Chapter 6: The Chaos Equivalent
Scout frantically dug at the bars over his cell. Soon, if not already, he would be deemed unnecessary, and summarily executed. At least, that's what the captain of the project had told him. He wasn't quite sure what all those big words meant, but it sounded bad.
He was using a small piece of metal that he had managed to smuggle from his other cell. Not having had a change of clothes in a month... or maybe two?... made him smell rancid, but it was to his benefit that it allowed him to keep whatever he found. Unfortunately, he didn't find much. Fortunately, he had found this piece of metal.
One last tug, and the rock fell away from the edge of the bar. Scout grabbed and pulled, and it finally broke free with a soft crumbling sound. Scout, keeping the bar in one hand, slipped through the opening he had made. He didn't really have a plan, but he knew he needed to be far away from here. Maybe, just maybe, he would break that machine and light those plans on fire on his way out.
Then he came face to face with the samurai guarding this prison.
With a look of annoyance, the guard drew his sword, and moved to attack.
Scout was naturally confident in himself, but he knew where his strengths and weaknesses lay. In a fist fight, he could take this guy no problem, even with his metal breastplate and bamboo pauldrons. But a swordfight? First of all, Scout didn't even have a sword, just a metal bar. Second of all, Scout had no idea how to sword fight. Sure, he had used swords in the past, but he had swung them like baseball bats against people who had guns in their hands; not exactly an even grounds fight. Scout was beginning to wonder how he would pull this off.
"Gaijin", someone next to him shouted.
Scout chanced a glance to the right, only to find a cell mate he wasn't aware he had had this whole time. The Japanese man in the cell next to his made two fists, one on top of the other, and then tucked them in close to his body, maneuvering them in tight patterns.
What was he doing? Scout stared at him for a moment in dumbfounded ignorance, when suddenly it dawned on him; this man had clearly recognized him as a novice. He was teaching him how to swordfight.
It wouldn't substitute for years of training, but Scout was a fast learner. He gripped the bar as he was shown, and took up a stance that felt natural. The samurai scoffed, even chuckling a little, as he brought his sword down. Scout held his sword up to block it. Once he had stopped the sword in its tracks, he swung hard at the samurai's head. The samurai easily blocked it, and punched Scout in his face with his free hand. Scout stumbled back, out of sight of the man in the cell.
A pair of hands reached out of the cell, showing Scout, in proper form, how to attack quickly. Scout nodded, took a deep breath, and went on the offensive, making quick successive strikes around the samurai's midsection. What Scout was trying to do, in a spur of genius, was make the samurai drop his guard, or even better, attack wildly, leaving his head exposed.
The samurai, enraged, attacked wildly, swinging his sword heavily at Scout's midsection. Scout thrust the bar, jamming it into the samurai's exposed throat. Coughing and sputtering, the samurai swung wildly again, and Scout ducked the swing, doing an uppercut strike that knocked the helmet off of the samurai's head. Now thoroughly enraged, the samurai swung for the midsection again. Scout jumped, using the immense strength of his legs to propel himself above the samurai, and bringing the pipe down on his head. The samurai's head split open, blood spurting out, and he fell to the ground, clutching the top of his head, in too much pain to scream.
"Take that, sucka", Scout shouted, as he brought the pipe down on the samurai's head one last time, shattering his skull with, "I am owning you!"
The hands came out of the cell again, from between the bars, and clapped their approval. Scout searched the guard's pockets, and came back with a jingling set of keys, which he immediately set about looking around for people to free with. He quickly realized, however, that the only people left in this prison were himself and his impromptu teacher.
Scout quickly made his way to his cell, and searched for the right key. Once he had it, he opened up the cell door, and stepped aside for his teacher to walk through. Out stepped a rather tall man, well built, with features indicative of someone who had undergone a lot of stress lately, with bags under his eyes, wrinkles around his face, and gray starting to streak his hair. The clothes he wore might as well have been a potato sack with a rope around it, and he was covered in ash. His moustache was rather short but well-groomed, and his hard, brown eyes stared intently at Scout.
"Impressive, Gaijin", he said in shaky English, "but not very impressive. You will have to fight harder and smarter to escape this prison."
"Uh, 'thanks for rescuing me, Scout'", Scout said in a certain tone, "'here's how we can escape, let's not waste time'."
"Time", the man said with a shake of his head, "is something that neither of us have very much left of."
He strode over to the fallen samurai, picking up his blade, giving it a good swing. He looked unimpressed, but kept it anyway. He approached Scout once more.
"For me, I must leave you. But for you, you must run. Find a place to hide, or maybe to fight back from, but for me, it has been too late. Let us leave this place, now."
With that, he marched to the front door of the prison, which would open straight into the manufacturing facility.
"Uh, hey", Scout said, a bit of panic rising in his voice, "you can't go out that way, you'll be slaughtered!"
"That's the plan", the man said nonchalantly, as he kicked down the door.
Inside the warehouse, people in their weird diving suits were hard at work, trying to figure out an alternative power source for the machine at its center. The room was initially bustling with activity, but as people began to notice the man in sackcloth, they stopped what they were doing to stare in his direction. Guards at the exits stared in his direction in shock.
Taking a stance, and a deep breath, the man belted out, "Shi no namae ha Yamamoto Uzu Maki desu! Shi ha oudai no na nomotoni ooku no tatakai o sen tte ki mashi ta! Shi ha kare ni ooku no shouri o kachi tori, ooku no tochi o seifuku shima shi ta!"
He surged forth, moving faster than lightning, jumping, twisting, tucking and rolling to avoid the arms of the divers, and simultaneously cutting the wires that connected them to the ceiling. They each jerked, and fell over, motionless.
"Shika shi, shi ga shoutou ni shi no monode ari, kare ni zoku shite i nai kekkon no te dea ri, kare ha ki ni shina ka tsu tamo no o motomeru koto o aete shi ta toki, kare ha shi o tougoku shima shi ta! Shi ni jikken shima shi ta!"
As the guards surged forth, he cut through them like they were butter, hardly even having to block or parry he was so fast.
"Ima, shi ha ano tame ni rai tei masu! So shite, ana ta da ke no aware na rotto ha shi o teishi su ru tame ni zan sa re tei masu!"
With the entire warehouse extinguished of life, minus the two former prisoners, he reverently pushed open the sliding doors.
"Ano anzen no tame no kyoufu!"
As he left, Scout stared at the corpses, dumbfounded. Then he shook himself, and looked over at the machine. It was mostly made of copper. Copper could be dented.
He went to work with his metal pipe, and once it was a pile of garbage, he picked up a sword from off the ground, hoping beyond hope that he could find an exit that wouldn't lead him back to the castle.
...
Five mercs sat at the round table, twiddling their thumbs. Heavy had pumped enough iron to the point he could lift a car, and was ready to crush these so called "tin can men" with his bare hands. Demoman had a surplus of Semtex grenades, and even some chloroform bombs. Sniper had been good, but was now proficient with throwing knives, and even had a nice new MP5KS to go along with it. Medic, as it turned out, had been filling syringes with poison or knockout drugs respectively. And Pyro... well, Pyro had befriended a rabbit it had found outside and was currently petting it gently.
They all awaited the Engineer.
Their faces, the ones that could be seen anyway, were set and grim. Even Pyro seemed to be in a chilly mood, having subdued its normally more erratic movements. All of them were casually avoiding looking at the door.
The door flew open.
"Gentlemen, thanks for waitin'", the Engineer said, as he motioned them through the double doors.
One by one, the men stood, and marched through the doors. In the living room, each were surprised to see a suit of maroon armor on a dais. Each was crafted to suit their fighting style. Medic's armor consisted of a chest plate, a plate that went over his charge pack but didn't block his nodes, a full face helmet with a beak-like protrusion over the nose, and shoulder pauldrons. Sniper's armor consisted of a breastplate, and thigh plates with ALICE webbing to put gear on. Heavy had a huge breastplate with an equally massive neck guard for the left side, a huge left shoulder pauldron that looked more like a shield, and armor all down the left arm, terminating in a gauntlet with segmented fingers, along with armor for his thighs, legs, and even boots, but only a guantlet for his right arm. Demoman had what appeared to be a full suit, though with no fancy protrusions, save for the helmet. The helmet covered everything except for the face; the face was covered by a gas mask, and a large ballistic face shield was rigged to where it could come down over that for added protection. Even Pyro had armor; a breastplate and pauldrons.
The armor was more modeled after medieval armor plate, with a sort of modern twist. Underneath the armor was a skinsuit, made of some kind of heavy weave. Dell explained that it was supposed to soak up spalling, of which there was bound to be a lot.
As everyone struggled their way into the armor, Demoman, who had slipped in pretty quickly, finally asked the big question.
"Ye crazed gizmo glutton, how in the blue blazes are we supposed to know that this red-coated nonsense actually works?"
In a flash, Dell drew his M1911, putting three rounds into Demoman's chest. Demoman, in shock, went to feel the wounds to see how bad it was. When he brushed his fingers over where holes should have been, however, he didn't even find dented metal.
Dell spun his handgun around on his finger, and then sheathed it back in the holster in a single, fluid motion. Dell turned around, and went back to helping Heavy get his arm armored up. Demoman was left flabbergasted, only to realize that pressing the issue was clearly not something he should do. He about-faced, and went back to his room to pick up his backpack full of bombs.
"What about you", Heavy asked Dell.
This question made Demo turn his head and stop his feet, if only because he was kind of curious himself. Dell smiled. It was not a nice smile.
"You'll see."
...
The bonging of a gong brought Spy from his "nap". He had laid down to sleep last night, having not slept in some time, and now the sun was high in the sky. He had foolishly thought that Scout would be fine if he simply slept for a few hours. Figures he would be wrong when Scout was involved.
Spy sprang to his feet, getting his bearings. He immediately took note of an army unit of low-level samurai, led by a samurai clad in power armor. The power armor samurai brought forth two samurai clad in more traditional Sengoku-period armor, and presented them with flags, which a retainer helped to strap to their backs.
Spy watched to see where they went. If they charged the castle, it would be likely that Dell had finally brought the cavalry. The only other option was that Jane had finally screwed up so royally that he had brought the full might of the emperor down on his head.
Spy's stomach dropped as they began marching in the direction of where Scout was being kept. In a panic, he began counting off how many men there were, and stopped around a hundred thirty-five. Spy centered himself quickly with a cut across the back of his wrist. He only did this when his situation was so dire that it was all he could do. He had three other such cuts on the back of his wrist.
Obviously, the first order of action was to get ahead of these soldiers, and that would be easy at a light jog. Once he reached Scout, though, they had to disappear quickly, or they would be slaughtered. Dell had officially missed his window; they were stuck here.
...
Soldier puffed thoughtfully on a victory cigar, reading the last of his orders that Private had written down. The kanji on the papers was surprisingly easy to read, given that it was such a strange language. Then again, Utah existed.
Private sighed audibly, and Soldier adjusted his eyes to where she was sitting. She glared over at him, and in defiance, he puffed his cigar calmly. They stayed locked like that, until Private relented.
"I don't understand you", Private stated.
"I fight for America", Soldier explained, and then went back to reading.
"But this isn't America", Private told him.
Soldier stopped reading, and focused on Private. He turned what she said over and over in his mind, trying to attack and defend the position she had just erected. Eventually, after several stalemates, he narrowed his eyes.
"Explain."
"The only American I've met here is Jeremy", Private explained, "and before I met him, I had never even heard of such a place."
The war in his mind raged even harder, and suddenly, a whole new front opened up; what if, in this world, America had never existed? Or, what if it didn't exist yet? What if the correct people hadn't made it to the new world in this timeline?
What would that mean for the rest of the world?
If the rest of the world couldn't be bathed in the glorious glow of freedom, if capitalism hadn't pushed the world into a golden age of production, if they weren't around to win both world wars, how much more different would the world be? Would there even be a world worth saving out of that? Would a world without America be plunged into a dark age?
And would a world without America be a world set against him?
The bonging of a gong drew his attention away from such thoughts. Clearly, the army was in trouble, and needed his help. He reached out an arm to Private.
"My coat, Private."
...
Scout wasn't quite sure where to go, but he knew he had to go somewhere. Initially, he turned towards where he thought the village Spy had talked about was, and froze. He couldn't see a village, and if he kept walking in that direction, God only knew where he would end up. He looked towards where he thought the castle was, and stopped. If he went this way, he had the same problem, and another; if he ran into any samurai, with no protection on him, he was done for.
He settled on following the man who had escaped with him. At the very least, he knew how to fight, and was apparently pretty good at it. Scout would just have to hope that the guy didn't use him like a soldier. He began at a light jog, which, for a normal person, was fairly fast, and very quickly came across his impromptu teacher.
His teacher stood tall amongst a group of samurai, although, it didn't appear he was fighting them. As a matter of fact, they appeared to be bowing to him, while retainers without armor were running about, grabbing huge arquebus muskets, with bayonets the size of swords on them, and barrels of gunpowder. The speech he gave didn't stop, even as Scout ran up towards him.
Two samurai exploded up and grabbed him, only for the tall teacher to shout them down with only three words. The samurai released Scout, and turned back towards the teacher, standing at attention. The teacher held up a hand to Scout, as if to tell him to wait, and continued his speech. With the last few words, he held up his sheathed sword, rattling it. The samurai roared their approval, then grabbed their swords, rifles, and spears respectively.
The teacher turned towards Scout, tsking, saying, "Don't interrupt a rebel shouting heresy, gaijin. This place is a powder barrel already."
"Uh, sorry", Scout said, scratching the back of his head.
"And didn't I tell you that I was out of time", he chastised.
"All these guys seem to think you're alright", Scout countered, throwing a thumb at the fifty or so samurai that surrounded him.
The teacher scowled, then softened, saying, "They are out of time, too."
The teacher looked over the samurai before him, looking longingly. He sighed, and turned back towards Scout. He looked him up and down, and scoffed.
"I suppose you're out of time, too", he said, as something of a question.
"I'm certainly out of touch", Scout said with a chuckle.
"Would you work as a retainer? Bring guns and powder to my samurai as they need it?"
"I'm not much of a tamer, man. I don't even like lions."
The teacher looked confused, and then suddenly frightened as Spy melted into being next to Scout.
"AH", the tall samurai shouted in Japanese, covering his shocked face, "a ghost!"
"Not a ghost", Spy responded in Japanese. "Just... actually, I don't really get it either."
The tall samurai lowered his arms, asking, "What is your name?"
Spy remained quiet.
"Your name", the tall samurai asked again, more forcefully.
Spy remained silent.
The tall samurai scowled, scoffing, "You Shinobi are all the same, dying nameless for pathetic causes."
Spy didn't respond verbally, nodding his head.
The tall samurai raised an eyebrow, asking, "Care to die with us?"
Spy looked over at Scout, asking, "May I keep him as a retainer?"
The tall samurai scoffed again, saying, "A shinobi, asking for a retainer?"
Spy nodded his head again.
The tall samurai thought it over, then shrugged, saying, "Sure, why not?"
"Thank you", Spy said, giving the tall samurai a nod.
"You can call me Yamamoto", the tall samurai told him, saying quietly, "it is probably the last time anyone will hear the name aloud."
Spy nodded again, saying, "Yamamoto, I will fight alongside you with my retainer, Jeremy."
Yamamoto nodded, saying, "Unless you have anything else to say, we need to get ready."
"There is", Spy revealed, stepping forward. He pointed towards the direction of the castle, saying, "An army approaches you, one hundred thirty-five or so."
Yamamoto raised an eyebrow, looking in the direction of the castle. He looked back towards Spy, developing a grin.
"Then we should leave immediately", Yamamoto said, "we will strive directly ahead, and move past them, tearing straight for the castle. We will take the head off of the serpent in man's skin inside that castle. We will bring glory to our name once more!"
The samurai roared their approval once more.
"Last thing", Spy said to Yamamoto, before he could turn away. Yamamoto turned back, as Spy informed him, "I need a sword."
...
Engineer had disappeared again, and the mercs were busy inspecting their new armor, except for Pyro, who was still petting its rabbit. Medic was delighted to learn that the beak on his helmet doubled as a hazmat-rated gasmask, and that the filter could be switched on and off with a simple switch flip. Sniper flipped up the thigh plates, and noticed something odd. He flipped it back down, waiting for Dell to return, so that he could offer an explanation.
Dell did indeed appear again, looking absent-minded, and searching for something in the drawers around the room. A double take revealed that Dell had added a ton of magazine pouches to his overalls, and had stuffed them full of 20 rounder magazines for an M16, with a double pistol pouch in front of each rifle pouch, each carrying a seven-round magazine for the M1911 on his hip.
"Oi, Dell", Mundy called out to him.
Dell seemingly ignored him, continuing to search through the drawers.
"Dell", Mundy called again, and this time, Dell turned his head, listening to Mr. Mundy.
"What the heck are these channels underneath the armor", Mundy asked, lifting up his thigh plate for Dell to see.
Dell chuckled, going back to looking through the drawers, explaining, "Those are insert channels, in case I ever get the chance to upgrade the armor further."
"How so", Heavy asked, curious.
"Well, the big channels are to hold an endoskeleton", Dell said almost absentmindedly, "or maybe it would still be an exoskeleton? Aw, shucks... anyway, if I get my hands on more servo motors and happen to have a few extra days, I can make all of you into battery-powered tin men, like those big samurai. It's only for if we have to stay a few days, though, and have a few day's rest there, too. I wanted to do it before today, but we're out of time. We go now, or we go never."
Demoman rounded the corner with his huge backpack, leaving the gas mask fixture hanging off his neck around his chest, and marched into the living room.
"Alright, I'm ready to go", Demoman told the crew. "Who are we waitin' on?"
Dell chuckled again, raising a hand.
"Me", he admitted. "I need a monkey wrench. One last adjustment before my suit's done."
"Drawer to yer left", Tavish told him.
Dell nodded his thanks, and opened it up, drawing out the ratchet wrench, and going back towards the shed. The sound of a ratchet clanking came through the door, and then, abruptly, it stopped. Then a mechanical whirring and thudding sounded down the corridor, coming closer and closer. The group stared at what Dell had made in shock.
"Heavy", Dell's mechanized voice sounded out, "plug that disk into that there machine. Time to go to war."
...
Spy was wrong. This Iron Samurai wasn't trying to intercept them. He had stretched his forces out around the castle, and had erected breastworks around the castle, setting up powder points, and using retainers to load backup rifles. Three good volleys, hell, one, and they were all dead.
Yamamoto turned to Spy.
"Sabotage", was all Yamamoto told him.
Spy immediately knew what had to be done.
He turned to Scout, telling him, "Wait here, I won't be gone long."
Then he disappeared from view. Fortunately, he was far enough away from enemy lines that his maneuver could have been explained away as a mirage or trick of the light; if they had any inkling of what was about to happen to them, the enemy might have fled before Spy could sharpen his skills.
He made his way back to Yamamoto's back lines, and decloaked, ignoring the jumpy samurai and retainers. He immediately made his way to the stock of naval gear they had found, with a small, rounded object with a fuse sticking out of the top catching his eye. He initially thought it might be a grenade, and turned to the samurai around him to confirm. Even better, it was a minor incendiary bomb, a Horokuhiya. He grabbed multiple, and grabbed a multiple hundred-yard length of fuse, and turned back towards the enemy lines.
He silently begged and pleaded with his watch as he weaved through the enemy lines, wrapping fuse around the fuse on the little fire bomb, and then placing it on a barrel of gunpowder. He quietly and slowly made his way to each barrel, performing the same ritual again and again. As he placed the last bomb in the last barrel, for a fleeting moment, he thought he had gotten away with it.
He struck a match against his shoe, and touched it to the fuse.
"Intruder", one of the samurai shouted.
Spy held the match to the fuse until it touched off, and then turned to see a samurai kneel down to get a good shot at him with his rifle. Spy didn't have to check if his cloak ran out, because it was obvious that it had. The only thing left to do now...
Spy quickly drew his revolver, and fired a shot at the samurai. It hit the samurai in his shoulder, and the samurai dropped his rifle. Spy turned back towards Yamamoto's lines, and ran as fast as he could. He threw himself down behind a breastwork, and hit his cloak watch again, only for nothing to happen. Confused, he looked at the watch again, and realized that it didn't even tell time anymore.
He groaned, and shot up from the breastwork, sprinting as fast as he could. A ball whizzed past him, and a pain shot through his right side. Three more balls whizzed by him, before a deep boom sounded behind him, as the first barrel of powder touched off. Almost immediately, the enemy lines devolved into chaos, and the focus was no longer on Spy. As more barrels touched off, Yamamoto raised his sword, and shouted for his spearmen to charge the enemy.
Yamamoto pointed his sword at Spy, and then pointed to the ground. Spy dove, as Yamamoto yelled for his riflemen to open fire on the enemy samurai. Their arquebus' cracked in droves, and bullets whizzed over spy's head. He distinctly heard several samurai cry out in pain, and he jumped up, sprinting back towards Yamamoto's lines, just as the spearmen passed him.
As Spy reached Yamamoto's lines, the pain in his side had crescendoed into a searing throb. He fell to his other side, clutching his obviously shot side. More samurai charged around him, as Scout rushed to his side, trying to haul him up.
"Water", he told Scout.
Scout immediately ran off, screaming about water at anyone who would listen. Spy didn't need it, even though he really wanted it, but Scout panicking like that and pulling hard on his arm had really hurt. Spy put his index finger and thumb in his mouth, and touched his top right canine, and then counted three molars back. He unlatched the false tooth, and swallowed the heavy-duty pain pill inside.
Spy struggled up to his knees, and undid his shirt quickly, looking to see the damage done. If his human anatomy charts served him well, he had been shot close to a kidney, and if it was with the hyper-expansive lead slugs of the time, he had no doubt in his mind that his kidney had been clipped, if not shredded completely. The only good news was that he was currently looking at an exit wound, and very dark blood, which meant no arterial damage.
Scout approached him quickly with a ladle of water, so quickly, in fact, that most of the water had bounced out of it. By the time he got to Spy, there was barely a sip left in it. Spy couldn't help but chuckle.
"What", Jeremy asked, confused, then looked at the ladle. In a moment of understanding, he defeatedly said, "Oh."
"Just... show me where the barrel is", Spy told him.
"Holy crap", Scout said, looking at Spy's wound.
Spy nodded, saying, "Once you get me to that barrel, try to get your hands on strips of cloth."
"Screw that, man", Scout said, helping him to his feet and bracing himself under Spy's good arm, "we need to get you to Med- oh."
Spy gave the boy a weak smile, saying, "No second chances, remember?"
Scout's face dropped in a manner that conveyed he had just realized something earth-shattering.
Spy squeezed Scout's shoulder, saying, "Get me to that water barrel. I've got medicine, I just need bandages for now. Hopefully, the crew will come through the portal soon."
...
Soldier walked out of the castle into chaos. Samurai were fighting with spears, swords, and muskets, and worst of all, their colors were all so similar that it was hard to tell who was who. He immediately drew his sword.
Almost immediately, a samurai raised his sword and charged him. As he got closer, Soldier was shocked to see that it was an imperial guard, one of his own men. Such treachery would not be tolerated.
When the samurai was in striking distance, he brought his sword down on the unarmored Soldier. Soldier immediately parried the strike to his right, and continued advancing, swinging his sword into the samurai's leg, when the armor ended and the knee began. His sword stuck halfway through the joint, and blood began squirting out of the wound.
The samurai screamed, dropping his sword, which Soldier swept up from off the ground, as the samurai writhed on the ground, holding his grotesquely limp shin, Soldier moved on. The next samurai had a spear, and he aimed a thrust at Soldier's midsection. Soldier moved into the samurai's guard, and slashed at his face, cutting deeply through his jaw and into his left eye. The samurai gave off no sound as he clutched at his face, and Soldier moved on.
The next to attack him was another imperial guard. Soldier was beginning to think even harder about what Private had told him as the guardsman leveled his rifle, and fired. Fortunately for Soldier, he was only hit in the left arm, a glancing blow at best. Unfortunately for the samurai, he didn't put Soldier down with his shot. Soldier raised his sword, and bellowed a war cry, charging the man. The guardsman dropped his rifle, and ran, only to be impaled by another samurai wielding a spear. Soldier scoffed, and turned back towards the castle.
He decided at that moment to return to the castle, as he technically had three kills under his belt, and the fighting was intense enough that someone may have gotten through. If that were the case, he would have to root them out. Furthermore, he was going to have to do something about all this attempted teamkilling.
Inside the castle, the battle sounded fierce. Occasionally, what Soldier could only guess were bullets thunked against the thick wood of the massive building. So far, he hadn't found any enemy samurai in the castle, and as the sounds of fighting outside began to die down, he began to consider the perimeter secure.
Soldier rounded the last corner by the outer wall, and saw him. A tall man, dressed in what appeared to be sackcloth, bleeding from multiple wounds across his body, was leaned up against the wall, staining it with his blood. The sword in his hand had been broken in half, and his skin was pale as a ghost.
Yet, a resounding, toothy, bloody grin was plastered across his face.
"I made it", he said hoarsely in Japanese. "I made it into your den, you snake! You are no longer safe!"
At first, Soldier thought the man was talking to him, but the man's eyes were directed at the ceiling. Soldier approached him calmly, as it was clear the man had no fight left in him. Soldier gently reached out, and put his hand in the man's sword. He gave it up with no resistance. Soldier sheathed it carefully into the scabbard on his belt.
"You clearly fought honorably", Soldier told him in English. "You deserve an honorable death."
The man turned to him, a mixture of surprise and respect in his eyes.
"And you would grant me that honorable death", the tall man asked in English.
"I would", Soldier confirmed.
The surprise turned to admiration.
"How very noble of you", the tall man in sackcloth said, as the fight left his body.
"I try", Jane Doe said with a shrug.
The tall man nodded, and with some difficulty, shakily got down onto his knees. Placing the palms of his hands on his knees, he took in a deep breath, and bowed his head. Soldier raised his sword above his own head, and brought it down.
"STOP", a voice cried out to Soldier's right, but it was too late.
The blade, already in motion, sliced cleanly through the tall man's neck.
"Ariga…to", the man breathed, as his head fell from him.
Soldier turned to his right to see none other than the governor, looking extremely pissed. He marched straight up to Doe, who was a few heads taller than him, and slapped him across the face. Soldier, stunned, didn't react.
"You imbecile", the governor shouted, "he was a rebel and a traitor, and you gave him a warrior's death?!"
"He fought honorably", Jane pointed out, "and he died anyhow."
"This is in direct violation with my edicts on traitors", the governor leveled, pointing a finger in Doe's face, "making you yourself a traitor!"
This accusation enraged Doe to his very core. He had fought for the United States for so long, given his life, liberty, and limbs to her cause. He had suffered endless pain, shoved fourteen feet of his own intestine back into his body, fought the enemies of America, killed them, and earned medals just to be called a traitor.
His muscles flexed and tensed, and his disposition became animalistic. He knelt down into the governor's face, hot wind blowing from his mouth, preparing a scathing retort, when suddenly, he was interrupted. A guardsman came around the same corner the governor had, and erected his posture, making his armor clink and clack loudly.
The Emperor turned to address the guardsman, who shouted, "My Lord! We have driven back the traitors, but-"
"But what", the Emperor said with a huff.
"Your quarters, sir", the guardsman said with a shake of the voice, "something is happening!"
Confused, the Emperor looked back at Doe, who had calmed down significantly, and was now just as confused. The two of them rushed past the guardsman, into the Emperor's chambers, and saw a shimmering light form in the center of it.
"If you are no traitor", the Emperor decreed to Soldier, "then prove it. Whoever comes through that window, kill them."
With that, the Emperor turned, and fled the room quickly. Soldier, not knowing who could possibly be on the other side of this shimmer, readied his sword. Slowly, it focused into a picture, and then the picture moved, and all Jane saw was darkness.