[FFML] [fic][rk][cont] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 24: An Easy Fight

[Chester Castañeda]

A stray memory from a long time ago, within the infamous historical
district of Yoshiwara...

"Mommy? Mizuki-san, where are you?" what appeared to be a redheaded
little boy blubbered, every inch of his body crying out and suffocating
from an unreachable hurt he couldn't begin to describe. The sun hadn't
come up yet, and the sky was blanketed with a dull gray awning. By this
time, his mother would be busy with her work.

He afterwards noticed the large, scraggly, and muscle-bound brute
carrying him like a sack of potatoes. "W-What? Who are you? Put me down
NOW! Mommy! MOMMY! MIZUKI-SAN! A STRANGER IS TRYING TO KIDNAP ME! HELP,
ANYONE! PLEASE!"

"What's wrong with you, kid? That woman you're with is dead now. Don't
you remember what happened last night?" the stranger barked in a deep
baritone that stopped the young lad's cries right on the spot.

The boy had a better look at the man and espied his heavily bandaged
chest with stains of redness, his high ponytail that made his bundled
hair appear like a cascading stream of burnt rice paddies, the thick
layer of dirt that caked over his yellowing jacket and hakama with black
zigzagging trim patterns reminiscent of the Shinsengumi uniform, his
bandaged forearms, and most importantly, the unmistakable metallic tang
emanating from the drying blood that covered both of their sweaty
bodies.

A vision of him vivisected by the monster that carried him took over his
mind, every nerve of his body begging him to run away or die fighting
against this abomination before every bit and chunk of his person got
ripped into shreds by the man who smelled of blood and death.

The kid struggled against the greasy, stomach-churning man's tight grip,
saying all sorts of things he couldn't remember later on, punching,
screaming, biting, and kicking until he was released. His blood pressure
rose upon seeing that meat slab of a man not react, not even flinch, at
his assaults while his brain suppressed something that chilled him to
the bone and replaced his burning rage with cold sweat. In any case, the
muscleman let go of him anyway.

He ran away from the hulking brute as fast as he could, his heaving
bosom and his searing lungs near the point of bursting by the time he
reached the middle of a dirt road, his arm resting on a nearby tree. He
then squeezed his eyes shut as he scrounged his throbbing brain for any
clues as to what exactly happened earlier.

He felt as though one of his mother's customers had found him and beat
him up for sport. Ronin were particularly abusive to street urchins like
himself. Samurais who still had masters to serve didn't even give him a
second glance. However, some of them gave him strange looks that made
his body feel like it was covered in slime and excrement.

Every time they did, his mother would usher him away and insist to him
that somehow, someway, he'd have to leave that district and turn a new
leaf of sorts. He shouldn't follow her footsteps, and he must live a
new life by the time he turned fourteen years of age. One more year, and
he'd have to leave the woman who saved him from certain oblivion: Mizuki
Morinaga.

His mother said that he most certainly could become a new person because
of his little secret that he must never, ever disclose to anyone, up to
the point of barely even thinking about it in his head.

'Mizuki-san also said something about celebrating my coming of age with
beans and red-colored rice before I left home, I think. Huh. I thought
only samurai families celebrated coming-of-age ceremonies for their
children. She can be so weird sometimes...'

He winced as he felt a stinging wetness on his left cheek near his half-
lidded eye. He opened both eyes, held that portion of his face with his
hand, then looked at the resulting mark: a cross-shaped bloodstain
appeared on his palm once his eyes readjusted themselves to the
darkness.

"Did that greasy old man do this to me? He's insane! A sadist! A
pervert! Why should I believe a hobo like him? I have to go back home!
There's no way Mommy's dead! He's just some crazy homeless guy who
picked me up and cut me apart... or something. What's important is that
Mommy is still alive. That man is either confused or a liar. She's still
alive, dammit...!"

The hairs on the back of the boy's neck rose on end as he felt the
presence of a wild beast from behind him.

"Are you serious? You don't remember anything about what happened at
all, kid?"

"ACK! Are you a ninja? How'd you get here so fast?"

The boy must've leapt back two yards away after hearing the grease ball
of a man talk from behind him, his eyebrow raised and his head tilted at
him like some sort of deaf-mute person.

"R-Remember what? Who the hell are you? W-Why do you keep following me?
What do you want? M-Money? I don't have any! Leave me alone or I'll call
the c-cops on you!"

He felt like he'd been running forever, yet in the span of mere minutes,
the... stinking, blood-covered stalker or hooligan or assassin or
criminal or masterless samurai or homeless person or whoever kept up
with him!

The child squeaked and stumbled on his feet several times before he
pumped his wobbly legs anew. Alas, the scary beefcake of a stranger had
already grabbed hold of his shirt's collar and pulled him back before
he could get away.

"Fine. Whatever. Your mom or whoever is dead. I'm not lying. She died
yesterday. Look me in the eyes and you'll see that I'm not lying."

The thirteen-year-old kid did what he was told, only to reel back and
cringe at what he saw: Bloodshot eyes so red they seemingly glowed,
chapped lips that looked like a squashed centipede with a paper-thin
body, flaking skin, wizened features that remained at odds with his
bear-like bulk, and shrunken irises the size of pebbles.

The man rolled his eyes and pushed the boy aside, his nostrils flaring
while he licked his lips moist. "Okay, fine. I'll go out on a limb and
escort you back to Yoshiwara to prove to you that your mother is dead.
You can check out what happened there. The police will be looking for
me... probably... but I need to get back the swords I left behind
anyway."

'Enlightened Buddha, this man owns a pair of swords? So he is a ronin!
Either that or a bandit! What am I going to do?' The scar on the kid's
cheek flared anew as his face and body dribbled bullets of perspiration.
Supposing that his mother truly was... in dire straits, was this man
responsible for that and his cross-shaped scar too? What happened
anyway?

He shook his head and slapped his cheeks, which made him yelp because he
accidentally worsened the pain of his recently formed wound. He almost
bought the smelly ronin's cock-and-bull story! "Why do you have to go
with me? Why do you care so much? What does this have to do with you
anyway?"

The red-haired boy saw the curious spectacle of the mountain of muscle
deflating and collapsing as though his well-developed body were nothing
more than a blimp filled with air.

The tired brute looked at him with irises so clear he could see himself
in them: His mouth agape, his indigo eyes unblinking, his right... no,
left cheek bearing a pair of intersecting scars, and his skin whiter
than winter.

Just as the man was about to open his mouth and speak, he turned away
and paced around while keeping his distance from the expectant gaze of
the redhead, his movements as stiff as an arthritic old man's. He then
scratched his chin and his stubble of sideburns before declaring, "I'm
the one who killed your mother."


========================================================================


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

Whose weaknesses are going to get exposed this time around?


========================================================================

Chapter 24: An Easy Fight

========================================================================


Back to the relative present, inside the guestroom of the Akahori
Mansion...

As though electrocuted by an offshoot bolt of lightning, the wound-up
Yahiko Myojin jumped back after feeling someone touch his shoulder. "Ah!
What? Who? Oh... It's you, um, Miss... Rin, right?" He gasped while
holding his pounding chest with his left hand, his sakabatou long ago
sheathed. "Did you need something?"

"Is there something the matter, Myojin-san? You've been pacing back and
forth all this time," Rin noted, her eyes involuntarily moving, the
whiteness of her dazzling skin illuminated by the pale moonlight. "If
you're worrying about your own safety, then don't fret. Seta-kun will
easily defeat the Battousai of Speed."

"Hey! I'm not worrying about my safety at all! And you shouldn't bank on
'Seta-kun' too much either, because he's far from perfect! He had
already been defeated before by someone who looks exactly like that
redheaded rebel, in fact!" Yahiko protested to the silver-eyed Akahori
daughter, his hands on his waist as he challenged her hasty (but not
incorrect) conclusions.

"Well, he doesn't stand a chance right now. If he's the Battousai of
_Speed_, then he must not be as skilled or strong as his comrades. He's
also not using Battousai's sword style either. Speed is all he has, so
there's no way he'd win against someone like Seta-kun when it comes to
speed."

"What do you mean by that?" Yahiko couldn't explain the feeling that
gripped his heart while staring at the face of the snow-white girl
before him, her piercing, ashen eyes darting all over his body and
peering through his actions with the all-knowing glare of a magnifying
lens.

He averted his eyes and avoided eye contact. "How can you be sure of how
strong or skilled he is? Have you seen him fight before?"

"Oh. Don't misunderstand. This is the first time I've ever seen that man
fight. I also didn't mean that he _completely_ lacks skill or strength.
What I meant was that, according to the Togakudan and the goverment's
own secret service, there have been reports of other Battousai Group
members like him."

"Uh, so...?" asked Yahiko with a tilted head.

The thin and pasty girl brushed her short, light blonde hair back, bit
her lower lip, and blew a strand of her shiny bangs in front of her face
while she picked her words carefully, remembering the puzzled look that
Soujiro gave her when she tried explaining to him what he needed to do
to become a "complete" person back in East Valley near Shinshu.

"Out there exists a Battousai of Strength, a Battousai of Skill, and
even a Battousai of Style, otherwise known as Amakusa Shogo. The
Battousai Group is called as such because it's composed of different
types of Battousai. Thinking that the Battousai of Speed isn't as
skilled, strong, or stylistically grounded as other members of his
group is a reasonable deduction to make."

"Oh. I see. Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Yahiko remembered that,
earlier on, Shogo indeed referred to himself as the Battousai of Style.
He then scratched his cheek while watching the twice-humiliated
Battousai of Speed get up on his wobbly feet for the second time in the
duel.

'I guess even someone who presumably did his homework on Psycho-Kid will
still be in shock once the real fight begins. I know how that Kenshin
look-alike feels. I've been through the same thing. Psycho-Kid's innate
talent in swordsmanship is... scary.'

"My daughter is right. For a Battousai of Speed, he's not any faster
than Seta-kun. If Battousai-dono only has speed as his claim to fame,
then he will lose against Shishio Makoto's Ten Ken. Coupled with the
fact that he recently saw his idol fall against the person he's
currently facing, it's plain to see why he's doing so terribly right
now," Tetsuo Akahori chimed in before gesturing towards Soujiro Seta and
ordering, "Seta-kun. Finish him off."

"People who aren't even involved in this fight should just SHUT UP! You
don't know any better!" the Battousai of Speed snarled at Rin, Yahiko,
and Tetsuo as he steadied his rickety legs that shook even though his
bones didn't actually suffer from rickets at all.

"The Amakusa that the Ten Ken defeated had to go through a veritable
gauntlet of enemies before facing him. The Battousai that _defeated_ the
Heaven Sword lacked killer instinct and a proper blade. The vagabond
version of Himura Kenshin had fought the Okashira of the Oniwabanshu
beforehand to boot. I will not be defeated by someone who preys upon
weakened opponents," swore the redhead.

Although the second knockdown was more of the Fake Battousai avoiding a
deeper wound than an actual instance where he flopped down on the floor
because he was separated from his senses, the first knockdown that
nearly cut him in half remained a true one that took away the steadiness
of his knees, the strength of his strikes, and the accuracy of his
attacks. Nevertheless...

The neutral expression on Soujiro's face again transformed into a beam
of beatific calmness after he become aware of the fire within the
unstable but still-standing Battousai of Speed. "Have I woken up the
sleeping dragon within you, Himura-san?" the Heaven Sword asked without
realizing his slip of the tongue.

'How nostalgic. Has it already been six years? To me, it seems like it
was just yesterday when we fought to a near draw, the strength of your
resolve surpassing my speed.'

Soujiro imagined the redhead before him falling into the ever-familiar
battoujutsu stance that ultimately defeated him. "Come at me with
everything you've got. I want to know how powerful I've become since the
last time we fought."

The Fake Battousai put up a brave front even as the entire guestroom
became a war zone, the geysers from Soujiro's Shukuchi exploding like
simultaneously activated land mines on the ceiling, floor, and walls.

'This is the multidirectional attack he used on Shogo-sama earlier. As
usual, he's smiling like a crazy person, and he doesn't have a hint of
sword spirit, fighting spirit, or killing spirit in his body. He's like
a blank slate.' The Kenshin look-alike snorted and frowned. 'Thankfully,
there are other ways of detecting an invisible enemy.'

The Battousai of Speed fell into his defensive Cancer Stance yet again,
his fingers trembling in anticipation of the upcoming attack. He
recalled spying through the space between the guestroom's ceiling and
the second floor of the mansion (as he hid himself from plain sight) how
ineffective the Ryu Sou Sen was against Seta's full speed, which
prompted him to cut the remaining floorboards around him and use them as
shields of sorts to protect him from the blade slashes he couldn't see.

In a dragonfly's wing flap, the upturned floorboards right in front of
Amakusa's ward were shredded to little bits and pieces, which allowed
him to determine the whereabouts of his invisible opponent and trap his
sword or limb with crisscrossed swords, which was otherwise known as his
Cancer Stance's Scissor Grip.

However, he stopped himself short of doing the move after he realized
that the sliced pieces of the panels ended up far too big for a full-on
assault. Soujiro didn't bother completely destroying the boards with his
full strength. From the Battousai of Speed's experience, a halfhearted
attack meant either a setup or a feint for something even more fatal.

'It's like magic how the Heaven Sword is able to move in multiple routes
at once. But no, that's not quite true. He's merely moving so fast that
it _appears_ like he's defying physics and moving through two places at
the same time. He can do this by traveling in a fast spiral that covers
a wide area, from the walls to the floor to the ceiling. Wait, the
ceiling...!'

The Fake Battousai looked up in time to see Soujiro reappear right on
the ceiling with a sword thrust aimed right between the religious
insurgent's eyes. The Battousai doppelganger moved to the side in time
to barely avoid instantaneous death, but he still ended up stabbed on
the side of his shoulder.

Nonetheless, the Battousai of Speed's open-mouthed teeth gnash somehow
resembled a demented smile instead of an anguished jaw clench. After
all, he still managed to read his opponent's moves for the first time
since the fight began.

His synapses fired up even further to give him yet another important
realization. Because the Ten Ken was falling in midair, his hoof-like
feet had no leverage to make himself faster. Without any ground to walk
on, he was as fast as anyone else inside that room.

"I got you now, Ten Ken! Scorpio Stance: Deathstalker Stab!" the
Battousai of Speed hissed as he prepared a counterstrike at the
descending Soujiro while shifting to his more aggressive posture.

However, in reaction to the tit-for-tat thrust, Seta pushed the Fake
Battousai back with his sword while the counter grazed his chest, set
himself upright, pulled the cross-scarred man up by the collar with his
katana as though it were a fisherman's rod, grabbed hold of the rebel's
undershirt, and threw the redhead into the blocky pit that he and
Amakusa made in their previous bout.

The Battousai of Speed fell into the hollow grave with a resounding,
debris-filled crash that rocked the room. Aside from the slight stain
of blood on his bandaged thigh and a small cut to the chest, the Ten Ken
remained none the worse for wear.

The entire shogi-like exchange took no more than mere seconds to happen,
but the breaths that everybody else had been holding left them feeling
as though they'd recently been saved from drowning. Soujiro gasped for
air too, but for different reasons entirely.

'As usual, his sword talent is as divine and god-given as his moniker
suggests. Is there nothing Psycho-Kid can't do?' Yahiko surmised after
seeing how little offense the blustering Battousai of Speed offered.

He then raised an eyebrow at Soujiro, who if he didn't know any better
looked utterly stunned by what he did. 'What's his problem? Don't tell
me that he's in awe of his own skill or something. Don't get full
of yourself! You make me want to punch you on the nose!'

Although his smile remained on his face, Soujiro's irises shrunk to the
size of raisins while the whites of his nigh-bulging eyes had hints of
redness. His pallor also nearly matched that of Rin's save for his
cheeks, which burned up red, while the trail of sweat on the side of his
head remained as cold as ice. The fingers on the hand that grabbed hold
of the Fake Battousai twitched every now and then.

"Seta-kun, what's the matter?" the elder Akahori asked, his eyebrows
furrowed, which made his sliced nose sting a little. He remembered
Soujiro calling the Himura Battousai double "Himura-san", so he had a
feeling that the boy might've been affected by his own delusions.

'Is he feeling shock or disappointment over the fact that the Battousai
he's fighting isn't the Battousai that defeated him?'

To Seta, Tetsuo commanded, "What are you waiting for? Finish him off
now. He hasn't recovered yet from his earlier knockdowns. He's ripe for
the taking. Quit toying with him and kill him with one strike!"

"Akahori-san, the Battousai of Speed is...!" Soujiro began.


===


Many years ago in Yoshiwara...

"W-What?" the redhead managed to sputter as the world spun around him,
his heart shattering into a million pieces at hearing the ridiculous
things the obviously disturbed and pitiful man was spouting in spite of
himself. "N-No. Y-You're lying. You're trying to kidnap me or k-kill me.
Or something worse. Get away from me!"

"Don't flatter yourself, kid. Why the hell would I want to kidnap a brat
like you?" The odiferous, blood-soaked hobo scratched behind his ears
and picked his nose while his tongue pushed his cheek forward from the
inside of his mouth, which produced a small bump of sorts. "Your
mother's name was Mizuki, right?"

"Oh, don't you dare start with me!" The boy struggled under the weight
of two hefty, rock-hard biceps while the stranger cooked up even more
tall tales to tell him. "You must've overheard her name from me when I
was trying to get away from you! You can't fool me, mister!"

"Ah, but you haven't described to me what she looks like, have you?
She's about five feet and four inches in height, she looks like a young
teenager for her age of mid-thirty, she has a childlike face but a fully
grown woman's body, so there's a mix between innocence and allure..."

The tangerine-haired boy aborted his planned kick to the stranger's shin
and groin after he realized the earnestness of the suspicious outsider's
words when it came to describing his guardian. "So you were Mom's...
customer once upon a time. Of course you'd know what she'd look like."

"I'm not yet finished telling my side of the story. Listen to everything
I'm about to say from start to finish, kiddo." The muscular man put his
heavy hands on the child's shoulders, which forced the latter to squat
as his knees buckled from the weight.

"I had an impromptu grudge match against a group of shogunate assassins
while I was serving as one of your mother's regulars, as you said. They
cheated and used hidden weapons while ganging up on me. You got beat up
bad while protecting your mother and they nearly blinded you with their
cane sword slashes, which explains the scar on your left cheek."

Amidst the boy's cries of "It hurts!" and "Let go of me, please!" the
well-built human titan shut his eyes and looked the other way.

"During my fight with this one-armed asshole and his friends who must've
been as high as kites, she ended up a casualty. The bastard used her as
a human shield, and I had no choice but to stab through her with the
cane sword I stole from them. You've been knocked out cold by the time
that happened."

"N-No way."

In the middle of flashing back to a hazy memory of him also saying the
words "It hurts!" and "Let go of me, please!" while pinned under the
weight of a bigger man, the boy saw red upon realizing his unhinged
captor's words: A confirmation of what he feared. A confession of a
crime. A deplorable act beyond his control that irreversibly changed his
life.

"It happened around yesterday evening. The police should've taken their
bodies to the morgue by now. You and I were the only survivors of that
massacre. My sincerest apologies for your loss. Don't you have any next
of kin I can drop you off to or something?"

"Mizuki-san is the only family I ever had, AND YOU TOOK HER AWAY FROM
ME! Give her back! GIVE MY MOMMY BACK TO ME!"

The boy saw images of the youkai turned human tearing him apart like an
amalgamated pack of hungry wolves within his mind's eye. Regardless of
where or how he attacked, the monster's presence convinced his body, his
very nervous system, that it was all an exercise in futility. However,
he didn't care and fought anyway, his sense of self-preservation long
ago discarded.

The kid swung for the fences with his small fists, streaks of red
lightning searing his eyes, his jaw shut and clenched as he hit or
attempted to hit everything within striking range of his arms, not at
all caring if the ogre before him retaliated.

"I'LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR TO THE HEAVENS, I'LL KILL YOU! EVEN IF I DIE,
I'LL HAUNT YOU TILL YOUR DYING DAYS!"

His nostrils flared as he punched, kicked, bit, and scratched at this
uncaring, insensitive killer who murdered his beloved Mizuki just to win
some stupid brawl. The kid hurled at the scraggly bastard the same salty
insults Mizuki's clients shouted at her through paper thin walls that he
pretended not to hear.

"I'd say sorry, but that won't bring back your mother."

A punch to the child's temple... he thought it was a punch, though it
might as well have been a sledgehammer strike... separated him from his
senses as he flopped down to the ground as though his spine had been
ripped out from behind him.

"That's some mouth you have there! You got spunk, kid. However, if you
want to kill me, you better get in line and reserve your spot. You're
not the first or last person who wants me dead."

The boy spat at the masterless samurai's face.

"When you're staring at me with those sharp eyes, you really do remind
me of that scary redheaded girly man hitokiri. It's creepy!" The greasy
ronin cackled. "Creepy yet interesting."

"What the hell are you talking about?" the red-haired boy demanded, but
got no answer in return.

The newly orphaned boy grabbed hold of his head as shadowy creatures
from his subconscious swarmed him until he drowned in moisture, flesh,
and miscellaneous bodily fluids. Also, for some reason, he kept hearing
the name, "Battousai" in his recurring nightmares.

Why was that? What was a Battousai? Why did that word, term, name, or
whatever it was made his eyes well up and his stomach churn?

The burly murderer guffawed a little more before stopping his laughter
altogether and dressing the wounds that the boy inflicted upon him
immediately with the excess bandages spooled across his own forearms.
The woozy, red-haired kid then noticed that he himself had been wrapped
with the same bandages as well.

"No. This won't do at all. It can't be helped. I have to keep my promise
to your caretaker to keep you safe. Live a normal life and go back to
Yoshiwara..." The humanoid behemoth grumbled to himself before turning
back to the recovering child and stating. "Wait. Your mother wouldn't
want that either."

The ronin knelt down beside the sprawled body of the boy, his arms
spread open like a bear waiting to crush his prey's every bone with a
simple flex of his bulging muscles. "Look. I'm a reasonable man. What
happened was my fault, and you're only demanding justice for your loss.
That's fine. I completely understand. However, as far as I'm concerned,
you have two choices."

To the redhead's alarm, the murderous swordsman grabbed his nauseous
head by the fiery tips of his hair and tugged his face forward. "One,
you can go back to Yoshiwara and let your mother's killer get away with
murder... or maybe manslaughter. Two, you can hang around with me so
that I can teach you how to kill me, and someday, if you still have the
urge to avenge your mother's death, then you'll have the strength to
fight me to the death."


===


The Fake Battousai stood up, his eyes glassy, his mouth completely shut,
his hair billowing from winds produced by his third knockdown, his
posture stooped and relaxed, and his swords at either side of him.

He grabbed hold of his body and cheek in remembrance of that fateful
night: The night he met his master and was given two strange choices
that'd help decide his ultimate destiny.

In the blink of an eye... like with Soujiro's Reduced Earth technique
sans the exploding fountains of wreckage on the floor... the Kenshin
doppelganger disappeared and reappeared right beside the "happily"
flabbergasted Ten Ken.

'What the...? I thought I was imagining things when he first did it
earlier, but now I'm sure his blinding speed is real! Does the Battousai
of Speed have his own version of Shinsoku or Shukuchi?' Yahiko
deliberated while he kept hold of the sakabatou's handle in case worse
came to worst.

"I'll make you regret what you did. Die. Scorpio Stance: Swarming
Barbs." In tandem, the short sword and the normal-length sword drilled
themselves continuously at the general vicinity of the wide-eyed Soujiro
without any regard for accuracy or leverage, replacing precision with
volume.

This untamed flurry of stabs was one of the Battousai of Speed's two
multi-hit techniques that most resembled the wild Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu
move known as the Dragon Nest Flash even though it lacked the
requirement of accurately hitting the vital points of the body.

A vision filled with puddles of blood took over the lazy-eyed Battousai
look-alike's mind: His suppressed memories. His mother's screams,
begging for them to stop. Their suffocating weight. Their disgusting
stench. Their drooling mouths. Their wet tongues. Their moist stares.

The growing flame in his heart flickered into despair as his nightmare
went on and on. Had he believed in a god back then, he would've thought
of him as cruel, uncaring, or dead.

His hallucination cleared in time to see Soujiro hightail his way out of
the pounding waves of steel in order to avoid getting gored by a hundred
alternating stabs from an uchigatana and a wakizashi. Yet again, the
Heaven Sword's Shukuchi proved to be a lifesaver and an equalizer all at
the same time.

Soujiro swung his blade as he moved back with the Shukuchi. This was a
technique he'd been practicing in order to allow him to hit his enemies
without getting struck back himself. However, for one reason or another,
his blade passed right through the Battousai of Speed as though he were
an incorporeal ghost.

'Did I merely misjudge the distance of my strike? Or was this the same
technique he used in order to snatch Rin-san away from my grasp back in
the East Valley?'

The Ten Ken blinked. "Oh, before I forget, thank you for not harming one
hair on Rin-san's head earlier. I was worried you'd kill her to get to
me and Akahori-san, but I'm glad that wasn't the case, Battousai-of-
Speed-san," Seta expressed his gratitude while his opponent looked as
though he could explode at any moment.

"SHUT UP AND FIGHT! Or better yet, I'll shut you up for good!" the
redhead answered in kind, his spittle flying everywhere as he attacked
the general area where Soujiro stood with his multiple stabs, rendering
everything before him into unidentifiable grains and fragments.

'Those Swarming Barbs work just like Usui-san's Boken Bogyoku Hyaka
Ryoran. It also sacrifices accuracy for wide-area destruction. Even with
this technique alone, it's enough for him to have the power to murder
entire police squadrons in an instant. He would've fit in with the
Juppon Gatana quite splendidly had Shishio-san ever deemed him worthy
enough to join our group.'

Soujiro contemplated charging headlong as soon as the Battousai of Speed
overextended himself with his eruption of spearing movements, but that
never came to be. Right after hitting nothing but air and the floor
where the Ten Ken had stood, the Fake Battousai immediately went back to
his defensive Cancer Stance posture, his wakizashi raised over his head
and his katana resting near his thigh in a parallel fashion.

The Heaven Sword had to make a wall-scaling detour after his intended
counterattack backfired, his blade bouncing off the Battousai of Speed's
wakizashi parry as he narrowly avoided a Deathstalker Stab that shifted
immediately into another flurry of Swarming Barbs.

"Stop running away and fight me like a man, Ten Ken!" A bloodcurdling
scream clawed its way out of the Fake Battousai's throat as he again
missed his target by mere hairbreadths.

'The way Battousai-dono is fighting now, it's only a matter of time
before Seta-kun triumphs,' the Oyakata assessed. 'He's fighting with
anger and desperation. I was a bit worried by that technique of his
where he can disappear and reappear at will, but now I'm not so worried.
As long as he's leading the attack and chasing after Seta-kun's shadow,
I have nothing to fear.'

Soujiro's cheeks grew warm. For one reason or another, his recollections
of the androgynous Kamatari Honjo emerging naked from a hot spring bath
and the late Yumi Komagata allowing him to rest on her soft lap after
his defeat in the hands of Kenshin Himura floated into the surface of
his psyche while his hands shivered at the memory of what it touched
recently.

Akahori's head bodyguard afterwards replied to his opponent's taunts.
"Up until now, you're still unnerved by what I did? Then I apologize.
However, if you want to be treated as a man, you better act like one."

While only Soujiro's face went red, the Battousai of Speed's entire body
turned completely crimson before blinking in and out of existence. Every
time he ended up beside his prey, he unleashed as many Deathstalker
Stabs and Swarming Barbs as he could muster. Thanks to the Ten Ken's
floor-rending Shukuchi and the Fake Battousai's nonstop offense, the
room turned into a veritable battlefield of complete devastation.

'What the hell are they talking about?' Yahiko mused amidst the high
speed blurs of both Soujiro and the Battousai double. From behind him,
Rin had shut her eyes and let her ears listen to the rhapsody of
clashing swords, whizzing missed strikes, and pounding feet.

Before he knew it, the Battousai of Speed espied no boyish swordsman
with a smile that never left his face. He instead saw an overpowering
tidal wave of flesh and steel.

The familiar smell of metal sharpened his senses like sandstone would a
blade. It reminded him of the tangy scent left by the Fake Battousai
Group's weapons and, later on, blood as he massacred them back in their
East Valley hideout.

"It looks as if you've been through quite a lot. I'd sympathize if I
could, but first thing's first," Soujiro supposed while bouncing on the
balls of his feet and slashing away at the seemingly impenetrable waves
of Swarming Barbs.

In the span of a second, the Ten Ken used his Shukuchi to give himself
some running room, sheathed his sword before the Fake Battousai realized
that something was amiss, then charged with another leaping battoujutsu
strike.

"Cancer Stance: Vice Grip."

The intersecting blades this time around formed a crucifix on Morinaga's
side, the katana serving as the vertical base while the wakizashi kept
Soujiro's Kikuichi Monji from tearing him in half from the armpit
onwards. "You're in my way. Akahori Tetsuo must die. Let our people go."

Nonetheless, the sword that Kaede was supposed to disarm turned out to
be a sheathe, which allowed Soujiro to unleash a turning, close-range
sword-drawing slash at Amakusa's apprentice while keeping his daisho at
bay with the scabbard.

The Battousai of Speed countered immediately with a Deathstalker Stab,
but the Ten Ken avoided being impaled by it simply because he never had
any intention of fully committing to his attack.

All Soujiro wanted to do was to slice through the fabric of his
opponent's upper garments in order to expose something that had been
bothering him since he threw the redhead into the manmade ditch and
inadvertently groped the rebel's chest.

"Is this what you've been hiding from us, Battousai-of-Speed-san?" asked
Seta as the terrorist's kimono unfastened itself and his sarashi (or the
bandages covering his chest) were torn open, revealing breasts far too
soft and round to belong to a man of the same petite build.

Yahiko's mouth formed a moue of incredulity while the father and
daughter on either side of him turned into statues.

"W-Wait. H-He's a _she_?"


===


Many years ago in Yoshiwara...

As soon as the cross-scarred redhead heard the man's proposal, he
realized he was dealing with a complete lunatic. "Why would you... train
me to kill you? Why would you do that? Why me? I'm just the child of one
of your countless victims! That... doesn't make any sense! What in
Kannon's name are you going to get out of it?"

For the swordsman's part, his ear-to-ear grin while he scratched the
growing stubble over his lantern jaw indicated his thoughts on the
matter quite clearly. If he had the yogic ability to pat himself on the
back, he would've done so.

"Let's not overcomplicate things. I'm not doing this for you, but for
me. This should serve as your first life lesson, kid. Life ain't fair,
and you have to earn your own keep. Well, that's two lessons, but I
suggest you take my offer regardless. I myself think it's a sweet
deal."

"You're crazy!" The young boy pushed the large man away at the cost of
letting a tuft of his hair remain in his beefy hands. "You killed my
mother because she was in the way of your stupid duel! Train me? I don't
even want anything to do with you! Why do I need to kill you? Why don't
you just curl up in a ball and die?"

"Because I can't die yet. I have some unfinished business to attend to.
Even though I did you wrong, I won't commit sepukku because you want me
to. You have to earn the right to kill me if you want to avenge your
mother's death. Otherwise, you're free to go back to Yoshiwara to follow
her footsteps or go ahead and tread your own path without ever having
the guts to face your mother's killer when it counted the most."

The kid didn't know what to think as he charged at the talking brick
wall before him and punched at him till either his lungs or the knuckles
of his hands gave out. Part of him still couldn't believe what the
madman told him.

Another shot that the young man couldn't see brought him down on all
fours, his amateurish attacks rendered null and void thanks to the
ronin's armor-like muscles, from his deltoids to his pectorals. The kid
wanted to know the truth. If what this nutty swordsman said were true,
then he wanted the chance for vengeance as well.

He trusted the man as far as he could throw him, but he wasn't one to
look a gift horse in the mouth. If this demon on earth was deluded or
arrogant enough to give him the tools necessary to kill him, then so be
it. He would play his game, lie in wait, and learn his ways. If he
needed to become a monster himself in order to finish his mother's
murderer off, then he was fine with that too.

The boy had a new purpose to fulfill: Kill the man who murdered the
woman that provided his life with a happiness he lost in an instant,
without him even noticing.

"I like those eyes of yours, punk. You look angry enough to kill me
right now. It's about a hundred years too early for you to even think
about doing that, but I approve of your attitude. I got to warn you,
though. Unless you can surpass the strength I already have, you'll never
be able to avenge your mother's death. I have no intention of letting
my guard down because some snot-nosed kid thinks he can one-up me."

He rose up, kicked dirt into the demon's eyes, and hit its bandaged
chest even as he felt his ribs groan and creak from its counterstrike
blow to his side. He fell for the third time, his body twitching from
the fire that exploded near his belly.

"Shit. I need to wash my eyes later. Fucking brat. Ah, whatever. I'll
teach you how to kill me, and maybe... just maybe... you'll end up as my
last great challenge when I'm as wrinkled as a prune and have hair as
white as bird shit. Maybe even sooner. Let's get started. It's time for
me to go back to Yoshiwara to fetch my swords anyway. You're coming with
me, of course."

The fiend who seemed unfamiliar with human ways and social mores picked
up the morose and beat-up brat by the scruff of his kimono and dragged
him off to Yoshiwara as the dawn of a new day approached.

"Tell me your name, you bastard," the tuckered-out child growled low as
his mother's murderer hauled him around like luggage.

"What?"

"I want to know the name of the man who killed my mother."

"Akatsuki. Akatsuki Doraku. And how about you?"

"Morinaga. Morinaga Kaede. Remember that name. It's going to be the name
of your killer."

Alas, the orphan would later discover that his foster mother and several
of her customers did pass away in the hands of the amoral monstrosity
that took him in after they snuck back to the scene of the crime,
overhearing the words of the people who'd gathered there. He then
realized that he could never come back to the place he called home.

As they traveled across Japan as a pair composed of a dotanuki-wielding
demon seeking strength while serving as a soldier of fortune who
provided his services to the highest bidder and the adopted child of a
prostitute from the Yoshiwara Red Light District, Morinaga attempted to
kill his master by any means necessary, from poisoning his food to
attempting to stab him in his sleep, as per their agreement.

Failing that, he served as a thorn to Akatsuki's side, playing pranks on
him like cutting the straps of his sandals or putting lice-infested
strands of hair on his dandruff-filled mane.

Not once did the ronin complain save for the occasional admonishment of,
"You're a hundred years to early to kill me. Train harder, and maybe
you'll be able to avenge your mother's death. Don't you love her enough
to do so?"

Doraku fed him, clothed him, and taught (more like attacked) him using a
dual-wielding sword style that appeared far too technical and defensive
to be suited for a gigantic, warmongering oni like him. Morinaga always
believed that a more rambunctious, unconventional, and devil-may-care
sword school was a better fit for his violent master.

There came a point when Kaede put two and two together and concluded
that his master never killed his mother in the first place, even
accidentally. For the longest time, he wondered whether this was true or
something he wished was true.

Eventually, Morinaga would learn the truth behind his missing memories
and Akatsuki's well-meaning lies. He'd then wish they ended up locked
away in his mind for the rest of his life, but by then, it was too late.
Pandora's Box was already open.


===


Every hint of noise and sound within the mansion's guestroom died then
and there as its occupants stared at the red-faced Battousai of Speed's
chest in unison.

Maybe they should've expected the Kenshin look-alike to be a girl. Hell,
that was one of the first things that crossed Yahiko's mind when he
first met the real Kenshin Himura: Him being female.

'A woman? Seta-kun has been having trouble taking down a mere woman? No,
this cannot be.' To Soujiro, Tetsuo declared, "She's just a woman! A
mere girl that fell before your might thrice already! Amakusa was
desperate enough to use a little girl to help him with his attempt on my
life! Finish her off now! She's nothing but a second-rate Battousai
imposter!"

'So she's the female version of Battousai. Why? Why would she need to
hide her gender? What possible tactical advantage would that provide
except maybe surprise her enemy for a couple of minutes?'

As it were, the Battousai of Speed looked so much like Kenshin that
everyone automatically assumed she was male. Nothing short of Soujiro's
eye-popping revelation by outright slashing her garments would've
convinced them otherwise.

Yahiko mused, 'Did she pretend to be a guy to make her eerily identical
Kenshin impersonation even more convincing? Because quite frankly, she
didn't need to. Kenshin is supposed to be girly.'

On the other hand, her ability to stand her ground against the Heaven
Sword aside, the fact of the matter remained that she was but a slightly
skilled little girl who was merely pretending to be the infamous
Battousai. At best, she was nothing more than a distraction that
outlived her usefulness and original purpose.

Rin gasped as she heard her father's revelations, her eyesight too poor
to confirm for herself what had happened. However, she saw enough of the
Battousai double to conclude, 'The Battousai of Speed doesn't look any
older than I am. We may even have the same height and build. How was she
able to do so well against Seta-kun?'

"You remind me of one of my Juppon Gatana comrades and the way he acted.
I once knew this crossdresser who was in love with the leader of our
faction, and the way you overreacted over having your breasts groped is
reminiscent of how he overreacts whenever his femininity or his love for
Shishio-san was questioned," explained the Ten Ken to his opponent.

Yahiko wondered whether or not Soujiro was intentionally rubbing salt on
the rebel's open wound. 'Jeez, Psycho-Kid. Have some tact.'

Without ceremony, the Battousai of Speed covered her exposed chest by
closing the open flaps of her kimono. The people before her shuddered as
one as she glared at each and every one of them. Even a person who
wasn't trained in swordsmanship and ki-reading could feel the Battousai
doppelganger's blood boil.

Then again, just as none of them expected the Battousai of Speed to be a
woman disguised as a younger version of Battousai, they also didn't
expect the following reaction. They didn't even have time to contemplate
the implications behind the Fake Battousai's true gender, at that.

"You touched me again. DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH ME, YOU PERVERT!" screeched
the livid Battousai of Speed, her hands a blur of surging blade tips
that reduced everything in their path to dust.

"Pervert...?" muttered Yahiko.

'She's angry now. I have the chance to end it in one shot while she's
still hysterical.' At the back of Soujiro's mind, he idly wondered if
he looked exactly how the Fake Battousai did at the moment once he
himself suffered from his own mental breakdown in the hands of Kenshin
Himura.

He'd defeat her the same way Kenshin defeated him once he lost faith in
his absolute truth: The weak was food for the strong, and only the
strongest would survive.

The light from the Battousai of Speed's eyes went black as she blasted
Soujiro with unrelenting Swarming Barbs.

To Seta, Akahori recommended, "Battousai-dono is getting desperate. Keep
your guard up and wait for her to make a mistake. Even if she doesn't,
the building pressure will sap her stamina dry. She can't touch you at
all while you're using the Shukuchi."

As soon as his words left his lips, Akahori's jaw dropped so low that it
nearly made his nasal wound reopen once more. 'What? Seta-kun is trapped
at a dead end...?'

Sure enough, without Soujiro noticing, he'd been herded right into a
corner of the room, his back driven against two intersecting walls while
directly in front of him ran the open-armed, dual-wielding Fake
Battousai. "Well played, Battousai-of-Speed-san. Let's see which one of
us lands the first strike."

"Battousai this. Battousai that. I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THAT DAMN NAME!"

Trapped between a wall he couldn't scale because he didn't have enough
space to pick up momentum to do so and a rain of pointed steel that
would've turned him into a pincushion, Soujiro had no other choice but
to move forward. Even with what little breathing room his enemy allowed
between them, the Ten Ken accelerated to Shukuchi speed at his first
step.

"What's her problem? She doesn't want to be called Battousai, yet she's
part of the Battousai Group? She's a girl who intentionally crossdressed
to look like Kenshin! She even has the Edo Era outfit, scar, and red
hair to go along with the name!" Yahiko asked out loud, shaking his head
at how contradictory the rebel's statements were.

The closed-eye and pallid Rin softly responded, "Perhaps she didn't name
herself that. Maybe somebody else _made_ her look exactly like Himura
Kenshin. It just happened that she looked like him, and there was
someone who took advantage of that fact, since she never wanted to be
like Battousai in the first place."

As though overhearing Rin and Yahiko's conversation, the undulating
Battousai of Speed shared, "I hate that name. I would never proudly call
myself that. It's only because of Shogo-sama that I'm pretending to be
the man whose own reputation ruined my entire life!"

"How exactly did Himura-san ruin your life?" Soujiro asked as he himself
had a flashback of Kenshin _also_ turning his life upside down because
of the former rurouni's mere existence.

He added, "I have no idea what you're talking about or what you have
against Himura-san, but it's now clear to me that you and he are nothing
alike. For one thing, he doesn't even use stabbing techniques this
often."

"Shut up and fight!" came the Fake Battousai's retort.

Thanks to the momentum he had gained from rushing to strike first, the
Heaven Sword had to contend with the risk of being left wide open for a
split second had he missed his strike. 'Then I won't miss.'

Instead of using the Kuzu Ryu Sen... a move created specifically to be
countered in an instant... the Ten Ken opted to deploy the flurrying and
continuous offensive Shogo used against him earlier.

"Ryu Sou Sen."

"That's another technique you stole from Battousai and Shogo-sama, you
originality-bereft copycat thief! I'll make you realize your own folly!"

Strikes were missed, flesh was cut, and blades were crossed. Even with
what little space he had in front of him, Soujiro maintained his in-and-
out motion, pushing the Battousai of Speed back inch by precious inch
while avoiding harm. Conversely, the halting nature of the Heaven
Sword's swaying assault within a hard-to-maneuver area allowed the Fake
Battousai to land some small hits herself from time to time.

Akahori harrumphed as he berated himself for doubting his bodyguard
earlier. 'Calm down, Tetsuo. Most of Battousai-dono's shots aren't
landing. She's the one who's wasting precious energy and movement while
Seta-kun plays with her like a cat would a mouse. Everything is still
going according to plan. Just be patient.'

As if in a daze, the pumped-up Fake Battousai ranted while stabbing at
Soujiro in every which way, "During that time, over and over again, he
called me Battousai. All because I was cursed with the same eyes, build,
face, and hair, he called me Battousai. He even gave me this cross scar
to look more like Battousai. I hate that name. I don't even know who
that name belonged to at the time, but I hated Battousai too for
existing!"

Timing Soujiro as he backed away from a wakizashi thrust, the Battousai
of Speed moved forward with the intention of blowing her opponent's guts
out with a full-bodied plunge. "There's no escape for you now!"

Alas, Soujiro proved him wrong yet again by reducing the fatal stab into
a near-miss pinprick by dodging to the right and escaping from the dead
end. He then wound up at the opposite side of the room.

"As much as I'd like to have my rematch against Himura-san, I won't
settle for substitutes. Your hypocrisy, insecurities, gender, and lack
of skill pretty much confirms how unlike Himura-san you are. You may
look like him, but you're nothing like him otherwise. It's unfortunate,
but this charade needs to end right now," the scuffed-up but otherwise
healthy Seta surmised.

The Battousai of Speed growled and turned, only to freeze as her hands,
arms, legs, and entire body shook like a leaf thanks to her previous
exertions, her weapons nearly falling out of her fingers' tenuous grip
as her half-exposed chest tightened and seemingly crushed her swelling
internal organs. She was at her limit.

Although for the first time since the fight began, the Fake Battousai
managed to draw blood from Soujiro, it was cold comfort in light of what
she had to sacrifice to accomplish that feat. 'Dammit, _move_. Please
Shogo-sama's God, I can't fail Shogo-sama now! Not after everything he's
been through!'

Without ceremony, Soujiro kicked the only table left intact from his
earlier fight with the godly Amakusa right at the Fake Battousai's face.

The redheaded imposter reacted in kind, slicing the wooden furniture
into quarters with the Cancer Stance's Scissor Grip and follow-up
Crisscross Claw that slashed outwards in a cross-shaped pattern.

However, the Ten Ken took advantage of the momentary distraction by
sheathing his sword while his enemy was sidetracked by the overturned
table.

"Yes! Use your battoujutsu against that joke of a 'Battousai' who
doesn't even know the first thing about sword-drawing techniques!"

The Oyakata smirked as the spent Battousai imposter stumbled and swayed
like a drunk. "Whoever heard of a Battousai that doesn't do battoujutsu?
She's like a fish that can't swim or a bomb that can't explode. She's
worthless. Your Battousai-like looks won't save you now, harlot!"

While Akahori ranted about name semantics and the trembling Battousai of
Speed fell into her offensive stabbing stance once more... specifically
when Tetsuo uttered the first syllable of the word "battoujutsu"...
Soujiro charged towards the Fake Battousai just short of doing an
outright Shukuchi and released his sheathed blade in one swift motion
towards his waning foe's skinny neck.

"MORINAGA KAEDE! Stop fooling around! You're better than this!"

A voice from the corner of the room rasped, which woke the mesmerized
Rin and Yahiko from the divineness of Soujiro's battoujutsu... a move
powerful enough to cleave through Kenshin's first sakabatou... and
pierced through the leaden denseness that filled the Battousai of
Speed's shivering body.

"AMAKUSA! You're still alive? You should've died along with your foolish
dreams," Akahori roared as his instinct beckoned him to reach for a
nonexistent gun within his empty holster.

The sting of Tetsuo's sliced face radiated and swelled at the sight of
the man who epitomized everything he hated about this superstitious and
illogical world. 'I see. The god I tried to kill hasn't died yet. He
still has a believer left.'

By barely a millimeter, Soujiro's ever-present smile wavered as his
eyelids peeled back at their furthest and goose flesh appeared on his
skin. By barely a millisecond, he faltered upon hearing the echoing
shout from his employer's bitterest enemy, Shogo Amakusa.

This millimeter of emotion and millisecond of hesitation were all it
took for the Fake Battousai to shift stances, cross her blades together,
and stop the unsheathed sword's strike from completing its upward arc.
The Vice Grip was a shirahadori technique that could rival Yahiko's own
Hadome or Hadachi.

As though Death himself simultaneously gripped the spines of everyone
else not involved in the duel, the gathered audience within the
guestroom shuddered at the sight of Soujiro's self-taught battoujutsu
stopped cold by the diminutive Kenshin doppelganger's twin blades.

'So Morinaga is her name,' thought Yahiko belatedly.

"Shogo-sama," Morinaga whispered like the summer breeze while tightening
her grip on her dual weapons. For his part, Amakusa remained lying on
the floor, the energy it took for him to shout out his words of
encouragement rendering him unconscious in a snap.

Soujiro retrieved his blade before Kaede had a chance to disarm him. He
then went back to the prowl, his pounding Shukuchi gallop exploding all
over the room while the Fake Battousai stood stock-still.

Yahiko himself turned and saw Morinaga engulfed in what appeared to be
foot-sized gunfire that turned the already crumbling floor into unevenly
tilled soil and debris. The Ten Ken remained nowhere in sight.

'If you won't fall down on a single battoujutsu stroke, then how about
this?' Soujiro reckoned before shouting, "Ryu Sou Sen!" and unleashing
wild, random strikes that surrounded the Kenshin doppelganger and
coincided well with his similarly untamed and unpredictable footwork.

Even without looking at the supine form of Shogo, the Battousai of Speed
could still spot him in either corner of her eyes while she recalled his
words that saved her life.

Morinaga didn't respond to Shogo's appeal with a "Yes, I will fight
seriously this time around," but instead answered with the declaration
of "Cancer Stance: Protective Shell," that rung louder to the barely
conscious Christian leader's ears than any statement of agreement.

Every last strike Seta unleashed with the Dragon Nest Flash ended up
parried, stopped, or otherwise deflected by the barrier-like technique
that allowed the Fake Battousai to block from every corner and angle.
Cracking open an oyster's shell would've been easier than penetrating
through Morinaga's crablike defense.

'What the hell is going on?'

Both Yahiko's and Tetsuo's respective faces became as white as Rin's
skin as they espied the spectacle before them. Although the Heaven Sword
surrounded his opponent with multiple slashes aimed at the human body's
vital points, not one of them could pierce the dense dome of whirling
steel that shielded the weakened, rubber-legged assassin from harm.

Rin herself remained pokerfaced throughout the entire exchange, although
this might be more because she couldn't discern what was happening right
before her eyes thanks to her nearsightedness than actual apathy on her
part.

"I don't care how fast you are, Ten Ken. As long as you keep aiming for
my vital points, I'll be able to pinpoint your predictable strikes no
matter how many or how random they are," Morinaga boasted, her blurry
arms acting like rotating windmills amidst the furious air currents of a
hurricane.

'What's happening? Only minutes ago, she was firing off all-or-nothing
stabs at Seta-kun that missed more often that not. It's as if she's
become a different fighter altogether!' Yahiko thought.


===


Next: The Ten Ken exposed.

One theme I particularly liked about Rurouni Kenshin is how it
doesn't showcase a particular belief or principle as absolutely
right or absolutely wrong. For example, even though the author
didn't really believe in how "practical" the Sekihoutai's
principles were, he still gave them a fair shake.

Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others)
are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen
Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallop, Studio Deen, and
ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted
material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me
please, I'm very poor.

Taas noo kahit kanino,
Abdiel