Chapter One Hundred Three
The sudden and unexpected actions from this unknown woman instinctively placed Aoshi on alert, and his body tightened back into an attack stance. Before he could follow through, however, the salamander burst out of the burning building with a roar of anger and landed on the ground beside them. Smoldering coals clung to his scales from the flames he had absorbed, and his large wings were spread so wide they filled the roadway, effectively making him appear twice his already substantial size. Aoshi hesitated in order to strategize, but his cool blue eyes swung back to Misao when she lifted a hand for him to back down.
"Uh… yeah?" With her mouth smushed vertically from the heels of Kaoru's hands, the response was slightly watering sounding.
Kaoru's tight fingers were already slowly relaxing, however, and her shoulders drooped. The elation on her face had also dimmed. The longer she stared at this young woman, the more she could tell that she was not who she had thought she was. Letting her hands drop, Kaoru released a long breath of disappointment.
"Sorry. You're not Misao." Off-hand and to herself, Kaoru whispered sorrowfully, "Of course you're not."
Misao lifted a single brow, but before she could argue that she was indeed 'Misao,' one of Aoshi's kijin warriors appeared to make a report.
"The enemy has fallen back, but an unnatural wind has picked up from the East. It's spreading the remaining fires faster than we can put them out."
"That crafty old bastard." Misao's cursing earned her a side-look from Aoshi, but he said nothing to berate her. They both knew that any unnatural wind would most likely be caused by the Emperor, and if he had started intervening personally, then it meant he was committing himself to the ruin of Neo-Kyoto. Just to get at one fire demon and a human girl. Jerking her head back towards Kaoru, Misao frowned.
"Where the hell is that fire demon? You are the human, right? Shouldn't he be with you?"
The sadness in Kaoru's sapphire eyes had remained as she continued to gaze at Misao, but it minimized in the face of the smaller woman's short and rather confrontational questioning.
"Kenshin isn't here right now." Frowning, Kaoru placed a hand on the salamander's head when he pushed himself lightly into her side. "What do you want him for?"
"For starters, a little help would be appreciated. This is kinda his fault, after all."
"Kenshin didn't do any of this." Anger was starting to fill Kaoru's words. "And I think you know that. Just because some jackass wants to blame it on him doesn't mean that it's his fault."
"Everyone else will think it is." One of Misao's hands flew out to the side, as if to indicate the city at large. "If he didn't want to fight, why didn't he just turn himself in? Why run like a coward? If he had stayed and stood up to that old man, he wouldn't have pulled other people into it."
"So you think he should have stayed and fought? And then what? The Emperor's a dragon, right?" Kaoru was still ignorant to a lot of the social rules between demons, but this at least she now understood. "You wanted him to die fighting a dragon, and possibly wipe out half the country in the process? Kenshin tried to take us out of the situation to make sure no one was hurt."
"Except that bastard will never stop! He'll burn the whole country just to get his hands on that fire demon and you. He's a piece of shit that doesn't care about anyone but himself." Misao's logic was quickly turning personal, and her features displayed her contempt openly. "He shouldn't even be the emperor. There just hasn't been anyone strong enough to stand up to his claim. That fire demon could, though. He's scared of that fire demon, and we can use that to get rid of him for good."
Kaoru was already shaking her head. "Kenshin won't help you. He doesn't have any interest in some power struggle. He just wants to live a quiet life in peace. Why can't you people just leave him alone?"
"Do you think the Emperor will just leave him alone?! Leave you alone?!" Frustration heaped atop anger, and Misao stomped one small foot down. "He'll never stop! He killed his own wife, my mother, just because she was half-human. He deserves to die for what he's done!"
"Hey, ladies. What's going on?" Uninitiated on the conversation, having just got off the phone, Yūtarō jogged up to their standoff in complete ignorance.
A mixture of disgust and disappointment pinched Kaoru's features. "You just want to use him. For your own vendetta." Searing pain flared behind her sternum, and she flinched briefly as she flattened a hand to her chest. Next to her, the salamander whined pitifully.
"Whoa, you okay?" Yūtarō was instantly worried, but Kaoru dismissed his concern with the wave of her hand. Her eyes remained fixed upon Misao.
"I'm fine." Leaving one hand pressed to her breast bone, Kaoru straightened. "I'm sorry for your loss. I truly am, but that has nothing to do with us."
Aoshi touched Misao's shoulder to interrupt the argument.
"This is getting us nowhere, Princess. We'll talk to the fire demon another time. Right now, we need to deal with the situation at hand."
"Getting him to talk to us has been the problem. I say we take her with us as collateral. He'll talk to us if we give him a reason to."
A low, deep growl shook the salamander's throat, and the air around them shimmered with telling heat. Calmly bending to pick up her wooden sword from where she had left it to attend to the pregnant woman, Kaoru stood and rested it on her shoulder. Ice crystals formed along the length of it, and small blue flames sparked into life around her.
"You could try to take me." Sapphire irises glowed eerily. "But you'll find I'm not just some powerless human."
For the first time, Misao slowly cracked a grin.
"I kinda like you"
Stepping in between them, Yūtarō held up his hands to break up the looming encounter.
"I don't think this is such a good idea." Facing Misao and Aoshi, Yūtarō lowered his hands until they were in front of him. "Taking his woman isn't going to get him to talk to you. It's a good way to get yourselves killed. You see that monstrosity right there?" Pointing at the salamander, Yūtarō stepped to the side as if presenting the fire-lizard as a cast member. "That's a piece of his hair. It's only about the width of my pinky finger. Now imagine what the rest of him looks like when pissed off. You don't want that coming at you."
"Unless we made him think the Emperor took her." The suggestion came from the kijin warrior. Misao looked thoughtful, but Aoshi frowned.
"Lying to such a powerful demon is not how we create a long-term ally. I would advise against such a tactic. It would most likely turn him on us in the aftermath, and we are trying to establish stability, not chaos."
Yūtarō chimed in quickly to agree. Behind him, Kaoru had doubled over in pain as the pressure beneath her sternum spiked like a gas explosion. Falling onto her hands and knees, she coughed until blood splattered the pavement. The argument quickly turned to confusion and apprehension, and then the salamander whimpered. Then began to scream. Not roar or howl or growl. It screamed, and took off running away from them. Winded and weakened, Kaoru reached after him, frightened by his abandonment. Mere seconds later, everyone was thrown from the street when the salamander burst into a whirlwind of flame that exploded upward like a tornado into the sky. Slamming into the wall of a nearby building, Kaoru gasped and fought for air as pain racked her body. Struggling to stand up before she was fully capable, she tripped and ran for the salamander. In her muddled mind, she had not thought about what she would do once she reached him, only that he needed help. Luckily, she was caught by the arm before she could get too close.
Aoshi's strong grip detained her, and he shouted something at her that she could not hear over the ringing in her ears. Under her feet, the ground rumbled and shook like the coming of an earthquake, and then the world went so deathly quiet and still it was as if sound never existed. When it returned, it burst through her already torn eardrums with an eruption of force. The dark blanket of the night sky flared with light, as if the very atmosphere had caught fire, and the sudden illumination revealed Hiko's mountain far off in the distance.
Oh no.
Fire ringed the mountain, and black smoke bellowed upwards as if it were a volcano. Lava, slow and dangerous, spewed down the face and directly towards the city. Perched atop the peak, bent and twisted in unnatural ways, was the ill-formed shape of a dragon. Its scales sleuthed away from its body in patches, leaving the heated bone underneath raw and exposed. Even its head was mostly skull, and its massive crown of twin horns appeared to be melting into its neck. Lava leaked from out of its cracked mouth while steam issued from its bony nostrils. One sharp spike at the tip of its nose burst open as they watched, and molten blood seeped from the open wound to join the lava gushing out onto the mountain.
A screeching roar of thunderous rage and pain blasted through the air, and the throbbing ache still present in Kaoru's chest clenched so hard she went down onto one knee.
Oh, Kenshin. What did you do?
This was not a majestic and sacred dragon. What he had birthed looked more like an undead creature, a skeletal phantom of what could be or a decayed corpse of what once was. And he was in so much pain.
The opened mouth cry ejected the lava from his throat, and multiple fireballs shot through the sky to rain down upon the city. They hit like mortar shells, and coupled with the unnatural wind coming in from the East, massive updrafts formed with thick flames twisting together at their core. Screams from across the city rose into the air, and were drowned out only by the crushing destruction of wood splintering, glass shattering, and steel coming undone.
In slow motion, Kaoru watched as one of the fireballs arched through the sky directly towards them. Upon impact, it would undoubtedly wipe out all of them in one blow. There was no time to think and no time to react in her already reeling state. The fingers that had held tight around her upper arm abruptly released her, and she fell onto both hands, unbalanced and utterly alone. The wailing cry of the fireball grew in volume as it neared its destination, and her already abused eardrums spilled blood down her neck. Closing her eyes to accept Death once more, Kaoru rocked to the side and fell over when the ground rumbled with the impact.
Blinking herself back into reality, she stared as Hiko stood next to her, the fiery ball of death suspended in a bubble of steaming water just above the roofs of the nearby buildings. Crushing the brimstone down into a compacted, cold chunk of volcanic rock, Hiko dropped what was left of the fireball into the middle of the street where it lay harmlessly, but awkwardly in the way. Turning to her, his coral horns sprouting proudly from his sea-blue hair, he offered her a hand and a grim frown.
"Come on, girl. We have an idiot to save."
His usually booming voice sounded far away, and it took longer than normal for her brain to process what he said, but she eventually nodded in eager agreement. Bypassing his assistance, however, Kaoru crawled quickly away from him to the charred remains of her hair charm. The braided red-hair had been singed mostly black, and it was hot to the touch when she gathered it into her hand. Her wooden sword was nowhere to be seen. Wincing, and already sweating from the heat building behind her sternum, she gained her feet only to be swept immediately off them.
X
"YOU MUST STOP!"
The world of swirling flames no longer looked like a plane upon which they fought, but instead resembled the center of a massive star. Lightning cracked like a whiplash around them, and the sphere of churning fire continued to expand. It was unstable, except at its center where the Kagu-tsuchi stood as a beacon of calm, pure power. Standing in direct contrast, Kenshin was an inverted mirror of the higher being, although he was no longer capable of feeling the pain threatening to shatter his body. Blood covered his face and chest, portions of his skin had been torn away, and his haggard breath spoke of imminent collapse.
"Tell me… how to get rid of it." His voice was tired, but still resolute.
"YOU'RE KILLING YOURSELF."
"Tell me how to save her."
"YOU MUST STOP NOW."
"Tell me!" Trembling knees gave out from under him, and Kenshin caught himself on one while supporting his weight on the flame sword he had created. "… Help me. Please."
"… I CANNOT SAVE HER… AND NEITHER CAN YOU."
Bloodied features contorted in fury and denial, and he launched himself at the white-flamed being once more. This time, however, the Kagu-tsuchi did not parry or defend, and Kenshin's violet-flamed sword cut straight through to his center. Shocked, Kenshin froze, his wide eyes trained upon the blinding visage before him, but even his strike seemed to affect the Kagu-tsuchi very little.
"I CANNOT SAVE HER." The sword in the Kagu-tsuchi's hand disappeared as he confirmed again Kenshin's worst fear. "I CANNOT INDEPENDENTLY USE MY FULL POWER IN THIS WORLD. NOT UNTIL I ENTER MY PERMANENT VESSEL. IT IS POSSIBLE FOR A TEMPORARY VESSEL TO USE MY POWER. HOWEVER, THERE HAS BEEN ONLY ONE FLAME CELESTIAL THAT COULD USE MY POWER TO ITS FULLEST. THE FIRST FLAME CELESTIAL I MADE. HE COULD HAVE SAVED HER… BUT YOU CANNOT."
Flame… celestial?
"How do you know I can't?!"
"YOUR CORE IS DAMAGED. YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF DOING THIS. ESPECIALLY NOW."
"I could withstand it! I will withstand it!"
The silence between them was filled with explosions from the surrounding world.
"DO YOU NOT KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, KENSHIN SON OF TAKIBI? THIS IS YOUR CORE, OR WHAT IS LEFT OF IT. THE SHELL HAS BROKEN. YOU HAVE SURRENDERED YOUR CONTROL, AND WE ARE NO LONGER CONTAINED."
Violet eyes unfocused as what he had been told sank in, but his vision sharpened once again as he recognized the gravity of the situation. Automatically, his chin darted upward, but there was no longer any barrier for the phoenix to lay upon. Jerking his head to the right and then the left, his stomach plummeted when he finally caught sight of the charred and contorted wings of what was once a very large bird.
"No."
"STOP NOW AND YOU MAY STILL BE ABLE TO SAVE YOURSELF AND YOUR WORLD… STOP NOW, AND I WILL ACCEPT YOUR DECISION TO TERMINATE MY VESSEL."
X
The komainu stood as a last barrier between the slow-moving lava descending the mountain and the city below. Their barrier was holding, but the sweat dripping from their skin suggested they were nearing their limit when Hiko and Kaoru arrived. Low grumbling rumbled in Hiko's throat as he stared upwards at the mountain, and he adjusted Kaoru's weight in his arms. She thought he meant to set her down, but was surprised when he instead tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of rice.
"Dammit, boy. I didn't want to do this."
Upside down and staring at the ground, Kaoru blinked when she realized that ground was getting further and further away. Soon enough, it was not Hiko's shoulder that she clung to, but the hair sprouting out from behind his thick, coral-serrated horns. Fully transformed into his own complete dragon form, Hiko circled the mountain once, the force of the wind like a hurricane against her as he flew. On his second revolution, his mouth opened, and water spewed from his jaws as a jet stream. It appeared to slam into an invisible barrier, before stretching and spreading outward to eventually span the entire mountain in a physical dome of protection; effectively trapping Kenshin within it. Paused now outside of the new barrier, Kaoru's heart ached as Kenshin roared and screeched in agony. Now that they were closer, the sounds were deafening and torturous.
Tangled within her own loving empathy and grief, she could feel him as only an onibi could. It was not just how best to ensnare him, though. It was not just the song she would need to sing to lure him into following her. With the addition of the other onibi, her abilities had strengthened, and she could feel individual emotions. She could feel weaknesses and knew how best to exploit them… or how best to heal them. Kenshin was confused and lost, enraged and tormented, shaken and heartbroken. Climbing up the sea-blue hair to the crown of Hiko's skull, Kaoru parted the strands like tall grass so that she could see the incomplete dragon Kenshin had become. At first glance, she could tell he was not fully in control. His beautiful violet irises were milky, and his pupils unfocused. What provoked the beast before them was pure frightened instinct, and the pain he was in drove it to lash out wildly out of self-preservation.
"Can you get through to him?" The damage to her eardrums meant nothing when the question had entered her mind directly, and Kaoru caught her breath as Hiko's booming voice interrupted her thoughts. "He needs to regain control before we lose him for good."
"I-I'll try."
The first few words she attempted to sing were shaky and out of tune, and even she could tell they were off. The ringing in her ears was distracting, and she could hardly hear herself. Shaking her head, she covered her ears instead, and started again, focusing instead on the cords in her throat and the breath pulling deep into her diaphragm. For now, it did not matter if her voice carried over his screams. She just needed one note, just one word to reach him, to capture him. Standing slowly to her feet, she balanced herself precariously and ignored the height and freefall behind her. Sapphire irises stared only forward, their glowing depths fixed upon the clouded violet eyes of her target.
Look at me.
Within the barrier, the imperfect fire dragon slammed itself against the water wall that Hiko had erected with its entire body. It clawed and lashed out wildly, screamed and spewed fire, and roared directly into the face of the water dragon detaining it, like a trapped animal fighting to be free. For most of her song, it reacted in defiance of the soothing tones she was trying to convey, but eventually it calmed until only its heavy, forceful breaths rushed from its nostrils. Finally, its eyes looked at her. Finally, his eyes focused. Smiling in relief, Kaoru continued to sing, but one of her bloodied hands left her ear to reach out towards him.
There you are.
The confusion in his eyes was different now, more aware, and a soft chuffing noise she was used to hearing from the salamander rasped from his throat. He shifted, and the motion birthed pain through his body. Crying out, his muscles contracted to contort his long form like an injured snake, and Kaoru stopped singing when his eyes broke contact. Sliding down the bridge of Hiko's forehead, she fell forward onto his snout when the water dragon moved.
"Fight through it, boy. That pain is nothing. It's part of you now. Make it yours and take back control. Show me you resolve."
Kenshin's heavy breathing was loud and forceful, but upon Hiko's direction, Kaoru could hear him regain the foundation of his control. Just as he had once taught her, the breath came first. Purposefully, his breathing began to slow, and his bowed head relaxed. As discipline returned, she could see his awareness expand, and his claws dug deep into the mountain as he looked past Hiko to the city on fire. A wounded sound drug through his nostrils, and he tried to step forward only to butt his head into the water barrier. Contracting his body inward like a python, Hiko burst the barrier and allowed Kenshin to use him as a brace to step up.
Feeling quite miniscule next to the giants in her midst, Kaoru turned to watch as Kenshin appeared to effortlessly draw out and absorb all the fire across the city. Below them, the lava cooled to hard igneous rock, and even the warmth in the air returned to the normal chill of early winter morning. The light in the sky faded, and was replaced by the first cool rays of the sun shining just under the horizon. Only the smoke remained as a leftover reminder of the fire that had been.
"Good job, boy. Good job." Hiko's voice was nearly affectionate, and though it deepened back with authority, it remained low. "Now suppress it. Like I taught you. This form is not complete. You should not remain in it for very long."
When he reverted, it was nearly as sudden as his transition, and his human form looked almost as rough. Without even a moment of resistance, he fell straight forward, and his dead weight rolled down the hard slope of cooled lava before him. Kaoru cried out in alarm, but before she could do anything reckless, Hiko cut off Kenshin's dangerous descent with his open palm. In the same motion, Kaoru found herself settled safely on the ground so that Hiko could suppress his own dragon state. He arrived at Kenshin's side before her, but even from a distance she could hear Kenshin's regret.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The closer she drew, the thicker his remorse permeated the very air, and her expression creased with sympathetic pain. Pieces of his body looked brittle and burnt, and the cross-shaped wound on his cheek had grown. It now split down his neck and over his shoulder while also cutting angrily back through his ear and over his skull where it had sheared part of his hair away. The right side of his torso was black and sickly, and his skin had cracked like popped charcoal when nearly spent. Every nail from his fingers and toes were missing, and they bled even as he shook from the pain.
"I'm sorry."
Biting her lip, Kaoru knelt next to him, and gathered one of his hands carefully into hers.
"We know, Kenshin."
His head shook, almost angrily. "I killed him." Heaving breaths were once more lifting his chest in rapid, forced succession. "I killed him." Kaoru frowned and glanced at Hiko, but the water dragon was busy assessing the damage.
"Who?"
"Sanosuke." Red lashes had remained adamantly shut. "I'm sorry."
Kaoru did not recognize the name, but it was obviously someone important to him. Abruptly, Hiko gathered Kenshin up and stood.
"Go check on the house, girl."
"But…"
"Go. He needs emergency treatment and it won't be pretty."
"I don't…" He had already disappeared before she could argue, and she dropped her arms to her sides to find herself alone. "…care." Pain pierced her ears and side, but most concerningly behind her sternum. Pressing a hand to her chest, Kaoru clenched her jaw and relayed quiet pleas and reassurance to the child growing inside her soul. "Be still. Please, Kenji. Your papa's going to be okay. There… there's no reason to be afraid."
X
A/N: I debated waiting until I had another chapter or two to post, but a lot happened in these two chapters, so I think I'll go ahead with just them. Plus… it's been a month since I last posted, and I feel a little bad making everyone wait. Sorry! As warned, I got a little wrapped up in playing Tears of the Kingdom. I'm a little glad for it, though. My original outline for this part was drastically different, and actually pretty boring (from my perspective). I was craving a bit more action and development, and my original plan felt so mundane. Having some time to think it through helped me land on this, and I'm much more excited about it as a result. Kenshin's incomplete transition has more impact like this, and I feel like the characters haven't had enough friction.
On a side note, I was asked about details for Kenshin's true form, and was having a hard time thinking of examples to point towards. I don't want to get into too much detail what with him being incomplete right now, but I can't help but share finding the perfect model for at least one aspect of him: his horns. When I was thinking of how I wanted his horns to look (long, long ago), I had already decided to half-way model him off of Dinraal from Breath of the Wild. Just his horns, anyway. As it happens, in Tears of the Kingdom, they included new outfits for Link to wear modeled off each of the dragons. Dinraal's head piece is a set of horns to match the dragon… and they even glow red when you're in high temperature areas. I almost screamed out loud, I was so excited. (I never scream, even when scared.) They are exactly how I imagined Kenshin's horns, and now I never want to take that head piece off Link for the rest of the game, lol.
Anyway, thank you so much for allowing me the time to indulge in my obsession, and I hope your patient wait was worth it. There should be no further delays, due to the video game, anyway. XP Up next, decisions are made by Misao on how to deal with the aftermath of the arson and seeming dragon attack, and Kenshin struggles with what he has done and what he thought he must do. Thanks for reading!