[FFML] [fic][rk][cont] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 15: Maniac at the Mansion

[Chester Castañeda]

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Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Continuation Fan Fiction
By Chester Castañeda
chester.castaneda at gmail.com
http://www.fanfiction.net/~abdiel

Shogo Amakusa is coming to town.


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Chapter 15: Maniac at the Mansion

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Yahiko's body froze before he leaned towards Minoe and whispered, "Did I
hear the Oyakata right? Today is the date of that insurgency that the
government quelled in Shimabara?"

"No," Minoe shook his eye-patched, wig-topped head. "The date for the
Second Shimabara Rebellion is November the sixth, not November the
fifth; tomorrow, which is just a few more hours anyway. Why? Didn't you
already know?"

"Of course I didn't know!" Yahiko stomped his feet to emphasize his
point while he let his arms hang in front of him like rigid, quivering
bamboo canes. "I wouldn't ask you about it if I did!"

"I-I thought you knew because you said Sakaguchi-chi told you everything
about the Second Shimabara Rebellion! Give me a break!" Minoe protested
as his exposed eye traveled from Yahiko to the growing throng of his
Togakudan cohorts. "Do we have time to talk about this?"

"We'll make time! Mister Sakaguchi only informed me about some minor
details regarding the event. He hasn't told me the whole story." Yahiko
grabbed hold of the front of Minoe's baggy kimono, which made the
presumably older boy freeze and crane his neck back in sweat-filled
reticence. "Although I am wondering why he'd know about Shimabara in...
Is that Sakaguchi-san waving at us right now?"

Sure enough, right across the ballroom, a smiling Satoru Sakaguchi waved
at both Yahiko and Minoe with a gloved hand that was included in his
full Kanagawa police uniform after recognizing the two Sanbaka members
from the crowd of law enforcement officers and spies. The flabbergasted
Tokyoite guessed that Kyoko Sakuguchi's father had lingered around the
foot of the stairs in order to meet with his supposed "idol", Tetsuo
Akahori.

Yahiko and Minoe weakly waved back at the policeman before facing each
other again. The sixteen-year-old boy then let go of his eye-patched
associate. "I guess this is the reason why Sakaguchi-san went all the
way from Yokohama to Shinshushin, huh?"

After a few seconds, the spiky-haired youth blinked. "Wait a minute. Are
the police compulsorily assigned here or is it on a voluntary basis? I
thought that since the Oyakata made a fuss with that apologetic speech
of his, everyone here are either government volunteers or paid goons--
er, no offense."

"None taken. But you're half-right." Minoe straightened his rumpled
wardrobe out and adjusted his disheveled wig. "Even though it was
compulsory for all of the neighboring Kanto district police stations to
assign their cops to this meeting, each station had a limit on the
number of officers to be sent here because of the fairly recent Chichibu
incident; they simply had their hands full. As such, it's most likely
that Sakaguchi-chi volunteered himself here because of a vendetta. On
the other hand, it could just be because his family is located here in
Shinshu. I'm not sure; I'm supposed to spy on Amakusa-chi's business,
not Sakaguchi-chi's."

'Mister Sakaguchi might have volunteered to join this screwy little
mission from the get go instead of being forced into it by his
superiors. He could even have an honest-to-goodness vendetta against
Amakusa, which explains why Akahori has seemingly brainwashed him in
terms of what really happened back in Shimabara.' Yahiko also wondered
if there were any would-be Enishi Yukishiros present in Akahori's
audience who longed to bring about their own brand of earthly justice
against the Christian because their loved ones couldn't do so from
beyond the grave.

'Come to think of it, I'm guessing this Shimabara business happened
during the same time that Enishi and his Five Comrades attacked Kenshin
and all of us linked to him. Looks like the government screwed up
_again_, seeing that Kenshin was too busy fighting the demons of his
past to bail those filthy politicians out.'

Although aware of the absurdity and improbability of involving Kenshin
and the rest of the "Kenshingumi" into this Shogo Amakusa debacle,
Yahiko nevertheless speculated what could've happened were they tasked
by the Meiji Government to deal with this religious rebel. 'Maybe
Kenshin would've stopped this Battousai wannabe from supposedly killing
a 'thousand' men... Huh. I guess Amakusa really _is_ a Battousai
wannabe, what with the stolen name and the ability to mimic Kenshin's
talent in killing a veritable army all by himself.'

Yahiko felt someone tap his shoulder. He turned and saw Minoe urging him
to join the Togakudan line. The young man sighed and strutted right
behind his insistent companion. "By the way, Minoe: what's the limit of
police officers per Kanto station?"

"Well, there's a limit of ten, so that's ten from Gunma, ten from
Kanagawa, ten from Tokyo, and ten from here in Kamiminochi. Add us
thirteen Togakudan members and you two fine gentlemen, and there're
about fifty-five of us protecting Oyakata-dono-chi's hide, so to speak.

Yahiko shuddered. Fifty-five. As Sanosuke eventually told him after
Shishio's coup d'etat failed, _any_ member of the Juppon Gatana--
especially Soujiro and some other blind swordsman Saito probably
slaughtered--could murder fifty police officers in a row if given enough
time. "Broom Head" Chou could probably do so in a couple of hours, while
"Psycho-Kid" Soujiro could accomplish that in under an hour; thirty
minutes if he were motivated.

Yahiko had another epiphany; he'd been getting so many since he'd
arrived at this mansion that he wondered if Tani's house had been built
on Buddhist holy ground or if a mummified "Sokushinbutsu" monk had been
buried underneath where they currently stood. "Minoe, did you or didn't
you recognize Akahori to be the same Oyakata we betted against at the
Shinshu Market cockpits?"

Minoe waited for all three seconds before stating, "Nope. I'm glad you
brought it up earlier, or else I would've never known." He giggled as he
adjusted his eye patch.

"H-He's your own boss and...? N-Never mind." Yahiko closed his gaping
mouth shut with a push of his knuckles, palmed his forehead and slid his
hand across his face, slumped his shoulders, and exhaled in due
acceptance.

The absentminded Minoe tried getting Akahori's attention by bending his
torso to the side of the Togakudan line and waving at him like a
demented, costumed monkey, but the Oyakata proved far too busy speaking
to the leaders of the different Kanto-based police groups to notice him.

"With all things considered, including his creepiness, he's a nice guy
all-in-all, isn't he? I mean, he even helped us escape that mob of angry
gamblers yesterday!" Minoe remarked in the middle of his frantic
gesticulation.

Yahiko harrumphed. "A 'question mark' is more like it."

"Who's the question mark? Who are we talking about? The Oyakata or
Officer Daddy?" Gan somehow weaseled into Yahiko and Minoe's private
dialogue, listening in the whole time.

"Maybe both," Yahiko replied, ignoring Gan's use of his head as a chin
coaster and the urge to knock the big lug out because he had far more
important issues to mull over. 'Are you putting your ass on the line to
stop some deluded Christian nut or are you covering it up by using the
vengeful loved ones of the Shimabara army, Oyakata-dono?'

After everybody had formed their lines and the drone of the congregating
masses had died down, Akahori spoke, thanking the leaders and captains
of the respective hired bodyguards and volunteer policemen for indulging
his request for assistance.

Meanwhile, Yahiko couldn't help but glare at the bungling yet flippant
attitude of the gathered Kamiminochi Police. Seeing their lack of
earnestness throughout Akahori's elaborate ceremonies, the youth
reckoned that most of them were just rent-a-cops and fakers jockeying
for better positions in major Kanto police headquarters by currying
favor from the presumably powerful politician.

If only they'd done their jobs instead of begging Akahori for scraps
like tongue-wagging dogs, then perhaps the real Battousai Group wouldn't
have bothered to put Keisuke and his band of minor bandits out of their
misery. Maybe Kyoko wouldn't have been forced to see so much blood and
murder. Most of all, Yahiko hated the fact that he wouldn't have been
riddled with three-week-old injuries had the Kamiminochi Police done
their duty. He squeezed his right hand into a ball, imagining the
feeling of connecting his knuckles onto the cheekbone of the Kamiminochi
District's Chief of Police or Captain.

Minoe nudged Yahiko, which woke him up from this revenge fantasy and
compelled him to stand up in attention. "Uh, thanks, Minoe. What's
happening?"

"The police captains and Raedo-sempai are starting the introductions,
Yahiko-chi," Minoe informed as he smoothened his pleated hakama and
straightened his fake hair with a casual toss. Once the eye-patched
fellow noticed Yahiko's lingering stare, he covered himself with his
arms and shot back a questioning glance. The Tokyoite shook his head in
assurance that nothing was amiss and focused his mind on the
proceedings.

The back of Yahiko's bushy head somehow managed to form a large bead of
sweat despite his hair's denseness. The Oyakata elected to have each
and every one of the gathered multitude briefly introduce himself by
telling everybody present his name, his place origin, and his
personality traits.

Soon, because of tired legs and the sheer amount of people in
attendance, Akahori allowed everybody to sit down and listen to the
introductions. Yahiko's brows furrowed over his squinted, tired eyes as
the extensive show and tell progressed, up until the point that it
hooded over his face like the brim of a hat. The whole situation felt so
droll to him that he could barely remember the names of his fellow
bodyguards anyway.

If Yahiko were forced with a knife over his neck, maybe he could name a
couple of those faceless strangers. Or perhaps they weren't so faceless;
the Tokyo contingent, as he expected, were composed of assholes and
bullies cut from the same cloth as the all-bark-no-bite Raijuta, with
the sole exception of his student and fellow survivor from the wrath of
Hyogo "Whale Mouth" Kujiranami, Kosaburo. He also deemed it a shame that
none of the other motley crew of Tokyo officers that helped him face
down Enishi's cannon-wielding subordinate were part of the Tokyo police
contingent.

In stark contrast, the Gunma District's band of brothers served as the
beta-males and sycophants of the Tokyo group, which made them no better
than the backstabbing Kanryu or the strange Houji fellow that Sanosuke
kept telling Yahiko about. People like those annoyed him to no end, as
though they lacked the spine to be their own man... their own men... or
something. As for Kanagawa's finest, the boy felt rather ambivalent
towards them, especially considering the fact that Satoru Sakaguchi was
part of their ranks. Finally, the Togakudan troop's collective cold
shoulder of the purported "Sanbaka" didn't surprise Yahiko in the least,
since Gan bested them in a dog pile "contest" a while back for Minoe's
sake.

In terms of the superiority food chain, Yahiko reckoned that Tokyo was
on top, Kanagawa was in second place, then came Gunma, then maybe either
the Togakudan or the Kamiminochi Police occupied the last spot, much to
the  Togakudan-grouped samurai's chagrin.

Then again, generalizations aside, Yahiko did bother taking note of the
names of the captains of each division. The Tokyo branch had the
aforementioned Ujiki, the Gunma branch had the overly optimistic and
short-for-a-captain Kujo, Kanagawa had the normal-to-the-point-of-
dreariness Yamada, Kamiminochi had the pudgy and aloof Nakayama, and
the Togakudan had Mikio Nagaoka's cousin, Raedo.

Also, even though everyone managed to keep their introductions brief
enough to consume only thirty minutes, by the fifteenth minute, it felt
to Yahiko like an hour had already passed by.

"Okay, so far there's Raiden-sempai, Big Eyes, Gay Playboy, Baby Face,
Chinese Dumpling Man, Frog Lips, Shaolin Reject, the Bulldog, Mister
Forgettable, Dead Kid, Pumpkin Head, Speckle Nose, Tumbleweed Hair,
and Patches!" Gan enumerated while again using Yahiko's spiky hair as a
chinrest of sorts.

"Hey, Yoshi-boy; how about I call you Spike from now on? You know,
because of the hair! I think Spike suits you. Or maybe Dandruff," Gan
supposed as he scratched his itchy neck.

Yahiko headbutted Gan's chin and reclaimed his personal space from the
bulky invader. "What are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm trying to memorize everyone's names here in the Togakudan
group." Gan rubbed his jaw while pushing Yahiko's face down on the floor
with little to no effort. "Since the Oyakata has grouped us with them,
then I might as well get to know them. It's the polite thing to do."

Yahiko struggled to get the Tubby Gan's frying-pan hands off of his head
and bit the brute's fingers. "Those aren't their names! No wonder
they're all glaring daggers at you right now; those are playground
insults, not names!"

"Shush, it's already Patches' turn to introduce himself," Gan declared
as he sat up straight and hooted alongside Minoe's other tormentors, the
insensitive lout. Unbeknownst to Yahiko, it was nearly his and Gan's
turn to introduce themselves as well, and Minoe had already started his
introductions.

"I'm M-Minoe. Minoe Munenori. I'm pleased to m-meet you all, guntai-
tachi-chi..." the effeminate Minoe squeaked the last word out amidst the
Togakudan's mocking shouts of, "Minoe-chi is so cute! Sing to us, Minoe-
chi!", "Boo! I don't like this show! Give us back our money!", and
"Take it off now!" His ears then perked up as he heard Yahiko shout,
"Come on, Minoe. That wasn't what you said to me when we first met!"

The whole room became very quiet as both Yahiko and Minoe turned red
then blue at the implications of what the samurai boy blurted out.

Just as the room erupted into boisterous guffaws and uncontrollable
giggles at the pair's expense, Minoe met Yahiko's eyes, grinned, and
shouted, "My personal name is Munenori and my surname is Minoe, and
every time you meet me, you'll meet someone new!" amidst all the noise.
Yahiko groaned yet managed to smile back all the same for the diminutive
and frail man's sake.

"Hey lover boy, what's _your_ name?" some of the rowdier officers in the
Gunma and Tokyo groups hurled taunts at Yahiko while both the
embarrassed Sakaguchi and Kosaburo looked away and pretended to not know
the young lad.

Yahiko stood up and posed as dramatically as he could despite his
flustered face, quivering lip, and inward cringing. "It's Myojin Yahiko,
and don't any of you forget it."

A long, condescending chorus of "Oooooooooooooh!" filled the spacious
room, which was quickly followed with more laughter. Minoe, on his part,
scuttled behind Yahiko and used his tempestuous savior as a shield of
sorts. "Thanks for standing up for me," the eye-patched eccentric
murmured.

"Er... Yeah. Sure." Even a smart aleck like Yahiko had no comeback for
that. 'At least I didn't have to come in front of the group and
introduce myself. I guess," he reassured himself. The two afterwards
stared forward as the third member of their jury-rigged team cracked his
knuckles and licked his chops from behind them.

"Guess it's my turn. Stand aside, Yoshi-boy! Patches! I'm coming
through," Gan announced as he stood up and did some stretching
exercises.

"Nobody wants to know who you are. Sit back down." Yahiko's
unenthusiastic reproach fell on deaf ears.

The Gargantuan Gan barreled between the Togakudan and Gunma lines, slid
into position at the center of the ballroom just below the arched
balcony, and proclaimed while pointing at nowhere in particular, "Hello.
I am the Great Gan. I've been known as the Soba King as well as the
Dumpling Emperor. Thanks to those two lovebirds you just saw, I have the
potential to become the Cockpit God too. I've once eaten the entire
stock of a restaurant in one sitting, and I've broken ten chairs in ten
sittings. I am capable of playing the biwa for money, except I don't
have it with me right now, so you'll have to take my word for it. I
admire the Shinsengumi and loathe the Meiji Government."

"What is he talking about?" Yahiko asked Minoe.

Minoe replied, "I have no clue."

Yahiko palmed his face. "He's going to get us killed even before the
Battousai Group gets here."

The Vociferous Gan continued. "I'm not averse to a brawl, but I hate it
when people resort to low blows, eye pokes, and nipple twists to get an
edge. I'm not saying I'm all about fair play, but I can beat anyone in a
fair fight. I'm great at turning your mundane names into something
awesome. I've also been humiliated, beaten down to a pulp, had my heart
served on a pike, and had my dignity shat upon by the realities of the
world. With that said, I'm ready for anything, even the end of times.
Again, I'm the Great Gan of Okinawa, and I'm here because I want to
become the Great Gan of Everything Under the Sun, whether it's eating or
guard duty. Howdy."

"No, we're not with him. Don't listen to him; I swear, he just followed
us here. Ignore him," Yahiko desperately pleaded to the nearest
Togakudan member beside him and Minoe. The temptation to destroy the
wooden floorboards in order to make the ensuing wreckage swallow him
whole and let him escape from the increasingly mortifying circumstances
grew by the second.


===


About four hours before midnight, the Three Stooges--

"STOP CALLING US THAT!" Gan and Yahiko screamed at the cluelessly
gawking Minoe.

"But I didn't say anything!" Minoe protested.

The pair scratched their noggins and blinked unanimously.

In any event, a few hours before midnight, Yahiko and the others--

Gan and Minoe glared at Yahiko.

Yahiko was taken aback by the sudden hostility. "What?"

_Anyway_, a few hours before midnight, Yahiko, Gan, and Minoe were
assigned to guard the top of the stairs leading straight to Akahori's
chambers.

Learning from the mistakes of the politicians Amakusa killed beforehand
six years ago, Akahori decided to give his bodyguards--policemen, spies,
and two other strangers he met in a round of cockpit betting--some
unusual orders hand-in-hand with the usual ones involving the places
they were assigned to guard so that all five teams could spread out
across the mansion yet would also converge on the enemy at a moment's
notice if needed.

In particular, Togakudan members like Minoe were all assigned to wander
around and act as the policemen's eyes and ears, alerting a given group
whenever an intruder enters the property.

Suzuki "Raedo" Nagaoka elected to place the three at the ballroom's
atrium in order to minimize any Minoe-related bumbling in a contained
area. Yahiko and Gan, being the outsiders that they were, followed Minoe
along. After all, from their point of view, Akahori had given them carte
blanche to wander anywhere they wanted, and the ballroom was as good a
place as any.

"What the hell is curtain-beard thinking, making us do all sorts of
embarrassing games and 'ice breakers' with the police and the Togakudan!
I mean, we're not going to a festival, we're trying to protect him from
some religious nut!"

"'Group Development', he called it," Gan recalled. "That'd never catch
on."

Minoe put his hands together, tilted his head to the side, and left his
mouth open in a manner wherein there was more tongue than teeth present.
"Well, it did help everyone get to know each other better. We've become
so much closer!"

Gan and Yahiko dolefully stared at Minoe. "What? I didn't even mention
the 'Sanbaka' in that last sentence!" The eye-patched man-boy pouted and
waved his arms and legs around, swinging back and forth the floor like a
pendulum.

Yahiko massaged the throbbing vein on his temple. "No, no. We're staring
at you because you were bullied by both the Tokyo and Gunma police as
well as your own Togakudan members! They were calling you names behind
your back, tapping your shoulder then looking away, and... well, it
seems like you've somehow unleashed the playground bully in all of those
men, Minoe! It's nice to be optimistic, but you shouldn't turn a blind
eye over that!"

"Then again, Yoshi-boy, those Tokyo hotshots were all acting like Grade-
A shit wagons. Do all Tokyoites have their heads up their asses?" Gan
supposed, somewhat upset that the spies and the officers weren't
terribly impressed with his earlier introduction.

"Hey! You should talk, you country bumpkin!" Yahiko yelped with wide-
eyed indignation. "The way you barreled across the Togakudan line and
embarrassed yourself in front of everybody is beyond words! I mean,
honestly! Who cares how many chairs you've broken with your big, fat ass?
Have some dignity, man! You give yokels and hillbillies everywhere a bad
name."

"Who cares? I'm from Okinawa!" Gan looked at Yahiko as though the boy
had just flaunted a pus-filled zit on his nipple. "Personally, I think
the Oyakata should have asked the Osaka Police to come here instead of
those Tokyo or Gunma chumps," the heavily built man reckoned while
picking his nose. "Take it from someone who has traveled far and wide
the entirety of Japan; the people from the old capital have manners and
lack airs, unlike you higher-than-thou city slickers and your over-
inflated sense of entitlement!"

Yahiko's mental image of the Immodest Gan who used him as a means to win
a bet--and get out of one--was unquestionably at odds with the same man
who had the gall and the over-inflated sense of entitlement to criticize
others' over-inflated sense of entitlement. Because his mind was boggled
enough to scramble his thoughts to gibberish, the boy just closed his
eyes, slapped his forehead, and left things at that.

Sensing the tension in the room, Minoe reproved his fellow Sanbaka
members. "Let's leave those policemen be. We're all on the same side
here. Besides, you two shouldn't compare the Tokyo police with the
Osaka police anyway. Both of those teams have their respective pros and
cons."

Yahiko followed Minoe's lead, stating, "I agree. Let's drop the subject,
Gan. Comparing those two districts is like comparing apples to oranges
anyway; they couldn't and shouldn't be compared."

Minoe chuckled a bit while self-consciously adjusting his eye patch and
rubbing his bandaged arms. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Yahiko-
chi, but what you said just now is such a silly thing for anyone to say!
Of course you can compare oranges and apples. First off, they're both
fruit. Secondly, they both have an outer shell. Thirdly, they both have
seeds inside."

"I kind of forgot what we were arguing about, but Patches does have a
point," Gan remarked as he rubbed his lantern jaw in impressed
agreement.

'Ow, my head. These two will be the death of me,' Yahiko lamented as he
did his best to ignore the Two Stooges' attempts at being philosophical.
Once he got over the mentally scarring effects of yet another Sanbaka
comedy skit, his breathing became shallower than before. Out of the
blue, at this unholy hour, the gravity of the entire situation dawned
upon him.

Yahiko and his questionable cohorts were about to help an army of
policemen and spies confront a man who might or might not have killed
a thousand soldiers exactly six years ago (give or take a couple of
hours) plus his other followers; he'd soon find out firsthand if what
he'd been hearing about this Amakusa person was hogwash or an
unbelievable truth.

'Stronger than Shishio? Stronger than Kenshin? Bullshit. I bet even
Psycho-Kid can beat him to a fine red mulch when given the chance.'
Yahiko snorted, but his derisiveness soon became pain as his old wounds
after battling Soujiro flared anew. Since he hadn't been straining
himself, he believed the pain was all in his head. He hoped. 'I better
get my priorities straight, though. There are now fifty-four warriors
and a politician's life under my watch.'

'Fifty-five,' the Kenshin in his mind reminded him. 'You have a
responsibility for protecting yourself as well.'

'Fine,' he assured his imaginary idol as he rubbed the troublesome sword
scars all over his body. 'Fifty-six, actually, if Psycho-Kid is still
around,' he corrected as an afterthought. Right then, a second passed,
followed by a minute, followed by a half hour.


===


Thirty minutes after midnight, while the Sanbaka struggled to keep
themselves awake, an altercation happened right at the front yard of
Akahori's rented mansion.

Everything became a blur. At least, that was how the baggage-totting
man viewed the situation. Even while carrying his awkward luggage, he
could probably handle the ten guards posted at the iron gate with little
to no problem. A dismemberment here, a beheading there, and everything
would be all right. Then again, thanks to his important package, perhaps
he didn't need to dehumanize in his mind his enemies just to get the job
done after all.

The ten-man-strong Gunma contingent was ready for anything, including a
one-man army capable of slaying a thousand men by himself or any of his
zealot followers who'd sacrifice life and limb for their leader.
Instead, they were treated with the spectacle of a cloaked figure
leaping across treetops and passing over the mansion walls while
carrying a sack of potatoes or something.

Gunma's representative Togakudan assistants sounded the whistle alarm
to inform the rest of the manor of the Battousai Group's expected
arrival. Meanwhile, the Gunma policemen aimed their guns and fired at
the figure. However, since they had no choice but to shoot four rifles
at a time thanks to the narrow bars of the gates, the fleet-footed
stranger was able to escape by running away from their limited line of
fire.

Some of the officers helped each other climb the ten-foot wall while the
rest of the men reloaded their firearms. Kujo, the diminutive Gunma
captain, had enough common sense to fire his load at the locks so that
the gate would open. However, because he had no prior experience in
busting locks, he mistakenly fired his custom, bayonet-fitted Murata
bolt-action rifle at the padlock to little effect. As such, he opted to
break through the gate the old-fashioned way: striking the lock with his
gun's butt.

"I've always heard that you can shoot a lock out, but I guess I heard
wrong!" he quipped to a subordinate, who in turn could only shake his
head in exasperation.

By the time the gate was opened and the scrambling Gunma police were
able to gather themselves into a more cohesive fighting force, the
supposed Battousai doppelganger had already made a beeline towards the
center of the yard, right in front of the lamp-lighted balcony leading
straight to Tetsuo Akahori's private quarters.

"AKAHORI! Come out, you conniving bastard! How dare you use these people
to keep your worthless hide safe!" More and more policemen crawled out
of the woodwork, yielding their bayonet-equipped rifles and firing hot
lead in droves. In response, the man unleashed an earth-shattering
avalanche via a one-handed strike. He didn't even bother unsheathing his
stark-black weapon or letting go of the carry-on luggage he slung over
his shoulder.

"Amakusa Shiro, is that you? I've heard you've changed your name. I was
afraid you've gotten a representative from your 'Battousai Group' to
kill me, but it's nice to see that you're as predictable as you've
always been," Tetsuo Akahori called out minutes later as he emerged from
his room to the balcony while the smiling Soujiro tailed right behind
him.

"Have you abandoned your god yet? You're no closer to killing me than
you were six years ago, regardless of what historical figure you're
trying to impersonate this time. Before, it was Amakusa Shiro. Now, it's
Himura Battousai. Let me tell you right now, it won't make a difference
whatsoever."

"Tell your goons to stand down. I haven't abandoned my people, and I
will not abandon my God. I concede nothing. I've prayed for a long time
to get to this moment. You're the last person standing in the way of my
followers' salvation," Amakusa announced as the dust cleared.

The rest of the police came out with loaded guns and twitchy trigger
fingers. Raedo and his troop efficiently led as many of the spread-out
law enforcement as they possibly could. The much-lauded and fully
experienced Tokyo group were followed shortly by the Kanagawa
reinforcements. The heavy resonance of moving artillery could be heard
inside the mansion as several Togakudan assisted in carting a cannon and
a Gatling gun to the foyer.

"They're not my goons. They're volunteers as well as officers who've
sworn to uphold the law and protect the innocent. What's more, a lot of
these gentlemen are related in one way or another to the people you and
your followers slaughtered back in Shimabara," Akahori disclosed as he
regarded Amakusa with mirth while putting his elbows on the railings of
his terrace and hiding his face behind interlocked hands. "Feel free to
reacquaint yourselves."

The ominous click-clack of dozens of cocking guns were heard as one of
the other captains... the rotund Captain Nakayama from the Kamiminochi
District... confronted the religious rebel alongside two of his men.

"You bastard! I've heard of your newly formed terrorist organization.
You're an enemy of honor and a mass murderer to boot. Christians are
holier-than-thou hypocrites that deserve to be butchered into mush!"

>From there, the good captain dashed with his saber in hand while his two
subordinates launched their own respective attacks--one firing his rifle
while the other charging with his gun's bayonet. With every swing of his
blade, Nakayama screamed, "This is for Hiramatsu! And Ryuzoji! Remember
those names, because they're not just insects to be squashed! Flies to
be swatted...!"

"You and your government were prepared to ethnically cleanse my people!
I did what I had to do." With his face contorted with an unknowable
emotion, Amakusa parried Nakayama's first few strikes, flung his baggage
high up in the air, grabbed hold of the stout captain's saber, pulled
him in, and used him as a shield for the approaching bullets.

"Father, forgive them. They know not what they do," Amakusa murmured in
prayer as he kicked the injured officer away, jumped straight up to
avoid a bayonet strike, and sliced the offending weapon in two as he
rose.

The eyes of Tokyo's Captain Ujiki dilated into saucers as a wave of
reminiscence engulfed him; the sight of the acrobatic yet deadly Amakusa
reminded him of someone very familiar. In fact, his spine flared in
pain anew in remembrance of those sweeping sword arcs delivered in
blinding speed. 'So that's why he formed himself a Battousai Group.'

A few moments later, after he caught his belongings in midair, landed,
and set it down on a nearby tree, the red-haired cult leader charged
right on top of his third attacker and cut apart his clothes with a
mind-bogglingly sharp scabbard before the policeman could reload his gun
or opt to charge with the bayonet as well. The rest of the Kamiminochi
police force knelt down and began firing at will as the long-haired
assassin backtracked into the shadows.

In a flash, Amakusa somersaulted towards his package just as Nakayama
attempted to open it, the former's unsheathed blade just inches away
from the latter's face after it implanted itself unto the ground.

The portly Kamiminochi captain scrambled to his feet, grabbed hold of
his hemorrhaging side, and bared his teeth as he spat, "I've been
waiting for you and you alone, Amakusa! All of my men have. You're going
to pay for your crimes against this nation and the people that you've
killed, you arrogant son of a bitch."

Amakusa narrowed his eyes into slits so thin that it looked like he'd
winced instead of glared. Meanwhile, Captain Kujo and his Gunma
contingent eventually caught up, flanking Amakusa at the rear and
cutting off his nearest route for a possible escape. "Captain Nakayama!
Please tell your men to stand down! We're going to fire on the rebel
assassin, and you're all in the way! You can't win against him through a
swordfight! We have to pursue him through gunfire and our sheer
numbers!"

"NO! It's my men who will pursue him! We've been practicing for months'
on end with how to best kill him! We will have his head on a pike before
daybreak!" Captain Nakayama signaled three of his men to ready their
rifles, three others to ready their gun's bayonets, and the remaining
men--including the two whose guns were destroyed--to brandish their
sabers. The Kamiminochi captain himself readied his own blade.

"If any of us here fails to finish Amakusa off right here and now, feel
free to shoot at him anyway regardless of whether or not we're in the
line of fire!" Nakayama declared with certainty even as a murmur of
uncertainty and dread filled the Kamiminochi party.

"You moron," Captain Kujo intoned, but he nevertheless signaled his
Gunma contingent to stand their ground and ready their guns for firing
also.

With no time for them to stage a mutiny or even express their
lamentations, the mad captain signaled his nine cohorts to do their
respective tasks as he engaged against Amakusa via a duel to the death.
"AMAKUSA! I'm going to shake you down your pedestal and bring you back
to earth even if I have to risk my life! We all feel the same way! I'll
make you understand the gravity of your sins! You think yourself as some
sort of savior? You're a god to your people? Then bring back to life the
cops and soldiers you've murdered, zealot!"

Amakusa smashed the flat side of his scabbard into the perspiring and
bleeding Captain Nakayama's face as he was again forced to leap away
because of the bayonet-wielding officers. However, that left him
vulnerable to rifle shots from not only the assigned three gunners, but
also from the three cops who attempted to run him through. A spray of
blood emerged from the rebel's left forearm as the saber-brandishing
policemen waited for him to land back to the ground.

Praying under his breath, Amakusa twirled and evaded the waiting sabers
before slashing his sword-carrying attackers from behind with enough
force to knock them down. As he touched down on the ground, the riflemen
and the bayonet chargers exchanged places, the latter loading their
rifles while the former charged with their spears. From behind him,
Amakusa heard Captain Nakayama decree, "You can't bring back the people
you've killed, can you? That's why we're here."

"You came here to get killed too? I thought death cannot be undone. What
you say makes no sense to me," Amakusa retorted as he ducked and dodged
the ensuing gunfire, but the officers managed to hit him at the side and
at the elbow all the same. To the surprise of the Battousai Group's
founder, Captain Nakayama somehow stabbed the tip of his saber into the
rebel's free hand.

"Get off your high horse! My men and I are here because we're willing to
risk our lives to put down monsters like you! These warriors you've
indiscriminately killed and even the men you've killed just now have
names. Identities. Lives. Souls." Nakayama twisted his blade and pushed
hard just as his remaining men began their attacks anew. "Once they're
dead, they cannot be brought back. They cannot be replaced or
substituted. It disgusts me that you probably have no idea who among the
hundreds you've killed are Hiramatsu and Ryuzoji!"

Amakusa struggled to remove his hand from Nakayama's sword, but he
didn't have time to do so. From all corners, men brandishing either
blades or bayonet-equipped rifles swarmed him like bees from a disturbed
hive, so he had no choice but to parry and use the ranting captain as
his shield of sorts.

"Ryuzoji, who had an aloof personality that belied his subdued kindness!
Hiramatsu, who loved to cook for his pregnant wife when she could not!
What gives you the right to kill them? You were protecting your people?
Bullshit! You're a criminal who has damned your two-faced flock to a
life of eternal persecution because of your absurd, dishonorable ways!"

Nakayama stared at Kujo meaningfully, which the Gunma squadron took as
the signal to fire, regardless of who would serve to become the
collateral damage in the ensuing shootout. At any rate, it would be the
surest way to kill a man allegedly capable of killing all of them in
mere minutes.

Everything became crystal clear at that moment. At least, that was how
Amakusa saw things as his mind went into overdrive to tackle the
worsening situation at hand. In normal circumstances, he would have
been able to handle this ten-person circus with little to no problem,
even if they were to join forces with the other teams who waited for
their turn to kill him. A sliced-off leg here, a gutted abdomen there,
and all would be resolved.

The bodyguards flew across the exploding debris, but no evidence of fire
or gunpowder was present. To the long-haired figure before them,
everyone became a nameless, soulless statistic during times of strife
and war. As the Meiji Government would itself attest, unless you were
important enough to protect, you were nothing more than mere cannon
fodder.

However, he didn't need to go through the trouble of killing these men
whom he owed a sinful debt that could never be repaid. He didn't need
to, he didn't have to, and he didn't want to: he already had the
situation under control even before he arrived at the mansion, anyway.

"I know I made a mistake. I'm sorry. But I have no intention of paying
for it for the rest of my life. I need to move on. I need to fight to
survive. I need to push forward for the sake of my followers."

Amidst the chaos that he'd just unleashed, Amakusa walked calmly towards
the tree where his valuable package lay. "I want one thing and one thing
only--I want Akahori Tetsuo dead. That's all I ask. Standing in my way,
as you've seen, is utter foolishness."


===


It was three hours before midnight, and Gan yawned. The tragic thing
about the current circumstances was the fact that _that_ was the most
exciting thing that happened all night. "Dammit, where is that Amakusa
Kumamoto bastard? I'm bored, and he's a liar. He promised to get here in
time, and he's already late. Is he going to blow us off at the last
minute? What a jerk. What, does he intend to be fashionably late?"

"Maybe his watch is set at the wrong time?" Minoe purred as he curled up
into the corner window and idly scratched his neck.

"Maybe he got the date wrong?" Yahiko chimed in, but immediately
regretted it. Damn, he'd been hanging out with the Gan and Minoe Manzai
Comedy Tour for too long; he was getting infected by them or something.

"I have dibs on the three o'clock shift." Gan stretched and reclined
himself idly like one of those famous Buddha statues, except he looked
more like the fat Buddha.

"You'll take the three o'clock shift, then?" Minoe asked with a yawn.

"No. I'll be sleeping by then. You two go ahead and stand on guard,"
Gan mumbled as he scratched his buttocks.

"You're half-asleep right now! Pick a time to stand guard and stick with
it! You can't have your cake and eat it too!" Yahiko covered his mouth,
realizing too late that he had added more fodder for the nonsense-
spewing Minoe to nitpick upon. He pointed at the eye-patched Togakudan
and ranted, "And _you_! Not one word! Don't you dare say, 'What's the
point of having cake if you're not going to eat it anyway?' You know
what I meant!"

Minoe blinked at Yahiko and tilted his head sideways. "Everybody knows
what that saying means, Yahiko-chi. 'You can't have it both ways'.
Please stop acting so childish."

"Uh, yeah. Uh-huh. It was _so_ obvious, Yoshi-boy. Duh," Gan weakly
echoed Minoe's sentiments while inwardly wondering about the logic of
having cake and not eating it.

Yahiko turned away from the two and mused, 'Why do I even bother? You
can never win with these two.'

About thirty minutes passed, then an hour, followed by another hour.
After the third hour, the trio felt fatigue creep in and force their
eyelids to succumb to the inviting darkness. Minoe curled in a fetal
position, Gan swayed back and forth using his metal club as a swivel,
and Yahiko bit his lip in order to stay awake and aware.

Half-asleep, Yahiko harrumphed to no person in particular, "We might as
well turn in for the night," as he stretched out his arms and shook his
hands all about, surprised that it was he instead of Gan who uttered
that specific line of discourse.

"I mean, it's rather unlikely that the Battousai Group would arrive at
this late an hour. Looks like your precious Togakudan and Mister 'I'm
right all the time, fear my beard!' Oyakata made Kanto's men-in-blue
bark at the wrong tree."

Minoe shrugged and snuggled closer to the nearby corner to keep himself
warm. "Not that it will matter anyway. For a month, the policemen that
arrived here earlier on even before the business at Chichibu happened
have been following false alarms in order to ensure that no sneak
attack happens, and they entertained each and every last one of them
all the time. Batch per batch, district per district, more officers came
to this place. We're up to our third and fourth batch: the Kanagawa and
Gunma contingents."

The Togakudan runt rubbed his hands together and blew on them. "If only
there weren't an earlier rebellion, we may have gotten a whole infantry
from the National Police or the Imperial Army. Today's an important
date, so if the Battousai Group doesn't arrive now, it's a lost cause
for both the terrorists and the government. Akahori-dono-chi, even
before we met him, had already planned everything from the start."

"Oh, so you're still awake?" Yahiko questioned, surprised at how light a
sleeper Minoe was. "So what do you think about that, Gan?"

Gan replied with a resounding snore.

"Right. Of course you'd already be asleep and snoring like a hippo, you
swine." Yahiko harrumphed before unleashing his own guttural yawn and
smacking his lips to taste his tiredness. He shouldn't have wasted so
much time playing coy with Akahori's request for assistance yesterday.
"Dammit, I should've taken the earlier shifts instead of the later ones.
Damn brute beat me to it..."

"I could take this shift if you want, Yahiko-CHIIIII!" Minoe offered
before yelping as Gan took him by the neck and shook him like a toy
rattle. "Oh, Weasel-chan! I knew you weren't a boy! Kiss me now and
prove your femininity!"

"Hey, let go of him, Gan! You're just having a nightmare!" Yahiko yelled
as he did his best to extricate Gan's grubby fingers from the swirl-eyed
and suffocating Minoe.

"Eh?" Gan murmured, wiping the drool off of his chin. "Is it morning
already?"

"Since you're awake, Minoe and I are giving this hour's shift back to
you. Good night," Yahiko declared, propping the surprisingly soft and
sweet-smelling Minoe on the wall before he slammed his head against said
wall.

'What am I thinking? Damn, I didn't know Gan's hidden preferences were
contagious! Not that there's anything wrong with it.' To Minoe, he
asked, "Are you all right?"

Minoe shrunk away from Yahiko and blurted, "Y-Yes, Y-Yahiko-kun."

Yahiko raised an eyebrow at Minoe. "Yahiko-kun?"

"Chi. Yahiko-kun-chi. I mean, Yahiko-chi. Chi. Hehehe."

Gan whistled low, grabbing the back of his bandanna-wearing head with
his hands. "So should I leave you two to 'sleep' or what?"

Yahiko and Minoe were just about to protest Gan's insinuations when the
shriek of a whistle was heard by all of them. After glaring at the
darkness for a few moments, they followed the multitude of footstep
thumps and the crackle of gunfire that echoed all the way to the
ballroom.

'He's here,' was the unsaid sentiment between the three unlikely
comrades.


===


"Have you grown soft, Amakusa? I've heard that you were able to topple
fifty people within a half-hour without so much as a sweat from the
survivors of the Modern Shimabara War--so much so that there are
historians considering to rename it the Shimabara Massacre."

The wanly smiling Soujiro raised an eyebrow at Akahori's revelation,
chiefly remembering that the best of the Juppon Gatana--himself, Usui,
and Anji--needed to take the better part of an hour to finish off a
battalion of fifty policemen. 'So Amakusa-san created the Battousai
Group, eh? I get the feeling I know which one he is.'

Akahori chortled, though it came out more like a harsh, accusatory cough
than anything resembling amusement. "Perhaps the killings have affected
you mentally? Maybe some of your inconvenient Christian values are
messing with your murderous, duplicitous head? You're certainly going
out of your way to not kill my bodyguards. That's quite unlike the mass
murderer that people knew you as."

Emboldened by Akahori's words, a second volley of shots was fired, which
kept the Christian from getting to his supposedly prized possession. As
usual, Amakusa leapt out of the way to avoid the shots, which was an
action that the gunmen issuing the third volley anticipated. What they
didn't expect was the rebel pirouetting like a top and avoiding the
bullets with the grace of a humanoid tornado. Bayonets awaited him at
his landing spot, but he did away with them with a sweeping arc of his
lengthy shining blade.

"Can you stand to take another life? Or rather, are you capable of even
doing that at this point in time?" Akahori wondered with a scratch of
his beard. Meanwhile, the rest of the Togakudan were busy dragging back
into the mansion the bruised, injured, but veritably living policemen of
the Gunma and Kamiminochi districts. Even Captain Nakayama, who was at
the epicenter of Amakusa's earth-shattering blast, was none the worse
for wear.

More policemen fired off their rifles at Amakusa as their reinforcements
arrived. They crawled from all corners of the mansion, riddling the
landscape with holes. As expected of a man capable of facing down an
entire regiment of Japan's finest soldiers, he backtracked right into
the gunners' fellow police so that they couldn't risk shooting at him
recklessly, with not one bullet touching him all the while.

Stray projectiles landed just inches away from Amakusa's bag, producing
chips of flying wood and bark. This compelled the enigmatic cult leader
to move right into the line of fire to save his luggage from being
damaged. The hot lead seared into his flesh, but he remained steadfast
in protecting his belongings. "You're right. I'm not here to harm any of
you! I only came here for Akahori! Why are you all protecting him? Why
are you willing to sacrifice your life for a scumbag like him?"

Akahori answered back, "They're not doing this for me, Amakusa. They
aren't here to protect me; they're here to kill you. They're doing this
for all the people you and your followers have murdered back in
Shimabara six years ago! Regardless of your intentions at the time, the
fact remains that you're a rebel, and you've killed cops and soldiers in
the name of your disingenuous beliefs. I'm surprised you haven't turned
you back against this so-called god of yours, because he has certainly
turned his back on you."

"God will never abandon me. I am his instrument for change. He will
never lead me astray. He revealed to me the truth behind your wickedness
and the righteousness of my cause. He told me that your unholy ambition
is the true aberration of nature, and extreme forces such as yourself
should disappear from the face of the earth!" Amakusa orated as he did
his best to dodge as many bullets as he could without harming a single
thread on his duffel bag.

"God? I tried to kill a god, but he wouldn't die. So I did the next best
thing. I humiliated him. Brought him down to my level and exposed him
for what he truly is: A sad little man behind the curtain," Akahori
disclosed in a moderate volume even as the sounds of consecutive gunfire
threatened to drown his baritone voice. Soujiro was the only one who
could hear everything that the elder statesman said.

Amakusa bravely stood in the middle of the manor's courtyard as the
click-clack of firearms being reloaded chorused with the promise of
death, the blood from his injured body spreading across his garments and
dyeing them crimson. "If any of you have any common sense at all, then
you won't dare fire at me while I hold this sack in my arms."

"Spoken like a true zealot. Now that you've been driven to a corner due
to your failure, you've decided to lay your life on the line and finish
me off in a blaze of glory," Akahori appraised as he looked down on
Amakusa with glinting spectacles and a slight smirk. "The true reason
why you've created the Battousai Group was because you wanted your own
followers to be the successors of your failed rebellion. Once you're
dead, you'll be worshipped as their messiah and savior, won't you?"

Amakusa undid the cords that held his bag together. "You're the last man
standing in the way of my people's freedom. There's no need for us to
overcomplicate things. It's you and only you whom I want dead. Tell your
guards to stand down and let us settle things once and for all."

Akahori chuckled as he turned his back on Amakusa. "Why the hell would I
want to do that? Bomb yourself to oblivion for all I care. These
policemen will do everything in their power to see you burn in hell
anyway." The curtain-bearded man stopped in mid-stride as he saw
Soujiro's smile transform into a pale-faced maw of shock and disbelief.

Akahori turned. Right below him, he saw Amakusa cradling the unmoving
form of his only daughter, her lifeless eyes staring right into the
depths of his tortured soul.

"RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINN!"


===


Next: The plans of mice and men.

What is wrong with this picture? A mass murderer who's suddenly
refusing to kill save for just one life? Is that the corpse of Rin
Akahori he's carrying? How will the Sanbaka react once they see for
themselves the demented twist and turns of this ongoing saga? Stay
tuned next time for another installment of Rurouni Yahiko!

Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others)
are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and Sony. 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.

Wala na akong masabi,
Abdiel