[FFML] [fic][rk][cont] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 18: The Men in Blue and Red

[Chester Castañeda]

After Captain Nakayama died, at the front yard of Akahori's mansion...

Nakayama's forgotten bottle of sake shattered on the pavement of the
stone-tiled pavilion as Shogo Amakusa prayed for the officer's gurgling
and incoherent form to rest in peace. From there, chaos erupted.

With no further ceremony and before the rest of the officers regained
their senses, Amakusa jumped on the nearest tall tree and rebounded
from it in order to arrive right on the ledge of the balcony where
Tetsuo Akahori lay, his sword unsheathed and ready to go at the
unprotected politician before any of the flabbergasted policemen below
could cock their guns and take shots at him.

"Away to the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the Devil and his
angels," the redheaded insurgent recited as he spun and integrated the
force of centrifugal motion into his upcoming assault. "For the upright
shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it."

"This is what happens when grown men rely on fiction and fairy tales to
govern their lives. They try to murder heads of state in between fits of
delusion." Akahori stood up, rifled through his coat, produced an
imported Colt Single-Action Army revolver, and emptied two rounds aiming
at Amakusa's forehead.

A flash of brightness that turned nighttime to daylight for a second
occurred as Akahori knelt down, took aim, and fired his gun. Had the
witnesses to the event not known any better, they would've sworn that
lightning blasted right out of the ball of white flame above them.

After an instant of dizzying disorientation, the police officers and the
Togakudan spies saw Amakusa fall back down to the pock-marked ground
while Akahori scrabbled at his chest and suffered from a nasty coughing
fit, the pieces of an unidentifiable substance scattered across the
veranda floor.


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


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

Shogo Amakusa wasn't _only_ based on the historical Shiro Amakusa and
the real-life religious nut known as Shoko Asahara.


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

Chapter 18: The Men in Blue and Red

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


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

"Protect the captain! Let's make sure that Souta-kun's death isn't in
vain! Let's finish off that cultist or die trying!" came the marble-
white, hawk-nosed Gunma lieutenant's rallying call to his men as they
bowed their heads and trained their eyes at the murderer of their dearly
departed comrade, the plump yet heroic Sergeant Watanabe.

Yamazaki's lips quivered as he gave the blood-bathed corpse of his
fallen captain a moist and blurry sideway glance along with the rest of
his squad.

In turn, Amakusa responded to the challenge by backpedaling in a split-
second to give himself a running start, sheathed his sword, fell into a
battoujutsu posture, and charged; his eyes black and languid, his mouth
a hairline crescent of irrepressible contempt.

"S-Souta-kun..." the listless Captain Kujo whispered before his face
paled to the point of nigh-transparency. He barked, "T-Teraku-kun, wait!
Don't charge at him at the same time!"

With rifles exploding and bayonets soaring at anywhere within the
murderous, rampaging Christian's vicinity, the fearless officers bracing
themselves for anything including the avalanche-like technique that the
rebel relied upon during tough spots, the cult leader took an earth-
shattering step forward and released his blade from its container in a
clean, overpowering arc.

Like magic, all five policemen flew back due to the sheer strength of
Amakusa's magnificent sword-drawing strike. The nearest of the Gunma
officers had their bodies cut in messy halves, their faces frozen with
mangled expressions and empty shrieks. The three who escaped instant
death still found themselves in a compromising position, the charismatic
cult leader's katana slicing bone-deep into their own bodies. Time left
no meaning to them.

"T-Toshi-kun? S-Shou-kun?" the seemingly anemic Gunma captain murmured
the first names of Officer Konno and Officer Yoshida respectively as
their upper torsos separated from the rest of their bodies, the smell of
their blood mingling with the caking blood on his skin--Watanabe's
blood. His dry mouth shrunk and his left eye twitched as he witnessed
Yoshida produce more of a gut-wrenching mess than Konno did because of
the former officer's immense girth. "N-No... It can't be--!"

His blood draining from his body at a rapid rate, Gunma Lieutenant
Kimura gargled red and white as he instructed his men to, "Get him now.
His battoujutsu has left him wide open! Attack! ATTACK!" Unfortunately
for Kimura and his surviving men, Amakusa got them hook, line, and
sinker with the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu's feinted openings and nearly
nonexistent weaknesses.

Kimura found himself cut vertically before he could press the trigger
of his Murata gun; his final thoughts had him pondering just how on
earth Amakusa sliced him open when the rebel's sword wasn't anywhere
near him. Subsequently, the redheaded terrorist used the lieutenant's
remains as a macabre cloak of sorts that helped him slice off the limbs
of the remaining two officers using the same brushstroke-like swipes he
employed against Sergeant Watanabe.

His throat coarsened with dread and dreary acceptance, the Kamiminochi
lieutenant snarled to his company, "Brace yourselves. Reload. Fire at
Amakusa when ready."

"TERAKU-KUN! SHUN-KUN! RYOZO-KUN! NOOOOOO!"

"Lieutenant, the Gunma police...!" Sergeant Askikaga hissed with grit
teeth, but stopped cold after staring into Yamazaki's eyes. The
lieutenant couldn't help but wonder what his subordinate saw in his
expression. Was it determination or defeat?

"They're as good as dead. Fire. Aim forward, then skyward. Don't leave
him any breathing space."

Amakusa pushed the limbless officers towards the approaching gunfire
before leaping up to an unbelievable height, his form silhouetted by
the third quarter moon. Of course, by this time, the Kamiminochi squad
knew the Christian's modus operandi when it came to fighting, so they
aimed their guns accordingly toward the heavens. Meanwhile, the
lieutenant himself fired the preliminary ground-level shots that forced
the terrorist to the sky while also putting the handicapped and dying
Gunma officers out of their misery at the same time.

"THEY'RE ALL DEAD! BY THE GODS, they're all dead..." Captain Kujo
wailed and gnashed his teeth, his trembling hands scraping at the dirt
for no rhyme or reason, his face muddied with a combination of drying
blood, tears, and anguish.


===


Fifty-seven minutes past midnight, near the gunpowder-reeking crater
where the Armstrong cannon lay...

Amidst explosions that left the surrounding area stinking with the
distinct stench of gunpowder, Ujiki had reached his intended
destination. His battle plan to keep Amakusa at arm's length (so to
speak) had enabled his Tokyo troopers to buy him enough time to get to
the discarded Armstrong cannon.

In contrast to the other policemen present, he didn't have any vested
interest in killing Amakusa. He held no grudge against the man himself.
However, he immediately volunteered for the mission after hearing that a
so-called _Battousai_ Group announced plans for assassinating Tetsuo
Akahori. He'd sooner commit seppuku than let an opportunity to go
against "Battousai" pass him by, even if these people were just fakers
and frauds.

Imagine his delight when he discovered that this religious extremist
that they were after actually practiced the sword techniques of Kenshin
Himura--or Kenshin Kamiya, if he had to be technical about it--himself!
His indescribable delight nearly consumed his sanity. He obsessed about
it for weeks, going to the extreme of even learning the specifics of
arming the Armstrong cannon and the Gatling gun just in case the members
of Akahori's Togakudan were too indisposed to do their job.

With that said, the Tokyo captain still chanced upon a Togakudan spy
near the cannon--a big-nosed, tomato-faced man in a garish blue and
purple uniform, from the looks of things. "Hey, what's-your-face; is
your leader here?"

The frog-like man recognized Ujiki and saluted despite showing off a
moue of emotion on his pouted mouth that the Tokyo captain presumed was
annoyance. "_Nishiguchi Takate_ reporting for duty, sir. Raedo-aniki was
last seen near the Gatling gun, Captain."

"Whatever. Help me set up the cannon. One way or another, we're going to
finish off that Battousai wannabe for good and have the honor of killing
the supposed One-Man Army of Shimabara," Ujiki beckoned, but for some
reason, Nishiguchi did not heed his request.

"Are you deaf, Nishiguchi? Help me arm this thing." Ujiki heard a cannon
shell fall to his feet. "What the hell is your problem? I gave you an
order, you little worm!" The captain fell silent as he saw the
Togakudan's face contort and warp into a parody of its former self.
"N-Nishiguchi?"

Half-laughing and half-hysterical, Ujiki howled as Nishiguchi's nose
fell off like a clopped tip of a carrot. Afterwards, the sounds from the
former Saitama captain's mouth transformed into soul-rendering shrieks
that could barely be qualified as human once the rest of Nishiguchi's
body followed suit with his nose and turned into a mishmash of meat
cubes, guts, and soupy blood.

Behind the deceased Togakudan came forth the cloaked and crouched figure
of Amakusa; he used his cape to clean his sword, Ujiki noted with a
faint feeling of disorientation and a stomach on revolt.

The captain smoothed his hair and clothes as he struggled to control his
breath and palpitating heart, his eyes darting back and forth between
the mad rebel and the piece of artillery while making a point to avoid
the stew-like remains of Akahori's lackey. "I take it my men weren't
able to keep you as preoccupied as I thought they would?"

In response, Amakusa stood up and picked up two darkened, globular
shapes from behind him. At that point, Ujiki had to retch and hurl; the
Christian just threw to his feet the heads of Lieutenant Iino and
Sergeant Kazunari.

"I was looking for you, Captain Ujiki. If only you and the rest of the
other commanders just gave up from the very start, then you wouldn't
have suffered this many casualties. Granted, if you'd just let me have
Akahori when I announced his assassination, then we wouldn't even be in
this predicament."

As he wiped his mouth, Ujiki wondered aloud, "It seems that you were
able to immediately pick out the commanders from the officers with ease.
You had a spy, didn't you?"

Amakusa smirked as he stalked his latest prey. "It doesn't matter if I
did or didn't have a spy. A Battousai-obsessed dead man is still a dead
man regardless."

Ujiki chuckled as he unsheathed his saber, fully remembering Akahori's
words on how to best handle the cult leader. "Your spy is pretty good at
spying. Then again, so were my men when it came to fighting. For someone
who could take on a thousand men alone, it now looks like you've just
taken on a thousand men."

Amakusa snorted as he slashed at Ujiki's stomach while blocking a stab
with his metal sheath. "Was _this_ the special plan Akahori proposed in
order to protect himself with just fifty-something guards? Making them
ask me inane questions?"

"No, no. You don't understand. Akahori has figured you all out. Most of
us did, which is why you look like you've just been crucified. You're a
one-man army? Don't make me laugh." Ujiki resisted the impulse to wince
at the searing sensation his sliced abdomen left; he hadn't been
freshening up on the fundamentals of Jigen Ryu's Ni-No-Tachi Irazu for
nothing, after all.

"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no
more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the
former things have passed away."

"Another quote from your scriptures? How quaint. You claim to do your
god's bidding, but more often than not, your actions run in direct
contradiction to your own beliefs... and you know it." Ujiki gave the
eerie, doll-eyed heads of Iino and Kazunari a token glance before
pointing at Amakusa's gunshot wounds and asking, "Why weren't you able
to kill Officer Kosaburo?"

Amakusa flinched before answering, "So that was the officer's name?"

Ujiki grinned, hollered, and nodded as if to say, "Yes, that's the inch
I needed to defeat you, bitch." Aloud, he informed Amakusa, "He knows
quite a lot about Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. I presume he helped immensely in
turning your fetching little caped costume into a holey mess, if you
would pardon my pun. I guess your little spy wasn't so good at spying
after all."

Amakusa harrumphed as he parried Ujiki's playful strikes and countered
with a slash to the neck that the policeman also blocked as well. "Yes,
yes, you've got me. So I didn't kill one of your officers. It doesn't
matter anyway, because I killed all your senior officers."

"You didn't mean to kill Kazunari, did you? You were planning to, but
Kosaburo ended up being a much bigger threat. That's the problem with
you, you hypocritical Christian madman; you have this deluded sense of
justice and self-righteousness in your actions, although when everything
is said and done, you're just another criminal in a world full of them."

Amakusa pressed on with his attack, but like the Kamiminochi sergeant
before him, Ujiki proved himself a worthy enough opponent to counter the
lower-level techniques of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. He considered trying out
higher-tier skills just to get things done and over with as soon as
possible, but his body wasn't in the best of shape at the moment; he had
to conserve his depleted energy for now.

"Sodomite! I refuse to be defeated by some heathen who went out of his
way to interpose himself into a situation he shouldn't be involved with
just to make up for a humiliating defeat he suffered in the hands of
someone who incidentally shares the same sword techniques as I do."

Amakusa attempted a Dou Ryu Sen, but the captain countered and
sidestepped superbly; the wasted effort sapped the Christian's strength
and earned him torn flesh as though from a scourging. The Jigen Ryu's
powerful strikes prevented him from gaining any momentum.

"Ah, so you did do your research on me after all. Well, guess what?
You're probably better off spouting bible quotes than speaking your
mind, you brainwashed and insipid terrorist freak! Instead of forming
your opinions using some book with outdated morals and stories, how
about you make up your own mind and think for yourself for once?"

Then came the untamed Ryu Sou Sen, which the Tokyo captain didn't bother
to block strike-for-strike; he instead opted to dodge and attack after
the second blow, aborting the Dragon Nest Flash before it started.

"_You're_ calling me a Battousai-obsessed heathen? You have no right to
judge me as anything because of your beliefs, you hypocrite! You want to
know what I am? I'm a man. A human being. I won't be subjugated to
anyone or anything. You have no right to label me, tell me what to do,
or impose on me what to believe in; if some god supposedly made me, then
show him to me! Don't take his place in proving his existence!"

Sparks flew as Ujiki inched further. "Ever since I was defeated by the
greatest hitokiri of our generation, I practiced day and night with all
the secrets behind Satsuma's Ni-No-Tachi Irazu of the Jigen Ryu. I
thought I lost my chance for revenge when I heard that the Battousai was
sick with some sort of disease, but once I learned about _you_ and the
fact that you practiced Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu too, I knew that fighting
you was a chance that I cannot miss."

Amakusa sheathed his sword and did a battoujutsu strike, but that ended
up in failure because Ujiki used his own charging technique to thrust at
him simultaneously. In a second, they both ended up back-to-back--facing
away from each other--wounded because of their respective assaults.

"You keep on trying to convince yourself that you're the hero of this
story, but deep down you've realized long ago that there's nothing heroic
about what you're doing. That's how Kosaburo survived; Sergeant Kazunari
must have sacrificed his life in order to save the kid, and you were so
moved by the act that you spared the boy that almost got you killed in
the first place. How does it feel to kill a man who's a much bigger hero
and savior than you could ever be?"


===


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

To the Kamiminochi officers' surprise, that fraction of a second where
they anticipated Amakusa's next move paid off; instead of the rebel
executing a leaping slash at the nearest policeman, he instead twirled
in awkward positions just to avoid the ripping projectiles surrounding
him.

"Sarge! Officer Heiko! Cycle load! Keep that suppressive gunfire going
so that Amakusa stays on one spot!" Yamazaki called out, referring to
the Kanto police's practice of letting some officers fire while the
others reloaded in a continuous loop to keep their bullets flying and
their enemies corralled.

"I have a better idea. Cover us, Heiko! We're going in!" Askikaga
requested to the Napoleonic officer as he brandished his saber. "You can
have my rifle; we're going to do the formation one last time."

"We're going to finish that bastard off before the Tokyo assholes can?
Sweet! I'll fill him full of holes!" Heiko grinned as he cocked his gun
with malicious intent.

"Lieutenant, help me out with that son of a bitch. I'm going to need
your spearing expertise. We'll have to use the formation that the
captain taught us again."

"Wait, you're a commanding officer! You're being too reckless," Yamazaki
berated as a feeling of deja vu swept him; they'd reversed roles
somehow, he and his sergeant.

"It doesn't matter at this point. We're the only ones left, and Amakusa
is mainly targeting all the commanding officers. Let's give him what he
wants this time. Let him choke on it too." Askikaga chuckled. "Oh, and I
told you so. The captain and I were right."

"I still say you're both fucking xenophobe bigots." Yamazaki would've
rolled his eyes were he and his men not busy keeping the zigzagging
Amakusa from escaping. "Fine. Go ahead and prove me wrong some more.
Once this is all over, I'll buy us some sake in memory of our comrades."

The Kamiminochi sergeant winked; unbeknownst to him, a sparkle of
wetness fell down on his cheek after winking. "Now that's more like it,
pretty boy! Let's make this last attack count, okay?"

After the constant barrage from the three remaining officers--quite a
lot of them taken from the unreleased rounds of their deceased comrades'
Murata rifles--ceased at last, Amakusa went in for the kill, his sword
arm cocked and prepared to behead the indolent Kujo. To his amazement,
he found himself confronted with Kamiminochi's Yamazaki, Askikaga, and
Heiko.

"Why are you so insistent in digging your own graves? Nevertheless, it
doesn't matter anyway. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we
die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the
Lord's." Amakusa jerked his head, sidestepped, and ducked at the shots
fired by Yamazaki and Heiko with practiced ease.

"I couldn't tell, because I've never read your book of white man lies,
but I'm willing to bet my life that you're a puppet through and through;
spouting off the words of men long dead and not realizing it's just
imperialist propaganda!" Askikaga launched himself at Amakusa and
attacked from the swordsman's blind side.

The Leader of Nagasaki's Hidden Christians countered by using the same
whirlwind-like, random-striking technique he deployed against the
hapless Kawashi, Yoshida, and Tanaka.

However, Askikaga held up against the unpredictable onslaught quite
well by always striking at awkward angles and keeping Amakusa off-
balance. "Let me introduce myself. I am Askikaga Isao of Nagano's Chujo
Ryu--the legendary sword style mastered by both Toda Seigen and Sasaki
Kojiro! You won't be able to finish me off with just halfhearted
strikes, you cultist nut."

Amakusa attempted to shift from using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu to Nikaido
Heiho in order to keep Askikaga from guessing his next move, but he
couldn't get enough time or leverage to transition from one style to
another thanks to Yamazaki's constant assists with his sniper shots and
expert bayonet stabs. Couple that with Heiko's constant rifle fire, and
the zealot had no choice but to fall back on using Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu
and keep himself on the defensive, which was arguably the weakest aspect
of his fighting capabilities.

"HAHAHA! Come at me, bastard! Try and stop me from blasting you full of
holes, bitch!" Heiko raged as he continued firing at Amakusa whenever
the rebel and Askikaga separated.

Askikaga smirked as he felt his body shiver for some unfathomable
reason. "Give it up, Amakusa! Kurogasa's Shin no Ippo... Battousai's Ryu
Sou Sen... They cannot possibly compare to Nagano's Chujo Ryu, a sword
style that prospered even during a time when the bow and arrow or spear
was the norm! The only reason you defeated my big brother was because he
had an insufferable hero complex! Otherwise, his technique was
impeccable!"

As though in reaction to Askikaga's slip of the tongue, Amakusa sheathed
his sword, blocked Yamazaki's strikes, and retreated far away enough to
avoid getting blasted by Heiko's gunshots. "Battoujutsu again? Bring it
on, you mass murderer!"

"Be careful, Askikaga! I don't want you to end up like those Gunma
officers," Yamazaki warned, but then murmured to himself, "Or like
Hiramatsu-san."

To everyone's surprise, instead of Amakusa drawing his sword to
challenge Askikaga's sword-fighting prowess, he whirled around, tapped
his weapon's hand guard with a thumb flick, and let it fly handle-first
into Heiko's forehead. The trigger-happy officer got knocked down
instantly--a distraction Shogo took advantage of by leaping towards his
unsheathed sword, grabbing it, and achieving blurry speeds to finish
off his latest quarry.

To Lieutenant Yamazaki's shock, Sergeant Askikaga ran towards Heiko's
fallen form, used his saber to block Amakusa's expected Ryu Tsui Sen
strike, and protected the downed officer from getting killed while
unconscious. The thinner, standard-issue blade could only do so much, so
Amakusa's katana ended up cleaving the Chujo Ryu master's left shoulder
in a deep, clavicle-cutting diagonal slice.

"Be proud, Askikaga Isao. You're just like your brother-in-law,
Hiramatsu; you're both master swordsmen and heroic martyrs to the end,"
Amakusa deadpanned before he felt Askikaga's trembling hands grab him in
a tight embrace.

"NOW, YAMAZAKI! RUN ME AND AMAKUSA THROUGH! AVENGE OUR BROTHERS' DEATHS!
AVENGE THE CAPTAIN'S DEATH! AVENGE EVERYONE'S DEATHS IN ONE FELL SWOOP!"

Yamazaki hesitated for about a second--an eternity during circumstances
like these--before heeding the Kamiminochi sergeant's death wish and
skewering both Askikaga and Amakusa. For the first time since arriving
in the Shinshushin Mansion, a lone officer successfully injured Amakusa
in a major way.

Alas, although it was only a moment's uncertainty, the Hidden Christian
found enough wriggle room to escape Askikaga's grip before getting
completely gored by Yamazaki's skilled Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu
thrust.

Yamazaki cursed under his breath for not killing Amakusa then and there,
his mind telling him over and over, 'Ryuzoji would never have hesitated
like that under these circumstances. He's a cold-blooded bastard that
got the job done. He's also a raging xenophobe bigot, granted, but he
_completes_ his missions,' even though deep down he knew that Ryuzoji
himself fell victim to Amakusa six years back, cold-bloodedness or no.

Yamazaki beckoned his right arm to move and aim the spear... he felt it
do so... but for some reason, all he had in his grasp was a sliced-off
Murata. Upon closer inspection, his face twisted into an unspeakable
mess; half of his left forearm, the one gripping the pointed part of his
weapon, was missing.

Yamazaki found his severed limb a couple of inches away from his feet,
still holding the spear he deployed to finish off the brother of his
brother's friend. He proceeded to scream his head off, but more in
horror than in agony. Had he already died? He imagined getting an arm
dismembered hurt a lot more than this.

Amakusa himself remained in a crouching position, his hand grasping the
place where Yamazaki had wounded him. Both Amakusa and Yamazaki were
_way_ too injured to finish each other off at that point.

Sooner rather than later, Yamazaki put the chaotic mess that his
thoughts had become to order. He knew this would happen, and he had a
golden opportunity in his hands to finally get the justice that his
brother, his brother's friend, his brother's friend's brother, and their
fat friend who became his captain deserved.

He still believed that attacking Nagasaki and slaughtering hundreds of
innocent Christians was a mistake, but letting Shogo Amakusa live was an
even bigger mistake that needed to be rectified right then and there.

He felt a hand grasp his shoulder. "Lieutenant, can you still fight?" He
turned and looked down; Gunma Captain Kujo's determined face greeted him
back. He clenched his remaining fist and nodded.

"Let's finish off Amakusa here and now. I've figured out how to beat him
and his Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu."


===


Thirty-nine minutes past midnight, in between the guestroom and the
balcony of the Shinshushin manor...

Tetsuo Akahori's eyes bulged out as his nails dug across the floorboard
surface. He could hear stridor--a high-pitched whine produced by
turbulent airflow from his clogged airways--in each breath of his.

Every breath he took sapped him of his energy, and he had no other
choice but to inhale deep yet rapid breaths in order to gather as much
oxygen as he could despite his failing respiratory functions. He could
barely think, but his awareness allowed him to juggle between two
important priorities: staying alive and making sense of his sudden
breathing problems.

Akahori found himself in a curious position. Granted, everything that
had happened so far was well within his earlier estimations, including
all the casualties of the weaker squads. In reality, even though the
four Kanto district teams failed to capitalize on finishing off Amakusa
while he remained rather hesitant to go all out, Akahori still
considered the high amount of damage inflicted on his nemesis as a
bonus of sorts.

If the rebel had died then and there, then it only meant that Akahori's
theory concerning Amakusa being washed up was true. Missing the chance
to kill him immediately was no big loss to the politician because the
night was still young and he had a few more tricks up his sleeve.

However, Akahori certainly didn't expect Amakusa to possess the one
technique that made the cultist arguably more dangerous than even Makoto
Shishio or Kenshin Himura; more to the point, the technique that left
the curtain-bearded man suffocating in the middle of a veranda-sporting
room even though Amakusa didn't even lay a hand on him.

"Rai Ryu Sen..." Akahori croaked as his eyes reddened and his throat
swelled. Yes, the Lightning Dragon Flash--a technique theorized to be
the result of combining the closed-quarter capabilities of the Nikaido
Heiho with the army-killing proficiency of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.

To be true, the skill could be considered the Flying Heaven Royal Sword
Style's version of the Shin no Ippo, except instead of freezing a
person in place, it takes away their sight. It fried people so crisply,
they snapped like the empty husks of a dead tree.

The image of a dragon glowing with sparks of electricity came forth from
the depths of Akahori's consciousness; it electrocuted him while also
coiling its body around him like a boa constrictor.

Akahori shook his head to clear it; he could still see fine. The real
problem he had involved dank skin with a dreadful pallor to the point
of cyanosis, swelling in various regions of his body, watch-glass
fingernails, and crackling sounds from his lungs. Regardless, he knew
that the bright flash and streaks of lightning he witnessed from
Amakusa's shining blade were the earmarks of a successful Rai Ryu Sen.

He'd researched the Kakure Kirishitan's background thoroughly before
helping the Japanese Army and National Police form a plan to ethnically
cleanse the rebellious religious minority and prevent them from forming
an autonomous region policed by their own kind. For example, he knew
that Amakusa's father, Tokisada Muto, was a practitioner of Nikaido
Heiho. He also discovered that Amakusa's uncle, Hyoue Nishida, was a
student of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.

He'd even heard that Amakusa's uncle was the infamous Kirisaki--the
Christian swordsman avenger that protected all Hidden Christians from
the wrath of the daimyo without once taking the life of any man.

Akahori coughed and grunted, remembering that Shin no Ippo could also
be used to suffocate victims if need be; as such, it shouldn't be a
stretch of the imagination for the hypnosis-based Rai Ryu Sen to do the
same thing. He remembered hearing from the Togakudan that a certain
swordsman he knew personally had suffered the full brunt of the
perfected version of Shogo Amakusa's signature technique, suffering a
lifelong chronic respiratory problem resembling both asthma and
tuberculosis.

Then again, Akahori couldn't accept the idea that he had miscalculated
Amakusa's current abilities. He shouldn't be able to do the Rai Ryu Sen
anymore, much less the more taxing succession techniques of the Hiten
Mitsurugi Ryu. There was no way he could've regained his full strength
after just six short years of laying low.

Shishio himself needed ten years to _again_ become a threat to the
government, and his damaged body couldn't handle more than fifteen
minutes of strain. 'You have got to be kidding me. There's no way
Amakusa could've recovered enough from the near-death experience he
suffered back in the Modern Shimabara War. This is ridiculous..."

Inside Akahori's fevered mind, he saw the image of a bandaged Shishio
praying to ancient spirits of evil inside a stone room and in front of a
pit of purplish, boiling liquid to revive and turn himself into an all-
powerful being; the deceased megalomaniac afterwards received cosmic
and spiritual energies beyond mortal ken that undid his wrappings and
transformed him into a muscular, blue-skinned, and cackling creature
that represented everything that was wrong with the world.

Just as the darkness in the corners of Akahori's vision threatened to
shut down his awareness, he felt something prick the underside of his
palm. By reflex, his hands retracted as they felt the sharp sting of...
something from one section of the floor. The pain jolted him awake, but
he still felt too weak and lightheaded to do more than to check out the
source of the abrupt stimuli. He smiled a fanged grin; glass. Shards of
broken glass everywhere.

At that point, everything clicked. The magician known as Amakusa--the
man who used his knowledge of western medicine to trick his followers
into thinking that he was some sort of new-age messiah--had almost
pulled the wool from under Akahori's eyes. Amakusa's sword glowed only
after he took something from under his robe and used his supersonic
speed to shatter it open; a glass globe containing certain drugs.
Hallucinogens, to be more exact.

Ataxia, incoordination, confusion, delirium, and psychosis; these were
the symptoms Akahori neglected to take note of in his vehement attempt
to get his breathing back to normal. He'd been flailing all over the
place, he couldn't figure out the shards surrounding him were from
Amakusa, and he kept going to all sorts of tangents. Speaking of other
tangents, he also theorized that Rin herself had been victimized by this
new makeshift technique Amakusa developed in order to relive his glory
days as a one-man army of sorts.

Even more information flowed into Akahori's head; unfortunately, it had
the side effect of hastening his suffocation. 'First thing's first...'

The raspberry-faced Akahori crawled towards his table to get his letter
opener inside one of the drawers. Then, without so much as a preparatory
gasp, he jabbed the knife straight into his thigh in order to rouse his
body from the hypnotic spell of Amakusa's reckless Lightning Dragon
Flash.

His constricted lungs ballooned in triumph and relief as he gasped the
air he couldn't breathe a second ago. "I was right. Amakusa is a fallen
god after all; an archangel with all six of his wings clipped and
broken. I may be able to kill a god yet; I can't wait."


===


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

Amakusa grit his teeth in frustration. His plan to murder the captains,
lieutenants, and sergeants in order to leave the rest of the police in
disarray had somehow backfired in the sense that he was forced to expend
more effort by actually killing entire squadrons. He'd hoped to keep the
bloodshed minimal as possible, but the way certain events conspired
against him was beyond his control. 'Indeed, the Lord works in
mysterious ways.'

A Kamiminochi lieutenant even managed to stab him in the stomach!
According to Morinaga's reports, Shinshushin was supposed to be the
weakest team among the four, with Kanagawa, Gunma, and Tokyo way above
it in terms of battle experience and law enforcement expertise. Yet here
he was, injured by the lieutenant of a low-tier police squad.

Annoyed as he was with the turn of events, he concentrated hard in order
to keep his body from going into shock from the loss of blood. After
all, he'd gone through far worse than this. He had already triumphed
over his personal Calvary, so from that point on, nothing should be able
to stop him.

Shogo couldn't do the Hyoki no Jutsu by himself--a self-hypnosis
technique reserved only for the successor of the Nikaido Heiho School.
Only one man could inherit that skill and the One-Sided Heart succession
technique, and that man turned out to be a psychopathic mass murderer.

Amakusa's father, Tokisada, was supposed to replace the crazed Jine Udo
as the new inheritor of Nikaido Heiho, but regrettably, he wasn't good
enough to carry the mantle of master. The same could be said for his
uncle, who didn't have the moxie to kill his own master just to succeed
the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.

All the same, Shogo Muto himself--known as Shogo Amakusa nowadays and
Shiro Amakusa the Second a good six years back--had somehow found a way
to make up for the shortcomings of his two teachers and become the
charismatic leader they always wanted him to be. Even though he couldn't
use Hyoki no Jutsu the way Kurogasa could, he could still utilize other
methods such as quiet meditation and prayer in order to emulate the
process and produce roughly the same results; he always found a way.

Because of Amakusa's years of wandering across Asia and Europe, he was
able to learn both the esoteric aspects of his faith and the practical
applications of medical knowledge. For instance, making use of his fear
and anxiety to his advantage through concentration and a keen
understanding of how his body worked allowed him to control his acute
stress response for his benefit.

At any rate, a more prolonged and powerful release of the locus ceruleus
happened inside Amakusa's brain, which in turn activated the sympathetic
division of his autonomic nervous system as well as the discharge of
epinephrine and norepinephrine from the medulla of the adrenal glands.
The increase of adrenaline assisted in making Amakusa's stab wound bleed
slower than before because of the chemical's vasoconstrictor properties.

Amakusa opened his eyes and stared at his opponent. During the time he
was indisposed, Gunma's Captain Kujo had apparently recovered from his
shellshock and had now joined forces with Kamiminochi's Lieutenant
Yamazaki in order to produce one last-ditch effort to finish the
insurgent off.

>From the looks of things, Kujo had finished tying the bayoneted rifle
over Yamazaki's severed arm so that the lieutenant could still fight
even with a missing limb. Such a pity; Amakusa had nothing but respect
for these men who had proven their worth by simply lasting this long
against him. It was such a pity indeed.

"I have no quarrel with either of you, although I realize the feeling
isn't mutual. However, I cannot allow you to kill me. I still have much
to do. Rest assured that your deaths will not be meaningless. For I am
persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

"Are none of your words your own? Must you prattle along with moral
lessons that don't reflect your own actions? I have no problem with
Christianity itself, but I certainly cannot allow Christians like you to
sully the good name of your faith," Captain Kujo remarked with
uncharacteristic malice--a stark contrast to the loving, fatherly
captain that just witnessed his supposed sons get killed in three rapid
eye blinks.

Amakusa's eyes narrowed as Kujo fell into position; the height-
challenged commander had a similar ready stance that the problematic
Askikaga used a while ago.

'Another Chujo Ryu practitioner? No, actually, this is Ono-Ha Itto Ryu.
Well, as soon as he starts attacking and gains momentum, he'll prove to
be a problem. Nevertheless, I think they want to force me to use my
double battoujutsu so that they could counter it. Interesting.'

Amakusa sheathed his sword, his trembling extremities and pain-wracked
body signaling that he hadn't yet recovered from Yamazaki's assault.
'The Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki is out of the question, especially since
there are still two more police units out there, and I have to deal
with two opponents at the same time. It's an overkill technique that's
impractical for the situation.'

Before Amakusa could ponder his possible courses of action any further,
the one-handed Lieutenant Yamazaki had already charged, stabbing away
with his bayonet in reckless abandon. In the heat of the battle, the
Christian mass murderer made his decision on how to fight then and
there.

Captain Kujo moved as soon as he saw Amakusa take hold of the hilt of
his sword in preparation of doing a sword-drawing strike. He parried the
blade perfectly while Yamazaki himself ducked in order to anticipate the
follow-up sheath strike. The Ono-Ha Itto Ryu could withstand and counter
any sword strike imaginable because it was arguably the Father of Modern
Kenjutsu.

The technique that killed five of his officers in two strikes burned
itself into the Gunma captain's irises; a withdrawn blade strike
followed by a scabbard cut that somehow sliced Lieutenant Teraku Kimura
open from underneath his crotch to the top of his head. It must've been
an abnormally sharp and bladed sheath to be able to do that, Kujo
reckoned.

However, the second scabbard attack from below never materialized. Kujo
looked down; his blade was actually blocking a metallic black sheath
with a sharp edge instead of an unsheathed blade. Also, Amakusa was
already in mid-pirouette before the captain noticed that something was
amiss. This was not the Sou Ryu Sen; it was instead the Sou Ryu Sen
Ikazuchi.

The flying apparitions of Captain Kujo's deceased men... Lieutenant
Teraku Kimura, Sergeant Souta Watanabe, Officers Toshi Konno, Shou
Yoshida, and Ryozo Ito... all smilingly waved at him with transparent
bodies and wisps-for-legs as his decapitated scalp flew into the night
sky; even the oldest style of Itto Ryu could only do so much if ever the
swordsman himself failed to properly anticipate his enemy's next move.

Even in the face of tragedy, the tear-filled Lieutenant Yamazaki
soldiered on by aiming his bayonet straight at Amakusa's head before the
rebel could follow through his attack. He then felt both his arms
cleaved right off of his shoulders at the same time care of the
redhead's smooth transition from Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu to Nikaido Heiho.

As the armless Yamazaki fell on his knees and bemoaned his fate, his
conqueror also kneeled down and did what he'd been meaning to do but
couldn't because he kept getting interrupted; he prayed for the dead and
dying.

"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not
anything, neither have they anymore a reward; for the memory of them is
forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now
perished; neither have they anymore a portion forever in anything that
is done under the sun."

"You crazy cross worshipper! Stop praying! It won't bring them back!
It won't do a damn thing! Do you feel guilty about what you're doing?
You said something like that a while back. I heard it. Well then, STOP!"

The disoriented lieutenant's vision swam as the sticky fountain of his
own bodily fluids pooled all around him, his skin getting clammier and
whiter by the second.

"Why do you keep on doing this? If you really wanted to repent for all
your horrible sins, then why are you making things worse for you and
your kind?"

Amakusa slumped his shoulders and sighed. "I told you earlier. You
should have gotten out of my way. You only have yourselves to blame at
this point."

"FUCK YOU! You killed my brother! You killed his friend! Captain
Nakayama witnessed it all, and he has devoted his life to getting even
with you! To think that I actually said that they were wrong about
what happened in Shimabara--that it was a massacre that shouldn't have
happened! But then I realized it was all _your_ fault that innocent
Japanese were killed in the first place!"

Amakusa paused for a couple of seconds before mentioning, "So you're the
little stepbrother of Captain Ryuzoji Takuya, huh? After fighting
against you and learning that you share the same style as him, I think I
at last remember what happened to him all those years ago."

Yamazaki blanched. "As if I want to hear how you murdered my brother in
cold blood! Leave me be to die; I don't want to hear any of your grisly
stories, you fucking serial killer. We demanded justice, and you took it
away from us. If you really are a Christian, then you'd confess to your
crimes and turn yourself in. Even at this point, your life isn't enough
to pay for the lives you've ended. If you can't understand that, then
you really are a monster."

"The reason why Captain Nakayama--back then, Sergeant Nakayama--wanted
so badly to kill me was because of his guilt. You see, I've seen that
formation of yours before. It was a specialty of Captain Yamazaki's
troops, I believe. Sergeant Nakayama was supposed to cover Lieutenant
Hiramatsu with his sword skills while your older stepbrother went in for
the kill. However, he froze up when he met me. He even pissed on
himself. He was so scared."

"Shut up."

"It could have been because of my Nikaido Heiho training or because he
lacked intestinal fortitude; whatever the reason, he ran away. I jumped
at the chance and killed Hiramatsu before he could fire a shot. I didn't
know he had a wife. I'm sorry. Then again, I'm also sorry for all the
other widows I've made that day."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Nakayama desperately pleaded for his life, begged, soiled himself, and
swore up and down that he'll do anything to save his own hide. Disgusted
as I was, I attempted to end his misery, but then here comes Captain
Ryuzoji. He had few words to spare, but that spearing technique of his
truly was superb. Even superior to yours, actually, since he needed no
assistance to land his shots against me."

"Shut up! Shut UP!"

"In fact, he should've used a spear because a mere saber isn't suited
for the job. He fought bravely even though Nakayama seemed hardly worth
the effort. I had to resort to cutting him limb from limb, just like
with you. Come to think of it, he may have been protecting Nakayama with
you in mind; a little stepbrother he'd never let die, no matter what."

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Foaming in the mouth, Yamazaki
charged and kicked at Amakusa's direction comically... ineffectually...
embarrassingly... before collapsing in a heap of torn flesh and
disillusionment.

Amakusa knelt down beside Yamazaki again and continued. "They also spoke
of white man lies and their unreasoning hatred towards my faith and my
people. I pitied them for their narrow-minded beliefs, but I can't
ignore the fact that they did what they did for noble, if misguided
purposes... for what it's worth."

"...Kill me. Please. I can't even kill myself now and die an honorable
death." Even if Amakusa didn't honor his request, Lieutenant Yamazaki's
foot was already wedged inside death's door anyway.

"Yes. I think it is better this way. Suicide is a sin. Let me take
responsibility for that sin you shouldn't commit so that you may
ultimately rest in peace."

Amakusa got up and decapitated the one policeman that wounded him
gravely before doing the sign of the cross and praying for the recently
deceased, his one eye left open just in case any other officers decided
to interrupt his prayers.


===


Twenty years ago, around the time the Shinsengumi-sponsored slaughter at
the Ikedaya Inn happened, a fourteen-year-old Kenshin Himura had already
met Tomoe Yukishiro, and Amakusa himself was just a mere eleven years
of age...

During the bakufu's reign, the nationwide anti-foreigner sentiment went
well with the similar anti-Christian one they helped foster for the
simple fact that Christianity was considered as just another imperialist
tool that foreign powers could use to subjugate Japan like the rest of
the world. Then again, the Christian-related fears of the leaders of
Tokugawa-era Japan weren't unfounded; after all, Spain's religion-based
expeditions to countries like Mexico and the Philippines paid huge
dividends for the nineteenth-century superpower in the end.

The pride, honor, conceit, and isolationalism of the Japanese people
were eventually broken thanks to the forceful arrival of Commodore
Matthew Perry's black ships, so anti-Christian movements went at an all-
time high at that point. The shogunate was all too eager to save face
and bury that embarrassing show of weakness six feet under by destroying
everything that was connected to these outsiders, Christianity included.

During this deplorable era, a young Shogo Muto--the boy who would
ultimately become Shogo Amakusa--and his baby sister Sayo--the girl who
would later become Lady Magdalia--were currently witnessing the
indiscriminate genocide of their peace-loving people simply because of
their foreigner-linked faith.

The man they knew as their father, Tokisada Muto--a practitioner of
Nikaido Heiho and yet another man who was also named after the legendary
Christian rebel of yore--had just managed to summon a Shin no Ippo
straight from the bottom of his heart once the bakufu samurai began
raiding his very home, freezing all his enemies into place with his
kenki in order to give his wife and two children the chance to escape.
He considered it a miracle sent by God himself that helped him get past
his own human limitations in order to do something extraordinary.

To his son, Tokisada called out, "Shogo, be strong... like God. Become
Emmanuel, so that through you, God will always be with our people.
Someday, you must come back to Shimabara and protect our people from
their oppressors."

That was the first and last time he could ever use such a move, and
even though he suffocated and killed outright quite a lot of the
petrified shogunate forces before him, he eventually became too spent to
fight back once his One-Sided Heart wore off. He was thusly stabbed to
death in order to keep his body intact before it was stripped naked save
for its undergarments and left to hang on a wooden cross the day after.

Tsuruyo Muto and her two children fled to the caverns that their people
had used for centuries-on-end as makeshift churches of sorts in order to
rendezvous with the children's uncle, an old swordsman by the name of
Hyoue Nishida.

The old man had been protecting Kakure Kirishitan sanctuaries for many
decades under the guise of "Kirisaki", the great Christian savior who
wouldn't kill, until he retired at age forty, but he had no choice but
to come out of retirement and continue his revolution once more thanks
to the renewed anti-foreigner sentiment caused by Commodore Perry's
arrival in 1853 and the start of the rebellion against the dishonored
shogunate.


===


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

Yahiko stared at the scattered corpses, speechless at what he had just
overheard, frozen to inaction by either Amakusa's intimidating presence
or his own bitter-tasting guilt.

The bungling yet flippant attitude he thought the Kamiminochi District
had was born out of his own inexperience, arrogance, and ignorance. He
blamed them for mishandling the fake Battousai Group case three weeks
ago, not realizing that they were too busy actually preparing for the
_real_ Battousai Group in the meantime. They were seeking justice and
closure, after all.

They weren't rent-a-cop fakers who jockeyed for better positions in the
government; they were heroes. They had names, dreams, motivations, and
hopes that were shattered by a zealot extremist who himself had all
the same goals, yet he still came off as an incorrigible beast because
of his unwillingness to apply his inconvenient convictions on his
illogical actions.

Most importantly, Yahiko was there because of his consistent failure to
keep his promise to Kenshin. Out of the fifty-five people here excluding
Akahori and that daughter of his that Soujiro rescued, two whole units
had just been completely wiped out, and countless other officers had
been finished off. There were no words to how monumental a failure he
ended up becoming. 'How many more lives must end before I act?'

Resisting his body's reflexive queasiness, Yahiko looked straight at
Captain Nakayama's remains and saluted at him. Afterwards, he gathered
his courage to face this rebel that could probably give even the Juppon
Gatana or the Five Comrades a run for their money in terms of police
fatalities.


===


Next: The rebellious history.

In my humble opinion, the amount of research and detail found in
the underrated filler episodes of the Shimabara Arc of the Rurouni
Kenshin anime was superb. For example, there really was a solar
eclipse in Japan around 1878. However, because the writers forgot
that RK is an action series with character-driven subplots, that
filler arc ended up merely decent, not superb.

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