBAME HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS! Come back here, you Tanuki Girl wannabe!" demanded the Son of Tokyo Samurai.
Meanwhile, Minoe himself just stared at the two diminishing figures with one eye, crossing his arms to cover himself up. 'Darn it, Kaede-chi. What were you thinking!?'
Somewhere inside a Yokohama Inn where Soujiro Seta stayed and played bodyguard to Tetsuo Akahori's daughter, Rin...
"...The missing Seiryu Clan volume for the Black Book?" repeated Soujiro to the surviving members of the Togakudan while having tea with them at the inn's tearoom.
All four of them.
Technically speaking, there were five Togakudan survivors, but Munemori Minoe was nothing more than a turncoat spy himself working under Shogo Amakusa.
Mikio Nagaoka, the short-haired and mercurial heir to the ex-samurai Nagaoka Family, filled in for the former leader of the Togakudan, his late cousin Suzuki "Raedo" Nagaoka.
For no other reason than nepotism, really. Then again, Mister Akahori was the kind of person who sometimes acted on a whim, like when he hired the Sanbaka (Three Stooges) as his last-minute bodyguards.
Because the abolishment of the samurai class led to the depletion of the Nagaoka's samurai fortunes, Mikio soon joined a gang of spies to make ends meet.
This was the same Nagaoka who terrorized poor little Tsubame Sanjo (because the Sanjos were formerly samurais themselves who served under the Nagaokas), making her work for him to steal from the Akabeko.
Also, this was the Nagaoka whom Yahiko beat up when he was just ten to eleven years old, but that was neither here nor there.
That Mikio Nagaoka.
He was flanked by the survivors of the Togakudan massacre back in the Akahori Mansion in Shinshu: The bug-eyed Taku Okazaki, the reed-thin Kaemon Minamoto, and the chubby (but not rotund like Kaneda Minakata) Ranmaru Obata.
Mikio cleared his throat. "Yep. That's what pretty boy Minakata is looking for by going through his family files from his childhood home. Clues about his clan's volume of the Black Book."
The Black Book: Blackmailing documents whose volumes contained military and government secrets were scattered among four spy clans that covered both sides of the Bakumatsu no Douran.
The Seiryu Clan spied on the then in-power bakufu while the Byakko Clan dealt with the bakufu's military forces and special police, the Shinsengumi.
Meanwhile, the Suzaku and Genbu Clans dealt with the secrets of the winning side of the conflict, the Ishin Shishi from the rebelling Satsuma Domain, including their hitokiri (manslayer) enforcers.
The same Black Book that had put the Akahoris in mortal peril, probably in the hands of government forces who want their past sins to stay buried forever.
Soujiro scratched his chin before hitting his closed fist on his open palm.
"Oh, where are my manners? Condolences for the loss of your cousin, Nagaoka-san!" came Seta's smiling offering of sympathy.
The Nagaoka heir raised an eyebrow at that. The bobbed-haired boy almost sounded delighted that his cousin passed away. Was Raedo that big of an asshole?
"Yes, yes. Of course," Mikio said in a hurry. "Poor Cousin Suzuki. I barely knew him. I'll honor his memory by becoming an even better leader to these sorry excuses for spies than he ever was. Right, boys?"
Mikio then received a lukewarm response of "Yeah, sure," and "I guess," from his new cronies, plus a mumble of "Should've been me," from any one of them.
'Bunch of ingrates,' Nagaoka concluded, grumbling to himself.
Hmmm. Interesting fellow, that Mikio. Soujiro turned towards the other Togakudan spies and asked, "And what's this ninja business in the Minakata household?"
The wide-eyed Okazaki bobbed his head up and down in assent. "Yeah. They were all over the place. Sanada Ninjas, they called themselves. They're scary good when it came to camouflage and blending in with their environment."
Seta remembered another "scary good" person who did well in camouflaging herself: Kaede Morinaga. When she combined that technique with her foot speed, it almost looked like she was using her own version of the Shukuchi.
Hmmm. "What else have you learned about the Minakatas?" the Ten Ken probed further.
Minamoto got a little too close to Soujiro and divulged, "Well, the handsome bachelor Minakata Kinta-san is the only one in his former hatamoto-class samurai family who is a swordsman."
"Oh really?" said Soujiro with a tilt of his head and an ever-present smile. "Please, do go on."
"Uh, yes. His Uncle Kaneda is a lawyer, his Uncle Tatsuya is a banker, and the current heiress and owner of the Minakata Foreign Trade and Pharmaceuticals Conglomerate is his grandmother, Mieko. The only other swordsmen in his family... his father Azuma and his grandfather Toshiro... are dead."
"Oh, you mean Uncle Azuma?" said the pale-skinned, cream-haired, and silver-eyed member of the Akahori Family, Rin, who put her book down and addressed the five men.
"What a sad story. His wife cheated on him with a foreigner that he killed in jealousy before he committed seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment) to gain back his honor. Tragic, really."
Soujiro blinked at that. Out of all the things Tetsuo told him about Kinta Minakata, the fact that the Mimawarigumi Battousai was his nephew was not one of them. Or that Rin could possibly be Kinta's niece.
When exactly was the Elder Akahori planning to tell him about this? It was kind of important.
"Ah, I wouldn't be too sorry for them," said Mikio, who himself is an ex-samurai. "The Minakatas are loaded now. For them, it's like their samurai privileges were never removed! I betcha Old Man Minakata even used the contents of his volume of the Black Book to build his business empire! I wouldn't put it past him!"
Although the shogunate and their special forces, the Shinsengumi, went under as the patriots took over, many former bakufu members and officials remained part of the current administration.
It wasn't a stretch of the imagination to think that Toshiro Minakata might've pulled some strings, called in favors, did under-the-table dealings, asked for bribes, or outright blackmailed these former shogunate loyalists to firmly establish his conglomerate even as the samurai class and their privileges were eventually removed in the new era.
"So what's our current course of action, gentlemen?" asked Soujiro. "What has Mister Akahori said about all this? What are his orders?"
The Togakudan looked at each other then faced the Ten Ken. Then, Mikio spoke. "Obviously, Akahori-sama wants you to get those missing Seiryu Clan volumes. By force, if you have to. We just need to find out where they went after their mansion was raided recently."
"But what are the plans of Akahori-san's..." Soujiro's eyes briefly glanced at Rin, then back again at the Togakudan, "nephew-in-law, Minakata-san?"
Nagaoka shrugged. "Who gives a shit? All Akahori-sama cares about is getting that particular volume of the Black Book from his nephew. He wants to safeguard the wealth and influence of his own family with all that juicy bakufu intel."
"I won't know his next move unless I know his motivations," said Seta before bringing up, "A whole gang of foreigner assassins are after the Minakatas. Maybe he's reading up on Seiryu Clan history from their share of the Black Book in order to know the reason why these gaijin mercenaries are out to get them. Maybe someone is out for revenge on the Minakatas or something."
"Nah. He's part of old money now, so he's just dealing with his grandpa and pa's old enemies from the past. Like a good grandson, he's probably making sure his family stays as rich and powerful as the Mitsubishis for many years to come," insisted Nagaoka.
The round-eyed Okazaki raised his hand slowly, then dropped it after everyone noticed and stared at him.
"H-He's also the Kagemusha of Amakusa Shogo. He helped bring the Hidden Christian Rebellion down by betraying them, but they recently resurfaced and started terrorizing their old enemies. What if he and his family are next? What if Shogo hired the gaijin killers to take them out?"
"Aaah! So that's why he's bringing up those old secrets from the past! He's even been receiving special protection from the Yokohama Police all this time!" said Minamoto, who intended to slap Okazaki's back but ended up slapping his butt instead, leading to them going silent and moving away from each other.
Obata put his own two yen in, saying, "Did Minakata really betray Amakusa? What if the betrayal was a ruse and he was the one who helped the Kakure Kirishitan survive their massacre? He was accused then pardoned for killing cops and soldiers while working undercover with the Christian rebels. What if he's still working with them all this time, and their ticket to reviving their failed rebellion is through the Seiryu Clan's volume of the Black Book?"
"Tell me what you know, Obata-san," said Soujiro with a smile.
"Rumor has it that Minakata is part of Amakusa's Battousai Group. While Amakusa is known as the Battousai of Style because of his knowledge of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu and Morinaga is known as the Battousai of Speed because of her fast hands and feet, Minakata himself is known as another type of Battousai thanks to his skill in everything related to iaijutsu, the modern version of battoujutsu."
"So which Battousai is he?" asked the grinning Seta, his eyes sparkling as he dreamed of crossing swords with yet another amazing swordsman extraordinaire who'd taken on the infamous codename of Kenshin Himura.
The plump, dimpled cheeks of Obata puffed up as his thin mouth curved upwards, his eyes closed. "The Battousai of Skill."
"PLEASE! I beg of you, please!" the woman before Kinta coughed hard, her eyes red and seemingly bleeding with tears. "Spare my brother, Kinta-kun! Let him live!"
"Magdalia...!" he mouthed before he even realized it.
She smiled, brushed her shoulder-length brown hair back, and wiped the trickles of red from her mouth and eyes.
"My real name is Sayo," she rasped, doing her best to withhold her coughing due to her sickness, consumption (tuberculosis).
"Sayo. SAYO...!"
She began coughing again, her bloody coughs leading to her to collapse to the ground and breathe for the last time.
Sayonara.
Kinta Minakata opened his eyes, coughing and wheezing after he awoke from his dream. His nightmare. His memory.
Before him was a room he'd never seen before. Beside him was a bowl of water and a damp washcloth as well as discarded bandages stained with blood.
Around his stomach was a fresh spool of bandages wrapped around the area where "Rathbone" or "The Faceless"... whatever his name was... had run him through with his rapier.
The more minor wounds and cuts were dressed with plasters and gauze.
His entire body ached all over, pulsating like one raw nerve. He hadn't fought a foe that strong since, well, his death matches against Gensai Kawakami and Doraku Akatsuki, to be honest.
For good or for ill, had Cain not appeared then and there and served as a distraction for both of them, he and John Rathbone would've finished each other off in a draw.
Or maybe Rathbone would've won in the end. He landed more times and he always found a way to figure out the ex-samurai's feints and mind games, like he could read minds himself.
Where was he anyway? A hospital? No wait, his quarters were filled with too many ornaments, heirlooms, and decorations to be a doctor's operating room.
The door slid open, and Kinta half-expected Rathbone, Cain, Lentz, Hidaka, or the mysterious "Prodigal Son" to appear before him, torture him, then present his head on a pike to his next of kin.
He gulped, realizing in a split second who the Prodigal Son could be before pushing that terrible thought at the back of his mind. 'First thing's first.'
His second guess was Abelia La Cerca coming over with hot noodle soup or chicken broth on a tray. He was half-right, since she was indeed there.
However, the person who greeted him was the last person he expected to appear before him.
"KINTA! Honey, I thought you were DEAD! You're finally awake, my grandson!" cried out Mieko Minakata.
The same grandmother who made his former maid cry by beating up his dog for breaking a Satsuma yari vase before firing her altogether.
The heartless harpy who cast away his mother... her daughter... and branded him for most of his childhood as a son of a certain bitch who cheated on her son-in-law and led him to kill himself ritually.
The old woman who, to him, was the equivalent of ten Kawakamis, Akatsukis, and Rathbones as well as a hundred Cains and Lentzs or a thousand Hidakas.
He'd rather face the entire Brigands Guild alone than mess with her.
That Mieko Minakata.
So who was this nice old lady and what did she do to his actual grandmother?
"Grandma Mieko..." he murmured.
She flicked his nose, which made him correct himself, saying, "Mama Mieko."
"Shush now, Dearie. It's time to rest," the Grand Minakata Matriarch said.
Mieko doted on him and checked while consulting with his pint-sized "nurse", Abelia, on how to go about the rest of his treatment.
"B-But I'm not his nurse, Missus Minakata!" insisted Abelia, but Mieko would have none of that.
"I saw you help stitch up my grandson and keep his breathing stabilized with your medicinal herbs. You saved his life. If it's the payment you're concerned about, I assure you, money is no object!"
With swirling, moist eyes and a crooked, agape mouth, Señorita La Cerca went, "EEP!" and told Missus Minakata, "I-I'm just a little girl! WAH!" before hiding behind Kinta.
The world had officially gone upside down since the Mimawarigumi Battousai woke up.
Meanwhile, Mieko turned towards her grandson and informed him, "The surgeon who stitched you up left hours ago. The... other nurse who'll be taking care of your recovery won't arrive here until later in the afternoon since we're in the middle of nowhere. I insisted on a house call to keep you safe from those assassins that have been after you and Kaneda. Is there anything else you need, Sweetheart?"
Although he wasn't exactly the most talkative person in Japan, this time around Kinta really had no idea what to say.
After the invasion of the Ancestral Minakata Mansion by the Brigands Guild, Kinta was apparently transferred to a Minakata safe house hidden deep within the Yokohama seaside that his grandmother recently commissioned.
He couldn't get into contact with the Sanada Clan Ninjas at that point due to unusual circumstances, but hopefully by the time he got back to the city, they'd have answers in regards to the Seiryu Clan.
The house was finished just last year; located in an undisclosed area below the edge of a cliff. A castle inside a cave by the sea. The view, in fairness, was quite splendid for a mere "hideout".
Seemed more like a retreat house than anything else, really.
After he got dressed and walked out of his room, he saw his Uncle Kaneda at the dining room table, stuffing his face with western fare. French cuisine, to be exact.
"MMMPHA! MMMPH MMPHMPH!" The stuffed mouth of his fat uncle mumbled something indecipherable while spewing food all over Kinta's face. The nephew presumed this was Uncle Kaneda's attempt at a greeting.
This wasn't unusual in the least. What was unusual was that his voracious lawyer uncle... a living satirical cartoon of the so-called bourgeoisie... was sharing expensive booze with another unusual visitor in their house: The drunken lout and proletariat Sho Kojima.
After finally swallowing his foie gras, Kaneda offered a drink to his new best friend (apparently) Sho and said while wiping his mouth with his cloth bib, "Drink up, my friend! You deserve it! You saved our lives! I was completely mistaken about you!"
"Aw shucksh, Kaneda! You're an alright guy after'll! I'll toasht to that! Hic! KAMPAI!" said the drunkard.
"Cheers indeed, my friend!" said the overweight man with a peachy smile on his plump pink face before clinking his wine glass with the hobo's mug.
"KINTA! W-We thought you'd never wake up! Welcome back! Hic!" slurred Kojima in one breath. In one... strong and aromatic breath. If the concept of atomic bomb had existed in the 19th Century, Kinta would've described Sho's breath as "atomic".
"What happened...?" Kinta trailed off, moved his head away and covered his mouth to restrain his gagging reflex.
Somehow, the alcoholic still understood what he meant. "Oh, your polish (police) friendsh from Yokohoma got out fine. The short tough guy got shurgery for his shtab woundsh and they arreshted the yakusha (yakuza), that huge gaijin with the big ax, and that pshycho who stuffed all your petsh into the vashesh... Shorry, man."
The youngest Minakata exhaled, deflating like a balloon. He almost wished he'd repressed that memory. He made a note to himself to get a message out to the servants to have those dogs buried along with the Satsuma yari.
Kinta then surmised, "So Rathbone and Hidaka escaped?"
"Which onesh are thoshe? Hic," asked Sho, scratching his head.
"Fencing expert. Ninja with goggles," Kinta translated from Japanese to Alcoholic.
"OH! I 'member them! Yeah, they were long gone, man," confirmed the drunk.
Kaneda then told Kinta, "You were amazing back in the mansion, Kinta-kun! I've never seen a samurai match skills with a fencer that way! You really did our family proud by how you defeated that filthy gaijin mercenary, Nephew!"
Even more weird things were happening, like his uncle remembering his name on his first try. When will this surreal dream end?
"WHO THE HELL DRUNK ALL MY WIIINE!? KAAAANEEDAA! GET OVER HERE, YA FUCKIN' GLUTTONOUS EXCUSE OF A BROTHER!"
"EEP! A-Aniki (B-Big Brother) is here!"
Ah, finally. A hint of normalcy back in the Minakata Family. Kinta could recognize that outburst from anywhere.
It was his other uncle. The man who made him swear off drinking more effectively than Kojima's boozy breath ever could.
His Uncle Tatsuya.
A sweaty Kaneda dropped his western silverware utensils, handed the rest of the remaining Chardonnay to Kojima, and said, "I wasn't here," before running off as far as his huge ham legs could take him: About six feet away before he gassed out altogether.
Kinta held back Tatsuya while Kaneda ran (or rolled) towards his mother, Mieko, and hid behind her, clutching the hem of her kimono sleeve (looking like a boulder trying to hide behind a post).
"...I'LL KILL YOU! I swear I'll put you out of your misery, ya stinkin' pig! LET GO OF ME, YOU UPPITY SWORDSMAN BRAT! LET ME AT HIM!" shouted the middle-aged man in a western suit and tie, who was as thin, bony, and gaunt as his younger brother was fat, round, and wide.
"WAH! I didn't do nothin', Mother! It was Nephew's hobo friend who did this! It was all that drunken hobo's fault!"
"..."
Now this looked more like the typical Minakata-style family reunion. With the prideful Tatsuya drunk and angry at the gluttonous Kaneda for drinking all his wine, and Kinta playing peacekeeper right until...
"ENOUGH!"
Instantly, all three Minakata men... two sons and one grandson... heeded the words of the grandmotherly heiress to the Minakata Foreign Trade and Pharmaceuticals Conglomerate.
Giving due respect to one of the richest and most powerful women in Japan, probably.
"You two, act like your age. Grandson, don't overexert yourself, you're going to pull those stitches open! That surgeon who did them was expensive."
"Yes'm."
Now that sounded more like the Mieko Minakata that Kinta knew. A real dragon of a lady.
Tatsuya Minakata cleared his throat, shrugged off Kinta's hold on him, smoothened out his three-piece suit and tie, and brushed back his seaweed hair.
"You're going to pay for those bottles of wine you emptied. Literally," the banker of the family said in typical stingy, yen-pinching businessman fashion.
"Aw, come on, Aniki! I told you, it's not my fault, it's Nephew's hobo friend's fault!" insisted Kaneda, pointing a chubby sausage finger at the wasted Kojima, who had an empty bottle of Chardonnay at his side.
"...And you let him DRINK IT ALL?!" ranted Tatsuya.
"Eeep!" squeaked Kaneda.
"TATSUYA!" Mieko pinched her eldest son's ear, and finally Tatsuya calmed down.
"Fine, Mother. I'm calm. I'm cool. As long as he pays me back for all the imported alcohol he wasted without my permission, we're good," said the banker.
"But Okaasama...!" whined Kaneda.
"Kanedaaa," said Mieko with a raised eyebrow, her hands on her hips.
"...Okay," the fat lawyer gave in instantly, his jowly head looking down on his twiddling thumbs, his neck drowning inside his chins, which made his mother wonder if him and his more aggressive brother should swap jobs.
This was not how a lawyer was supposed to behave.
Satisfied that everything had been settled (and he somehow got his way to boot), Tatsuya finally acknowledged the presence of the "uppity swordsman brat" of the Minakatas.
"I heard you took down a whole group of assassins who are after our family, Nephew."
Kinta nodded, then winced when Tatsuya slapped his shoulder hard.
"Way to go! I'm sure your grandfather would be proud to hear that, seeing you're the last samurai in our ex-samurai family to actually practice kenjutsu. Good job, kid."
Kinta nodded and looked away as his uncle punched him again and ruffled his red hair. Even Tatsuya, of all people, was praising him instead of throwing bottles at his head like usual. "I remember when you were just a little brat with sticks for legs and arms. You've really grown up."
At least when they were bickering like cats and dogs, Kinta knew how to handle them.
"You're certainly more of a real man filled with Yamato Damashi (Japanese Fighting Spirit) than a certain fat failure of a son, brother, and uncle; a sorry excuse of a lawyer, and a worse excuse for a Minakata!" came the parting sideswipe (more like a head-on collision) from Tatsuya.
However, the pudgy Kaneda wasn't done. "Oh yeah? I-If I'm as bad a lawyer as you say I am, then the Minakata Conglomerate would've gone under by now... and you know it."
Tatsuya sneered at the cringing but defiant Kaneda. "What did you say?"
"Y-You heard me!" Kaneda stood his ground. "D-Do you really want me to elaborate, B-Big Brother?"
"HEY! Didn't I tell you two to break it up? Go back to your rooms, the both of you!" ordered Grandma Mieko. "We're in total lockdown until we figure out what exactly is going on!"
Back in Hiroshima, on December 1884, a little later after the misunderstanding between Chizuru, Minoe, and Yahiko earlier that momentous morning...
"You don't remember much from your past, before you were adopted by the Sakaguchis?" asked Yahiko to the Three Stooge's new golden-locked friend, "Satsuki Sakaguchi" (AKA May Brooks): The blondest, whitest, most green-eyed Japanese woman they'd ever meet.
"I'm afraid so, my friends," said May Brooks in perfect (if overly formal) Japanese. "Aside from my name and the fact that I can speak English, I don't remember much about my parents or how I ended up in Yokohama. I even had to take English lessons to relearn my own language after not using it for so long."
"Wow," said Minoe, who adjusted his hand guard eye patch. "So that's why you became an English teacher, Satsuki-chi."
"Wait, so we're not even sure if you're from America or England?" Chizuru realized. "I always thought you acted more farm girl American than posh Londoner Englishwoman."
"I beg your pardon?" May started before reconsidering.
Blimey. She'd always presumed she was English. She even got an English accent because she kept up her language education through British teachers!
Was she a filthy, uncouth, and rebellious Yankee who hated tea, scones, taxes, and good manners after all?
Come to think of it, if that were true, then it'd actually made a lot of sense. Like her penchant to climb stuff. Or liking horseback riding. Or loving freedom.
"Miss Melon might even be Russian, since Russia is so close to Japan!" brought up the Gabby Gan. "Makes sense, right?"
"Oh my, no!" denied Satsuki. "Have you all gone barmy? May Brooks isn't even a Russian name! I should be named Anna Karenina or something if that were the case!"
"W-ell, maybe you're a multilingual girl from a mixed marriage? Like your English or American father marrying a Russian bride and all," suggested the young Raikouji. "Or maybe you changed your name from Matryoshka to May or something! Who knows?"
"You could be onto something, Kaori-neechan! Satsuki could even be French, Spanish, or Italian. Most any nationality that has tall girls with blonde hair, wide green eyes, and that pointy Tengu (goblin) nose," said the Uncouth Gan.
After a gutted May covered her Tengu nose, Yahiko cleared his throat and murmured, "Don't mind that idiot. You're gorgeous, I swear! Especially your eyes!"
Satsuki smiled and beamed. "Why thank you, Yahiko-kun!"
"So from Minoe, you've shifted your sights to Miss Brooks now, huh? So much for your Tokyo girlfriend," teased Chizuru, which made the reddened Yahiko yelp, "...Oh, COME ON!"
"Well, I hope she's Russian! I love Russia and their vodka, their manly men with no airs, and especially their hot, tall, and pretty blonde women with big racks and long legs that seem to go on forever!" said the Perverted Gan, who then wolf-whistled.
"Good heavens, no, Gan-san!" said Miss Brooks before giving the Obnoxious Gan a little shove.
"Ew, Gan! Don't be so gross, you perv!" said Chizuru with a boot stomp on the thug's foot.
"I wish you never wore boots and stuck to slippers, Kaori-neechan! Those hurt less!" protested Gan.
"Still, I can't be Russian," interjected Satsuki. "I don't speak their language, I never tasted vodka, and I don't even know what a babushka is!"
"...Wait, what? A what-ushka?" asked Gan.
"Oh, isn't that the scarf tied under the chin worn by old Russian grannies?" suggested the young Raikouji.
"N-No, wait, it's..." the gobsmacked, green-eyed May trailed off after remembering something.
The multilingual young woman bit her lip, which kept her from correcting her friend, telling her that a babushka meant grandmother in Russian.
Hmmm.
Maybe she should ask her adoptive Sakaguchi grandparent for more information about her when he first rescued her.
Unable to sleep because of his flashbacks of the Second Shimabara Rebellion, a heavily bandaged Kinta left his room after struggling in his western-style cushion bed in order to explore this hideout of a mansion that he wasn't aware of.
Carved into a cave of a cliff that overlooked Tokyo Bay, neighboring Chiba, the Sea of Japan, and the Pacific Ocean lay the Minakata stronghold.
Before it was turned into a (rather bourgeoisie) holdout, Mieko explained that it used to be ancient property that their ancestors used as a storehouse and as an escape tunnel when wars broke out.
After all, before Yokohama became the second largest city in Japan, it was once a small fishing village.
The entrance was hidden inside a dilapidated well of an abandoned Japanese-style estate aboveground. Within the manor, secret staircases and poles leading underground were also installed so that family members could descend or slide into the panic room of sorts.
So the Minakata hideout already existed, but his grandmother refurbished everything so that the storehouse could become a livable bunker of sorts away from human society.
Something that the "eccentric" rich folk constructed in order to wait out riots, naval bombardments, and entire wars.
The Minakatas truly were a family full of contingency plans, including their addition into the Four Spy Clans named after the Four Chinese Gods of Lore.
Kinta grabbed his cloak and walked to the bay windows that overlooked the crashing waves on the rocks below the cliff where their cave mansion was built upon, jutting right out of the rock and turned into an observatory of sorts.
It was already dusk. The clouds and sky looked like splotches of paint over a golden canvas, the sun setting earlier than usual in winter.
A hand grasped Kinta's shoulder, which made him grab a thin, leathery wrist as he turned around, only to see a small, pale old man with graying hair and a scrawny body from behind him.
A gravelly voice then said while struggling with the grip of the younger man, "Correct reaction, but you let me sneak up on you. I expected better from my star pupil."
"Master," said the young Minakata, letting go of the elderly man's callused hand. "What are you doing here?"
Genzo Sakaguch... one of the Founding Fathers of Musou Madden Ryu, father of Shinshu's Nonoko Sakaguchi, grandfather to Kyoko Sakaguchi, and Kinta's sword master... said, "I've heard about what happened to you and your uncle in your other Yokohama mansion. You were invaded by gaijin, weren't you?"
"..." Minakata bowed low at Lieutenant Satoru Sakaguchi's father-in-law as though in apology to what had happened. For his failure to deal with the assassins (although many of them were arrested).
Genzo then smacked Kinta upside the head. "Stop that. I'm not your master anymore. You've far exceeded me in the art of iaijutsu."
The two looked at each other for a minute before the feared and dreaded Mimawarigumi Battousai covered his mouth and laughed at the irony of his not-master smacking him upside the head like he was still his student, telling him he wasn't.
The cantankerous old man harrumphed and turned his head away. "Don't bow to me either as though you've failed everyone. That's been a bad habit of yours since you were little. Always hold your head up high."
A smiling Kinta nodded but still bowed anyway, which made his former master grumble and made him chuckle again.
The Minakata heir repeated, "What brings you here, Master Sakaguchi?"
"...I called him here, Grandson."
The redhead blinked and turned around, seeing his grandmother appear out of the blue, leaning on the railings of the balcony covered in expensive steel and glass, her arms crossed, her eyes glinting from the light of the sunset.
The grandmother he remembered and feared.
The parental figure he worked so hard to sometimes please, other times defy throughout the course of his life.
"Why?"
"Because the Sakaguchis and their Musou Madden Ryu is the only real way for us to take care of this... threat from our past enemies. These foreigner assassins who are after us," said Mieko.
"The Sakaguchis...?" Kinta trailed off, looking at both his master and his grandmother.
The pale-as-a-sheet old man clarified, "Upon Mieko-sama's request, I'm gathering every last member of the Musou Madden School in order to deal with this invasion and assassination attempt head on. I'm not as strong as I used to be, but I'm sure our younger students will be up to the task."
To Be Continued...
I've always loved the DC Comics approach to superheroes, wherein it's the villains that make the hero. Lex Luthor makes Superman. The Joker completes Batman.
I'm also a big fan of Marvel's own approach to heroes and villains, like the iteration of Magneto who's a well-intentioned extremist that has essentially the same goals as his counterpart rival, Professor X.
Finally, the Faceless's anachronistic fighting style is based on Bartitsu by Edward William Barton-Wright. It's an 1898 Victorian England martial art that mixed boxing, fencing, and Far Eastern self-defense techniques together.
Salamat,
Abdiel