[FFML] [fic][rk][cont] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 17: Monster at the Mansion

[Chester Castañeda]

A couple of nights before November the sixth, at the common dining room
of the Shinshushin Manor where the Kamiminochi police troopers drank in
seclusion from the rest of the Kanto district squads...

"Don't get me wrong. Amakusa's fanatical followers truly are extremists
to the core. His attempt at portraying himself as the reincarnation of a
historical rebel in order to justify his assassinations of top-ranking
ex-bakufu officials is also sickening. He's garbage that should be dealt
with as quickly as humanly possible."

The massively built Kamiminochi Captain Haruo Nakayama crossed his arms.
"Sho what'sh your point, lieutenant?"

"My _point_ is that the Modern Shimabara War went both ways! We may be
part of the police force, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we'll
simply eat whatever tripe our self-serving government feeds us!" The
alabaster-skinned Lieutenant Okami Yamazaki felt his ears and face warm
up like wax from a halfway-spent candle, which he inwardly dismissed as
mere tipsiness.

"It doesn't excuse the fact that we've been downright abusing our own
citizens just because they happened to believe in a different faith from
ours. Nor does it excuse Akahori from going overboard by calling in an
entire _army_ just to apprehend a peace-loving town full of hardworking
folk leading double-lives as Christians. He claimed them _all_ to be
insurgents, Captain! I'm fairly sure some of them weren't even
Christians, yet we bombed and massacred those villagers too!"

"You had this realization _just now_, lieutenant? Surely, you must have
heard the reports of the cleanup crew at Nagasaki picking out bullets
from bodies in order to cover up the one-sided nature of our assault."
Officer Oimikado delicately put down his half-consumed cup of wine,
licked his lips, and batted his eyelashes at the flushed-looking
Yamazaki.

"We had killed an incredible number of innocent people in Shimabara, but
the government never did pony up any evidence of their wrongdoing or
their connection with Amakusa. This information is just as hard to
verify as the rumors of Amakusa's murderous rampage against a thousand
soldiers and police, but both these stories are still out there
nonetheless."


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


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

Just wanted to take note that the religious and political discussions
here are mere flavor text to a straightforward plot.


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

Chapter 17: Monster at the Mansion

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


In the East Valley of Nojiri, Shinshushin, Soujiro Seta ran. Sprinted.
Flew. His thoughts remained jumbled as he went through the familiar
motions of his daily sprint to and fro the villages of Nojiri and Suwa
to maintain his stamina; his mind raced alongside his feet while
innumerable concepts formed inside it. Tetsuo Akahori. Shogo Amakusa.
The police. Yahiko Myojin and his merry men. Rin. The fake Battousai
Group. Keisuke. The fake Battousai. Kyoko Sakaguchi. The real Battousai
Group. Satoru Sakaguchi.

By themselves, they represented a jumble of words that only made sense
to Soujiro alone or any of the people involved in the Modern Shimabara
War's sixth anniversary. Strangely enough, they also summarized the
entire proceeding quite well (in the twenty-something youth's opinion,
at the very least).

The ground exploded below him as he tore through the landscape. The
rising dust scattered in all directions, but he himself remained
untouchable. The velocities he achieved, he imagined only the freest and
wildest of horses could envision. Any faster, and he'd be a bird flying
the heavens of infinite blue that attempted to test the very limitations
of its abilities. The god-given gift Makoto Shishio helped him develop
had paid dividends for him up to this day, the circumstances behind
their eventful meeting be damned.

"Only the strong shall reign, and the weak must serve as food for the
strong in order to best follow the natural laws of this world." Although
paraphrased, the very essence of Shishio's motto was pumped right into
Soujiro's nerves, the network of thin tubes knotting together and
constricting into a pulsating mass of instinct and desire every time
even a _hint_ of the topic "Might is right" was within his earshot or
field of vision. Every. Single. Time.

For a whole decade, that'd been Soujiro's sole truth. His words to live
and die by--or words others died for and he lived by. It was so
ingrained into his system, it actually, _physically_ hurt him deep down
inside whenever the topic was broached.

It took a battle against a powerful yet righteous man so much like him
to make him understand just why that one belief pained him so. He had
turned off his heart--or his soul; in the Japanese language, there was
no distinction between either meaning--to follow Shishio's truth to the
letter, only to realize later on that it wasn't his truth.

Himura Battousai even added salt to Soujiro's gaping wound by declaring
that he didn't have the ultimate answer either. As such, the most
powerful of Shishio's Ten Swords was forced to travel Japan to discover
what was his own truth.

Anyhow, Soujiro had a silver-eyed, dairy-haired, and pale-skinned nymph
in tow; one that he had to awaken with true love, like a prince in those
foreign horror stories about fairies and supernatural beings she
regularly read to him. His smile grew wider. What a simplistic thought;
like a child's dream.

The fleet-footed man laughed; had he painted a more ridiculous picture
in his mind, he would've included mizuchi, gaki, kappa, tengu, oni, oni-
baba, baku, goryo, tanuki, umibozu, futakuchi-onna, yuki-onna, and so on
in his make-believe world of chivalric nonsense.

Had Soujiro met Rin in different circumstances--for example, had he
still remained an abused bastard that was raised by a bunch of spoiled,
social-climbing, nouveau-riche rubes--he would've identified Rin as a
"snow lady" regardless; his Snow White.

He grasped the person he held in his arms tightly, remembering how
Amakusa flung the bag that carried her earlier on like it contained
pieces of laundry; he lacked any regard to her whatsoever even as he
faced gunfire and cannon blasts while holding the Porcelain Doll of the
House of Akahori.

Speaking of Akahori, even Soujiro had to admit that he didn't see that
mental collapse coming, especially since it was the Hokkaido Oyakata
himself who just attempted to stomp him until he became okonomiyaki
batter.

Was it all part of Akahori's convoluted plans? Or did he genuinely go
crazy at the mere thought of his daughter's life in jeopardy? It could
be either, both, or neither when it came to the Oyakata's machinations.

The ex-Ten Ken seriously doubted that "Beating the one man who can save
your daughter's life to a pulp because he suggested that doing exactly
what the kidnapper wants is a bad choice," was part of Akahori's
schemes. For good or for ill, Akahori really did do unexpected things at
times.

Honestly, Soujiro never expected the events that transpired a couple of
minutes ago to come to pass. Granted, it was something he had to
regularly deal with as the bastard child of a two-timing father and a
mistress mother who couldn't care less about him. His stepfamily had
their way with him more often than not, but that abuse was in the
context of familial contempt.

Soujiro never would've imagined Akahori to break down at that critical
juncture of his impending assassination. Say what you will of Makoto
Shishio, but at least he didn't beat you to a pulp once you've _proven_
your worth to him. "Evil" mastermind that he was, he respected strength,
power, and might in all shapes and forms.

He recalled the constant abuse his foster family handed him, his smile
serving as his wince and his laughter serving as his yelps of anguish.
He could never look them directly at the time even though he eventually
became someone few ever dared confront. The beating Soujiro received in
the hands of a desperate Akahori earlier served as his reminder that he
hadn't really changed much at all.

He winced. He winced and balled himself up at a sight he hadn't seen in
many years: the silhouette of a man ready to punch and wallop him into
submission.

Then again, perhaps Soujiro merely underestimated the amount of love and
caring that Tetsuo Akahori had for his only begotten daughter and how it
even trumps wisdom, savvy, and common sense--what with the boy never
having experienced such love in his life. With his foster family, he
learned derision. With Shishio's faction, he learned strength. With the
House of Akahori, he expected to learn more about logic and reason, so
he was surprised to see the normally unflappable Akahori go berserk over
his daughter's capture when he could've instead used his ability to
think on his feet to rescue her.

The milk-haired snow lady stirred in Soujiro's arms. The rest of her
body still felt numb and unconscious, but at the very least, she managed
to rouse her mind.

"Thank you for saving me," the girl intoned with irises that shook in
place--the kind of eye movement that people usually associated with
repressed emotionality, but for Rin, it merely served as one of the
symptoms of her medical condition. "I'm sorry for causing you all this
trouble. I didn't think things would turn out like this when I first
came up with the idea to go to Shinshu."

"You're awake. For a second there, I thought I needed to kiss you to
wake you up." Soujiro's body burned red from head to toe, which he
supposed was caused by the body heat produced by his midnight run.

True-to-form of an "ice woman", one of Rin's eyebrows went straight up
as she tilted her head and asked, "Was that your idea of a joke?" which
made Soujiro shrug in the middle of his sprint.

"Just don't laugh even if you found it funny. Your laughter scares me a
little," Soujiro confessed, amazed at how clearly he delivered that
unthinking reply. He then realized that this was one of the few
instances where stumbling upon his words would've yielded better
results.

After a few minutes, Rin muttered, "Ah. Another joke."

"I guess..." A cloud of mosquitoes splattered across the bare skins of
Soujiro and Rin like grains from a fist-full of sand as they passed
through it, which jolted the both of them into uneasy wakefulness.


===


Back to communal dining room of the Kamiminochi District Police a few
nights ago before November the sixth...

"None of what we did compares to the horror of what these Christians did
and could do to us. The assassinations of the ex-bakufu are all part of
their grand scheme to take over our leadership in the same manner the
Ishin Shishi did during the Bakumatsu," Sergeant Askikiga groused, his
nose upturned as he shook his head at his supposed superior's
unpatriotic allegations.

"Do you want Japan to return to those days of civil unrest and
bloodshed? The soldiers and policemen who died on November the sixth
deserve our utmost respect. You have no right to speak ill of them _at
all_."

"Excuse me for _daring_ to criticize our 'faultless' leaders! The Meiji
Government and the hanbatsu are hardly perfect. You're barking up the
wrong tree, Sarge," Yamazaki retorted.

Captain Nakayama harrumphed, his hot breath reeking of hatred and
alcohol. "All I ever need to lern about that politically driven cult,
I lernd from the Shimabara Mashakur. Have you ever hurd of the
Crushadesh? If you haven't, then shut your mouth. You know nothing. I
have no interesht in jushtifying the crimesh of those zealot hypocritesh
and mindlesh rebelsh. What about the shoulsh of our shons, brothersh,
and fathersh who are shcreaming, shcreaming for jushtish and an end to
their pain? Fuck them Kirishitan."

"I'm afraid you're wrong, Captain. I think the lieutenant's right. The
Meiji Government basically forced us to murder all sorts of Nagasaki
villagers in the belief that they were all Christian rebels working
under Amakusa."

Kawashi, a man so short he made Captain Toma Kujo of the Gunma District
look normal-sized, spoke out while ignoring the teasing remarks of his
compatriots that insisted he should stand up when talking despite the
fact that he was already standing.

"I was actually one of the survivors of that mission. I don't know what
troop you were in, Captain, but we did some very horrible stuff. Some of
those people we killed didn't deserve to be killed."

The svelte, bun-haired, and horse-toothed Officer Tanaka also put his
two yen into the conversation. "Look, religion and politics are touchy
subjects for most people, so I say if you can't add anything to the
conversation, then don't bother saying anything at all," as he gave the
harrumphing Officer Kawashi a flippant snort.

"War is normally a method used by high-ranking assholes in Tokyo in
order to get richer. These campaigns have nothing to do with making the
rest of the world respect Japan as a sovereign nation or ridding us of
foreign influences like Christianity and the unequal treaties," Officer
Tanaka insisted.

"How many of our leaders have been assassinated in the last twenty
years? It's a dog-eat-dog government we have right now, so I don't
believe any of the bullshit they're feeding us about doing this and that
for the betterment of Japan's worldwide influence. War is a cycle
they're perpetuating in order to keep their pockets full while the rest
of us get burned for following their questionable orders."

"ENOUGH! Remember our promish to Akahori-shan. He will defend our
empire. Our future is in hish handsh, sho we will fight theesh corrupt
shonsh of bitchesh to the death alongshide him!"

The flaming-red oni that replaced Nakayama's face roared, hot flecks of
spittle spewing forth his swollen maw as he metaphorically melted holes
on the floor underneath his feet. It had come to the point where the
captain's crew weren't sure if his reddening complexion was more due to
sake or anger.

"Theesh hidden crosh worshippursh and relijush nutcashesh are all over
Kyushu, particularly Nagashaki. They're hidden in plain shight ash
Kakure Kirishitan, they come in all shapesh and shizesh, they're
prejudished against both the Japaneesh government and the Japaneesh
people, and they're definitely not on our shide. I undershtand that some
innoshentsh have to pay during war; we paid our duesh, and sho will
they. If we weren't in the middle of a fucking shivil riot right now,
I'd pershonally hunt those brainwashed, backwardsh-thinking shitheads
down myshelf!"

"But is there really a war going on, captain? The Meiji Government
doesn't seem to think so, and they're painting the months' long
campaign at Shimabara as nothing more than a skirmish," the tall,
heavyset, and chocolate-complexioned Officer Yoshida felt compelled
enough to comment, but soon blanched as Nakayama spat, "Shut up, you
unpatriotic peeshes of shit. I'm not yet done talking," at his pouting,
eggplant-shaped face.

Yamazaki and his supporters shook their heads and turned away from
Nakayama in disagreement, but did nothing more as the plump policeman
continued his chatter.

"Have you fergutten why Lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi banned Kirishitanitee
from Japan all thosh yearsh ago? Let me refresh your memory. My own
former troop leader himshelf, Captain Ryuzoji, told me that the edict
wash made into a fundamental Tokugawa law in order to avoid letting
Japan fall into the colonial trap that caught India, Mexico, the
Philippinesh, and a whole bunch of other countreesh too far off for ush
to even care about!"

Nakayama slammed his fist onto the table, which knocked over his empty
bottle of sake and a couple of his compatriots' cups. "Japan wash
actually the largesht oversheesh Kirishitan community a good three
centuries ago! Theesh are the shavejesh that ate horsh meat and made
shlavesh of their fellow countrymen, for goodnesh shakes! Then and now,
they've brought dishorder and chaos into our proud nashun by ruining
our traditional valuesh, disrespecting out culture, destroying our
laws, and corrupting goodness."

The slow and deliberate drawl of the plump man's speech speeded up an
ante or two. "We cannot allow thish fundamentally flawed propaganda
machine to go any further! Theesh _Christians_ are nothing more than a
group of cop-killing terrorists who murdered top officials in our
country, over two thousand of our men, and countless more civilians in
order to dictate to us their brainwashed, deviant, and immoral views
that hurt our society in the long run and force us to willingly
subjugate ourselves to foreign rule. We will not throw away our pride as
Japanese people! It's our social obligation to either have them renounce
their depraved, cultish faith or exile them where they won't be able to
corrupt us with their influence!"

The Kamiminochi Captain slumped down his chair, his vein-filled,
burgundy face whitening as his exploits in Shimabara came flooding back
to him. 'Shit, I'm sober.'

"W-We have to be brave a-and strong. We can't let what happened to us at
Nagasaki ever happen again. Our very _pride_ as a people is being
questioned here. I don't give a shit if any of you disagree with me; I'd
rather lose those Japanese traitors who became Christians than lose any
more of our own men. There will be anti-war dreamers who'll say that we
aren't at war; well, tell that to Lieutenant Hiramatsu's widow or
Captain Ryuzoji's family. As... as a Japanese citizen who's loyal to our
Holy Emperor, I care about the suffering of our enemies' innocents as
much as they cared about our innocents."

Under his breath, Nakayama cursed and grumbled as he stormed off
straight towards his contingent's designated sleeping quarters.


===


Back to the relative present, at the East Valley...

At that moment, as Rin rubbed stray grit from her eyes caused by her
slumber, she asked, "Why did you save me back then and left my father at
the mercy of that Amakusa fellow?"

"It was the right thing to do. Why shouldn't anyone do it?" Soujiro
reasoned with a smile, a twitch, and a wince.

"Don't give me an answer you'd expect others to say. Give me your honest
answer." Rin's trembling, moon-blue eyes pierced into the smiling facade
of the young man before her as they did their best to see if the Ten
Ken's mask truly had something underneath it.

Though Soujiro didn't stutter, the steady beat of his Reduced Earth
Technique did go out of tempo for a second or two. "Because I don't want
you to fall into harm, of course. As soon as I can get you to a safe
place, I'll finish off the rebel myself."

"Don't do things because it's a matter of principle. By doing so,
you're doing yourself _and_ others a disservice," Rin berated, which
made Soujiro's facial muscles move from his jovial expression to more a
indeterminate state.

She further remarked, "Before you can help others, you must first help
yourself. If there's something compelling you to go through this
mission, then discover what it is for yourself. Himura Kenshin himself
didn't go protecting the weak because he viewed their needs as above
his; he did it for the sake of absolution. He defeated Shishio Makoto
when he realized the virtue of looking out for his best interests, which
wasn't mutually exclusive from his caring for the welfare of others."

"I don't understand. I thought you'd be happy that I saved you. I
thought I made the right decision," Soujiro mumbled at Rin as he almost
took a turn that would've led him straight to Suwa instead of Nojiri.

"I'm happy that you rescued me, but I'd be disappointed if you did so
only because you'd think it'd make me happy or because you did what was
expected of you. Think for yourself." Rin cleared her throat.

"The only 'right' decision for you to make is the one you yourself
decided to follow. You shouldn't see things as simple black and white
or right and wrong, or else you'll get into trouble. What is white for
you may be black for others, and vice-versa."

The creaking click-clack of bamboo surrounded the pair as they passed
through the outer fringes of the caned forest in a hurried pace.

"For example, here in Japan, white is the symbol of death. In the west,
as you've heard father's foreigner associates tell us, the reverse is
instead true. Humans are the ones that force the dichotomy of good and
evil into certain things, with good symbolizing everything they approve
of and evil symbolizing everything they believe is wrong with the world.
As with many philosophies, it depends on the individual, so you can't
just blindly accept a belief you abhor. It all depends on you."

"You're giving me a headache again, Rin-san." To Soujiro's amusement--
genuine or otherwise--Rin began to rub and massage his temple with one
hand.

"Why did you save me?" Rin repeated, her ashen body tense and strained
as though it were suffering from rigor mortis.

'I felt empty without you. I couldn't feel anything, even though I knew
that I was supposed to feel something. I didn't know what to do, think,
or feel when I thought you died, as though there was no point in me
doing anything else,' was the answer Soujiro couldn't even begin to
express.

Instead, he glanced down at Rin, met her eyes, smiled, moved his head
forward, focused his attention back to where he was going--the forest of
bamboo he identified as the place where he and Yahiko Myojin fought--and
shared, "I don't know. I simply wanted to. Should I have a reason for
doing so?"

With a quiver of her mouth that, on others, would've looked like a
random fidget, Rin breathed, "That's reason enough. As long as you made
that decision by yourself, then it should be all right."

>From there, they did their respective versions of laughter, which for
Rin's part didn't involve actual laughter at all, just silence, a hint
of a smile, and an empty stare using the default expression on her face.

At least Soujiro's guffaws _sounded_ heartfelt, even though most people
who knew him and his "condition" couldn't tell what constituted as
"sincere" for him. Anyhow, perhaps Rin shouldn't even call her reaction
as "laughter" at all, but she nonetheless appreciated the irony.

An upcoming tree branch forced Soujiro's attention back to his jog. They
were making good time, so they were about to reach the nearest town soon.
Should he leave Rin in Kyoko Sakaguchi's care in Nojiri? If he could,
then he would've traveled all the way from Shinshushin to the Aomori
docks or even straight back to Hokkaido if called for. Alas, he still
had business to attend to back in Akahori's Mansion.

For a moment, Soujiro and Rin stopped in the middle of their momentous
run as the former leapt up and felt that one fraction of a second
stretch for longer than it was supposed to stretch. Just then, a vision
that Soujiro saw six years ago and didn't expect to see for the rest of
his life winked into existence in the midst of his precarious jump over
a hollow log.

Soujiro's agape mouth went dry as he espied a seemingly fifteen-year-
old, fiery-haired, wakizashi-wielding young man wearing a blue kimono, a
white undershirt, and an off-white hakama with matching black socks who
was the spirit and image of a young Kenshin Kamiya (nee Himura).

Were Soujiro not holding Rin in his arms, he would've used his hands to
push his heart back down his empty chest from his throat. His muscle
memory had him tense his legs on pure instinct, his torso burning with
the nostalgia of a bone-crushing pain caused by the impossibly fast
lightning strike of a blunt sword. He remembered seeing Kenshin's left
foot sink into the tatami, his eyes never blinking at the inhuman feat
of strength.

The person in front of him was a Battousai doppelganger in every sense
of the word, right down to his red hair and cross-shaped scar. The
imposter also wore standard-issue hitokiri garb and apparel as well as a
topknot ponytail typical of assassins during the bakumatsu.

However, after Soujiro's brain adjusted itself in order to better
perceive the person in front of it instead of the person it thought it
saw, the twenty-something noticed differences both subtle and overt from
this apparition.

First, the pair of scars was somehow closer to the fake Battousai's eyes
than with the real Battousai's. Second, his eyelids exhibited hints of
lazy eye while the roots of his hair were markedly darker than the
orange coloring of his predecessor. Third, his stance and movement were
completely wrong as he dove straight into the descending pair with a
burst of speed slower to what Amakusa displayed earlier.

Soujiro compensated slightly with his overshot landing by doing extra
Shukuchi steps to set himself upright, which in turn left heavy
footprints and potholes all over the landscape, but at the very least he
maintained his equilibrium even though his supposed anchor--Rin
Akahori--had slipped his fingers.

He turned around after feeling a burst of wind hit his cheek like a
light slap: a parting gift from the ghost of Kenshin's former self, the
Hitokiri Battousai. With nary a syllable of warning and right under
Soujiro's nose, the Kenshin double had used that window of opportunity
to snatch Rin in ways that the real Kenshin's Shinsoku never could.

Soujiro looked behind him and smiled, his eyes aflame with a moonlit
fire. The imposter Kenshin went to the direction from which the Ten Ken
came, back to the mansion full of Kanto district officers.


===


Back at the front yard of Akahori's mansion...

The side of Amakusa's temple bled while pieces of the broken metal band
he wore around his forehead fell along with him. He gnashed his teeth as
he landed hard on his left leg, his body tingling with a fresh wave of
torture.

After the charismatic Christian radical landed back on the ground while
sporting a fresh new bullet wound--the person responsible for it
crawling back to the safety of his mansion's study as he struggled to
make his lungs work again--a hail of hot lead and bayonets followed.

The lanky redhead thought fast and used battoujutsu to shatter the
spears coming at him while diving headfirst into the nearest brigade in
order to use them as human shields from the shower of lead. 'Two gone.
One left. I've been careless.'

"I went through the trouble of finding a way to kill the devil known as
Akahori Tetsuo without involving any of you, yet you threw your chances
for survival away anyway." He lopped off a number of ears and fingers
in order to get through the crowd and move to safer ground. "The last
thing I want to do is involve you, the people whom I have hurt the most,
in my personal crusade. However, that ship of mercy has sailed, and
circumstances dictate that I try a different approach."

The Kanagawa and Gunma groups struggled to pursue the blabbering yet
wounded Christian madman with sabers and rifle fire, but one simple
look into Amakusa's dilated eyes had them gasping for air and flinching
away at the mere sight of him, as though his presence by itself proved
exhausting. He was he sun; a celestial body they couldn't even bear to
stare at for too long, untouchable and immovable by mortal whiles and
means. If the Christian God or the Enlightened Buddha were to grace
their presence among mortals, then either would probably look like
Amakusa did right at that moment.

Amakusa gripped the scabbard of his sword so tightly, blood started to
drip from his clenched fist. "This is your last chance to save
yourselves. From this point on, this mansion is your Sodom and Gomorrah,
and every last person that dares defy my will shall suffer a fate far
worse than being rained upon fire and brimstone from the sky. You're
all sinners in my eyes, and if you try and stop me, you will face the
might and wrath of the One True God. No one shall be spared."

More like a tsunami than an avalanche, Amakusa razed through the crowd
of stunned police officers from Kanagawa and Gunma by glaring straight
into the eyes of the awed coppers and struck at their feet, lower legs,
thighs, necks, shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, scalps, and faces with
machine-like precision. He got them two, three, or even five at a time,
jettisoning the injured, hemorrhaging policemen right behind him to ward
off any possible sneak attacks from the rear.

Amakusa speed-painted the yard with the bodily fluids of his enemies,
his sword serving as his brush of sorts. Although he rushed his charge
in order to attend to a more pressing matter, the slashes that he did
land on the shell-shocked officers--which looked more like abrasions
than incisions, for some reason--did the job in draining their already
pale faces of blood.

On cue, several of the remaining Togakudan immediately took the
initiative to distribute ammunition and extra weapons to the mostly
untouched ranks of the Kamiminochi and Tokyo contingents while the
others carried the injured, disarmed, or dying to the safety of the
mansion.

"Those of you from the Togakudan who aren't busy, man that Armstrong
cannon again, and get us some more ammo! Those of you in the Kanagawa
Troop who haven't fired their weapons, get them ready! The rest of you!
Get out of the way so that we can get a clear shot of that terrorist
bastard!" In the middle of Captain Yamada's shepherding of the hesitant
police force, Amakusa leapt right over the whole lot of them in order to
confront the astute Kanagawa district leader face-to-face.

"You're a smart one, Yamada Kuniumi-taicho. You're pretty quick on the
uptake," Amakusa appraised in midair before gravity exerted its
influence and let him dive right at the unmoving policeman's jugular
with a downward, perpendicular strike. "Such a waste, though."

Yamada managed to block the strike with his bayonet-fitted Murata rifle
before the sword could hit the vein, but he inexplicably hesitated just
as he attempted to either shoot or counterattack with his gun, which
helped Amakusa pierce through his chest and lung instead. In the
interim, both Yahiko and Captain Ujiki let out stifled, simultaneous
gasps after witnessing the assault.

"How'd you know my...?" Yamada hyperventilated, his eyes zigzagging
everywhere as he trembled, the nearest of his fellow Kanagawa officers
preparing to either shoot or stab at the stationary Amakusa. He then
froze. "Holy shit. There's a traitor--!"

In response, Amakusa turned away and kicked Yamada in the stomach in
order to gain enough leverage to yank his sword out and jump away from
the approaching bullets. Assorted shouts of "CAPTAIN!" and "CAPTAIN
YAMADA!" echoed across the yard while asphyxiating blood spurted forth
the Kanagawa commander's stab wound like a red fountain.

Amakusa whispered after doing the sign of the cross, "Almighty God,
through the death of your Son..."

A sobbing Sergeant Satoru Sakaguchi arrived first to his captain's side,
cupping the injury and applying pressure to it the best he could, but
his hands merely slipped from Yamada's body because of the growing pool
of slick redness surrounding the both of them. Yamada tried to talk, to
give some sort of comforting words to his horrified subordinate, but all
he could muster was his own blood. He died in mere minutes not from his
blood loss, but from choking to death.

A few yards away, three of the Togakudan--the tomato-nosed Nishiguchi,
the owl-eyed Okazaki, and the just-a-bit-less-effeminate-than-Minoe-
but-not-by-much Minamoto--tried their very best to dig Raedo Nagaoka,
the damaged Gatling gun, and themselves out of the impromptu graves that
Amakusa created by somehow producing a landslide from the sheer
awesomeness of his sword strike.

"YAMADA-SAAAAAAAAN!" Captain Kujo screamed with glistening eyes that he
hastily wiped after realizing Amakusa's plan. "What's wrong with you
people? You heard the man! Fire at Amakusa as fast and as furiously as
you can while the closest of you should either stab at him or regroup
from a proper distance! Gunma Squadron! DO IT NOW! That's an order!"

To his chagrin, Kujo identified two of his men--the coffee-skinned pair
of the balding Takahashi and the baggy-eyed Hosokawa--running for their
lives along with other officers from different contingents and exiting
the compound via the wide-open gates.

"C-Captain! I can't explain it, but our l-limbs feel h-heavy. We c-can
barely breathe, and this is an open-air courtyard! I d-don't understand
it myself," Kujo's trembling second-in-command--the hawk-nosed, pale-
skinned, and slit-eyed Teraku Kimura--elucidated after asking the rest
of the Gunma company their status beforehand. "I'm not sure w-what
Amakusa did, b-but our r-reflexes are slower than usual."

"It's true, Captain. I've heard r-rumors about that man back in
Shimabara; something about him p-possessing the hypnotic eyes of a snake
that f-freezes p-people int-t-to place, which is part of the reason why
h-he killed so many s-soldiers and policemen six years ago!" the
bleeding and flushed Officer Aburakoji chimed in between pants and
wheezes.

"What the hell are you two babbling about? That's utter bullshit!
Hosokawa and Takahashi certainly didn't look at all paralyzed when they
scuttled away from here like little pink pussies! You're all part of
the Gunma Police, dammit! Don't make up lame excuses for your subpar
work! Pull yourselves together, and don't let that _one_ man intimidate
you!"

The diminutive Kujo tugged and jerked at his hair in every which way as
his immediate subordinates chose the worst time to be superstitious
country bumpkins.

"CAPTAIN! BEHIND YOU!" the wide-framed Gunma Sergeant Souta Watanabe
warned as he unsheathed his saber and interposed himself between the
looming Amakusa and the frustrated Kujo. The thin metal blade appeared
to shatter, and Watanabe himself "shattered" along with it.

Pieces of cloth, a belt buckle, a halved hat, blood, guts, internal
organs, and shattered bone sprayed across the three Gunma policemen. If
only the traumatized captain had enough presence of mind to check
himself, then he would've noticed that the kanji for the numbers one,
eight, and ten had been painted on his uniform using the mortal remains
of his loyal sergeant.

"...Amen," Amakusa murmured before turning his attention to his next
target. "Hello. You're Captain Kujo Tomo, I presume? Your time has
come." The rebel cleaned his sword with this lengthy robe in front of
the blood-splattered captain. "Don't worry, though. Weeping may remain
for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning."


===


It happened so fast. Way too fast.

Yahiko's sweat and blood ran cold as, one after another, Akahori's
personal army of Kanto district police officers dropped from Amakusa's
midst like moths to a flame before he even had the chance to undo the
cloth wrappings of the sakabatou. The samurai boy didn't even bother
checking if Minoe and Gan followed him as he went to investigate the
sudden twist of fate. 'We were fifty-two; three down, forty-nine to
go. Dammit. I've failed my promise to protect these people, Kenshin.
I'm sorry.'

Red hair. Crossed-shaped scar... or rather, crucifix-shaped scar, but it
was mostly the same difference to him. 'Is this the man who massacred
the fake Battousai Group save for Keisuke three weeks ago? It sure looks
like it. He certainly acts the part of someone who's used to manhandling
entire armies! Damn.'

With a shudder, Yahiko concentrated hard to override his instincts and
automatic responses to Amakusa's surprisingly powerful and imperceptible
aura, particularly the tunnel vision that stopped him from comprehending
the course of this Battousai doppelganger's trail.

He felt his head alternate between prickling hot and cold wooziness as
all sorts of internal organ processes happened within him, namely the
loss of hearing, relaxation of his bladder, dilation of blood vessels
for muscles, constriction of muscles for everything else, and
acceleration of lung and heart operations. 'Relax. Relax like you did
when you fought Psycho-Kid.'

Instinct and forethought fought for about a self-contained eternity as
Yahiko's locus coerulus increased its rate of noradrenergic activity to
the point where his whole environment snapped into sharp, grotesque
focus.

At that moment, the profusion of catecholamines all over his
neuroreceptors enabled his body to dig deep into the fighting instincts
he'd sharpened for six years straight. The endless hours of physical
exertion and waving a bamboo sword to and fro had served their purpose
well in replacing his natural instinct to either flee or fight for mere
survival.

At that point, Yahiko became aware of just how many of the police
officers stood or lay there and, more importantly, just why they
couldn't get over their seeming distress at the two confirmed deaths.

'They're not traumatized to the point of being shell-shocked! They've
been trained to handle worse cases than this! It's just that this crazy
cultist is using his kenki to freeze them into place, just like with
Kenshin and Kurogasa! Well, more like Kenshin, less than Kurogasa,
because he doesn't outright turn them into living statues or anything.'

"Out of the way, pipsqueak! I have a job to do," Ujiki growled as he
elbowed the contemplative sixteen year old to the side. "If you know
what's good for you, then get the hell out of this cursed mansion. I saw
a number of cowards do just that, and they had guns, sabers, and
bayonets handy. I heard you inherited Battousai's toy sword. You better
run away."

"You! Don't tell me that you're going to throw away your life for money
too! You probably weren't even part of that Modern Shimabara War that
everybody's talking about," Yahiko presumed, but this was actually his
halfhearted attempt at making Ujiki hesitate from confronting Amakusa
while he himself attacked the whirling dervish of pious violence.

"Oh, fuck you. This isn't about money. You saw the moves that Amakusa
used, did you not? You must have noticed it too. He's using your idol's
Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. The stabbing movements and some other sword style
he had threw me off at first, but it's unmistakable. Did Battousai have
some sort of lost classmate or student that went bat-shit crazy? Because
that describes Amakusa Shogo to a 't'!"

"No, it's impossible! Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu is passed down from only one
master to one student! At most, there can only be two practitioners at
any one time!" Yahiko reasoned out, feeling somehow perturbed by what
Ujiki implied. "Isn't it?"

"Guess what, kiddo? Amakusa fucking Shogo-sama just changed the fucking
rules! I never seen Battousai do that avalanche technique before, but
I'd know that leaping attack from anywhere. Amakusa is using Hiten
Mitsurugi Ryu. Period." The brusque Ujiki pushed the irresolute Yahiko
aside in order to finally meet up with the rest of the Tokyo squadron;
he just remembered that didn't have time to argue with children.

'Dou Ryu Sen. Ryu Tsui Sen,' Yahiko ticked off his mental checklist as
his disbelief transformed itself into comprehension. He had to face
facts; for whatever reason, this Amakusa fellow truly was using the top
secret techniques of Kenshin's sword school, and it totally blew the
Tokyoite's mind. 'If he is using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu techniques, then
what's with the sweeping brushstroke slashes he deploys from time to
time?'

"I don't know what the hell Heishiro Mitsurugi Ryu is, but I'm pretty
sure that guy over there is practicing Nikaido Heiho," Gan intimated
from behind Yahiko with his signature gruffness, which _almost_ earned
him a bleeding nose care of a startled teenager's spinning palm strike.

"What do you know about Nikaido Heiho? Do you know who Kurogasa is?"
Yahiko grabbed hold of the beefy older man's... gi? Shirt? Vest?
Whatever it was, he maintained a tight grip on it and looked deep into
the lantern-jawed, slightly fetid, and bandanna-wearing hooligan's mud-
brown eyes.

Gan picked his nose as his eyes gazed upward in consideration. "Black
Hat? Never heard of him. But I did hear that there were at least two
practitioners of the art who were part of the Shinsengumi at one time.
One of them became an assassin and the other became a serial killer. It
makes one think that this martial art does things to people's heads or
something."

Yahiko licked his lips as he continued shaking the mountain of a brute
in front of him. "What about the guy who defected into the Ishin Shishi
and became a hitokiri?"

"Hey, hey! Settle down, Yoshi-boy." The Ginormous Gan picked Yahiko up
and plopped him down like a grown man would a puppy dog. The ruffian-
looking hobo--or vice-versa--shrugged. "Sorry. I have no clue. I thought
you'd know, what with your man-crush with the Hitokiri Battousai and
all."

Yahiko nodded with a sinking heart as the urgency of the situation
resurfaced in his mind. "What about Amakusa? Where is he now? I lost him
in the confusion. Has he already managed to get into the mansion?"

"Huh? Oh, don't get any ideas, Yoshi-boy! That terrorist is like a whole
arsenal of unsheathed swords in the middle of a hurricane or something.
You'll get slaughtered if you dare fight him, especially with that toy
sword of yours that can't even cut flesh! It's better that you run away
now." Even though Yahiko wouldn't dare admit it, the Generally
Incoherent Gan made a lot of sense.

Nevertheless, the sixteen-year-old teen chose to roll his eyes and undo
the straps of his wrapped sakabatou in preparation for battle. "Never
mind. I'll find him myself." The boy set his eyes on the flashes of red
in the distance while his body fell into its automatic fighting stance.

When trouble came afoot, his swordsman training taught him to let his
instincts and discipline take over. His callused hand loosened up as a
familiar calm enveloped him despite the palpitations of his heart and
the little voice in his head that told him to run far away from that
cavalcade of imminent ruin--a voice he'd long ago ignored even before he
achieved mastery of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, when he faced off against a
giant with a sword even larger than he was at the time.

"You know, I was thinking... if you really want to get the reward, we
can always sneak in the mansion, snatch up old Oyakata-face from his
lofty perch, and get the fuck away from... Hey! Where are you going?
YOSHI-BOY!"


===


Forty minutes past midnight, at Akahori's Shinshushin Manor...

"Tokyo troopers! Show these hicks and farm boys how we do things back in
the big city! I have one overruling order that cannot be broken: Cover
me while I get that Armstrong cannon!" Ujiki shouted out and instructed
several Togakudan to make sure his command was distributed across his
regimen and the rest of the surviving troopers post-haste.

"Lieutenant Iino! Lead half of our healthiest officers and form a saber
squad against Amakusa! Don't engage that insane terrorist directly and
always fight as a group! Use as much stabbing motions as possible and
then start shooting your rifles as you back away. Sergeant Kazunari! Get
the rest of our men who can still hold a rifle and have them cover me
and Iino. Shoot at his body because it's the larger target, and shoot as
a team! If that bastard ever slows down, take a headshot! Officer
Kosaburo, help Sarge out with the shootout!"

Both the big-headed, slab-like, and six-foot lieutenant and the smug,
average-sized, yet beautiful sergeant nodded in instant acquiescence to
the Tokyo captain's commands. However, Officer Kosaburo Shinichi
couldn't help but tilt his neck and body away from Ujiki while asking,
"M-Me? But, sir! I'm only an officer!"

The brusque commander lifted his nose at Kosaburo and struck him with an
openhanded smack. "You're part of the Kamiya Dojo, aren't you? Then
you're probably familiar with how Battousai attacks. That somersaulting
asshole is using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. Help our troops figure out the
pattern behind his movements with whatever knowledge of Hiten Mitsurugi
Ryu you possess."

Kosaburo reeled more in shock at his own captain's confirmation of his
suspicions regarding the nature of Amakusa's inhuman capabilities than
of the suggestion that he take an awfully active part in pursuing that
very same religious insurgent. "Y-Y-Yessir! Right away, sir!"

Subsequently, he took aside one of the shinobi--a svelte, eye-patched
girly man by the name of Matsuo or whoever--and asked, "Status report.
What's going on in the field? Who is Amakusa fighting now and what has
happened to our different police groups?" Ujiki resisted the urge to
vomit; the diminutive man reeked of blood, so he was presumably assigned
by his troop to assist the wounded.

"Tokyo Captain-chi, the rebel has injured nearly all of the Kanagawa
contingent, the majority of the Gunma contingent, and he had directly
killed Captain Yamada Kuniumi-chi, Captain Nakayama Haruo-chi, and
Officer Watanabe Souta-chi. Also, five of the officers had already run
away from this place."

"Fucking cowards." Ujiki hacked up some phlegm and spat at the ground.
"Wait, what do you mean by 'directly killed'?"

"Quite a number of the officers are on the verge of death thanks to the
injuries Amakusa caused, but there are also those who got injured
because they were used as shields from the bullets. I believe an officer
from Kanagawa died this way," the diminutive man with tousled hair that
hid half of his face informed.

Ujiki furrowed his eyebrows. "And what about Officer Souta? How did he
get killed?

"He was sliced into pieces in an attempt to save Captain Kujo's life."

"Son of a bitch. He's executing all the captains first, and then
everyone else that attempts to stop him." Ujiki gripped his saber tight
in either fear or anticipation, his calluses serving as natural gloves
within his gloves that numbed his hands' sensation of touch. He
understood Amakusa's plans.

"'Kill the head, and the body will follow,' huh? So he had a Plan B
after all. Well, fuck that shit. Here's another order I want you to
spread to the rest of the squadrons; the next people in command will
automatically lead the rest of their respective contingents. If all
that's left are officers, they'll be reporting directly to _me_ or to
your leader, Nagaoka. Got it?"

"Sir-chi, Raedo-sempai is presently unconscious." The Togakudan spy
cringed as Ujiki let loose a stream of crisp curses.

"Then fucking elect a goddamn leader or, better yet, they'll be
answering directly to Akahori. If Akahori dies, they'll have no point in
being here anyway! Oh yeah, where's the rebel now?"

"Fighting the rest of the Kamiminochi and Gunma troops."

"He'll make mincemeat out of them. Get as many Togakudan as you can to
help me setup the fucking cannon. The rest of you, you already know your
orders. Move out!"

The Togakudan messenger saluted as the Tokyo captain ran towards the
cannon, the air from the sudden movement flipping up his eye patch and
revealing an eye with scars beneath it. "Yessir."


===


Forty-one minutes past midnight, at the portion of the yard strewn with
dismembered limbs and lifeless bodies...

The noise of blades whistling into the air and gunfire ripping through
the ground reverberated across the yard, which drowned out the scarce,
scant tings of clanging metal. Soon after, wet squelches and gurgling
screams replaced all of these sounds in a aural cacophony of
nightmarish onomatopoeia. Amakusa slid his shining sword into his ebony
scabbard while ducking to avoid the nearest rifle shot.

"Shiro Amakusa the Second. That was your name before. It's appropriate,
because you're now riding on the reputation of another person that's
superior to...!" The top of the speaker's head slid off from his lower
jaw from behind his brandished saber that also shattered into a drizzle
of steel as well.

Lieutenant Okami Yamazaki identified the murdered officer as Cho
Oimikado, the same person who patronized him in regards to his "naive"
beliefs concerning the government's hand in covering up the absolute
slaughter that the Modern Shimabara War turned out to be. However, irony
remained the farthest thing in his mind as he surveyed the bloodbath
before him.

He tried not to think about the splayed arms and limbs his feet stepped
on as he fell into his Sojutsu stance for the Tenshin Shoden Katori
Shinto Ryu with his bayonet-equipped rifle (freshly delivered by the
surrounding Togakudan), rivulets of sweat mixing with the dark stain of
blood on his blue uniform, eating away at his consciousness and resolve
like acid.

Shit, shit, shit. This was really happening. Shit, shit, shit.

Just as Amakusa attempted to take the life of little Captain Tomo Kujo
of the Gunma squadron, the remaining Kamiminochi officers led by
Lieutenant Yamazaki and Sergeant Isao Askikaga charged at the rebel with
blazing guns and withdrawn sabers.

Officers Ronin Kawashi, Hoshi Yoshida, and Hiro Tanaka arrived first
with the intention of turning the Kamiminochi Captain's murderer into a
bayonet-and-bullet pincushion. Amakusa shredded through them with sharp
strikes coming from the oddest angles without so much as a second
glance.

Yamazaki resisted his nausea upon realizing just what clung to the
underside of his boots at the moment and soldiered on, hoping for
nothing but good karma for his deceased compatriots' sakes even though
they died ignominious deaths.

He remembered the pint-sized Kawashi's blusterous support of his views
on the supposed massacre of the Hidden Christians of Nagasaki, the buck-
toothed Tanaka's wishy-washy attitude on the matter, and the gigantic
Yoshida's disappointment over the Meiji Government's disrespect over
their contributions to the war effort.

In the face of what happened at that juncture, all their words ended up
hollow and worthless; the ultimate rebuttal that somehow made the
ranting Nakayama's Anti-Christian tirade appear valid and justified in
hindsight. This left a sour taste in the lieutenant's mouth.

However, before the surviving Kamiminochi troopers could even react, the
remaining Gunma forces--about five of them left, with the others either
dead, injured, or fleeing away, Yamazaki reckoned--surrounded the
speechless Kujo with a protective wall of bayonets and cocked bolt-
action rifles.


===


Next: The Wrath of God.

Looks like I'm treading political waters now. I do hope people
understand that the views of the characters aren't necessarily my
views and so on. I also hope that my quest to flesh out the
characters so they don't turn into political strawmen has been
somewhat successful.

Oh, and the line about the Christian God or Enlightened Buddha was
inspired by a similar line in the last few chapters of Grayson
Towler's epic masterpiece, "Relentless". That fanfic is highly
recommended. As per usual, Amakusa's quoted dialogue is a
sprinkling of bible verses and some such.

Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others)
are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and Sony. Don't sue
me please, I'm very poor.

Nasaan ang panginoon mo ngayon?
Abdiel