[FFML] [fic][rk][cont] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 27: A Fragile Mind

[Abdiel]

"Deathstalker Stab!" screamed Kaede Morinaga as she hurtled her katana
at Soujiro Seta and blindsided him, his momentum leaving him wide open.

The mental picture of where Soujiro was going and how fast he'd get her
within his striking range enabled Morinaga to sidestep the decapitating
upward slash and cleaving side slash that tore her afterimage apart at
the last minute by a hairbreadth.

As the law of physics dictated, an object in motion would stay in motion
unless acted upon by an outside force. She still had the edge.

Even if Soujiro forced himself to slow down or stop, it'd take its toll
on his internal organs until his bones broke. Stopping wasn't an option.
The momentum of his Shukuchi would be his downfall.

Seta beamed as he took a third option and stabbed his sword to the
ground, using it to pivot his body and make a sharp turn straight for
Morinaga without losing his balance.

The impact of Soujiro's shoulder tackle to Kaede's ribs flung her to the
floor like a rag doll, which bought him enough time to sheathe his sword
and do a battoujutsu strike that caught her from the hip and dug all the
way between the valley of her modest breasts.

Morinaga curled into a ball and took advantage of the momentum of her
flight to crash to the wall before the Heaven Sword could finish her
off.

'It's just as he said. I can sense where he's going or what he's going
to do but my body isn't fast enough to react to his speed!' she thought
as she bit her lip and let the pain wash all over her aching body.

Disoriented but still alive, she got up and went on the defensive,
catching as many strikes as possible from Soujiro with her Protective
Shell, Scissor Grip, and Vice Grip while backpedaling away from his
wrath.

'Wait a second. His reaction time has improved. Not only is he moving
faster than me, he's also able to see my own movements no matter how
fast we're both moving. His eyes can perceive quick movements on top of
being able to make his powerful legs gallop like a horse's.'

At that point, Kaede remembered from her days as a rebel spy that it
was Soujiro who revealed the secret to the Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki's
power (it was battoujutsu that was executed on the left leg instead of
the right) to Shishio back in their stronghold at Mount Hiei. It took
her sometime to figure it out herself while sparring against Amakusa.

'He has the ability to decipher movement at high speeds, huh? Is there
nothing the Ten Ken can't do?'

"So who's the one-dimensional fighter now, Battousai-dono?" mocked
Akahori as Kaede stumbled all over the room, the nigh-invisible Soujiro
hot on her heels.

How was she supposed to deal with this monster?

Her blood sprayed everywhere, soaking her clothing and dying them a
reddish brown. Had she received any more wounds from the Heaven Sword,
she'd be bleeding as badly as... Myojin Yahiko.

She gulped. She still couldn't look at the place where Yahiko fell after
she stabbed and sliced him apart with her Sasori Gatame.

Munenori Minoe's new friend, Yahiko.

She dared take a peek at the scene of the crime... her crime... while
flinging her wakizashi in the air at the other direction, its curving
arc headed straight for Akahori's chest. That bought her enough time to
stare at what was going on behind her without risk of exposing herself
to a Ten Ken counterattack.

It took a second for Morinaga's brain to register was what happening,
but the image became crystal clear nonetheless. Akahori's daughter, Rin,
had torn the sleeves of her kimono and tied the frayed pieces onto
Yahiko's shoulder like ropey bindings while she pushed down on him to
stop his bleeding.

Rin Akahori. How could Kaede have forgotten her? The girl that looked
like a porcelain figure brought to life. The one who told the Heaven
Sword to stop pursuing the truths of others and to think for himself.
Endangering her life was the only way to make Soujiro...

Morinaga blasted off from where she stood, retrieved her wakizashi, then
threw it right above where Rin was. She afterwards felt it: Soujiro's
sakki. His faint but unmistakable urge to kill.


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


Rurouni Yahiko
A Rurouni Kenshin Continuation Fan Fiction
By Chester Castañeda
chester.castaneda at gmail.com
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/223441/

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.


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

Chapter 27: A Fragile Mind

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


'I can feel your anger, but you don't really give a damn about me right
now... Do you, Ten Ken?'

The hang time of the airborne, reverse-edged wakizashi gave Seta the
option to cleave Morinaga (who only had her lone uchigatana to protect
herself with) in half before deflecting the weapon, yet his halfhearted
bloodlust betrayed feelings that the Battousai of Speed could read and
exploit at her behest: Rin's safety came first.

They raced towards the falling blade, Rin not moving an inch from the
spot where she was seated while she tended to Yahiko Myojin's wounds,
her tunnel vision and generally poor eyesight keeping her oblivious of
the emotional tug-of-war happening before her.

As Soujiro deflected the blade from hitting the young Akahori's head,
Morinaga took that opportunity to detect his presence thanks to his
wavering sakki, hunch down, and stab his foot to keep him in place. She
tried slashing him with her sword as well, but he parried her attack
using his sheath. Furthermore, he also pierced the same forearm she used
to wound him, which kept them stuck together at another impasse of
sorts.

"AAARRGGGHH...!"

"Eh? Seta-kun...?" rasped Rin as she felt the spray of blood trickle
down her pasty face. A small gasp escaped the Akahori daughter's throat
while Kaede screamed her head off in pain. Meanwhile, the Ten Ken
himself kept a level gaze at both his opponent and his boss's child.

Morinaga's shriek turned into a fit of cackles a moment later. She
remembered the time when Seta took the female Akahori away from
Amakusa's hands and when her words of encouragement and his thoughts for
her safety gave him the resolve to revert into his Heaven Sword mindset.

Kaede knew the reason why Rin's existence affected him so. As someone
who'd been in love, of course she'd know.

"You're in love with her, aren't you?" Kaede mouthed to Soujiro.

"...." replied the Ten Ken with a smile and a piercing glare.

>From there, they wordlessly decided to release each other by plucking
their weapons off of their injured limbs before trying to kill one
another again.


===


Minutes earlier...

Rin Akahori removed as much dirt and debris from Yahiko Myojin's
punctured shoulder as she possibly could to avoid the risk of infection.
What bothered her the most was the fact that aside from the wound on his
shoulder, the boy also had multiple lacerations all over his body. How
was he even able to stand, much less fight, in his condition?

She didn't see what was happening behind her because she was too busy
saving Yahiko's life, but judging by Morinaga's frustrated grunts, her
father's mocking words, and Soujiro mentioning how much stronger he was
than the Fake Battousai, it looked like Seta had finally made up his
mind and chose which destiny to take.

She narrowed her eyes and winced to get a better view of what she was
doing. She could smell blood everywhere. The endless clangs of steel and
repeated beats of Soujiro's Shukuchi echoed all around her.
Nevertheless, she maintained her focus at her task at hand. After all,
she was the one who dared Myojin to attack the Battousai of Speed even
though he was no match for her.

That surprised Rin, actually: The fact that the Fake Battousai was a
girl. This small person no taller than herself (and who was built like
herself to boot) fought in a way that was worthy of the man whose
name and face this midget adopted.

The redhead even gave Seta, the assassin of Toshimichi Okubo and Makoto
Shishio's Right-Hand Man, a run for his money, forcing him to become the
Ten Ken once more. How could someone so petite be so strong and hard to
kill? It blew her mind.

She bit her lip as the sounds of battle drew close. Her advice to
Soujiro (in not so many words) was to think for himself and choose the
truth that best suited him and his situation.

So _that_ was the truth he chose. Makoto Shishio's truth. The Survival
of the Fittest.

Yahiko moaned as Rin's dainty hands strayed and put pressure on his
fresh wound. She murmured an apology and rectified her mistake, the
boy's thick, dark blood already beginning to coagulate and clot
somewhat, stemming the stream of blood loss. Afterwards, her mind
wandered anew.

If that was Soujiro's truth, then why did she feel so disappointed about
it? Did she hope for something else? Did she want him to choose the path
of atonement and righteous martyrdom that Kenshin Himura took? Did she
want him to become her White Knight? It shouldn't have mattered either
way. She wanted him to stop second guessing himself, right?

What was she dithering and whining about? She knew the reason why she
was upset. Soujiro chose a truth and path she didn't figure into all
that much. The strong would survive, and the weak died... and who was
weaker than a pale-skinned, cream-haired, nearsighted girl who bruised
easier than a crate of oranges? She had no place in Charles Darwin's
World save for prey or extinction.

She'd heard from Seta himself what had happened to Shishio's lovers. One
was a crossdressing man who looked like a woman. By Soujiro's accounts,
she reckoned that the ex-hitokiri used the gay man's affection to his
advantage. The other was a former, high-class courtesan. The shadow
manslayer also used her to land a fatal blow on Battousai, killing her
in the process.

Was that how love was treated when one followed the Laws of Survival of
the Fittest? Was she prepared to become food for Soujiro's strength? Of
course, she would. She never once gave a second thought to her life:
Amakusa knew as much. However, the Soujiro of the past was different
from the Soujiro of today. He wasn't moving forward at this point, but
merely regressing to his terrible past.

Furthermore, knowing what he knew now, could he even become what he was
back then? Because she knew that he knew that he wasn't the mindless,
soulless automaton Shishio tried to turn him into. He had feelings and
emotions. What would locking them away at this point accomplish?
Another breakdown waiting to happen?

Why had Soujiro Seta chosen Shishio's truth over Battousai's truth? Had
he even really made his choice already? Or was Rin merely hoping against
hope for a Yin-Yang balance between the two opposite ideals that might
or might not exist?

She felt Yahiko's head stir on her lap. He was already awake? As
expected of a swordsman. With blurry brown eyes and quivering lips, he
weakly grabbed hold of her shoulder and tugged at it. Why was he doing
that? Did he want to fight some more? She then heard a ringing clang
from above her head. As she looked up, she saw a spinning something
whirl away from her noggin.

She squinted to get a better look at what was happening before her, only
to flinch as something wet, sticky, and tangy splashed on the face. As
the liquid dripped down her mouth, she licked her lips. It tasted salty
and metallic. 'Blood...?'

As her vision cleared, she saw a curious sight: The Battousai of Speed
on the floor, screaming like she was burning alive, her wakizashi sunk
deep into Soujiro's sandaled foot, while the Ten Ken had his own
Kikuichi Monji pierced right through one of her forearms.

"Eh? Seta-kun...?"

The smile Soujiro wore was the same as before, which was no surprise,
but something was amiss with his eyes. Rin couldn't tell if it was
because of her bad vision playing tricks on her perpetually moving eyes,
but like with the livid Morinaga earlier, the Ten Ken's eyes were murky
and lightless. Like doll's eyes.

Kaede mouthed something to Soujiro, but Rin couldn't read her lips from
that angle. Seta didn't even flinch, but his gaze stayed right at his
enemy. It was the first time the Akahori child ever witnessed a smiling
glower that didn't look like a glower, but Seta somehow made it
possible.


===


Kaede kept her cool, the fire of her temper from earlier on extinguished
in the midst of a cold-blooded swordsman who gave her all that she could
handle and more. He'd even solved the Shukuchi's weakness when it came
to last-minute hairpin turns and sidesteps. No wonder a half-strength
Shogo Amakusa fell at his mercy; he was just that good.

She couldn't stop smiling. Was it because Soujiro's smile was _that_
infectious? No, not quite. For quite sometime, she had problems keeping
up with the monstrously strong people in her life like her master and
her present liege, Shogo. Being able to keep up with someone as good as
the Heaven Sword... the person who almost killed Battousai and broke the
sakabatou that she had a blacksmith turn into a short sword... made her
heart flutter.

In order to kill the man whom she thought killed her mother, she took
him up on his offer and helped him in a number of bounty hunting
expeditions and political assassinations. For a couple of years, she was
nothing more than an annoying load who, from time to time, got kidnapped
or almost killed by her master's myriad of enemies. 'I was just like
Myojin Yahiko when he was a child, I bet.'

But not today.

All those years of being bullied by Doraku Akatsuki and humiliated by
Shiro Amakusa the Second had finally borne fruit. She killed merely a
fraction of the people those two monsters did, but now she could etch a
trail beyond their considerable shadows. This was her real debut as a
warrior. She had found her rival. Even without the Akahoris' lives at
stake, she'd want to take him on and beat him.

She guessed because of the combination of Soujiro's hesitation and the
pain from his wounded foot (not to mention the damage inflicted by
Amakusa on his hip and thigh), his Shukuchi backpedal became a hair
slower. By the smell of his puddles of blood alone, she could sense
where he went.

Besides, because a Shukuchi user tended to blast off with what seemed
like the speed of light, Soujiro had a smaller window of opportunity to
attack without stopping because he charged too fast, especially if his
opponent moved around as well.

She retaliated against the stab on her forearm with a Deathstalker Stab
of her own to the face and a Rising Tail Stinger to the body. She grit
her teeth and bore through the pain and swelling of her stabbed left
forearm.

The high-low combination made the Ten Ken's footsteps stutter, and she
smelled blood. Lots of it. He avoided getting his head split open by
turning, but his forehead nevertheless bled with a single cut. She hurt
him. She knew she did, and so did he, since he opted to retreat right
then and there. He wiped the blood off with his sleeve before falling
into his fighting stance.

Once his back was pressed against the wall, Soujiro attempted to push
the Fake Battousai away with his self-taught battoujutsu. This time
around, she caught the strike cleanly with her Vice Grip, pulled the
sword away from his grip, and hooked another Rising Tail Stinger at his
body and a Falling Tail Stinger to his neck at close range.

She managed to hit a couple of combination Claw Strikes and Scorpion
Nests at Seta before he swung and missed with his scabbard and ran to
retrieve his Kikuichi Monji. He almost slipped and stumbled on the
uneven, splintered ground thanks to the pooling blood from his foot as
he grabbed hold of his weapon.

It didn't matter that he'd chosen Shishio's "gospel" and became the Ten
Ken once more. It didn't even matter that his sakki was all but gone
now, and even then, his emotions remained in check.

None of that would save him now. His self-assured smile was nothing more
than a mask. The rest of his body... particularly his heaving chest and
shivering limbs... was more honest than his masked face.

Ironically, by subscribing to the philosophy of "Survival of the
Fittest", Soujiro had shot himself in the foot (pun unintended). He'd
hung himself with his own rope, because now, she was stronger than him,
and by his own beliefs, he was about to become food for her and her rise
to stardom as an elite member of the Battousai Group.

Even the Swarming Barbs, which she had a hard time hitting him with
earlier because of his damnable Reduced Earth technique, were also
landing at present.

He sprinted away the best he could, practically hopping on one foot, as
every slice and stab he shot at the advancing Morinaga were swallowed by
the raging metal tides of Scorpions Nests and Swarming Stabs.

She laughed and laughed as her strikes started to land at will. After
hitting nothing but air, skin, and cloth for the most part, her hacks
and slashes now had a satisfying, solid feel to them. She felt like she
could take on the world now.

Soujiro smilingly reeled after taking a clipping Deathstalker Stab to
the clavicle as well as yet another Rising Tail Stinger to the throat
that marked a red cleft on his tapered chin and almost formed a fish
gill on his neck that he could breathe through. The tables had turned.
He wasn't able to land a single strike on the Battousai of Speed all
throughout that particular exchange.

Meanwhile, a frowning Akahori squatted on the ground, his hands clasped
as he considered Soujiro's options. Even when his bodyguard wasn't
injured and on the defensive, the Battousai of Speed was still winning
their exchanges and surviving his onslaught. As long as she took full
control of the space surrounding her, he'd still be cutting things
close.

'Even with the Shukuchi in his arsenal, when Seta-kun moves around, he
can't really attack, he just moves around. All Battousai-dono really
needs to do is wait for him to come to her. He looks totally out of
sorts trying to figure out a way to penetrate her defenses without her
countering him.'


===


The pain the Heaven Sword felt and endured as he fought the Battousai of
Speed had a nostalgic tinge to it. It reminded him of the "bad" ol' days
when his adopted family from his father's side would beat the living
hell out of him. Back then, he'd smile no matter how much the beatings
hurt or how bad they got. He hadn't quite changed since then, even after
his eye-opening duel with Kenshin Himura.

Things were so much simpler back in the days when Soujiro still followed
the laws of the jungle and the Darwinian principle of Survival of the
Fittest. He didn't have to follow any morals, rules of conduct, or
society's expectations at all. He only had to think about whether or not
the person he was dealing with was stronger or weaker than he was, and
then he'd let nature take its course.

"Think for yourself," was what Rin more or less said to Soujiro. He
shouldn't let others think for him and dictate his actions; that was
what she was trying to tell him back in the East Valley.

When he was with Shishio's Faction, he didn't have to worry about the
unfortunate implications of killing his foster parents, or the fact that
through Shishio's urging and his blind faith in the rebel's words, he
became one of the world's youngest serial killers in existence.

It didn't matter whether or not he killed his stepfamily... three men,
two women, and one child... out of revenge or self-defense. It didn't
even matter that he didn't want to kill them at the time either.

All that mattered was that he was strong, so he survived, and they were
weak, so they died. That was it. End of story. That was why he didn't
cry that rainy night he murdered them; it was just rain that happened to
enter his eyes.

'Stop lying to yourself. You were crying back then. And it does matter
that you didn't want to kill them. We don't live in a black-and-white
world where the strong is free to abuse the weak, Seta Soujiro,' said a
voice from inside of him with a familiar face... because he bore the
same face as the gleeful, wild-eyed, and bloodthirsty terrorist that was
trying to kill him at the moment.

'Himura-san.'

Wasn't it Kenshin who told him to search for his own truth as well
instead of blindly following the redhead's example and becoming a
vagabond that didn't kill? He called him cruel and arrogant back then.
Up until now, he had discovered no specific truth that gave him a
purpose-driven life.

'Stop being so spoiled. It's not as if I could spoon-feed to you the
secret to happiness,' retorted a Battousai Soujiro never knew, a
sarcastic and insensitive one that went against the meek and humble
Kenshin that everyone in the Juppon Gatana knew from the gathered
intelligence reports of their spies. 'There are no easy answers to
life, only endless questions.'

That memory of Kenshin was enough for him to ignore the bolts of
electricity sent directly to his spine every time he put his wounded
foot down and dashed away from Morinaga's midst, with her none the
wiser. As she grinded the ground and walls where he once stood to dust,
rubble, and splinters, he worsened the slash he already gave her
earlier on the back.

By instinct, she moved counterclockwise and threw another Flying Tail
Stinger in the air, no doubt to again make him react and betray his
presence to her. 'Had you been the Heaven Sword that I knew, you
wouldn't let this amateurish Battousai wannabe manhandle you so. Where's
the cold-blooded Sou-kun that I'd come to trust?' said another
recognizable voice in his head.

'Shishio-san.'

Unlike the conceited Himura, Shishio was someone who outright gave him a
simple solution to all his problems. It was a saying that never betrayed
him, a motto he followed with the zeal of a monk or the patriotism of a
Shinsengumi Member reciting, "Aku Soku Zan" to all the traitors to the
shogunate's rule.

The Kenshin in Soujiro's mind said, 'He also trusted you, Shishio. He
trusted you like a child, and yet you betrayed him and used him for your
own nefarious purposes. You made him into a murderer and a killer like
you because you brainwashed him into thinking that all of life's
problems can be solved through murder and bullying. How can he come back
to normal society thanks to all he trauma you made him go through?'

With her nostrils flared and her teeth clenched, the cross-scarred
swordswoman parried Soujiro's blade aside. The Flying Tail Stinger she
flung landed nowhere near Yahiko, Tetsuo, or Rin. It instead stabbed the
Ten Ken between the shoulder and tricep while Morinaga's antics kept him
in place. He'd been swindled again.

The Shishio in Seta's mind answered, 'How did I betray him? Even until
now, what I said to him applies to his situation. You beat him because
you were stronger than him, and it took four of you to beat me because
I'm stronger than you all. Even now, as the boy himself has seen, the
Meiji Government is trying its best to be stronger than all the
neighboring Asian countries around it. The strongest does survive. The
weak does serve as their prey.'

As Morinaga attempted to grab hold of the short sword embedded on
Soujiro's arm and plunge it deeper into it as she pulled him across her
and gutted him, turning the Flying Tail Stinger into a Scorpion Death
Lock in an instant, he took his saya from his obi and hit her right on
her damaged left eye, the blood from the cut above it flowing anew. She
screamed and retreated in pain while plucking her wakizashi along with
her.

'Is that what you really want, Soujiro? Do you really want to live in a
world of killed or be killed? Can you handle abandoning your humanity
once more?'

'What is this humanity you speak of, Battousai? You're the one living in
a fool's paradise. This _is_ a dog-eat-dog world. '

As his damaged foot went numb and his blood didn't pool across the floor
anymore, Soujiro became untouchable. Morinaga's jaw dropped as she
desperately searched for his presence just short of tearing tufts of red
hair off of her head. She sniffed the air. Waved her blades around as
though she were a blind person with two walking sticks. She couldn't
find him anywhere.

'Stop wishing that Battousai was there to save you back when your foster
family almost killed you. Take your destiny into your own hands. Become
strong enough so that no one on earth can ever bring you down. You
shouldn't protect the weak either, because you're enabling them to
continue being weak.'

The room became a blur as Soujiro paced himself and gathered speed. To
his eyes, Morinaga's movements were nothing more than the fumbling
motions of an infant as he ripped her apart like a surgeon. She went
from predator to prey, staying right in place, parrying everything
around her with her Protective Shell, and avoiding all that she could
with her Crypsis and Crabwise Stalk.

'Your foot is numb, but that doesn't mean it's impervious to damage.
It's still being torn apart even though you can't feel the pain. Your
heart is numb, but the same can be said for it. Are you really like
Shishio Makoto? Are you willing to sacrifice everything to become the
strongest?'

The worst thing about the debate in his mind was that neither Kenshin
nor Shishio were absolutely right or absolutely wrong in regards to
their points. Did he want to become Kenshin, who'd risk life, limb, and
soul to save the people around him? Or did he want to become Shishio,
who'd instead sacrifice everything around him to come out on top and
become the master of his destiny?

Soujiro ripped apart the Battousai of Speed's abdomen with sweeping
slashes that her short-distance speed couldn't avoid or react to in
time. He didn't only use his sword, but also his scabbard to counteract
the Fake Battousai's double-bladed defense. Soon, Kaede's left eye went
red and swelled after the Ten Ken's repeated sheath strikes to it.

He knew what was going to happen next, though. With her back against the
wall and the tables turned to his favor, the Battousai of Speed would
surely resort to her dirty tactics once more by threatening her hostages
and intentionally provoking him. It didn't matter to her if it were
Tetsuo, Yahiko, or Rin she threatened as long as she got an emotional
response from him that she could manipulate.

However, it did matter to _him_ who the Fake Battousai threatened.

'You're in love with her, aren't you?' was what Soujiro believed Kaede
told him a while back.

Oh, so that was what had been bothering him all that time. Interesting.

If he were Kenshin, what would he do? From what he'd seen and heard, the
Hitokiri Battousai's great strength came from his desire to protect
people. Shishio would probably wave that off as nonsense, but Soujiro
saw firsthand Himura's undeniable power and determination.

He wandered around like Kenshin did, but he had yet to touch the lives
of the weak and helpless the same way the ex-rurouni did. "Normal"
people were scared off by him and his smile after they got to know him
for longer than a day.

Had Yahiko not gotten up again during their duel at the bamboo-filled
East Valley, he might've also fought against one of the few friends he
made in Shinshu, Kyoko Sakuguchi. Like he told Nonoko Sakaguchi, he was
no angel.

"Didn't we promise each other if I found someone I can openly laugh
with, you'll then find someone you can openly cry with too?" was what
Kyoko more or less told him after she spilled the beans regarding
Keisuke's assault against her.

But the Ten Ken wasn't Kenshin Himura. He wasn't an enigmatic man who
was both a pacifistic vagabond and a machine-efficient assassin at the
same time. He didn't gain tremendous resolve and might whenever the weak
were threatened, especially his loved ones. In fact, he didn't have any
loved ones to protect for the longest time.

All he knew was pain and how to mask it. He might not have wanted to
kill his father, his stepmother, his two grownup stepbrothers, his
infant stepbrother, and his paternal grandmother, but he had no
affection for them. He never even knew his biological mother, his
father's mistress, at that, because she abandoned him altogether.

Then there was Rin. She fit the bill of everything Shishio abhorred and
everyone Kenshin wanted to protect: Weak, helpless, and prone to abuse.
She was just like him back when he was seven years old. She also had a
poker face that gave Soujiro's a run for his money.

He felt his body heat up as he ran circles around Morinaga while she
figuratively stumbled in the dark for him, like someone trying to catch
a shadow. She herself became a shadow from time-to-time when she wasn't
clamming up her defenses, but otherwise, she couldn't get a hit in.
Instead of stopping to admire his work, Soujiro kept on running, his
foot and thigh be damned, sticking and moving for two more minutes.

Even Kaede's Crabwise Stalk and counterclockwise movement were rendered
moot now that he could make hairpin turns using his sword as a pivot.
However, it came with the disadvantage of alerting her when he was going
to attack (around the time he'd plucked his sword from the ground), so
they were still at a deadlock of sorts. 'Not for long, though.'

Was Morinaga correct in her assumptions? Was Soujiro in love with Rin?
He honestly didn't know. Was Rin in love with him? He had no idea. Did
it matter? It got him excited, sure, but was that proof of his love? He
wanted to protect her, but did that mean he loved her? He didn't know
what love was. He'd suppressed his feelings for so long, he didn't know
how to handle them when they came out, as proven by his last mental
breakdown six years ago.

However, people did make bad decisions when they were emotional. He at
least had the advantage of thinking straight without letting his
emotions affect his judgment. Without the veil of emotions, what did he
want to happen?

Because Soujiro was moving so fast, none of Kaede's Flying Tail Stingers
got anywhere near Tetsuo, Rin, or Yahiko. They all kept whirling back
at her, as though her hostages where surrounded by a Shukuchi Force
Field of sorts. So she started moving. She moved at a speed that
would've impressed the original Battousai and her Lord Amakusa. Then
she moved faster. She caught up with him inside his indistinct dimension
of perpetual motion.

He needed to win this fight. Why? To save the Akahoris. Why? Because
they were important to him. Why? Because they reminded him of his past
before Battousai and his cohorts turned his life right-side up (Shishio
was the one who turned it upside down first), destroyed Shishio's
Faction, and disbanded the Juppon Gatana.

Tetsuo reminded him of Shishio's tactical brilliance, although he lacked
the monstrous strength that came along with it. He owed the politician a
lot in helping him fit back into polite society even in light of his
lifelong trauma. In turn, Rin reminded him of himself, or at least what
he used to be before Shishio taught him the values of Survival of the
Fittest.

Kaede surpassed her limits to fight him, which made Soujiro's heart skip
a beat. The last few times he felt this excited in a fight was whenever
Shishio obliged him for a sparring match, when he and Kenshin used their
respective succession techniques against each other, and when Yahiko
broke his sword. They traded strikes at the center of the room, with
sparks, blood, and bits of clothing flying in all directions.

Could he become like Shishio instead, whose diabolical mind, clear
insight into human nature, and unerring philosophy got him even closer
to conquering Japan than Takamori Saigo and his doomed rebellion ever
did? Could Soujiro, like Shishio, use Rin to his advantage instead of
letting her become his weak point, which she clearly stated that she
_didn't_ want?

Although Morinaga could only see through one eye at that point, she
fought as though she was used to it. Then, finally, she did her Crypsis
disappearing act that fooled even Soujiro's eyes as she went straight
for Rin, her blades crossed into a Scissor Grip aimed right at the pale
girl's neck.

Could Soujiro let Rin sacrifice herself for him so that he'd win against
Morinaga the same way Yumi Komagata did for Shishio's fight against
Kenshin? Could he stomach manipulating her fondness for him the same way
Shishio did Kamatari Honjo? For all intents and purposes, Akahori's
daughter brought nothing to the table.

All Rin did was remind Soujiro of what he didn't want to become. Her
very presence kept him from finishing both Morinaga and Amakusa off. Her
father's life was in danger because he himself was willing to risk his
life to save hers. She was a liability in every possible way. It was
illogical to keep her around beyond emotional attachment.

Did that mean he should use her as his human meat shield or as a timely
distraction in order to stab Morinaga by surprise? Of course not. More
than anything, she had become the main reason why he continued working
as Akahori's bodyguard in the first place.

He wanted to protect her, not because she was weak and she needed
protection, but because he wanted to. Whether that was love or not was
irrelevant to him.

Kenshin and Rin had both told Soujiro to think for himself. Well, that
was exactly what he was going to do now. With his mind clear, he knew
what he must accomplish.


===


'I can't believe it. He's starting to be on the same level as Shogo-sama
was at his peak. Like an unstoppable force of nature...' thought Kaede.
As that bastard Tetsuo predicted, as long as Soujiro used the Shukuchi,
he'd almost be impossible to beat, let alone touch.

Almost.

She had to use everything she got in order to run at the same speed as
the Shukuchi, but she could only do so at a limited time. Had she kept
on fighting at those velocities, something in her tired, battered body
would break. 'He's reacting too quickly to everything I'm throwing at
him. I have to slow him down somehow.'

If anything, she reckoned she just needed to hold on and turn the duel
into a war of attrition. Something in Soujiro's foot and legs had to
give, and even up until then, he couldn't finish her off because
occasionally, he'd become off-balance because of his damaged limbs.

She herself had to use a bit of the bandages wrapped around her and tie
the wakizashi into her hand because her grip had become loose ever since
Soujiro stabbed her forearm. Her left eye nearest her cross scar had
swollen to the size of a marble. Their health and skills were both in
jeopardy. It had now turned into a contest of endurance.

The fight was too close and too early to call. She needed something to
shift the momentum to her favor altogether. Again, she turned towards
her safety zone, her hostages, for help. Although Akahori was her prime
target, Soujiro kept his guard up the most when protecting him. It was
when she was attacking Rin when the Ten Ken dropped his guard
altogether, showing the same amount of desperation to save her as her
father would.

Hell, if Morinaga were lucky, she'd have both the Heaven Sword and the
Oyakata running to save Rin: She'd be able to kill two birds with one
stone, except the stone was also a bird, so that was three birds.

However, the strangest thing happened as Morinaga prepared to do a
Scissor Grip and Crisscross Claw combo right below the Akahori
Daughter's sharp chin. She didn't feel Soujiro react at all. There was
no rise in kenki or sakki. 'Wait a minute. What's going on here?'

Did Soujiro suddenly decide to abandon the girl that he loved and let
her die so he could fight Kaede on even terms? That asshole! And here
she was, expecting something better from him!

Rin closed her eyes as she felt the cold bite of steel reach her neck.
This was it. This was what she had feared. Now that Soujiro had realized
his own truth, she now had no place in his life. The only thing he'd be
concerned about now was becoming the strongest swordsman in Japan after
Battousai retired. She wished she could say she had no regrets, but...

"RIN!" hollered Rin's father.

The Fake Battousai stopped short of wounding Rin's thin neck as she felt
something grab her ankle. Below her was a watery-eyed, trembling, and
groggy Yahiko. She stomped on his hand and turned to see where the
Heaven Sword went, her twin blades still a short hair away from the
cream-haired young lady's jugular. "Ten Ken! Where are you?"

"As you if you would really do it."

Morinaga's blood grew cold at what she saw: Soujiro standing right
beside the prone Amakusa, his sword mere inches from his throat. He
placed himself before Shogo as she placed herself beside Rin. "You
wouldn't dare...!"

"I've been thinking," Soujiro interrupted. "If you were to kill either
Rin-san or Akahori-san, who would stop me from killing you? Looking at
you right now, I can say you have one foot in the grave already."

"You're the one with the damaged foot, not me!" spat Kaede.

"Don't do anything hasty, Seta-kun!" cooed Akahori without a hint of
irony, his mind once again unhinging at the thought of somebody
endangering the life of his precious baby daughter, his paternal
instincts at full swing. Inwardly, he commended his bodyguard for using
Morinaga's cowardly tactics against her.

"Touch one hair on Shogo-sama's head and your half-blind girlfriend's
dead!" warned Morinaga as the whole guestroom was filled with her
bloodlust, bile, and murderous intent. Meanwhile, Rin's white skin
turned light pink even under the dim light of the moon, although her
face remained as blank as ever.

"Your hands will be flying off your arms before that happens. And your
precious Lord Shogo would be dead too, at that..." Knowing that Soujiro
was perfectly capable of that bluff, Kaede didn't even let him finish
his sentence as she disappeared from Rin's midst and reappeared in
front of the Ten Ken with a blitzkrieg of stabs and slashes.

Soujiro was supposed to mention that he was going to win their bout in
the end because without the hostages, Morinaga had no leverage against
him whatsoever and she could barely keep up with him already when
facing the true Shukuchi, much less the Shun Ten Satsu. Regardless,
he'd demonstrate to her his point.

He felt the stale, tangy air part and turn into an arctic wind as he
burst into top speed once more with the Reduced Earth and turned
Morinaga into a sitting duck. He reached such dizzying velocities that
his strikes could now probe the brief openings in her Protective Shell.
To him, she moved like tar now.

Come to think of it, this might be the second time Soujiro would have
the opportunity and pleasure to take down a strong and worthwhile enemy.

Kenshin, regardless of the excuses Seta had for losing, beat him fair
and square. He never once fought Shishio seriously in reverence and
fealty to him, while the two other strongest Juppon Gatana... Usui
Uonuma and Anji Yukyuzan... merely acknowledged his strength without
directly confronting him about it. He didn't have the opportunity to
test his mettle against Hajime Saito either.

'I want to beat Morinaga-san and prove that I've become more than what I
was before. I'll fight her as if she were Himura-san himself, and this
was our rematch!' thought Seta. At the very least, Morinaga already
_looked_ the part.

With her sight compromised (ruining her ability to gauge distances and
her peripheral vision on one the side of her face) and the pounding
vibrations of the Shukuchi long gone now that Soujiro opted to use its
full speed from the start, the only things that helped Morinaga keep
track of where the Ten Ken was and what he was going to do were his
flight pattern (he tended to head hunt and charge forward) and the
stench of the blood from his foot.

All trace of his earlier anger disappeared, replaced with a palpable
sense of anticipation she herself felt. So for a change, she was now
flinging her Flying Tail Stinger at Soujiro himself instead of the other
people around them while following it up with Swarming Barbs and
Deathstalker Stabs. Long range attacks were the order of the day as she
rifled through her mind for other avenues of attack.

Because Morinaga kept her distance from the Ten Ken and deployed a
better variety of long-range moves, this prompted Soujiro to charge
instead of dance around and pick his spots. In turn, instead of him
sticking and moving away from a boat that was dead in the water, he
instead fell right into Kaede's traps and landmines in the form of
Scorpion Nest counterstrikes.

Both Akahoris winced as the number of metal clangs increased, the two
combatants invisible to the naked eye. In light of the fact that
throughout most of the bout, Soujiro was the attacker and Kaede was the
defender, these sounds only meant one thing: His strikes were being
blocked and parried continuously.

'Even after Seta-kun solved the weakness of his Shukuchi and sealed away
several of the Battousai of Speed's enhanced senses, she's still finding
new ways of outsmarting him. More and more as the fight draws on, she's
memorizing his rhythm and habits. I've never seen two more evenly
matched foes in my life. Where the hell did Amakusa find this woman?'
Tetsuo thought.

The politician then remembered the six-year-old rumor of Amakusa teaming
up with Battousai. 'Was that her...?'

'Don't blame yourself, Seta-kun. You've got your epiphany. You're
fighting with your full potential. You may have gotten even better than
before because you're thinking before acting now. There's no shame in
losing like this...' Rin thought.

The ghostly looking maiden then pinched herself with blood-caked hands
and stated as loud as she could, "Seta-kun. It's not yet over. I want to
see how the real Seta-kun would've fought the Hitokiri Battousai!"

Kaede settled into her groove after landing a Deathstalker Stab at
Soujiro's side, but her overconfidence almost cost her an arm and a leg
as she barely had time to block his battoujutsu strike from out of
nowhere. He also sheathed his sword so quickly that the ringing it
produced made her eardrums hurt. 'Looks like he heard his princess's
pleas.'

Soujiro's smile grew wider, and so did Kaede's. They had the same idea
in mind. 'Finally, I've found a worthy opponent. I can't wait to
completely annihilate him/her.'

Morinaga pawed at Seta with Swarming Barbs and used her short-distance
speed to avoid a sword-sheathing technique disguised as a swipe. She
afterwards caught the expected battoujutsu strike with a Vice Grip,
pushed it away, and attacked with a combined Deathstalker Stab and
Rising Tail Stinger, their fanged bite tearing the flesh off of the Ten
Ken's chest.

'She's adapting to the Shukuchi already? How exciting! She's even
starting to catch my battoujutsu strikes with her Cancer Stance moves
again. I better mix it up, then.' Soujiro promptly turned up the heat by
blasting off with the Shukuchi and taking advantage of his building
momentum to add power to his shots.

Morinaga's Protective Shell parries buckled against the might of
Soujiro's inertia-assisted strikes, their force of impact driving her
back. She tried harder blocks like the Vice Grip and the Scissor Grip,
but they could only block one strike at a time, and when she did catch
the blade, Seta would always knock her back with his sheath.

As he trapped her against a corner, he bombarded her with Dragon Nest
Flashes and, as she unsurprisingly retaliated with Swarming Barbs, he
ducked and attacked with a Rising Dragon Flash he saw Kenshin deliver
against Senkaku back in the Shingetsu Village.

Soujiro nearly amputated her arms and face away, but instead skinned the
underside of her arms and elbows. In order to avoid falling into a
predictable pattern, Seta also varied his offense, from one-two
striking combos to a whirling dervish of zigzagging slashes that kept
Kaede guessing.

She couldn't even smell the blood on him anymore because he moved too
fast for her to get a good whiff, and the entire room was already filled
with the smell of blood anyway. Faint tremors and vibrations from the
air were all she had left, but even then, he still moved faster than she
could react.

'Then how about this...?'

Morinaga herself disappeared from everyone's sight, including the fast-
moving Soujiro. For everyone else watching the duel, nothing unusual
happened because the two of them were moving too fast for them to see
anyway.

But for Seta who had been outpacing Kaede time and again, seeing her
vanish without a trace even while he ran at top speed and deciphered his
surroundings regardless (his eyes were trained to recognize objects in
motion because of all the running he did as a child) was more than a
little bit disturbing.

Soujiro kept on moving and searching for the girl through every nook and
cranny of the room. If he didn't know better, he'd say she ran off from
the mansion and took Amakusa with her, never to be heard from again.
Obviously, because he could decipher fast movement, the Fake Battousai
was using some other technique to hide her presence.

>From out of the blue, Seta felt a stab at his thigh, which drove him
back and made him backpedal before the blade could do some serious
damage. 'Oh, that's right. She has that Crypsis technique of hers that
camouflages her movement. I thought it only involved making it hard to
gauge when she's within striking range. I didn't realize it can also
make her disappear like a ghost!'

He didn't have the keen senses she had save for his sense of sight, but
he did train long enough under Shishio's guidance to learn how to use
his sixth sense: Detecting a swordsman's presence. Curiously, Morinaga's
sakki and kenki were spread evenly across the room. He checked his blind
spots and saw movement from the corner of his eyes.

If he had to guess, Morinaga was trailing behind him at top speed and
moving in the shadows or through his blind spots in order to stay
hidden, waiting for the right chance to strike like some sort of ninja.
He then tested his theory by copying Kaede's tactics earlier and running
towards the unconscious Amakusa in order to turn him into a shish kebab.

He felt the widely spread aura of bloodlust and sword energy converge
into a single point... and it came in the form of the flickering
afterimages of a one-eyed, red-haired, and irate lady that suddenly
attacked him from behind.

"SHOGO-SAMA! NO!"

They had a wild exchange of blade strikes and thrusts alongside a
bookshelf and wall that quickly turned into a mishmash of shredded
paper, carton, hardcover bindings, pieces of wood and wood shavings,
nails, plaster, paint chips, and concrete. Kaede bathed in blood, but
every attempt Soujiro made to finish her off was parried by wakizashi
stabs and uchigatana slashes.

"I guess by your logic, you're in love with Amakusa-san as well,"
murmured the smiling Soujiro while wiping the droplets of blood on his
forehead.

Morinaga rebuked, "Shut up! You don't know a damn thing about me or
Shogo-sama, Ten Ken!"

Soujiro leaped back, sheathed his sword, then charged with a battoujutsu
strike that quickly turned into a flurry of metallic swings. As his
Shukuchi gained momentum, he again broke down her different Cancer
Stance techniques while also avoiding her Scorpio Stance attacks. The
cut above Morinaga's swollen-shut eye started bleeding again, adding
insult (and further injury) to injury.

Kaede staved off the Ten Ken's attack by fighting fire with fire and
letting her wakizashi fly towards her nearest hostage, which was Tetsuo.
As Soujiro moved to deflect the blade, she used her Crabwise Stalk to
intercept her short sword before him and redirected it towards Rin.

"You really thought that I'm going to stop threatening the Akahoris just
because you can threaten me using Shogo-sama? Well, you have another
think coming! You still have to deal with two people, while I only have
to worry about one!"

"You also need to worry about yourself, Morinaga-san."

After Soujiro parried the weapon by throwing his saya at it without
running towards it, he attacked the one-sword-wielding Kaede with
impunity, her Protective Shell only half as efficient as before, and her
Scissor or Vice Grip nonexistent.

Morinaga kept Seta at bay with Deathstalker Stabs the best she could.
They then disappeared in a flash and reappeared with their respective
sheath and short sword.

She threw Swarming Barbs at Soujiro, and again none of them hit him
because he could see and avoid every one of them with his sheer speed...
or that was supposed to happen had she not hidden several of the stabs
with her Crypsis camouflage, which allowed her to land telling blows on
the Ten Ken's body as he ran into those shots care of his Shukuchi.

As she moved in for the kill with the Scorpion Nest, he blocked her
attacks with the Ryu Sou Sen and countered with another battoujutsu
strike that clipped her knee, slashed her thigh, and made her legs
buckle. He would've decapitated her had she not blocked him with the
Scissor Grip, slashed him with the Crisscross Claw, and drove him away
with a Deathstalker Stab and Falling Tail Stinger combo.

'She has an answer to everything I throw at her, but in the end, it's
still my 'one-dimensional' Shukuchi that will decide the winner of this
fight.'

Soujiro again vanished with the Reduced Earth and Morinaga reacted in
kind by hiding herself with her Crypsis in order to lie and wait for her
opponent. To those who chanced upon it, they'd all agree that her
swollen eye and the cut above it were grotesque. Her ears were ringing,
the smell of blood stuffed her nose, and her body was growing numb from
blood loss. She could barely even think straight. Had Soujiro won the
war of attrition?

The disappeared Soujiro attacked from the blind spot created by Kaede's
bad eye even as her Crypsis failed to hide her presence (her body was
too damaged to do the complex, watery movement required to blend with
her environment). The only times she could sense the Ten Ken was when he
attacked, but she also used that to her advantage, attacking and
stabbing at the dark whenever she felt something stab or slash at her.

'Like I said earlier, even if I can't sense you in any way possible, I'd
still continue to fight.'

However, even with her bluster, she still fell as she traded shots with
Soujiro and she couldn't catch him at all thanks to the in-and-out
motion of his undetectable Shukuchi. This time, she really was a sitting
duck. For over a minute, as Seta tore Morinaga apart, she couldn't throw
much of anything at him, her vision compromised and her body remembering
how he time and again struck first before she could even counterattack.

'It's frustrating, isn't it? Knowing where I am and what I'm about to do
yet not being able to do anything about it.'

Another minute passed, followed by one more. Without the Crypsis to
counteract Soujiro's Shukuchi, all Kaede had left in her arsenal was her
Crabwise Stalk.

However, because her Antennas (or her multiple enhanced senses) went
kaput, every attempt she made to escape the Reduced Earth's wrath
happened too early or too late. Her timing was off. She had no idea
where Soujiro went.

She could see, hear, feel, smell, or sense no Soujiro Seta. If she could
only taste him in order to detect his presence, she would've, but of
course, that was ridiculous. She hadn't a clue where he was or what he
was going to do her, and he thusly picked her apart piece-by-piece.

She dug deep down to find a way to detect the undetectable Heaven Sword,
because if she didn't, the next exchange could be her last. The hairs on
the back of her neck rose as her blood-soaked skin was filled with goose
flesh. Something prickly, hot, and steamy went straight for her from
behind.

She turned and crossed her blades in time to see a red-faced and damp
Soujiro almost slice her head apart from her left eye onwards. Steam
came out from his ears, his mouth, and from every other orifice in his
body, his clothes damp with his sweat.

"Seta-kun!" came the muffled exclamation of Rin, her bloodstained hands
covering her mouth. 'To think you'd go this far to win against the
Battousai of Speed. It's as if you believe you were born to fight this
duel and nothing more!'

'I knew his body was about to break down sooner or later, but where is
all that smoke and steam coming from? Don't tell me...!' Akahori wiped
the cold sweat on his forehead. 'He was traveling so fast that the
friction from the air made his body temperature rise, to the point that
the sweat on his skin is evaporating into steam!'

Morinaga fired off a Deathstalker Stab that reopened the wound on
Soujiro's forehead, which gave him a smiling crimson mask of sorts. She
tried to follow through with Swarming Stabs, but the reckless Ten Ken
exploded with another, full-speed Shukuchi that attacked her from
multiple directions, her wakizashi slipping from her cloth-wrapped grip.

'I don't know who's going to win anymore. Your apprentice has surpassed
my wildest expectations, Amakusa,' thought the Elder Akahori.

Even through ragged breaths, Morinaga smiled as she picked up her short
sword. She only needed to hold on for a little while longer as she used
Seta's rising body heat to detect his presence and show her where to
fire off her counters. She also had one last trick up her sleeve,
although she revealed it a bit earlier than she planned thanks to Yahiko
Myojin's interference.

Soujiro shared the same sentiments as Kaede. He was almost there. The
finish line was in sight. More and more of his strikes were penetrating
through Morinaga's defensive techniques, her movements dulled by fatigue
and her stance filled with openings. He was too careless, though. He
wasn't even sure he could walk after this fight was over. Nevertheless,
he needed to finish what he'd started.

Their next exchange... possibly their last... began typically enough.
Morinaga again flung a Flying Tail Stinger into the air that could land
on anyone of the three people present: Tetsuo, Rin, or Yahiko. Despite
the fact that Soujiro moved so fast that his sweat was evaporating on
his friction-burned skin, he still decided to dash around with another
Shukuchi.

"DAMMIT! YOU'RE BOTH HUGE IDIOTS!"

Someone caught Kaede's wakizashi and threw it back at her. The same
person then swung his fist into the air and punched Soujiro's cheek in
the middle of his Shukuchi run, the latter winking into existence as a
spray of red and white flew everywhere.

"Wake up, you moron! You're making Rin needlessly worry about you!"

"M-Myojin Yahiko...?" blurted out the Oyakata. Where did the boy come
from? Wasn't he supposed to be prone and unconscious on the floor beside
his daughter?

"...Myojin Yahiko!" sputtered the flabbergasted Morinaga, which led her
to almost drop her reverse-edged wakizashi right after catching it.

"Ah," said Rin as she glanced at where she left Yahiko, only to see a
half-dried pool of blood and no Tokyo Samurai Descendant.

Yahiko winced as he shook his sore fist around as though he broke it. He
muttered choice words only a street-smart ex-pickpocket like himself
knew as his shoulder wound acted up again. He looked up to see everyone
looking at him as though he suddenly stripped naked and peed himself.
'Sounds about right.

At any rate, the teenager decided to punch the twenty-something Soujiro
in the face after he remembered what Kenshin did to himself to revert
from his Battousai self to his more agreeable rurouni persona after his
duel with Saito ended in a draw.

It didn't look like it worked, though. Seta was still smiling.

Soujiro rubbed his jaw, his smile unwavering as he at last found time to
wipe his bloody forehead clean. "I'm amazed you can still stand up,
Yahiko-san. You're not pushing yourself too much, are you?"

"Says the steamed lobster!" Yahiko grabbed himself and shuddered. The
punch didn't even faze the psychotic oddball? What was Soujiro made of?
Was he even human?

"I don't know what's worse. You moving so fast you could steam dumplings
by holding them or you barely flinching from a punch in the middle of
your invisible dash!"

"I've been hit with worse."

"That's what's so fucked up about it, Psycho-Kid!"

"I missed you calling me that! I was worried I'll never get to hear you
say that name again because you looked as good as dead when you got
stabbed!"

"_That_ was what you were worried about? Stop smiling like a crazy
person!"

Yahiko had a new goal in mind after dealing with Shogo and Kaede. As
soon as his body was healed, he was going to wipe that creepy grin off
of Soujiro's face even if he had to carve it out with the sakabatou's
reverse edge.

"Get out of our way, Myojin Yahiko. We're in the middle of a duel," the
last statement... said by Morinaga... silenced the banter between Yahiko
and Soujiro.

"No. You can go to hell."

Without further adieu, Yahiko made his way in front of the curtain-
bearded Akahori, held his sakaba sword in front of him, and assumed the
most fundamental posture in kendo, which was the Chudan-no-Kamae or the
Water Stance.

"It's obvious that you want to protect your girlfriend more than you do
the Oyakata, Psycho-Kid, so I'll take care of saving this bearded
bastard's hide for you. You can thank me later. Stop falling for
Morinaga's stupid hostage trap!" Yahiko admonished Soujiro.


===


Next: Chaos theory in action.

The views expressed in this chapter doesn't necessarily reflect
mine, but instead reveals some fictional characters' own
perspectives and opinions. Instead of telling you, the reader,
who's right or wrong, I'll let you decide for yourselves.

Also, I'll be using inches, yards, and feet instead of the
historical shaku as the units of measurement for this story.
Call it a translation convention. Finally, the Shukuchi's
inability to sidestep is a weakness I've borrowed from the Prince
of Tennis series, particularly from the Shukuchi-using members of
the Okinawa Higa Team.

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

Open your eyes,
Abdiel