Fight-ON!
Chapter Fourteen
Gathering black clouds ~ Mystery as deep as the Ocean!
When the sun had finally began descending, slowly, towards the other side of the sky, our group gathered around a large wooden table meant for picnickers in a certain local park. All of us had the kind of face you’d expect to see only at those weird Japanese quiz-shows, where, for a wrong answer, you’d get hit to your nuts or something similar. In other words, strangely relieved as we had managed to do something right, yet not completely relaxed, as we knew there was more to come.
“Arakaki-san…..now, before we start….I just want to make one thing sure: You have lived most of your life on these islands, right? At least, your youth”, I asked from the old man. “In that case, you would know about the things that have happened here, right? Things that would have had a…..major consequences for these islands.”
“Yes…..of course”, Arakaki-san answered, his eyes carefully studying me. Of course he sensed that I was after something with that question. He was no fool. However, he had no choice but to take a step forward.
“In that case….what do you know about the relationship between Bakukaze Ryuunosuke, and Shinjou Kujira? Or rather…..what do you know about what befall of Shinjou Kujira’s wife because of Bakukaze Ryuunosuke?”
That question was like a hammer striking down to an anvil. Only Fu knew to expect that question, and thus, she was the only one to remain calm. However, the reactions from the others were far more varied. Tsubasa, Kaeo and Chun looked at me intently, clearly wanting to know what had prompted such questions, and even more, what the whole thing was all about. Orca-chan seemed like an ice-cold lightning had struck through her spine, and her mouth was slightly open. It seemed that she had no idea her mother had something to do with this at all. Lin-Lin and Rina, on the other hand, looked over at Orca-chan with worried eyes. Only one who was not fazed by the question in the slightest was Unkatuye.
“You…..ask hard questions rather directly”, Arakaki-san finally said with a sigh that told of the years he had lived through. “I take it that you have heard something regarding the events of 18 years ago. Or to be exact, how Bakukaze Ryuunosuke held the greatest fighter in Okinawa, Shinjou “Tidal Wave” Kujira, at bay.”
We both knew exactly what the event was about. But unlike me, Arakaki-san knew, most likely, the whole truth behind that incident. That’s why I was not going to let him worm his way around this question. Even when the old man gives a worried glance over at Shachi, I stood my ground.
“Concerning the company we are in, at least we should-“
“I’m sorry, but to be honest, I was a bit of a lazy kid back in the days. I watched too many movies. That’s why I know that if we did not inform Orca-chan about all that has passed, it would bite us in the ass in a major way later on. Now, when she has the time and peace to cope with what happened, is better than in the heat of a battle, where her input might be crucial to our victory. Old grudges are the worst, after all”, I overruled Arakaki-san’s words.
----------------------- I don’t like being forceful or “cruel” like this. However, I know this from experience. Finding out about the tragedies of the past is the worst thing that can happen to someone in middle of a situation where he has to keep his cool.
Or like my brother always said: “Keep your cool.”
“L-Leon Hart……what does that fiend, Bakukaze Ryuunosuke, have to’do with my mother?” Shachi suddenly asked, looking at me in the way that told instantly that she didn’t really want to hear the answer. Still, it was a question she had to ask.
“Arakaki-san…….if you would. You know more about it than I do”, I nodded towards the old man, who gave a troubled expression.
“Arakaki-san, if you don’t want to, I can teach this cretin some manners so he will not bother you again”, Unkatuye calmly proposed, but the man simply shook his head, giving a bit of a tired smile.
“It’s alright…..and I can see where you are coming from, Leon-san. Fine. I shall delve into the events of 18 years ago in a bit further detail, if you deem it important to our current predicament”, Arakaki-san finally agreed, and when I gave him an encouraging nod, he continued. “Indeed. 18 years ago, when Bakukaze Ryuunosuke began his reign as the warlord of the southern seas of Japan, he did not do so with only brute force. He already knew who his most dangerous enemy would be. That is, of course, Shinjou Kujira: A world-famous martial artist from Okinawa, and protector of these islands. Ryuunosuke made his greatest foe powerless by kidnaping his wife before even declaring himself the ruler of the area. With him out of the way, Bakukaze Ryuunosuke was free to do what he pleased in Okinawa. Until the arrival of the foreign hero, of course.”
“B-but…..if’it all ended well, why would Otou-sama hold such a grud’gainst Bakukaze Ryuunosuke, and through him, Bakukaze Chisame?” Orca-chan asked, clearly confused.
“……..That is because, at the time of kidnaping, your mother was pregnant”, Arakaki-san finally spoke out the truth. “And what she experienced in the prisons of Nakijin Castle has to have been traumatizing because……her child died during the birth. A tragedy that would not have happened if it were not for Bakukaze Ryuunosuke. This tragedy eventually led to the other one. The one of your mother passing away while giving a birth to you…..Shachi-san.”
What thoughts must have ran through her head? Orca-chan’s shoulders slumped, and she stared ahead of her with an empty gaze. Her small body seemed to have gone totally limp, unable to move even the slightest. Ever so slowly, she gritted her teeth together, and the expression on Orca-chan’s face twisted to a one of sorrow. To finally find the “true” reason behind your mother’s death must have been both relieving and shocking. I know that if I ever found out the reason for my mother’s death, I would probably look like that too. But still…….to see her lower lip quivering, and to see how moist her eyes had become……
--------------------- Can you blame me for embracing her?
“L-Leon…..Hart……what’re you…..” Orca-chan tried to ask through the tears she was holding back, but without being able to put any strength into her voice.
“Bakukaze Ryuunosuke got what he deserved. Nothing can ever undo the horrible things a man is capable of, yet we must find some kind of solemn satisfaction with the conclusion that story had. However……” I tightened my grip of her. “Never forget that whatever happened back then, your mother still gave birth to you. She still mustered all her strength in order to give birth to a child of her own, a child that could carry on her legacy, her wish, in this world…….in other words, whatever Bakukaze Ryuunosuke did, your mother defeated him, and his memory, in the end. The proof of that victory is the fact that you are here, right now.”
“L-Leon Hart…..I won’t cry……I won’t cry…….” Shachi spoke, her hiccups getting louder and louder as she suppressed her sobbing. “After all, I am’the proof of my mother’s victory. And’so, I should stand’tall, and be proud…..right?”
“Yeah. Like you always have, and like you always will”, I answered. And before I realized it, both Lin-Lin and Rina had put their hands on Shachi’s shoulders in an encouraging way.
“And if you ever falter on your journey, Shacchan, we’ll be there to hold your hand!” Lin-Lin told her. “After all, there are laws that will punish you if you even consider abandoning your friends!”
“Your mother’s memory did not lose to that of Bakukaze Ryuunosuke. This one knows that you will not lose to Bakukaze Chisame either”, Rina chimed in, and gave reassuring nod. “After all, you’re your mother’s child.”
“That’s…….that’s right!”
The fire of her heart was reflected as flames in her eyes. Like a phoenix, Shinjou Shachi stood up once more on her own two feet, and I knew that I could already let go. There was no need to worry about it anymore. When I looked upon her face, I could already see that Orca-chan had put the sorrow behind her, and was now ready to walk once more with us, in order to save herself. To save the memory of the greatest victory of her mother. In order for the last wish of her beloved mother to remain in this world, she would have to save herself…..and that would mean, as it looked right now, defeating Bakukaze Chisame.
“Leon Hart!” Orca-chan suddenly pointed at me, her usual, rebellious expression back on her face. “You clearly had a reason why’ou were asking all’these things from Arakaki-san. You’re not finished yet, right? Then continue!”
I grinned back at her, and then looked over at Arakaki-san, whose eyes rested at Shachi. There was a satisfied, and perhaps a bit surprised, expression on his face.
“Arakaki-san. We can all now understand the reason why Shinjou Kujira, the feared martial artist of Okinawa, did not fight back when Bakukaze Ryuunosuke took control. However…..you were here too, weren’t you? You and many other martial artists. Why weren’t you fighting back? Together, you would have easily taken him down, no?” I asked the question that had been bugging me since me and Fu had that talk with that sailor.
Arakaki-san smiled bitterly.
“Nothing really escapes your attention, huh? I’m surprised you managed to pick that detail out in such a short time”, he said, before answering my question. “Of course, the reason was the elders of the clans we belonged to. According to them, the Bakukaze family was direct descendant from Shō Shin, greatest ruler these islands had ever had. That was why they did not want to oppose Bakukaze Ryuunosuke, since he had a “right” to the islands…….or so they said. In the end, they forbade us from taking action, no matter what happened. It was only the appearance of an outsider like your father, Leon, that could help us out of that predicament.”
“If that’s the truth, then I’mma bash those elders’ heads’in! Fuuuun!” Orca-chan declared fiercely. “Cowards who get’oo tangled up in the past to notice how their actions hurt those living now……I won’t forgive people’like that!”
“Damn right”, Kaeo chuckled, and cracked her knuckles. “I think everyone here can agree to dat, ya know?”
“And so, now, when the supposed daughter of Bakukaze Ryuunosuke arrives, those elders bend over once again, ne?” Chun asked, looking irritated. “They’ve got no spine at all, ne. In my country, our clan elders bow down to no one, ne!”
“Pathetic. Truly”, even Unkatuye added her opinion. Arakaki-san nodded to us all, as if understanding our feelings.
“However, those elders are also the ones who control what happens on these islands. So, if they decide that the Bakukazes are allowed to do what they want, then their word is the law for the people of these islands. And if they decide to use the tale about the sea goddess and calming her down with a human sacrifice in order to avoid the mess that happened last time………then they are free to do so”, he reminded all of us. “And even more so, this might not be their plan at all…….after all, Bakukaze Chisame has all the reasons to hate the Shinjou family, who were the key element to her father’s downfall. And so, in order to cause the greatest deal of pain, she might have came up with the whole idea of Shachi-san being forced into a human sacrifice. After all, what better way to cause pain and misery to Shinjou Kujira?”
Bakukaze Chisame…...to be honest, if what I heard from that woman was right, I wouldn’t put it past her. A wokou. Pirate. A person with no care for the lives others, and who would only seek satisfaction for herself. Selfish ruler of the seas surrounding Okinawa. Yes…….this complicated plot of bringing the martial artists of Okinawa to their knees under the shadow of the Tournament, and quenching the flame of the Shinjou family, all while setting herself up to be the new warlord of the area, ruling over Okinawa……this could very well be what the Demonic Shark of the East China Sea aimed for.
--------------- If so………
“How unfortunate, de gozaru”, Tsubasa said with a confident smile on her face. “It seemeth that the luck of Bakukaze Chisame-dono art not the best, de gozaru. After all, it doth seemeth history hath the habit of repeating itself, de gozaru.”
“It sure does, ne”, Chun chuckled with a bit of a mischievous grin. “But who can blame her, ne? To think that just like she, imitating her father, had returned to Okinawa, so did the son of her father’s nemesis……..And just like the Golden Mane thwarted the plans of Bakukaze Ryuunosuke, so will our Shī be the end of her evil plans, ne!”
“Bakukaze Ryuunosuke and “Golden Mane” Hart…….Bakukaze Chisame and the “Flaming Mane” Hart –aru”, Fu winked an eye at me. “The gods of irony can be cruel –aru.”
So, now I was the “Flaming Mane”, huh? Although I was no hero like my father, I knew one thing. I knew that just like my father, I would not let this thing just happen. With all of my might, and trusting to the might of my friends, I would put stop to the plans of Bakukaze Chisame, once and for all.
All the eyes around me looked at my face expectantly. And I would not fail to answer those eyes in a way they wanted. Thus, I gave them my most ferocious grin, and drive my hand up towards the sky, my index finger pointing up, and rest of my fingers clenched into a tight ball. This is our sign. The sign of the lion’s ferocity that drives us towards the top of the Tokyo Tower, towards the victory of Tournament of One Thousand Blades.
“Damn right they are!” I yell out. “Bakukaze Chisame might as well give up now! After all, the pack of the Minato Ward’s lionesses’ has been unleashed upon Okinawa, and their hunt for evil will not stop until the last right has been wronged!! Isn’t that right, Lionhearts!?”
And to my roaring voice, a roar that shakes the air around me reverberates from my team-mates.
“”””””OU!!!!!!“”””””
You better watch out, Bakukaze Chisame. You have now been branded as the target of The Lionhearts. In order to return the peace to Okinawa, and in order to save the life of our precious new friend, we would give everything we had to stop you. The first step on our hunt had been taken, and from here on out, the chase would end only in-
Gruuuuuuuuuuu!
The all too familiar sound echoed silently, but demandingly, through the park. All eyes turned to the person from whom the sound had came from. And when faced with the slightly blank stares of us all, even Rina had to turn her head, managing to look very much like a sulking cat when she did so.
The silence was almost deafening. I could very well imagine that the local Tumblin’ Tumbleweed was preparing to appear any minute now.
“…….N-Ninpo: Lion Imitation Technique”, Rina finally blurted out.
------------- It’s alright Rina. I bet most of us are hungry too. Don’t feel ashamed.
“How…..how about we catch something to eat?”
This idea was accepted by all.
---------------------- Fight-ON! ----------------------
In the end, we decided to grab something quick an’ easy from the local McDonald’s.
Though to say, I never really understood what was so special with those kinds of places. To me, food was something that was supposed to be prepared with care and time. When the food actually came from a place that was better off not being seen, mental images I would have liked to keep hidden started to arise in my mind. That was why, unlike the others, I was slightly suspicious of my hamburger from the start, and ate slower than the rest. Kaeo, the ever-hungry one, noticed this quickly.
“Oi, Leon-kun. Ya ain’t gonna eat dat?” she asked, before giving me a big grin. “Then how ‘bout ya hand it over to me? I’m still pretty hungry, ya know?”
--------------- Lady, you just ate three Mega-sized meals. How the heck are you going to stuff even more food to that body of yours!?
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but as your manager, I’d advise you to cut down a bit”, I gave a fair warning to Kaeo, who looked at me, bit surprised. “Continue over-eating, and it’ll start affecting your fighting ability. Not to mention your figure.”
After few confused blinks, a mischievous, sly grin appeared on the tanned girl’s face.
“Ooooh? Is dat so? Is dat so?” Kaeo leaned in closer and chuckled. “I see…….so ya like yer girls fit, Leon-kuuuuun?”
God dammit, why did the conversation take a sudden jump there!?
“Is that true –aru?” Fu asked, clanging at herself, clearly trying to see if she fit the criteria. “Does that mean I’m Leon-kun’s type? Aiya aiya, embarrassing –aru~”
Stop laughing and scratching the back of your head, you China-idiot!
“No, but really, ne….” Chun suddenly said, showing a bit more serious face, but not one without a smile. “What kind of girls are your type, Shī? You’re a young man, of course you’ll have few fetishes, ne?”
“Having a preferred type and having a fetish are a bit different thing, you Lotus-navel!” I protested. However, my furious words only incited the girls to a further discussion.
“This one thinks that Leon-sama has gotten a bit more creative with his insults lately.”
“That art Shishou for you, de gozaru. Even the greatest of masters realizeth they have yet to attain the height of their power, de gozaru.”
“Stop speaking nonsense. Incidentally, how is this idiot even your “Shishou” in the first place?”
“This comin’from a person who is taugh’to the music of Carl Douglas.”
------------- Ah, sometimes I wish the real life would have a “Skip Dialogue” function.
“B-but to get back to the previous subject….” Lin-Lin suddenly said, and got everyone’s attention. “I don’t think we’ve ever heard if there is a type of girl you like?”
“Huh? What on earth would you guys do with that kind of information?” I ask, slightly miffed about the fact that the conversation got dragged once again to the most troublesome issue at hand. However, since the people around me were staring at me with intense gazes, I finally decided to humor them.
After searching for a bit from the magazine rack near our table, I finally found what I was looking for. The latest issue of the Vivi, a local fashion magazine, in which I knew I would find what I was looking for. And when I saw a certain face on one of the pages, I decided it would do just well enough. Thus, I headed back to the group, and sat down on my place. Clearly interested about the magazine, the girls gathered around me, and thus, I turned to the page I had been searching for.
“This. If you had to find a girl who would fit perfectly my tastes, there would be no better choice than her. Marilyn Kennedy!”
What greeted us was a two-page gravure shot for one of the most gorgeous ladies you could find (at least in my opinion). Dazzling eyes as blue as the sky, and long hair as blonde as the field of wheat. Dressed only in the flag better known as Stars and Stripes and a matching pair of cycling shorts, only to have them switched to a baseball-uniform on the next page. Well, it was no surprise. That was simply one of her occupations. This beautiful flower of the heartland who seemed to embody all there was about USA, the “land of opportunities”…..well, screw that. I mean, just look at that figure! There’s no way a man could go on without being amazed by something like that!
“A professional model at the age of 15, and since then, has been featured as the cover-girl in over 100 fashion magazines in the course of four years. The only girl to ever become a star-player in major league, and unbeatable whether behind the wheel of a NASCAR car or a monster-truck. They even go as far as to call her “Queen of the Cheerleaders”! That’s Marilyn Kennedy for you! The woman that I can proudly admit to be my exact type!” I proudly proclaimed, while letting the girls to examine the numerous pages there were about this wonder of the Eagleland.
And they did examine those pages throughout. Maybe even a bit more so than I had intended. Both Arakaki-san, Unkatuye and I were left to watch from the sidelines, as the cadre of young women all bend over the table to analyze the girl in the magazine with their eyes. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Finally, they all turned to look at me, and in their eyes….
……..I saw nothing but pity.
“In other words…..Leon-sama, you like girls who would never notice you? Is this one right?” Rina finally put to words the horrible truth.
“Yes……now could you leave me alone?” I asked, while hugging my knees.
Well, enough about that stupid episode. There was still food to be eaten, and plans to be made. After all, although we had vowed to stop both the elders of the clans and Bakukaze Chisame, we still had not made up our minds about what we should do.
“I think the only sensible option left for us is to confront those elders”, I finally spoke out my mind. “I mean, we have no other path available to us. I guess we could just sit on our butts and wait for the Storm Lords to make their move, but to be honest….those grey clouds are making me anxious. I would want to get this over and done with before the weather starts getting worse.”
What I was talking about were grey clouds that had, during the course of the day, started arriving to the sky above us. It was a clear sign that it would rain soon, and from my experience, clouds that black usually made way for more than just rain. The wind had also started to pick up too, which was never a good sign. Earlier, on our way to this burger-joint, Orca-chan had acknowledged my worry by saying that there was probably a storm of sorts heading towards Okinawa.
“Thou art right, Shishou……….Alas, I might sound slightly superstitious, but facing a group known as “The Storm Lords” during a bad weather liketh it seems to be heading our way……it maketh me feel uncomfortable, de gozaru”, Tsubasa agreed with me, while muttering “Kuwabara, kuwabara” under her breath.
“They don’t call it a ‘monsoon storm’ for nothin’, ya know? Even I’d think twice ‘fore goin’ out in a rain like dat”, Kaeo said, although she did not sound worried at all. When she saw our surprised faces, she nodded towards the television in the corner. “They just talk’d ‘bout it in the telly, ya know?”
“It seems that the storm heading towards Okinawa will reach it in few days. For now, we are advising people to prepare for what seems to be the summer’s first big monsoon…”
The news reporter went on to talk about where and when the full force of the storm would hit. It didn’t seem like anything as worrisome as a hurricane, yet I knew this would make things a lot more difficult for us. Finding a ship of pirates in a storm would be extremely difficult, for instance. They would most likely dock it to some secret cave they have prepared, or something. And that would mean we would have to spelunk in some long forgotten caverns of Okinawa, while it’s storming, in order to find a group of people who will attack us on sight.
I’d rather leave all that stuff to my video games, thank you.
“Well, there you have it”, Arakaki-san shrugged. “It seems that Leon-san’s suggestion is the correct one. Our chances of finding the Storm Lords drop considerably if we dally till the storm is upon us. And in order to find them before the storm, we need to look from the source of information where we would most likely find the answer. That is, the elders of the clans. If they are in cahoots with Bakukaze Chisame, they are bound to know where she is.”
“So…..does that mean we shoul’look from the Shuri Castle?” Orca-chan asked, nibbling on the last of her french fries. “Since that’the place where those elders’supposedly are.”
“That soundeth like the surest bet, de gozaru”, Tsubasa agreed. “Tis’ but a child’s play, if we can acquire the information we seek straight from their mouths, de gozaru.”
“But how to get there…….I guess brute force is out of the question –aru?” Fu asked, while exchanging glances with Lin-Lin.
“It definitely is! There’s no way I’m going to allow you to rampage your way through of such culturally and historically important place! We’ve got enough problems as it is”, I protested, denying their proposal right off the bat. Luckily, they seemed to understand what the reasons were, and calmed down their destructive instincts.
“Eeeeeh…….then how are we supposed to get inside of that Shuri castle, ne?” Chun slumped over the table, looking tired. Maybe it was the fact that she had just eaten, or that our conversation was slugging forward at a snail’s pace, as we were stuck on this one problem. “Those old farts would probably just run if we tried anything direct though, ne.”
“Dat’s true……tch. And ‘ere I want’d to give dem a good punch in the face to remind them what a human life’s worth, ya know?” Kaeo protested.
“Well, being enthusiastic is good, but remember, they are not our primary targets”, I reminded the girls, and took a sip from my coke. “Who we are after is Bakukaze Chisame, and her posse. If we can stop them, we should be able to clear out the whole situation here in Okinawa.”
To my annoyance, I found out that I had already drank all of the black, sugary liquid I had bought, and thus, I was forced to look for alternatives that were in the table. From the looks of it, most of the girls had already drunk theirs, and were pretty much finished with their meals too. And there was no way in hell I was going to drink that strange, pink stuff that Chun had bought. That one looked like it had enough sugar to give me diabetes from just looking at it too long.
And so, the only unguarded, non-suspicious drink I find is that of Unkatuye, just on the other side of the table.
------------ This is a bad idea. I know it. But after eating that extra-hot chili burger, my throat really needed something to aid it in its predicament. And the only seemingly usable option was to steal the drink right under Unkatuye’s nose.
Just like snatching an egg from a nest that a hawk is guarding.
In order to achieve this, I needed to do something extremely crafty.
“You know, Arakaki-san……I am sorry if I acted rudely earlier today. However, since I wasn’t sure how hard I would have to press you in order to get the information I wanted…” I opened my mouth, making my first move.
“Don’t worry about it boy. We all carry our own burden. This old man included.” There was a solemn smile on Arakaki-san’s face. “Perhaps it was for the best that you used rough words. After all, had I kept that piece of information for myself…”
“Stop speaking nonsense, Arakaki-san”, Unkatuye commented, seemingly slightly miffed under her otherwise blank expression. “There is no way what you did could have been counted as something wrong. The one who is wrong here is this ape in front of us.”
----------- Ape? Me!?
“Now, now, no need to be so harsh”, Arakaki-san laughed, trying to calm his student down. “It’s not as if you cannot relate to using harsh words, right?”
“What is that supposed to mean, Arakaki-san?” There was a threatening tone in Unkatuye’s voice. “If I did not know better, I swear you are…”
Ah, it seems that my plan paid out. Now those two are completely engrossed in their own argument, and Unkatuye has no time to pay attention to me. Thus, I can safely reach out across the table, grab the cola she was drinking, and slide it slowly back to my side, to not draw any attention with unnecessarily fast movements.
And here it is. The savior of my parched, thirsty throat! Without further waiting, I bring the cola to my mouth, and have a long drink.
-------- Ah, this really hits the-
“What are you doing?”
All the color from my face drained away, as I realized that the voice belonged to the person whom I especially did not want to notice me drinking this cola. Of course, I’m speaking about the original owner of this drink, who was now staring at me with a deadpan expression, like she was shocked that I even dared to try something so reckless.
“That is……my cola, isn’t it?” Unkatuye continued, her eyebrow twitching in a strange way. Without taking the cup from my lips, I nodded, answering her question.
And the moment I nodded, something strange happened. For the first time, I saw Unkatuye showing some kind of expression. She gritted her teeth together, and lunged forward, in order to grab the cola away from me. Instinctively, I pulled back, but it seemed like it was not enough to make her forget it. No, it really seemed like she was almost desperate to get the drink back.
“Fool! Stop drinking that immediately, before you-“
And that was the last thing I heard. Because when she had said “you”, the world before my eyes was covered in flames, erasing everything and everyone from my view.
“W-whaaaaat!?”
The hamburger-joint was gone. It was clear that I was no longer in any ordinary, modern building like that. No, the burning walls around me were now made out of wood. I saw shōji, those sliding doors made out of paper over a frame of wood, here and there, telling me that this place might very well be some ancient Japanese villa or a castle. Nevertheless, those doors were mostly in ruins, thanks to the ever-hungry flames around me. The whole wide room had been tinted red, and the heat was almost unbearable. I had to cover my face with my sleeve, since although there was strangely no smoke at all, the burning air was hurting my skin.
It was a shame, really. This room must have been very beautiful in the past. I saw that the walls had been decorated with countless Japanese paintings, yet all of them were now just food for the flames.
“What…..is this…..?” I muttered under my breath, trying to get some sense into what had just happened.
I had done nothing more than drank that cola of Unkautye. And when she had noticed that I did so, she started behaving very strangely, as if I had done something I really shouldn’t have done. And now that I thought about it….wasn’t there some strange taste mixed in with the sugary delight of the drink? Something bit bitter….almost like an herb? Could it be that….Unkatuye had put something in her drink? Some kind of herb used by Ainu, that would have bad effects if a person not used to it would taste it?
That was pretty much the only scenario that made sense to me. So, what was all this? Was I hallucinating? Dream-walking? Seeing a vision of sorts?
--------------- Whatever it was, this flaming room filled me with ominous dread that I did not like at all.
“First of all, I need to find a way to get out of this predicament……..as fast as possible”, I murmured, and began scanning the surroundings once more with my eyes, trying to find even one hint about how I could escape this place.
“Oh, that is surprisingly easy.”
The voice that could be heard even through the roar of the flames surprised me. I turned around, ready to escape if something was about to attack me, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. No, the speaker simply stood about 10 meters from me, calmly gazing at my direction. Due to the blazing light of the flames, I could not see the one who spoke clearly. Only the shadowy outline was visible, yet even from that, I could make out her feminine form and red hair.
“You simply need to follow the path laid before you by Sen-no-Hime”, the girl said with an indifferent tone.
Sen-no-Hime? Now that was a name I had not heard in a while, even though I lived in a shrine dedicated to her. The Goddess for which the Tournament of One Thousand Blades was dedicated to. Princess of War. Why did this hallucination suddenly mention her? No, if this truly was some kind of vision, initiated by that herb in Unkatuye’s drink….then what did this girl mean by “path laid before me by Sen-no-Hime”?
“And what is this path?” I asked from her, only to have a dry laugh as my answer.
“Isn’t that obvious? This vision should already be a proof to you”, the red-haired girl spoke. “After all, were you not one of those who carry the “Gift”, you would not have seen this in the first place. Chosen of Sen-no-Hime…..no, maybe she was known by a different name in your country? Whatever the case might be, you are one of the few who carry her gift within you………yet you have not revealed it to your companions. In other words, you are trying to deny the path of Sen-no-Hime.”
So, it was about that, huh? I should have known.
“Sorry, but I don’t think that changing my ways now will be possible. Besides, wouldn’t that kind of thing be considered cheating in a tournament like this?” I asked. The figure in front of me shook her head.
“That kind of thinking will eventually be your undoing. This is the Tournament of One Thousand Blades. Do not think the rules of normal fights apply here”, she spoke firmly. “In this tournament, you must be prepared to use all you can in order to win.”
------------ Man. This girl sure has opinions. But maybe….I could use this to my advantage.
“…..Alright, alright. I’ll give it some thought. But only if you get me out of here”, I finally “agreed” to what she was speaking about. Of course, it was pretty much just a ruse to get her to tell me how to exit this dream-vision. “How does that sound?”
“Very well.”
Metal screeched amongst the flames. Before I could realize what was happening, I saw the girl grip the other end of a long, black handle, and suddenly, she disappeared from my sight. A sharp light, reflected from the fire, approached me with a speed I could not comprehend, and before I knew it, something incredibly sharp had whistled past my ear.
In that instant, all the power in my body left me. Distantly, I realized that blood poured to the burning air from a cut that went across my chest, cleanly dissecting me into half. The red liquid itself caught flame immediately when it came in contact with the air, and so, my vision, already red, was now engulfed by fire. With no power in my knees, I fell backwards, to the floor.
I knew it. I lay there dying. Yet, for some reason, I could not even care about it.
No, the only thing in my mind at that moment was…
….
…The incomprehensible beauty of the red-haired swordswoman in front of me, surpassing even that of the blue bird who swore to protect me.
“LEON-SAN!!!”
And the next thing I realized, I was staring at the grey sky from which rain poured, and numerous pairs of eyes, all which seemed more or less concerned about me.
“S-Shishou, for a moment there, I….I…” Tsubasa said with something wet in her eyes. Was it the rain? Nevertheless, she shook her head, instead showing me a relieved smile, which I returned, albeit bit tiredly.
“Ridiculous. It’s not as if the doze was large enough to cause any threat to his health”, Unkatuye’s calm voice came from outside of my vision. “In the first place, it should not have been large enough to put him into a trance. I wonder…has he drunk anything weird recently, other than my own cocktail? It’s the only thing that would explain it…”
With help of Tsubasa and Chun, I got back to the sitting position. Right now, we were outside, in an empty park. It seemed like the girls had dragged me here in order to avoid any police attention. Lord knows it would have made our mission even more difficult, had I been confined in the local police department. But my companions had been quick witted, and got me out of the sight of prying eyes. Which left only one problem…
“Ehm…I think I can answer you…ugh…that…” I spoke up to Unkatuye, while still feeling the foul after-taste of the drink. “My family has always had a bit of a weakness to stuff like herbs and what-not. Depending on what you had there, I think we can safely account it to my family trait.”
“Aiya aiya, so that’s how it is –aru”, Fu nodded to herself, seemingly relieved now that a solution had been found. She, too, looked at the green-haired girl.
“So, what was in there –aru?”
Unkatuye stared at us for a few moments with a blank expression on her face, before answering…
“Bear. There was some bear in it.”
………I don’t even want to know.
Well, in any case, it seems that no real harm had been done. That drink, according to Unkatuye, contained some powder she usually drank twice a day to keep in touch with the spiritual world of Ainu religion. Usually, for strangers, it just caused a headache, but since it had been me, I had gotten a full serving of weirdness alongside with it. When it came to the actual contents of the “dream” I had had, I stayed silent. Knowing Tsubasa, she would have taken my weird visions too seriously, since they mentioned the goddess important to the Tournament of One Thousand Blades. In the end, the red-haired girl and the burning building stayed only in the depths of my memory, in the department that was labeled: “Too weird. Don’t think about these”.
But other than that, there was still thing and two we needed to do.
“You know, guys, I think I figured it out…” I finally said, as I leaned back on the bench and watched the grey clouds above us. The drizzle was a premonition of something worse to come. Something we had to beat in a race against time. “That is, how we are going to get to meet those elders.”
“Oh?” Arakaki-san, still munching on some French fries left from his meal, raised his eyebrows. “Did you manage to have some kind of epiphany during your visit to the netherside of your consciousness?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it anything like that”, I admitted, grinning sheepishly. However, that expression was soon replaced by a more serious one. “No, I just realized that we were forgetting few very basic things. Or rather, one very obvious thing. Right now, I feel like hitting myself for that reason.”
“I can hit you”, Unkatuye suddenly proposed. “You surely deserve a good smacking after trying to steal other peoples’ drinks.”
--------- This woman, even with that vapid expression, has been apparently mildly scorned. Hell hath no fury, and all that.
“I’ll pass, thank you”, I dodged the invitation to the verbal fight, and concentrated back on Arakaki-san. “But yeah, it’s really simple. I’m honestly surprised we didn’t think of it before. Oh well – It is sort of understandable, since all we’re thinking about these days are martial arts, anyway. We fail to see the other side there is to things.”
“And that would be?”
“Simple: We want to get to a heavily guarded, sealed-away place where normal people have no access to, do it undetected, and out of sight, without having our presence known before it is too late, so we can extract the information we want”, I summed up what was pretty much required if we wanted to talk to the elders of the clan.
And so, my eyes fall on Rina.
“…Isn’t that pretty much the job of a kunoichi?”
As my response, I get a stoic nod from the small girl’s emotionless face.
“Indeed it is. Nin-nin.”
---------------------- Fight-ON! ----------------------
I must admit, the moon’s one stubborn lady. Even amongst those black clouds that blotted the sky, it managed to find small holes to peek through, and illuminate the light rain that drenched the air of the city of Naha. Now, those blue, sparkling drops of water created a contrast to the red tile of the castle that lied on the hill ahead of us. What stood between us and that castle were stone walls so thick that I don’t think even Lin-Lin could have punched through them. With those walls, and the sturdy, locked gate known as “Kankaimon” before us, there was no way our group would have been able to get inside.
Well, most of our group, that is.
“So that’s the place……Shuri Castle.…It’s been a long time”, Arakaki-san muttered, as he looked up towards the large gusuku. The unique form of Ryūkyūan castles, in other words gusukus, was something I had not yet gotten used to. “Such a shame that is has become a fortress for stubborn old geezers to hole themselves into.”
“Ya say dat, but aren’t ya stubborn old geezer yerself, ya know?” Kaeo snickered, which, in turn, earned a sharp glare from Unkatuye.
“I would advise you to watch your tongue-“
“Wahahahaha! It’s alright, Unkatuye! I’m proud to admit that I’m old and stubborn”, Arakaki-san laughed, before covering his mouth. “Oops. I think we’re supposed to be quiet during this, right? The shinobi usually work in silence, after all.”
Yes. The work of shinobi. Infiltrating this castle and opening the Kankaimon gate so that it would actually match its name. Kankai, which stood for “welcome”. Hopefully, with Rina’s help, that gate would welcome us in.
While we watch, a single kaginawa, a type of a grappling hook, was thrown upwards, and landed squarely in target, catching a hold from the edge of the wall. After making sure the tool was tightly in place, Rina took one deep breath, and without second thought, caught a hold of the rope and began climbing. And it was not any slow type of climbing. No, utilizing her speed, the girl half ran the wall up, only using the rope to keep her course steady, so she would not fall off from the vertical surface.
It did not even take a minute for her to get to the top. With a graceful move, the kunoichi landed on the ramparts after jumping from the last bit wall. Golden eyes gave a single glance to our direction, and she gave us thumbs up, before disappearing from sight. Most likely, she jumped straight to the ground from the wall, only using the wall itself slow her fall so she would not break her bones from the hit against the ground.
These girls never cease to amaze me.
A five minutes or so later, and after some anxious waiting, the large gate of Kankaimon finally began to show some signs of being alive. The gate started to rise, although not by much. After it had gotten up enough for a human to crawl beneath it to the other side, we saw Rina’s face peeking from under it, and the small girl motioned us to hurry up.
Thus, our ragtag group of martial artists and one manager squirmed their way under the large gate. Some, like Lin-Lin and Shachi, had no trouble at all fitting there, but both Kaeo and I found ourselves in a bit of a predicament, and only survived because the others pulled from the other side. For me, it was because I was, of course, of bigger frame than the girls and even Arakaki-san. For Kaeo? Well……..let’s say that some assets are not always a good thing. I could even see Shachi give her gloating grin, to which Kaeo answered by sticking out her tongue.
“Huhu…….I must admit, the prowess of the Fūma clan never ceases to amaze me. No wonder the Kōga and Iga clans, despite being more numerous, always feel inferior to them”, Arakaki-san chuckled silently. “Both the heads of Kirigakure family and Sarutobi family would do well to learn from this young lady.”
I must admit, even though I knew nothing of the powers of other shinobi and kunoichi that apparently inhabited Japan, I could see very well that Rina was something exceptional, even amongst her kind. Being so young, yet so talented and experienced…….there, most likely, lay many secrets in her past she did not want to talk about.
Moving from shadows to shadows, we made our way up the stone stairs, heading towards the red main building of the Shuri Castle. First, in the shadows of the small bamboo grove growing next to the walls that protected the summit of the hill, then up the stairs, under yet one more red-tiled archway. After that, we turned left, and headed up, reaching the smaller yard south-west of the gusuku. There, we had to enter one of the outbuildings for a moment, as it allowed us to approach from the large yard directly south of the main castle. This was a way not usually used when entering the castle, and according to Rina, they would not expect us to arrive from that direction.
Finally, after entering one more doorway and exiting from yet another, we stood on a large plaza of red and white stripes called unâ, all leading up the main building itself. Seiden – the main hall. It stood in front of us like some kind of majestic giant, glaring at anyone who tried to enter its premises. Unfortunately for this gusuku, our group was not threatened by the presence of a mere building, and so, we pressed on.
“Getting here is good, but……..how are we going to get inside the seiden, ne?” Chun whispered to Rina, who had been leading us in our skirmish inside the castle. After all, the small kunoichi saw far better in the dark than any of us. “It would be ridiculous if it was not barred, and unlike locks, you can’t get around barred doors with stealth, ne.”
“Just watch this one”, Rina answered, not sounding worried at all. “This one promises we will get inside. Nin-nin.”
The promise was put to the test when we finally ascended the final steps that led to the main door of the seidan. The red door stood in our way, refusing our pass. Behind it, the information we required, and the key to stopping this ridiculous chain of events, lied. From inside, I could see the faint glimmer of candles. Most likely, at least some of the elders were still up. And that was just fine with me. It would save us some time.
Rina walked over to the door, and after measuring it up with her eyes, placed both of her hands to the wooden surface, golden eyes intently staring at the object. The small, slender fingers searched for right positions, till they had arranged themselves with the lines in the wood. The fingertips pressed against the door, and then…
“Jack-the-Tricker: Switch-Pointer.”
There was a strange sensation, like a small shockwave of sorts that spread only in the general area of the door. To my amazement, I saw how Rina took the pressure she had applied to the door with her fingertips, and directed it to through the cracks in the wood to the bar behind the door. Not only that, but the energy was directed to the weak points of the wooden bar, essentially making it shatter in pieces instantly. Such a fine-tuned move would have required centuries of honing, yet Rina, as young as she was, was capable of it. Sure, I had heard of armor-piercing techniques which worked on the same principle, transferring the power in the strike to the actual flesh behind the armor, but this……this was on the league of its own.
“……We can now go in”, Rina simply stated afterwards, and pushed the door slightly open. I saw that I was not the only one who had been impressed by the kunoichi’s technique.
“Rina-dono…..thou never ceaseth to amaze me, de gozaru”, Tsubasa commented, and few nods here and there proved that the other girls agreed.
Well, leaving that aside…
The door opened with a creak, revealing us the interior of the saiden. Even when only dimly illuminated by the candles on the wall, I could still sense the faded fragrance of royalty that lingered in this place. It certainly had been a home to the former kings of Okinawa. Even though the original palace had long since been destroyed, and the one through which we now made our way was just a reconstruction, the soul of the castle had not left anywhere. It was still right here, right inside this building.
As we sneaked from corner to corner, watching out steps on the wooden floor so polished it reflected our faces, all of us grew tenser by every passing second. We slowly approached the main audience chamber, which was most brightly lit of the rooms inside, at least from what it seemed outside. A series of sliding doors led directly to this place, and opening them without making a sound was one of the most nerve-wracking thing I ever experienced. Still, we had to keep our surprise momentum. Who knows what kind of escape-routes the elders had prepared here.
“We need to make our way to ufugui…the second floor….” Arakaki-san suddenly whispered. “If the elders have any of the pride I remember left in them, they have made the actual throne room their meeting room, instead of the audience chamber. Luckily, we can access the throne room directly from here.”
And it was as the old man had said. The main audience chamber, usasuka, was empty except for the candles that worked as light sources here too. However, judging from the papers and other things left in the room, it seemed that it was still in a frequent usage. Most likely the elders conducted their regular meetings here. In any case, we were not interested in that. What we were interested was the Chinese-style throne in the room, because, as Rina pointed out, the straight route to the throne room in the second floor lied behind the throne here in the audience room. And as the kunoichi had said, a narrow staircase was indeed revealed from behind the throne.
As we climbed those steps up, even the slightest sound felt like a sound of a gong to me.
The staircase ended, and finally, my eyes got their first view on the actual throne room. We were still in the shadows of the staircase, hidden from the views of the others. However, up here, the lighting was certainly brighter, clear sign of someone living here. On the other end of the room, another Chinese-style throne, much grander than the one before, stood, with one pillar on each side. The pillars resembled dragons coiling around themselves, staring at the room with their golden eyes. The dais on which the throne rested resembled some kind of Buddhist statue, which told of just how many cultures had mingled together to create that of Okinawa itself. However, all this was irrelevant.
What I was interested was a whole other thing. I wanted to find the elders. I wanted to see the faces of the men who had given the order to sacrifice Orca-chan for a meaningless reason. My eyes darted from one edge of the room to another, and…and…what I saw, was------------
“………………………………………………………………………………………………………….eh?”
Red. Black and red everywhere. Destroyed furniture. Clothing soaked in the life-force of every living creature, without which they could no longer keep going forward. Bodies broken and lifeless, lying scattered like leaves in the autumn. What lied before me was not the extravagant throne room I had initially believed it to be, but a scene of massacre from which I could not turn my eyes away from. Twenty people, all dead in ways that would not let me even deceive myself that they had gotten a painless death. Their blood now painted the already red walls of the throne room, only distinguishable because of the deeper, darker shade the color took.
“This is………..blood?” Arakaki-san muttered, sounding as shocked as I was. “Who…….could have…..”
He could not even finish the sentence. The scene had taken us all by surprise. The girls around me stared at the gruesome sight with their eyes wide open, unable to hide their shock. But it was understandable. These were the people we had taught as our main opponent. The ones we taught we would have to defeat in order to be able to free Orca-chan from her predicament. And here we were…….staring at their already-dead bodies.
We looked like fools for having come here.
It almost felt like the time started slowing down as we stood there, staring at the corpses of the elders who no longer could give us any information regarding Bakukaze Chisame, nor decide to take back their decision of sacrificing Orca-chan to the sea goddess. A sting in my neck, the sweating of my palms, the quivering of my limbs……it all told the story of being unprepared for this sight, this outcome. After all, not even in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that the elders were dead. But why? Who? There was nothing gained from killing the elders, especially by likes of Bakukaze Chisame and her crew. But then, what had happened?
With those thoughts in my mind, I turned to look at my friends, searching for an answer from their eyes. But it was strange. Even though I turned my head, my vision stayed put. I still stared at the scene of carnage. No, rather than my vision remaining put, it was simply that my head refused to move at all. I tried to raise my hand to feel if everything was alright, but could not even do that. My arm simply stayed there, unmoving. As did my legs.
For some reason, my whole body was completely paralyzed.
--------------- Wait a minute, that stinging sensation in my neck just now…..!?!
“Fu-fu-fu-fu-fu……seems like you lot have finally started to realize it. My poison that is.”
The voice seemed to take us all by surprise, but there was no sound of reaction from anyone. No, none of us could even move. We all had to wait as the painfully slow steps of whoever it was approached us, and finally, ended just ahead of us. The person talking walked into my vision, and the moment I saw him, I knew we were in trouble.
Black, long hair on a ponytail. Black eyes like those of a snake. Scale-patterned dogi missing the other sleeve covering his upper-body, and a deep-blue hakama with golden snake-pattern at its hems. Two belts going across his chest, holding seemingly innumerable amount of needles, and two larger belts on his waist, holding dozen vials, with unique liquid in each. In addition, two Japanese sickles, kamas, hung from those belts. But what put the warning bells ringing in my ears was the tattoo that this androgynous bastard of a man had on his shoulder. A stylized storm-cloud, wrapped around a bolt of lightning. I would have been a fool if I hadn’t guessed what that mark was.
It was the emblem of the Storm Lords.
“Well, aren’t you a silent bunch…..oh yes, it might have something to do with the poison I just used on you lot. Extracted from a local snake called erabu, and with the power to paralyze your whole body. How does it feel? I am sure you are all enjoying it, since none of you have voiced your complaints. Fu-fu-fu-fu-fu…” the man made a mocking bow in front of us. “Dokuga Habu……….at your service.”
Doguka Habu……..so I was right. As I remembered, he was a member of the stable Storm Lords. Master of poisons, or so that sailor had said. And judging from our current condition, I’d say he’d hit the spot with his information. Seeing now that we were all under some kind of paralyzing poison, there was little we could do. Right now, he could more than easily kill us.
But it’s funny. Even though our situation was grim at this point…
---------------------- It still managed to take turn to the worse.
Thunk! A heavy footstep echoed in the throne room. This was a step unlike anything that the man before us could make. And the footstep in question came from behind us. Thus, it was clear that it was not Dokuga Habu. No, whoever was behind these steps had much, much more power in their legs.
“Habu……Dank job, dude. Who’d have thunk we’d ran into these dudes so suddenly……hahaha…….Is Ryugu smiling to us or what?” a rough voice interrupted the deadly silence of the room. “I heard these dudes were some tough nuts, but it right now they seem triflin’.”
…..Crap. To be honest, at this point, I could not imagine any other person on this island who would speak with that Satsuma-dialect peppered with slang words and considerable rudeness as compared to normal Japanese. Thus, Dokuga Habu’s next words did not come as a surprise.
“Yes. They went down pathetically easily, captain.”
The figure took few more steps, and suddenly, a new person appeared in my vision. A person whose figure I would not easily forget. She was tall, as tall as Kaeo, and her grey hair, with a part that looked like shark’s fin, made her look even taller. A single, blue eye was staring at us rudely, while the other was covered by a Japanese-style eye patch. She wore maiwai, a short kimono of Japanese fishermen, and black pants, which had been covered in armor-plates not unlike those of a samurai’s armor. A deep blue kimono with an elaborate wave-pattern was tied around her waist, the sleeves flapping against her tights. And over her shoulders, this young woman had a very expensive looking, fur-lined kimono, heavy with imagery of thunderbolts and storm clouds.
But all that was irrelevant the moment I saw what weapon the “captain was carrying”. It was not because I had been shocked by the surprising choice of a weapon, no. It was more about how absurd it was to even have that “thing” as a weapon. And what was that weapon, you ask?
It was an anchor.
-------------------- Yes. This girl was holding an anchor with one hand against her shoulder, and clearly considered it her weapon.
“Aww, man. And here I hoped for a blast…..” the girl said. “Times like these the job of a Cap’n is a buzz kill.”
Cap’n……Captain…..in other words, this ridiculously powerful, shark-like girl in front of us was none other than….
----------------------------- Bakukaze Chisame herself.
“There, there, Captain”, Dokuga Habu chuckled. “I’m sure some fools will come to challenge you before the storm is over. If nothing else, at least the Tournament of One Thousand Blades will give you a worthy opponent. Meanwhile, we must decide what to do with these fools.”
Fools huh? Well, from Dokuga Habu’s point of view, that must have been so. We were paralyzed by his poison, none of us could move, and even more so, he got the backing of a girl who uses an actual anchor as a weapon. No matter how you looked it, our group was now at an disadvantage.
………But still, I’ve got to hand it to her……….
“Damn skippy. Well, their fate already was brutal, dude. Suppose we should go easy on them now?”
To think that she actually foresaw that there would be another enemy here, and patiently waited for a right moment. I’ve got to hand it to her, not all would have had the nerves to do that. But now, as Bakukaze Chisame had appeared, all that waiting had paid off.
“Your humor is as wicked as ever. As if there ever has been someone who you, Captain, have went “easy” on.”
The waiting was done. The blue hair moved slightly, and mouth drew breath.
“Gahahaha! Yeah, I guess it’s the usual thing of us jacking them u-“
Sword drew a beautiful line across the empty air, and cut the skin of Bakukaze Chisame. Had the taller girl not pulled back at the last second, she would have found the sword much bigger threat. Now it only crazed her cheek, leaving a long, and thin red trail behind it. But the wound did not matter. What mattered was the shock in Bakukaze Chisame’s eye, as she looked at the blue and white gust of wind that had suddenly attacked her, even though there should have been no one in here capable of doing so.
“What….the….??” Bakukaze Chisame uttered, disbelief in her voice resonating in the room.
-------------- Yes. Dokuga Habu had made one mistake. He had not accounted for the ridiculously honed reflexes of one person in our group. And that person was…
“Thou wouldst do well to remember my words, de gozaru. Ne’er blindly believe in your attacks, and forego checking the condition of thy enemies completely, de gozaru. If thou doth that, then thou shalt never experience a humiliating defeat liketh the one thou shalt soon meet.”
The Bluebird of the Sword had descended upon the battlefield once again. Tsubasa glared at Bakukaze Chisame with enough force to make a weaker man fall to his knees and beg for mercy. But the pirate-girl stood her ground, returning that glare with a malicious grin.
“Well, whaddya know…? This dude is actually off the hook. Good, good, I like it!” Chisame laughed, still eyeing Tsubasa up. “Habu! You know what to do!”
And, to my surprise…
“Understood, captain. I will not interfere with this fight”, Dokuga Habu replied calmly, moving to the shadows near the edges of the room.
So now it was just the two of them, Tsubasa and Bakukaze Chisame, facing each other. One armed with her swords and lightning fast speed, and the tightening her right hand’s grip from the ridiculous weapon she apparently used.
“’Tis a duel then, de gozaru”, Tsubasa commented with a smirk. “Art thou prepared?”
“Of course!” Bakukaze Chisame roared. “But lemme give you a fair warning, ronin. If you don’t watch it, I’m gonna jack you up!”
“Likethwise, de gozaru.”
No more words were needed. The battle started in that instant.
Quick nukitsuke, a horizontal slashing motion, cut the air after Tsubasa took three steps forward, unleashing her sword, Hana-maru, which’s dominant color was white. The flash was so quick that even I had trouble following it, only being able to do so because of the light that was reflected from the blade in the dark room. It looked almost like a shooting star entering otherwise black sky. And yes, even here, there was a black sky that responded to that deadly shooting star. This “sky” was the colossal anchor that was swung with both hands, in a perfectly circular motion. The attack came from the height of Chisame’s waist, effectively blocking the nukitsuke with the sheer size of the weapon.
Before Tsubasa could recover from the hit that came when the two very different weapons clashed together, Bakukaze Chisame moved forward. She took a grip from near the part where the anchor divided, and then swung the shaft-like end forward, aiming for Tsubasa’s head. The blue-haired girl saw it coming, and managed to dodge, just barely, by lowering her stance, allowing the weapon to pass over her head. Not wanting to miss this chance, Tsubasa bravely regained her stance and attempted gyakukesa, cutting Chisame from her hip to her opposite shoulder. This was necessary, because with iaido it was impossible to perform a cut straight above you. As long as the sword was in its scabbard, that would remain as Tsubasa’s one glaring weakness.
Showing a surprising swiftness and great reflexes, Chisame managed to avoid getting cut by Tsubasa’s attack by pulling the huge anchor against her body, so that the “head” of the stockless anchor was resting behind her own head. From there, with a double-handed grip, she brought the weapon down in a crushing motion, literally swatting away Tsubasa’s sword. The blue-haired girl could not afford to lock her sword with such ridiculously massive weapon, and thus, had to retreat couple of steps. Her katana would have snapped in half had it came to a power-contest with Bakukaze Chisame’s anchor.
But it was strange. No, rather than that, what was strange was it that there was nothing strange in it at all. I would have expected Bakukaze Chisame’s strikes to have been rather different. In my initial belief, I had coined her usage of anchor as a sign that she really did not practice any “true” martial art, but rather, just fought with an anchor as best as she could. But now, looking at her movement and those strikes……..I could see clearly that they had been honed with years of practice and experience. They were not moves of a simple fighter.
------------------ No. Those were movement of a martial artist!
Using the newly acquired distance between them, Bakukaze Chisame directed a powerful thrust with her weapon straight towards Tsubasa. The smaller girl bravely stood her ground, side-stepping only so much that the weapon did not hit her. From there, she performed attack that was aimed at Chisame’s outstretched hands. Once again, showing almost supernatural ability to predict when her opponent was going to strike, Bakukaze Chisame pulled her weapon up, along with her hands, and brought it down in a one, big, smashing movement that left the other end of the anchor under her armpit. It was like flip of a switch, precise and controlled.
Wait a minute. I know what this is. It’s only the shape of the weapon that distracted me a bit, but no matter how you look at this, it’s…
Ekudi. Ekujutsu. The usage of the famous weapon of the Okinawan fishermen, eku. In other words, a simple oar turned into a martial arts weapon that even the samurai of Satsuma feared. And these proud stances and undeniable power added to the normal techniques of Ekujutsu…..this had to be….
-------------------------------- Udondi Ekujutsu. The techniques passed down the royalty family of Ryūkyū.
In the last minute, Tsubasa managed to roll out of the way, ascending into a position with the left knee on the floor, and the other knee slightly up, and the weight on the foot. Her left hand descended on the handle of her sword, while the right one rested at the right knee. This was iai-goshi, one of the most fundamental stances of iaido. And it gave Tsubasa, who was much smaller than Bakukaze Chisame, a surprising advantage. After all, with that big weapon, it was no wonder it obstructed the pirate captain’s vision quite a bit. So, for few seconds, Tsubasa managed to be in a blind-spot where Bakukaze Chisame had no way of seeing her. Unsure of where the blue-haired girl had gone, Chisame was now completely defenseless.
And Tsubasa did not leave that chance unused.
Hana-maru left its scabbard, gleaming in the light of the candles, hungering for the blood of its enemy. The sword was so fast that I swear I could even hear the sound of air being cut. It was a flawless strike, aimed straight for the side of Bakukaze Chisame, where it would have delivered a wound that would have been, with no exception, fatal. Yet….no blood stained the floor. No scream of pain was heard. Instead, what we could hear was only the sound of katana hitting something much sturdier, as the anchor moved with absurd accuracy to block the path of Tsubasa’s sword. Bakukaze Chisame grinned like a demon itself when the eyes of her and Tsubasa met. She had, somehow, against all laws of nature, predicted that attack which came from an undeniable blind spot.
Yet, it did not save Bakukaze Chisame.
“Thou art open, de gozaru!” Tsubasa proclaimed, and with those words, her left hand brought Hane-maru, hidden from the eyes of Bakukaze Chisame, into a finishing slash straight from the head to waist.
This slash was known as kiriotoshi. And it was the end of Bakukaze Chisame.
“Wha----!?!?”
A shock like electric current run through us all, but most of all, through Tsubasa. After all, she had a perfect view of how, even without looking at the sword, Bakukaze Chisame pulled back just before the strike. It was no longer nothing as pretty and neat as good reflexes. No, even I had to admit that Bakukaze Chisame’s instincts were starting to resemble some kind of 6th sense, allowing her to dodge hits that should have been impossible to dodge.
As if that had been the last straw, the two combatants took a clear distance between themselves. Both were panting heavily, and as Tsubasa sheathed her swords, Bakukaze Chisame let the heavy end of her anchor rest against the floor. The eyes of the two girls were locked to each other, and despite of the deadly battle they had just experienced, neither had a dissatisfied expression on their face.
“Well, whaddya know…….that fight was the bomb! Who’d have thunk you had such fly moves hidden, dude”, Bakukaze Chisame laughed, with new-found respect for Tsubasa in her eyes. “Seems like you aren’t just some ghetto ronin after all, chica. Yeah, you’re a slammin’ samurai, alright!”
“Speak for thyself, de gozaru…” Tsubasa chuckled. “Although thou art a pirate, thou doth swing thy weapon with honor and dignity. To think that I wouldst have mistaken of thy character so much becauseth of rumors, de gozaru……..’tis a disgrace!”
Tsubasa…….Are you implying that the Pirate Empress everyone told us about was not actually such a monster we thought she was? You say she fought with honor and dignity in her weapon…….and I cannot disagree with you. After all, there is no other place where a person shows their true colors more than in a battle. And if this pirate, this wokou, this Bakukaze Chisame fought with honor…
……..Then in her soul lies just that honor.
“Ah, you’ve heard all the chinny the people around here talk about my old man and me? Hahaha! Believe me, they wellin’”, Bakukaze Chisame proclaimed with a booming voice. “My father was a great man. The kind of man Okinawa needed to make it strong! The fools just never understood it. And I, as my old man’s only daughter, am gonna open a can of whoop ass on everyone who talks all that bull about us! Just seems like someone got here first…”
Bakukaze Chisame looked over at the dead bodies of the elders scattered around the room. However, it was only for a second, as her blue eye concentrated back on Tsubasa once more.
“But enough about that, ‘cause right now, I’ve got my sights on something much bigger. The stable led by the son of the dude who defeated my old man……hehe, yeah, I think I’ll have you accompany us to our hideout for some questioning”, the pirate girl chuckled, and once more, took the two-handed grip from her anchor.
“Hmh, I see……but in order for thou to do that, thou must first defeat me, de gozaru”, Tsubasa answered, putting her hand once more on the handle of her sword. “How long dost thou thinketh thou can keep miraculously dodging these attacks of mine, de gozaru.”
“Miraculously? Hahaha, that ain’t it, dude!” Chisame laughed. “It’s got nothing to do with miracles or all that. It’s simply my body, my body. The unique trait of the Ryūkyūan royal family, passed down for generations………Ampullae of Lorenzini. The ability to sense the electric fields produced by other living creatures. You see, your every muscle contraction produces a small electric field, it’s a piece of cake to distinguish them and act accordingly. No attack is a surprise attack if you can sense it coming before hand, you see.”
W-what!? Ampullae of Lorenzini!? Just what kind of monster is this Bakukaze Chisame!? Forget about her using an anchor as a replacement for eku, this girl actually has an organ that no human should ever have, making her even closer with the animal in her name that I would have ever imagined!?
“I see….so the fact that thou dodgeth my attacks is for such a simple reason, de gozaru…”
There’s nothing simple in that, Tsubasa, believe me! That’s a biological nightmare!
“Then, the way to overcometh it is easy, de gozaru.” The blue eyes flashed dangerously. “I am just to make sure I will striketh faster than thy body could ever hopeth to react, de gozaru!”
The concept of “finishing strike” is almost universal. Whether it is martial arts, brawls, or any other type of combat, almost every single person has that single, one, decisive strike they save for last, in order to finish the fight once and for all. No fight has ever been one with only whittling down your enemy’s stamina, until the both of you can no longer do nothing but lay weak punches at each other. No, “winning”, on itself means defeating your opponent. And there is nothing that declares victory more than the last strike of the battle, the one that declares the winner.
And now, that single strike was all that Tsubasa could bet for. In order to overcome the ridiculous biology of Bakukaze Chisame’s body, she would have to put all her skill, power and speed into a one strike, so it would, for a moment, surpasses even the power of precognition.
----------------- If you wanted to word it simply, she was about to cut faster than a premonition.
The geta sandals hit the floor, and the kiseru pipe blew one more cloud of smoke into the air. The white and blue clothes turned into a blur, their wearer moving so fast that the air itself was pushed back like a shockwave. Yes, this was the fruit of her daily training. This was the outcome of her endless repetition of strikes, and honing the speed of her limbs.
This was Tsunemoto Tsubasa’s finishing strike:
“Hiken: Ourou Gekka!”
The sword flied of its scabbard. No, if I were to say “fly” it would not do justice to the incredible speed with which the sword shot forward. I did not even have time to see the metal of the blade shine. All I could see was a flash, flash that meant death. For the moment I saw that flash, I knew that the blade had already hit its target. This was it. Tsubasa’s ultimate speed, the one with which she vowed to surpass even Bakukaze Chisame.
But……………unfortunately………….
“Hahahaha, that’s what I’m talking ‘bout, that’s the bomb! You really are out of this world!” Bakukaze Chisame laughed. “But, sorry. All that and a bag of chips. ‘Cause it’s still not enough!!”
The anchor roared and tore through the air. As the colossal weapon was swung, the wall next to it, and the floor under it, both were destroyed in the process. Proving us just how colossal the might of that weapon was, it nearly destroyed the pillar next to it, as it moved to intercept Tsubasa’s sword. And not just intercept. No, this strike had so much power behind it, it was meant to end this fight once and for all. There was no way Tsubasa would have been able to withstand such an attack.
And that attack went straight through Tsubasa.
“Wha, this is--------!?” Bakukaze Chisame sounded shocked, and cursed. After all, she realized that it had been a trap after all.
After all, this technique was Ourou Gekka. Cherry Blossom Tower, Moon Flower. An initial strike that travelled on the ground level, being so fast that the striker becomes nothing but a blur, and leaves behind an afterimage……
---------------- And the real attack that comes from above!!!
“HYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” Tsubasa’s warcry echoed in the throne room as both Hana-maru and Hane-maru were both down like wings of a swallow.
It was a magnificent strike. Like a crescent moon, the two metal wings of the samurai known as Tsunemoto Tsubasa swept down, cutting everything their path. It was a perfect strike, a perfect arc. There was nothing unnecessary in that movement. In other words. Perfect strike from above. Although iaido had not been meant for strikes like that, right now such facts were meaningless. Aohanaryuu, the school to which Tsubasa belonged, and which incorporated iaido and battoujutsu freely together, creating something unique and extremely dangerous. It was the perfection of “speed” when it came to fighting with swords.
But even that perfection was crushed, just like our hopes.
“HAH!”
She took it head on. She did not even care about the damage that was done to her. The blades cut the tanned skin, but she had already moved enough to avoid fatal damage. Even though her own blood stained her clothes and her face, the Pirate Empress of Japan grinned like a mad shark, announcing her lust for battle to the whole word. To her, this was probably most thrill she had ever experienced. To fight an opponent at the level of Tsubasa…..To Bakukaze Chisame, this could have been the first time. And because of that, she did not care about getting hurt.
No, she was a pirate. She had never listened to what others said, even if that other was her own body. Like a pirate, she just did as she pleased.
“Hissatsu: Fuubakuha!”
The anchor was swung. And not only swung. It spun around in the hand of Bakukaze Chisame, generating a wind pressure so fast that it literally swung few of us to our backs. Even Dokuga Habu, watching from the sidelines, had to brace himself against the onslaught of the air that the moving, colossal object gathered. But it did not end there. The wind pressure, and the roaring tempests, were all gathered to the tip of the weapon, and with a single, two hand swing that drew a large arc across the room, all that destructive power was released. Tsubasa, still hanging in the air from the momentum of her jump, had no way to defend herself against this hurricane of destruction. She was thrown across the room like a ragdoll, hitting the ceiling first, and then the wall on the other side of the room. There, Tsubasa fell to the floor, silent and unmoving.
But that was not all the damage that the wind did. The destructive power of the attack tore across the room, destroying the walls and part of the ceiling in the process. Before our very eyes, the Shuri Castle, which had only succumbed to fire before in it’s life, had to now bow down to the power of the wind, as Bakukaze Chisame’s Fuubakuha destroyed nearly one third of it’s throne room. The cloudy skies and the elusive moon were revealed through the huge hole that the attack had made, and they illuminated the form of the young woman who had been the source of this devastation.
At that point I knew. This woman……this Bakukaze Chisame…….Whoever challenged this Pirate Empress of Japan, wearing clothes that almost seemed like regalia gifted to her by Ryugu, goddess of the sea…….Whoever raised his sword against this wokou…
……………Would meet only……..
Annihilation.
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Next time on Fight-ON!
“Just what are these pirates planning, oi…”
“It doesn’t matter who. This world…was not made sturdy enough for me to live in it.”
“Heyyyyy, you! *hic* You don’t have the time to worry about them. After all… *hic* …my fists are right here!”
“Great job, old bastard. Now I’m forced to clean up the mess you left behind.”
“Get your act together! If we don’t hurry, they’re going to kill Shacchan, ne!”
“Because of “him” my father and mother died……..don’t think for a moment I’ll forgive you.”
Rumble of the thunder ~ The Grudges of our Parents!!
Originally Posted by Bird of Hermes
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