[FFML] [fic][rk][cont] Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 32: Blind Justice

[Abdiel]

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

When Soujiro met Rin.


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Chapter 32: Blind Justice

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Around five years ago, in 1879 (Meiji 12), after a year of wandering
north ever since Kenshin Himura defeated both him and Makoto Shishio at
Mount Hiei...

At last, Soujiro Seta had arrived on the outskirts of Sapporo, Hokkaido.

Although Seta was accompanied by a handful of fellow hitchhikers in the
dirt road that led to what was once known as Ezochi, there was not a
familiar face in the crowd he was in.

It felt surreal how he went from traveling along with Shishio and his
growing number of followers to him traveling in his lonesome, with money
he earned doing odd jobs by unsuspecting employers who didn't realize he
was the murderer of the great Toshimichi Okubo (his favorite job was
being a courier, because he was usually the fastest person to deliver
his packages even without the aid of trains, carriages, or horseback
riding).

However, he was no penniless vagrant. He'd long ago uncovered Shishio's
hidden wealth, got enough of it to last him a lifetime, and distributed
the money to different private merchant banks scattered across the
country.

He could settle down and live on the lap of luxury, if he wanted. He
could also fund his own rebellion with the cash he had, if he so chose.
He couldn't live with himself by following either decision, though.

Nobody gave him a second glance as he strode into one of the coldest
regions of Japan, especially since he opted to start using an easy-to-
hide cane sword for his little pilgrimage of self-discovery.

What a difference a year made. The Ten Swords were scattered across the
nation and even beyond it. After the death of Shishio, they were now
serving different masters: Their former enemies, the Meiji Government.

If he remembered correctly, the Wrath of God Yukyuzan Anji was serving
time in a faraway Hokkaido prison. Moreover, Fuji himself was there to
help lay the first railway line on Japan's second largest island.

Also, if the information he gathered from Katana Hunter Cho Sawagejo was
correct, then even Goro Fujita, known better by the name Hajime Saito,
had started investigating some government-related anomalies and
corruption in Hokkaido, particularly concerning a high-ranking
government official.

For whatever reason, Hokkaido appeared to be the place where most of the
people involved in Shishio's Coup D'etat... either for or against the
former Ishin Shishi hitokiri betrayed by his own employers... were
presently gathering.

If Soujiro didn't know better, then he would've sworn that even Kenshin
and his group, the so-called "Kenshingumi", were also going to end up in
Hokkaido one way or another.

However, he did know better. Thanks to his correspondences with former-
Juppon-Gatana-member-turned-undercover-cop Cho, he was able to keep tabs
with what had happened to Kenshin and the rest of his allies. The Ten
Ken knew there was no way they'd end up in Hokkaido because, like with
what happened to the Ten Swords, the Kenshingumi themselves had already
parted ways.

Soujiro lacked the specifics regarding the breakup. He also only had the
vaguest notion of what Kenshin and his comrades had to contend with
after their fight against Shishio and the Juppon Gatana; something about
Himura's past life catching up to him that somehow involved the Shanghai
Mafia Arms Dealers (the same organization that Shishio depended on to
supply him with armaments and his ship, the Rengoku).

That wasn't the most unbelievable part of the story that Cho told Sou,
though. The fact that the wild man of the Juppon Gatana, Iwanbo, was
nothing more than a spy working for another one of Kenshin's past
enemies that wore a suit made of _cadavers_ was what blew the Ten Ken's
mind. Absolutely no one could've imagined Iwanbo to be some sort of
mercenary shinobi-for-hire. Perhaps even Shishio would've been
surprised. Maybe.

'I wish I could talk to Himura-san and tell him about what happened to
me so far. Maybe I can even challenge him to a duel,' was what Soujiro
hoped to accomplish before his decade-long wandering ended. He heard
Kenshin had already married his sweetheart last year, but gave it no
mind, knowing full well that Hajime Saito himself had a wife but didn't
let that fact stop him from practicing his lifelong motto, "Aku Soku
Zan".

Makoto Shishio and Kenshin Himura: These two men wandered across Japan
and found two diametrically opposing truths. Neither was absolutely
wrong or absolutely right in regards to their ideals, Soujiro concluded.

He had called the ex-hitokiri cruel for not letting him follow his
footsteps and ideals the same way he did Shishio. He now realized that
this was for his own good. Himura wanted him to discover for himself
what he truly wanted to do with his life and the god-given talents in
swordsmanship he possessed.

Soujiro felt and heard his stomach rumble. Sapporo... which was once
known as the Ishikari Plain, home to indigenous Ainu people... was a
city established as recently as 1868, the same year he met Shishio. The
same year he killed his stepfamily. In self defense.

He rubbed his blurry eyes. Dust particles must've gotten into them
somehow.

'I wonder what I should eat...' Sapporo was also renowned for its Miso
Ramen as well as other dishes like the eponymous Sapporo Ramen, Hakodate
Ramen, and Asahikawa Ramen, which were all perfect hot delicacies for a
place known for its cold northern climate. He knew. He did his research
before even arriving there.

He never imagined himself wandering across Japan as a financially
solvent young man. He could've sworn he'd end up the lifelong houseboy
of the family that was forced to adopt him. Then again, he didn't expect
to become the swordsman assassin par excellence of Shishio's Faction.

He merely took his destiny in his own hands... or that was what his old
self would've said. Every time his mind flashed back to fists or sticks
pummeling him to submission as a young child, it'd blank out before he
so much as winced.

Unfortunately, the opposite happened whenever he remembered the feel of
Shishio's wakizashi slicing his abusers apart, as though his heart
wouldn't let him forget it no matter how hard he tried. Even the women
and child weren't spared.

Before he had a catchall motto to cover for all his past sins: His
absolute, infallible truth. But now that this wasn't the case, his
memories of his past killings regularly come back to haunt him, one-by-
one. Many of the people he killed didn't even realize what had happened
till it was too late.

Every time he slept, he saw his victims staring back at him. They fixed
their eyes at him. Never blinking, never wincing, never moving, and
never talking. They just stared, and for months-on-end, he had trouble
sleeping. Was it the same for Kenshin Himura? Were these nightmares the
reason why he had stopped killing altogether?

'What am I doing? What am I supposed to do now?'

Kenshin told him to not blindly follow his path. So Soujiro didn't. He
instead learned more about the man the more he traveled across Japan so
that he'd have a more informed opinion of his exploits.

He heard stories of a Battousai as a hulking brute who practiced a style
other than Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, a Battousai working for the Tokukawa
Shogunate who went against the Four Butchers of the Bakumatsu, a retired
Battousai who took care of children and ran a one-man orphanage, and a
Batousai who traveled Japan as a wandering swordsman who didn't kill.

Obviously, the stories concerning the pacifistic rurouni were the ones
Soujiro followed the closest. Like the vagabond Battousai, he fought
against bandits and terrorists, protected rural villages like Shingetsu
that were forgotten by the Meiji Government, and fought crime whenever
the police weren't enough to handle a situation.

He then heard an even louder rumble from the distance that wasn't in any
way gastronomical in nature. He turned and saw from afar a cloud of
billowing smoke that covered the distant horizon as well as the
unmistakable sound of hoof beats.

Murmurs and whispers abound the people around him. Someone hissed
something about bandits frequenting these undeveloped parts of Sapporo.
To be true, Hokkaido at the moment was the Meiji Government's "pet
project" of sorts; the brave new frontier of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Formerly the place where Tokugawa loyalists had their last stand with
the newly established Meiji Government during the Boshin War, Hokkaido
was commissioned for development (with the help of foreigners and their
technological know-how, at that) in order to secure the land before the
Russians extended their control of the Orient beyond Vladivostok.

After their initial shock, all of Soujiro's fellow travelers to the
Hokkaido Capital ignored the incident occurring before them as they
turned a blind eye at the scene and went their merry way, as if nothing
happened.

It had nothing to do with them, after all. Soujiro now had a rough idea
why no one was there to save him the night he killed... or was "tricked"
to kill... his abusive stepfamily.

No one cared about him or other weaklings like him as they got bullied
by the opportunistic. People only cared about themselves and their own
affairs. Japan itself was a culture centered on honor and saving face.
In order to save face, it was best not to get involved in a sticky
situation that had nothing to do with them since it was always somebody
else's problem.

Fine. Instead of asking Battousai or warriors like him, "Where were you
when I needed you the most?" Soujiro had instead become the "hero" he'd
been looking for all his life. At the very least, Shishio would approve
of him taking matters into his own hands.

For one reason or another, the faces of his victims lying within the
surface of his consciousness began laughing at his thoughts while
bathing in a river of their own blood.

Using a telescope given to him by Shishio to make his spying missions a
lot easier, Soujiro espied a carriage being raided by four armed men on
horseback as the dust settled. One of them (presumably the leader)
carried a scattergun.

By Soujiro's estimations, the horses were spooked, the coachman was
injured, unconscious, and bleeding, and the outlaws had the runaway
stagecoach surrounded. They were ready to either board or make the
carriage crash.

He hopped in place for a couple of minutes, slinging his bag on one
shoulder while slipping his sword cane into his cloth belt, before he
blasted off with his supersonic Reduced Earth or Shukuchi technique. He
didn't even need to go top speed in order to catch up to the criminals,
opting instead to go three steps below the Shukuchi.

Strangely enough, as the Shukuchi-aided chase tousled his hair and made
his surroundings turn into a blur, it reminded him of his last major
assassination target, Home Minister Okubo, before he was stabbed
postmortem by the Kanazawa Domain Samurai led by Ichiro Shimada.


===


"YOUR HEAD IS MINE, AKAHORI! Come out here and fight, you gaijin lapdog!
Your death will show everyone in Japan that the Jiyu Minken Undo means
serious business!" screamed the leader of the marauders as he fired
another shotgun round at the stagecoach, blasting one of its doors open.

"Boss Tokuyama, we've got company!" was the last words of one of the
bandits... or rather, armed members of the Freedom and People's Rights
Movement that would later cause an even bigger uproar by being linked to
the Chichibu Incident five years later... before he got forcibly
dismounted from his horse care of a sheathed sword cane to the throat.

"Tsuruhashi! What the hell is going on?" asked Tokuyama before he ducked
from return fire from within the driverless carriage. Afterwards, out
emerged a bearded, mustachioed, and bespectacled middle-aged man that
was wearing a mix of eastern and western garments while sporting a
bandolier full of ammunition and a Colt Model P. Peacemaker, also known
as a Colt Single Action Army Revolver.

"Rin, stay inside!" said the man as he went beside his fainted coachman,
took the reigns, and did his best to halt the spooked horses.

"Okay, Father."

The shots that the Jiyu Minken Undo assassin leader avoided went straight
for his other comrade, who also ended up getting thrown off his horse.

"Tsuyoshi! Holy shit!"

While the remaining (apparently militant) members of the Freedom and
People's Rights Movement were distracted, their bearded target steered
the horses towards the other direction, right back into the city limits
of Sapporo.

There were only two of them left, but Tokuyama had a shotgun. "Toshiaki,
take care of whatever it is that's tailing us. I'll be the one to finish
the mission."

"Roger that, Boss," said the police-cap-wearing Toshiaki, its visor
shielding his eyes as he took out his own Murata Bolt-Action Rifle and
aimed at the happy youth who was actually keeping up with the galloping
pace of his horse. "I don't know who you are or how you're keeping up,
kid, but stay out of this!"

"I'm sorry, but that's not an option."

As soon as Toshiaki fired, the boy disappeared in a puff of smoke. The
next thing the misidentified bandit knew, his saddle came loose and
ended up underneath his horse and its hooves.

Soujiro's sweat turned cold as he circled back to check on the criminal,
only to see him none the worse for wear save from some bruises from
almost being trampled to death by his own horse. The Ten Ken heaved a
relaxing sigh, took a breather, and then went full tilt with the two
steps before the Shukuchi.

Tokuyama had just reloaded his shotgun by the time Soujiro caught up
with him and the runaway carriage. "Japan has no place for your
foreigner-loving ways! For the sake of preserving our culture, I'll send
you and your daughter to damnation, you traitorous son of a bitch!" he
spat as slate-gray eyes peered though one of the holes that the assassin
made with his buckshot.

Soujiro only had two options of attack from the angle he was coming
from. He let his sword fly out of its scabbard, sawing the shotgun's
barrel off and shortening its range as Tokuyama fired.

The bad news was that the sawed-off shotgun's destructive power doubled
at the short range, blasting apart one of the wheels of the stagecoach
as the recoil hurled the Jiyu Minken Undo terrorist off of his steed.

'Four down, one to go,' thought Soujiro as he accelerated even further
than the speed that the two steps before the Shukuchi allowed, and
grabbed the harness on one of the horses while the bearded man
concentrated on halting the other out-of-control horse down.

By the time the three-wheeled stagecoach (the carriage lost its damaged
wheel midway the trip), Soujiro had already arrived in (or in the
attacked passengers' case, returned to) Sapporo.

The police arrived just in time to round up the four Jiyu Minken Undo
attackers while riding on horseback. The chase was on.

"Akahori-san! Are you all right? I didn't expect bandits to attack you
from out of nowhere," said an out-of-breath white-haired, wizened
policeman that Soujiro guessed was the Sapporo Police Chief. "Thank
goodness those criminals weren't actually able to hurt you or your
lovely daughter. We'll get you a new carriage as soon as we can."

"Bandits, you say?" The gaunt, bearded man on the reigns harrumphed
while adjusting his dark glasses. "Don't forget to bring Nakahara-kun to
the nearest hospital, Chief Ozawa. He's hurt badly. I'll cover the
expenses for his treatment."

"Of course, Mister Akahori." The aged chief whistled at the nearest
officers and medics to assist the knocked out stagecoach driver and stop
his bleeding.

"Actually, they claimed that they're from the Jiyu Minken Undo, Chief,"
informed Soujiro while dusting off his hakama and replacing his slippers
with spares (few of them were tough enough to take the wear and tear of
his Shukuchi).

"Well, that's preposterous, young man!" guffawed Chief Ozawa once he
noticed the "Good Samaritan" that had assisted Tetsuo Akahori in
stopping the carriage from careening to the nearest buildings. "You must
have misheard. The Jiyu Minken Undo is nothing more than Count Itagaki's
brainchild liberal political movement. It's not a terrorist
organization."

Akahori rubbed his beard. "On one hand, there has been talk in the
government concerning the Jiyu Minken Undo's more radical members. It's
not merely a political movement, and not all those associated with it
see eye-to-eye. On the other hand, I don't think the group had anything
to do with this attack either."

"Well, if you need anything, just give us a call back at the station.
Those bandits, terrorists, or whoever will be squealing soon enough once
we get our hands on them," pledged the chief as he tipped his hat and
bowed at both Akahori and Seta.

"In the meantime, I'll leave you and Rin-ojousan with several police
escorts in case those criminals have any more of their comrades lurking
about. I'll see around, Akahori-san."

"Likewise, Chief Ozawa. Thank you for your assistance." Akahori bowed
back before turning towards the young man who saved him. "I don't
believe we've been introduced. My name is Akahori. Akahori Tetsuo."

"Seta. Seta Soujiro. It's a pleasure to meet you," Soujiro bowed again.

Tetsuo adjusted his glasses so it covered his eyes, hunched forward, put
his elbows on his knees, and rested his face on his interlocked hands.
"Soujiro, huh? Did you know that's the childhood name of Okita Souji,
the Captain of the First Unit of the Shinsengumi? Are you related to him
in any way?"

"Ah, I don't think so," chuckled Soujiro, remembering that it was his
mother who named him, and it was quite likely that she only picked up
_that_ name from newspaper articles concerning the Okitas of the
Shirakawa Domain. Either that or it was merely a huge coincidence.

"Are you a student of the Tennen Rishin Ryu? That was some interesting
swordsmanship skills you demonstrated back there, boy."

"No. My sword skills are mostly self-taught, but I knew a swordsman who
helped me hone them to perfection."

"I see. Fascinating. Ever since our original family yojimbo retired and
settled down with his own family about a decade or so ago, it's been
tough protecting myself and my family from all these marauders, bandits,
and discontented former samurai."

The sun's glare on Akahori's glasses prompted Soujiro to look away. "I
owe you my life and my daughter's as well. There are not enough words to
express my gratitude. Would you be interested in taking the role of
bodyguard for my family?"

Soujiro laughed again. "Tempting as the offer may be, I'm not even sure
I'll be staying in Sapporo for too long. I just got here. I'm flattered
by your offer, though."

"If you ever change your mind, you can find us at this address," Akahori
offered Seta his card. "Our residence is near a local inn and a stone's
throw away from the Sapporo Agricultural College. It's hard to miss."

As Soujiro accepted the card... a custom originating from foreign
countries, which gave further credence to the "gaijin lapdog" remark
from one of Tetsuo's assailants... his head turned in time to meet the
shaking irises of the daughter Akahori was talking about.

"Oh, where are my manners? Let me introduce you to my daughter, Rin.
Akahori Rin."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said Rin in a flat tone that belied the
sentiment of her words.

From the darkness of the carriage sat the whitest girl Soujiro had ever
seen. She was even whiter than Yumi was when she put on her geisha-like
oiran makeup. Her pearl-like complexion seemed to radiate a light of its
own even as she stayed in the shadows. Even her creamy hair reminded the
young swordsman of liquid gold. She also wore tinted spectacles, like
her father.

Rin coughed primly, which made Soujiro realize he'd been staring at her
for too long. "I'm guessing you're expecting a thank you from me too."

Soujiro waved her off, insisting, "Thanks aren't necessary. I only
wanted to help."

"Did you now?" Rin deadpanned. "You could've finished them off any time
during the chase. Why didn't you?"

"You exaggerate, Miss. I couldn't possibly have killed men on horseback
who were carrying guns. Besides, it's the police's job to handle
criminal elements."

"You're lying. I saw you cut a shotgun in half while sprinting beside a
horse and keeping up with its speed. You could have just as easily
sliced that gunman in half."

"Again, you must have been seeing things, Akahori Rin-san." Seeking to
change the subject, Soujiro beckoned to the young lady whom he guessed
couldn't have been any older than he was, "Please get out of that
carriage. It's unstable from all the punishment it took earlier."

"I-I can't."

"Why not?"

"The sun. It's bad for my skin."

Was she serious? "The sun is a lot less deadly than being trapped
underneath a collapsed carriage, Miss Rin."

"For me, it is, Seta Soujiro-kun."

Soujiro scratched his head and laughed at Rin's statement. His laughter
died as soon as he realized that Rin didn't plan on joining in. So that
wasn't a joke after all.

As the illegitimate son of simple rice farmers, Seta couldn't even begin
to fathom the vain and eccentric habits of some of the rich and
privileged families of the Meiji Era. Getting a bit of sun never hurt
anyone, and it certainly was preferable to getting punched, kicked, and
hated for existing.

An apologetic Tetsuo explained, "Don't misunderstand, Seta-kun. She
actually has a skin condition where..." but he himself kept his mouth
shut as soon as his daughter interrupted, "Who told you to save us
anyway?"

Soujiro paused. "Um... I did?"

"I don't believe you. Nobody does anything without wanting something in
return."

Was this girl for real? "I honestly wanted to save you, believe it or
not," said Soujiro.

"Why?" asked Rin.

He knew exactly why, but he didn't want to tell some stranger the
reasons behind his actions. Ironically, those reasons somewhat proved
what she was saying about him was correct. "I wanted to do the right
thing."

"Like an honorable and heroic samurai, I suppose," said Rin. Soujiro
couldn't tell if she was mocking him or if she was simply making an
observation thanks to her pokerfaced stare and lack of a derisive snort.
"Why are you following perfect ideals in an imperfect world?"

"Pardon me?"

"Samurais have ceased to exist way back in the Tokugawa Era. Don't
believe the whitewashed stories people tell you about these supposedly
'brave', 'principled', and 'infallible' warriors either. They're merely
reminiscing about a bygone age that doesn't really exist except in their
nostalgic minds."

Before Soujiro could answer, one of the guards that Chief Ozawa left to
protect the Akahoris announced, "Your new carriage has arrived, Mister
Akahori Tetsuo! Miss Akahori Rin!"

"I guess we'll see you around, Seta-kun," said the Elder Akahori while
the police escorts from behind him undid the harnesses on the horses
attached to the damaged stagecoach and the Younger Akahori wrapped a
shawl over her neck and face, adjusted her dark spectacles, and opened
her parasol to keep the harmful rays of the hated sun away from her
supposedly sensitive skin.

As Rin passed Soujiro by, her parasol rotating in her hands, the
Porcelain Doll of the House of Akahori said to the boy without bothering
to look at him, "Here's a word of advice from me to you. If your
swordsmanship is self-taught, then that must mean you're not samurai-
born at all, right? Stop trying to be someone you're not. You're only
setting yourself up for disappointment. Remember that, Seta Soujiro-
kun."

Tetsuo also whispered, "I apologize for my daughter's behavior. She
always had a hard time talking to people. She's been through a lot and
she doesn't get out much, you see. I hope you're not offended. We really
are grateful for your help back there."

"No problem, um... Akahori-san. I understand," Soujiro lied to Tetsuo
while mulling over the words of the Akahori daughter.

As the imported, foreign-made, and four-horse Concord Carriage (complete
with new coachman) made its way into the town center... the final
destination of the dilapidated, three-wheeled, and holey stagecoach they
were on that was on the verge of collapsing after suffering from
multiple shotgun blasts... the pale, parasol-carrying teenaged girl
asked her father, "Those people were after 'that', weren't they?"

Akahori turned and waved at the departing Soujiro, who waved back,
before answering, "Not exactly. I've long ago retrieved 'that' from
their hands and I've even memorized its contents. What they actually
wanted to do was to silence me before I leaked to the press what 'that'
entailed. I'm onto the hanbatsu and their schemes, and they know I don't
scare easily."

"Be careful, Father. Remember what happened to Saigo Takamori and the
hitokiri-turned-traitor that they burned alive," said Rin as her father
helped her up their new carriage.

"Yes. Shishio Makoto. I know, my darling." Akahori frowned as something
familiar surfaced inside his head regarding the circumstances
surrounding the death of Toshimichi Okubo last year.

Rin remarked, "I wouldn't even know who Shishio was until you told me
about him," which awoke Tetsuo from his musings.

"The Meiji Oligarchy is scarily efficient when it comes to propaganda,
saving face, and erasing all evidence that you even exist. History is
written by the victors, after all."

He should know. He was among those tasked to cover up the fact that it
was one of Shishio's men who killed Okubo instead of the official
story fed to the press: That he was killed by discontented Kanazawa
Domain Samurai.

'Didn't the classified autopsy of Okubo show that he was killed minutes
before Shimada-shi and his men stabbed him to death near the Sakurada
Gate? That means someone from Shishio's Faction had somehow intercepted
the carriage in the middle of its ride before it got halted by the
Kanazawa Domain Samurai. Someone as fast or even faster than a horse-
drawn carriage...'

As Tetsuo himself settled into his seat inside the carriage facing
opposite his daughter, he adjusted his tinted glasses and asked her,
"Weren't you a bit too harsh on that boy who saved our lives from those
rogue gunmen? Even though he's naive, he still saved our lives."

While staying in the dark corner of the carriage, the curtains drawn
over the window, Rin confessed in monotone, "He bothers me. His smiling
face is like a mask. I can't read his intentions at all."

To Rin's chagrin, her father was in stitches by the time she finished
speaking. "What's so funny?"

As he took off his shades and wiped the tears off his eyes, Akahori
said, "That's a hilarious thing to say, coming from you."

Rin said, "I don't get it," her dull facial expression unchanging as she
tilted her head and blinked.

"Never you mind, my dear. Let's just say not everyone is easy to read,"
Tetsuo said as he put his glasses back on and recovered from his fit of
laughter with a shake of his head and spontaneous guffaws. "As they say
in the western world, still waters run deep."


===


Soujiro considered his options on what he was supposed to do next. He
could either visit Fuji and his railroad work, Anji while he (willingly)
rotted in prison, or Saito and his Keishicho-sanctioned business here in
Hokkaido.

With the first two options, he didn't want to be a bother to Fuji's job,
and he could always visit Anji later rather than sooner (the mad monk of
the Juppon Gatana wasn't going anywhere). As for the Former Captain of
the Shinsengumi's Third Unit, Seta doubted that "Fujita" had loose
enough lips to blab about his assigned mission from the Japanese
Metropolitan Police Department to a former enemy and wanted fugitive.

Although if he wanted to, he could always challenge Saito to a duel to
see if he'd give the lieutenant the honor of arresting him. The idea
intrigued him, especially since he never had a chance to cross swords
with the ex-Shinsengumi. He always wanted to try the Anti-Hiratsuki
tactics taught to him by Shishio against a man who'd mastered what was
arguably the ultimate Hiratsuki Sword School, the Gatotsu.

In the end, Soujiro chose to stay at the inn near both Akahori's
western-style Sapporo Mansion and the SAC or the Sapporo Agricultural
College. By his estimations, Tetsuo was probably part of the Meiji
Government's Development Commission headed by the Hokkaido Colonization
Office Chief Kiyotaka Kuroda.

'So why was he being targeted by the Jiyu Minken Undo if that's the
case? What does the urban development of Hokkaido have to do with the
Freedom and People's Rights Movement? It doesn't make sense,' thought
Soujiro as he ate his donburimeshi at a local restaurant, savoring his
bowl of rice topped with sea urchins.

It was a good thing he was able to withdraw some of Shishio's money
that he stored in his own account prior to making his trip to Hokkaido.
It allowed him to indulge in delicacies such as this, plus his earlier
chase left him famished. He had the eating habits of people twice or
even thrice as large as he was, yet he was able to maintain in shape
thanks to his high metabolism and the calorie-burning prowess of his
Shukuchi.

"LEARN YOUR PLACE, WOMAN!"

"Please, don't! Darling, no...!"

Everyone in the restaurant went silent as a wailing woman with a black
eye ran away from an obviously inebriated, red-faced, and disheveled
man. "You cheating, lying _slut_! I'll kill you! I swear I'll kill you!"

"Please listen to me! It was all a misunderstanding! AH!" Her male
companion tugged at her hair and pulled her towards the exit. Her
screams pierced everyone's ears, prompting Soujiro to stand and lose his
appetite.

"Hold on a second there, friend!" said someone garbed in western-style
clothes as he kept the tall, muscular man from backhanding the female by
grabbing hold of his wrist. "What seems to be the problem? Maybe we can
talk this through."

"Fuck off, you foreigner-loving toady. This issue doesn't concern
outsiders. The _problem_ here is that I caught my wife red-handed,
cheating on me with some other man! Do you have a problem with me
teaching her a lesson?" said the more traditional, kimono-clad alcoholic
with a jug of wine, reeking breath, and a stubbly beard.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know," the kowtowed (although snappily dressed)
man said as he bowed almost to the point of prostrating himself.
"Please, don't go threatening to kill her. Surely there's a better way
to resolve this..."

"I'm telling you, that's not what happened! Please, let me explain! Jo,
you're making a scene...!

"Adulterers deserve death!" spat the drunkard as he slapped his wife to
shut her up, then pushed the interloper to the floor. "If you hadn't run
off and tried to escape, we wouldn't be making a scene, bitch! Now tell
me his name before I beat his name out of you, Junko!"

"NO! I BEG YOU! Please, don't...!"

The restaurant went abuzz. "That's what she gets for being a cheating
whore," said one.

"I can't believe they're making a scene here of all places. Take it back
to the bedroom," said another.

"It's all this foreign influence that's making the women looser.
Whatever happened to traditional Japanese values?" said one other
person.

"Somebody call the cops," said yet another person, although no one ever
did heed that advice.

The side comments eventually died and people sat back down to enjoy
their dinner as the woman was dragged at the back of the restaurant by
her violent husband. Like nothing happened.

Why were people always like this? Why were they such cowards?

With clenched fists, the Heaven Sword attempted to sit down and enjoy
his half-finished donburimeshi meal like so many of the other restaurant
patrons that elected to keep out of the lover's quarrel. However, the
next thing he knew, his feet moved on their own towards the exit in time
to see the husband beating his wife within an inch of her life.

Images of him being pummeled to submission by his stepbrothers, father,
and other members of his stepfamily superimposed themselves with the
gruesome scene before him. He couldn't breathe. He clutched his chest.

The more pain he felt from the beatings, the more he smiled. The more he
smiled, the more they beat him up. This time around, they were really
going to kill him, false smile or no false smile. His gums bled. His
ears rang. Their knuckles thudded over his head and face over and over
again. Over and over again. Over and over again.

When Soujiro came to, he took a look at his clenched fists, which were
stained with blood. 'What happened?'

The wife shrieked at him and tried to claw his eyes out. He backed away
in time to see her husband's puffy, bloated face.

"Get away from here, you monster! Get away from my husband!" the wild-
haired woman rasped, her throat sore from all her screeching earlier as
she covered her beaten husband with her own black-and-blue body.

"Your husband tried to kill you. I saved you from being pummeled to
death," said Soujiro with a wide smile.

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND JO LIKE I DO!" she cried. "He only misunderstood
what had happened. He's very jealous and it was my fault for not... for
not making him understand. He got the wrong impression..."

"Junko. Junko, where are you? What happened? I can't see," the bleary Jo
moaned, the area around his eyes swelling so badly that he couldn't open
his eyelids at all.

She kissed her spouse all over his throbbing face while hugging him.
"I'm here. Don't worry, Darling. Everything is going to be fine."

Soujiro's grin stretched from ear-to-ear as he wiped the blood on his
fists with a handkerchief. "I was only trying to help."

"LEAVE US ALONE! Nobody asked for your help! Stop sticking your nose
into other people's business!" admonished the raspy woman.

The Japanese gentleman from earlier who wore the foreign ensemble of a
top hat, suspenders, shirt, coat, vest, cravats, gloves, and trousers
had with him several of Sapporo's finest with the intention of arresting
the abusive alcoholic husband before this case of domestic violence
escalated into murder.

To his surprise, the lady whom he wanted to rescue from the clutches of
her abusive husband was sprawled alongside the drunkard, the both of
them battered beyond recognition. "Officers, arrest that boy! He
assaulted my husband!" she claimed, which further perplexed the man
sporting Men's Victorian Clothing.

"Uh, Madam, what are you talking about? You and your husband are the
only ones here," said one of the coppers. Seta was nowhere to be found.


===


Soujiro sprinted across Sapporo as soon as the policemen arrived. Why
was it so hard to do the right thing? What was he doing wrong?

The battered woman named Junko said nobody asked for his help, which
reminded him of Rin Akahori telling him the same statement, more or
less.

He looked as his hands as he avoided pedestrians and speeding buggies by
instinct, gathering enough momentum to scale the newly built buildings
and monuments of Sapporo, Japan's brave new frontier.

The bloodstains remained. No matter how much he wiped or scrubbed them,
he couldn't get rid of the smell, the redness, or the memories.

Back when he was with Shishio's Faction, he only needed to depend on one
truth: That in this world, the weak were food for the strong. If you
were strong, you lived. If you were weak, you died.

As long as he had that truth, the entire world made sense. What he did
to his family and all the people he killed under Shishio's orders
weren't crimes or sins, but a microcosm of the greater truth, the
macrocosm of the Laws of Nature.

What he did wasn't wrong. He was merely following the laws that govern
the world around him.

So why did he cry back then in the rain after killing the stepfamily he
hated so much? Why did this so-called truth hurt so much?

'I didn't want to kill them. I thought I was following the Law of
Nature by killing them, but all it showed was that I'm a murderer with
no convictions of my own.'

That realization cost him his match against Kenshin. Had he avoided this
horrifying epiphany, would he have prevented Yumi Komagata or Makoto
Shishio's deaths? Or, in a lesser degree, Houji Sadojima's suicide?

'It was the weakness of your heart that allowed Battousai to defeat you.
Nothing more, nothing less," the Shishio within Soujiro answered.

'But I didn't want to kill my stepfamily. I wish I didn't. As much as I
hated them, I didn't want them to die, especially by my hand. I wish
there was some other way...'

'Did you really hate them? Was the reason why you didn't _want_ to kill
your abusive stepfamily the same reason why the woman you rescued
stepped in to save her abusive husband?' came Shishio's piercing
questions.

'I don't know. Maybe I should've died that night, instead of them...'
thought Soujiro.

'You wanted to live. To survive. There's no denying that. Stop lying to
yourself.' Soujiro had no idea why, but the Shishio he envisioned sat
on a throne of bones that lay in a mountain of skulls, with Yumi sitting
beside him in pure bliss.

'You and that abused woman are both weak and needy. Desperate for love
and affection to the point that you're willing to delude yourselves into
thinking that a lack of abuse means love and the fact that your abusers
are using you means they need you as much as you need them.'

Soujiro had no answer to that. Shishio continued. 'What you're
forgetting is that your stepfamily, like that piece of shit husband whom
you beat up, deserve death.'

'I wasn't strong. I was actually weak. I heaped one lie upon another,
and it all came crashing down when Himura-san proved me wrong by
defeating me. He proved you wrong as well, Shishio-san.'

'How wrong was I?' Shishio smirked, peering at Seta as though he could
see right through the boy. 'Does it really scare you? Does it really
bother you how good it felt to kill those wastes of space, Sou?'

Another voice echoed inside Soujiro's consciousness to refute Shishio's
claims. 'If winning and being strong makes you right, then it should be
Shishio whom you should believe.'

'Himura-san...?'

Soujiro turned away from the dark ghost of his past and appealed to the
one person who bested him in combat, 'Himura-san, what am I supposed to
do? I try and try, but I could never live up to your example. Why can't
I save people? Should I even bother saving people who don't want to be
saved?'

The Kenshin in his memories replied with the same cruel answer he gave
Seta a year ago. 'If you could find the truth by fighting once or twice,
then everyone's way of living would be right. The true answer comes not
from fighting, but by living your life as you atone for your sins.'

He was a harsh man, Himura. He wouldn't even allow Soujiro a simple
answer, unlike Shishio.

By the time Soujiro completed his lap and again arrived at his starting
point, which was the back alley of the restaurant he left behind
earlier, the abused woman, the husband, the stranger in foreign
clothing, and the Sapporo police offers were long gone.

He slowed down his pace and wiped the sweat that formed on his forehead,
face, neck, and forearms using his bloodstained handkerchief. He jogged
instead of ran towards the Sapporo Agricultural College, scaling the
walls and gates of the school with ease by using his natural speed in
sudden bursts.

He considered giving himself a quick tour of the SAC campus with his
Shukuchi when all of a sudden, he stopped dead on his tracks while
admiring the apparition before him.

Strolling across the grounds of SAC was Rin Akahori, her light blue
kimono billowing thanks to the northern winds of Hokkaido, her slate
gray eyes shining as the moon made her sparkle like a classic Grecian
marble statue.

She said in monotone, "Oh. It's you."

"Good evening, Akahori Rin-san," greeted Soujiro while bowing down and
catching his breath. Strange, he wasn't even panting after running a
veritable marathon across the newly developed city. Perhaps he should
add more endurance exercises to his daily training regimen. Clearly, he
needed to improve on his stamina.

"We meet again, Seta Soujiro-kun." Her shaking eyes that went in direct
contrast to her stony face looked at the young man from head to toe.
"Who are you running away from?"

"Uh..." Soujiro looked at himself. Even after wiping all his sweat, the
front and back part of his shirt were slightly drenched. "Would you
believe, the police?"

"Why? Did you save another damsel in distress that ended up being more
trouble than she was worth?"

"...Were you watching me all this time?"

"No, but apparently I guessed correctly." Rin's lips curled as she...
panted and covered her mouth while shivering at the same time.

"Are you okay?" Maybe she had allergies? Or she was undergoing a
spontaneous asthma attack thanks to the cold Hokkaido climate?

"I'm sorry. I apologize for laughing at you."

'That was laughter?' was the question Soujiro never bothered to ask Rin.
She looked like was having a seizure or was struck by lightning.

"What are you even doing inside the SAC campus at this late hour?" he
queried.

Rin replied, "I could ask you the same question."

"...I asked first."

"Fine. My father has connections with the President and Vice-President
of the college. He's good friends with Mori Arinori-san and he works
directly under the Vice-Chairman of the Hokkaido Development Commission,
Kuroda Kiyotaka-san. Father allows me to take late-night walks in SAC
provided that the guards stationed here know where I am at all times."

"That's not what I meant. I didn't ask _how_ you got in, I was wondering
what you were doing _here_, of all places." Soujiro scratched his cheek
as Rin sat down on one of the nearby benches.

"I like the night. It's a lot less painful than the day. Also, this
college is quite near my home and my father's office. Father feels
safest when I'm here. I can't go anywhere else because of all the people
who are after our family."

"Okay, but do you know what time it is? This is hardly the time for a
young girl like yourself to be up, especially with terrorists lurking
about," Soujiro reasoned.

"You sound like my father," retorted Rin.

"Going out during the night, avoiding the sun like the plague, having
pale skin and gray eyes... What are you anyway, a vampire or something?"
asked Soujiro.

She tittered again like a broken windup doll jerking all over the place.
It horrified and fascinated Soujiro at the same time. "Hmmm. I've been
called worse."

Soujiro raised his hands up in seeming surrender. "I didn't mean to
offend. I forgot that your father mentioned something about you having
sensitive skin."

"The sun did this to me. These are all sunburns."

She then showed a slight burn mark on her forearm and shoulders by
undoing her kimono slightly, which ironically made Soujiro's cheeks
"burn" as well, prompting him to turn away.

The patches of skin looked like they were islands on a map. "Maybe I am
a vampire. If I stayed any longer amidst daylight, I might even turn to
ash."

She wasn't kidding when she said she hated the sun. "I'm sorry. I didn't
know," said Soujiro.

"It's okay. Few people bother to ask," assured Rin, her jittery silver
eyes darting to and fro as though she were about to tear up as she
adjusted her clear, non-tinted prescription glasses.

Soujiro asked before she realized he was staring at her, "What is this
college for, anyway?"

"It teaches the American way of growing profitable crops because the
Northern Japan climate is quite similar to some of the colder parts of
the United States. It also features some of the most advanced teaching
courses in agricultural sciences and botany. Hokkaido should be able to
become a self-sufficient part of the Japanese Empire by the turn of the
century."

"That doesn't have anything to do with why Jiyu Minken Undo extremists
are after you and your father, does it?" Soujiro cut to the chase.

"No. No, it doesn't. But the reason why we were attacked is in a strict
'need to know' basis. You don't need to know, I'm afraid."

"Fair enough."

"I will tell you this, though. They already captured two of the four
criminals. The Jiyu Minken Undo denied any connection with them by
telegraph, while they themselves denied saying they were Jiyu Minken
Undo in the first place."

"What does that mean?"

"Their mentioning of the Jiyu Minken Undo was nothing more than a red
herring. Had they succeeded in killing me and Father, they would've
disappeared and let the rumors regarding the involvement of the Freedom
and People's Rights Movement spread across the masses."

"Why even mention the Jiyu Minken Undo at all?"

"It's elementary, my dear Seta-kun. They dropped the name of Jiyu Minken
Undo because the true perpetrators of the assassination attempt on my
father hates that political party and wants to give it a bad name, so to
speak."

Soujiro's eyes narrowed, which made him look ecstatic because of his
smile. 'The only ones who constantly bring up the specter of the Freedom
and People's Rights Movement and are deathly afraid of an uprising from
them are...'

One of the guards from the school spotted them, but Rin signaled to him
that everything was okay. To Soujiro, she said, "How about you? You keep
trying to save people, but in the end, who will be there to save you?"

Seta shrugged. "I don't need saving," he replied, unsure of how true
that statement was.

"No one needs saving. Everyone should instead learn how to stand on
their own two feet. The only one who could save you is yourself. You
shouldn't be out there, rewarding the weak and punishing the strong."

A wave of deja vu filled Soujiro, feeling as though he'd already had
this conversation (albeit one occurring entirely in his head). "What's
wrong with protecting people? It's a nobler pursuit than killing the
weak and defenseless to prove that you're strong."

"What's wrong with it? For every person you rescue, one has to die. If
you're protecting the weak, then you're enabling them to continue being
weak and completely dependent upon you."

"The point of being a hero is to be the one to protect those who
couldn't protect themselves."

"There are people who never even asked to be protected. What gave you
the right to save them? Why should they be grateful about something they
never asked for in the first place?"

Soujiro winced, remembering the woman who rebuked him for helping her
out. He also remembered the people he failed to save and the people who
ended up in a worse situation because of his efforts to help.

"You never answered my question earlier. Why are you doing this? What
are you getting out of this? Why do you keep trying to save everyone?"

"To save myself."

Rin paused for all of five seconds before asking, "Has it worked?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you feel like you've 'saved' yourself by saving me and my father or
any of the other people you've rescued all this time?"

Soujiro didn't know how to answer that.

"At the very least, I'm doing something a lot more constructive than
what I did in the past. I'm atoning for my sins. Someone much stronger
than me told me that the only way for me to learn my truth is to live my
life as I atone for my sins."

"Are you really? If you haven't realized why you committed all those
sins of yours way back when, you're doomed to repeat them, no matter how
pure your intentions are."

"How arrogant are you? You think you know all of the answers?"

"I probably don't. But at least I'm not naive enough to follow one
answer or another without questioning them first. Are you even doing
something you want to do or you _think_ you're supposed to do?"

"Then what am I supposed to do? All year long, I've been trying to do
the right thing. I've been rescuing people. Helping them. Saving them.
You're telling me that I'm wrong? That I'm not supposed to save them? I
am looking for my own answers the only way I can!"

"The only way you can or the only way you were told you could? Do you
even care about these people you save, or are you saving them for your
own sake?"

Rin adjusted her glasses and stared straight into Soujiro's eyes.

"Look harder. Don't be afraid to question these ideals of yours or try
to make sense of them instead of doing them without any understanding
about why you're supposed to do them."

"Ojousama, your time is up! Your father wants you to go back to the
mansion now!" said a guard not from the school but instead from
Akahori's Sapporo Estate.

"Okay, just a minute!" Rin turned in time to see that Soujiro had
already disappeared. She whispered to void that Seta used to occupy,
"What are you running away from?"


===


Tired beyond words, Soujiro rolled up a futon and slept... or rather,
closed his eyes and engulfed himself in darkness while still fully
conscious... wondering how Kenshin would've answered the Akahori
daughter's impudent words and accusations.

Knowing how humble he was, Himura probably would've accepted a couple of
her arguments. Those who didn't wish to be saved need not be forced to
be saved. He shouldn't be blindly saving people if it could possibly
worsen the situation. He shouldn't be rescuing everyone for his own
sake.

No, Kenshin wouldn't have cared about whether he was right or wrong.
What he cared about was the welfare and wellbeing of those around him.
He'd been gifted with the strength of a wolf, and he used it to protect
the lambs.

'I'm not wrong. Protecting weak people in need instead of claiming some
sort of sense of superiority over them isn't wrong. There's nothing
strange about wanting to do good deeds without expecting anything in
return.'

From being the Hitokiri Battousai, Kenshin recovered his humanity piece
by piece every time he protected the smiling faces of the people around
him. He swore not to kill and found a new strength.

Soujiro nodded to himself. He'd prove Rin wrong. He'd show her that he
could gain the strength that Himura possessed by protecting the weak and
the closure that Kenshin achieved by picking his rurouni self over his
hitokiri self.

'No matter what, I will prove Himura-san right. Like him, I will protect
those in my midst. He found his happiness by helping strangers in their
time of need, so I'll do the same. I will not stand idly by and see the
people around me get hurt or suffer while I'm gifted with this sword
skill. This power. I will make something out of myself, just like
Himura-san did.'

As he succumbed to slumber and saw his victims staring back at him, he
heard a cackling voice atop a mountain of skulls mock, 'How ironic.
Battousai himself told you to stop blindly following my teachings and
find your own truth, and yet here you are, desperately clinging to his
words and blindly following him.'


===


'I was too hard on him.' Even Rin knew that much as she covered herself
up with the thick blankets of her Victorian-style bed. 'Did he even
understand what I was trying to say? My bad habit has resurfaced again.
I've said too much. He may have gotten the wrong idea.'

She shouldn't be sleeping, actually. It was around this time that she'd
be reading her father's books under the lamplight. Even though she had
bad eyesight, she was nearsighted, so reading books right in front of
her face wasn't a problem.

She usually slept in the morning, while the sun was up. Yesterday was an
exception because it was one of the few times her father wasn't busy at
work, so they both decided to take a ride around town. Big mistake.

Then again, she couldn't help but feel tired from the conversation she
had with Soujiro Seta. To think, she was sharing a time zone with the
motherlands of the Oyatoi Gaikokujin (Hired Foreigners) that frequented
Hokkaido and were tasked with its urban development...

She grunted and blew her bangs upwards. She felt like tearing entire
tufts of her white hair at the memory of the naive, bobbed-hair boy, her
pale complexion becoming as light pink as a carnation, from what the
moonlight revealed. Maybe it was her bad eyesight in action, making her
see things that weren't there; she wasn't sure.

Strangely enough, she didn't even mind Soujiro calling her a vampire.
She thought that was a cute and on-the-nose observation. It made her
laugh, at least. She hadn't really romanticized her condition that way,
although she probably should've been more insulted by the remark than
anything else.

No, it was the way he clung to these beliefs without a second thought
(or a first thought, at that) that rubbed her the wrong way. Like sheep
to the slaughter, he believed his ideals were right without realizing
the pain or damage he was doing to himself and others by following them.

'He means well, but he shouldn't stick his nose into other people's
business recklessly. He might even make their problems worse. He really
thinks he could save everyone, not realizing it's at the cost of
himself. He won't be able to save himself that way.'

The hairs on the back of her thin, snow-white neck stood on end as they
felt a prickly heat that scratched her skin raw. It reminded her of the
darkness, and the creatures that lurked there.

Even though she hated the light of the sun, she despised the darkness
too. In the dark were monsters... real ones... she couldn't even begin
to comprehend, doing things to her that left her confused and loathsome.
They were worse than vampires.

She closed her eyes and dreamt of the sun, burning away her clothes,
hair, skin, and bones, turning her into ash. From the ashes stood a new
her, like Suzaku, reborn and without hatred or fear of the light. Away
from the monsters lurking in the darkness.

However, instead of heaven, she saw hell. The sun burned too hotly, too
painfully. Her skin felt like it'd melt. She didn't turn to ash, but it
felt like she was being skinned alive until only her muscles and exposed
internal organs remained.

The darkness had retreated, but in its place was damnation itself. She
opened her eyes, and the blurry fires didn't go away. Was she seeing
things again? Smoke surrounded her room as the flame ate away
everything.

Rin coughed as she drowned in hellfire just short of the brimstone.
Everything was real. Horribly real.

Teary-eyed and suffocating from the fumes, she screamed, "FIRE! THERE'S
A FIRE! PLEASE, SOMEBODY HELP!" she screamed, but the roar of the flames
drowned out her voice. "ANYBODY, PLEASE! FATHER! FATHER, HELP ME!"


===


Soujiro awoke to the sound of a bell clanging. It was a good thing he
hadn't unpacked his things yet in his first night at the Sapporo inn,
for the guests were already leaving thanks to a fire that had already
spread around half of the building he was staying at.

He walked with the milling crowd, his duffel bag in tow, until he
reached the exit, where firefighters and local volunteers went hand-in-
hand in helping out extinguish the flames.

"What's going on?" Soujiro asked one of the volunteers who were passing
pails of water alongside the firefighters who were hosing down the
flames.

"A nearby mansion was caught in flames. Nobody knows how the fire
started. It's owned by some hotshot daijin working under Governor
Kuroda," he said, then added, "Between you and me, I believe foul play
was definitely afoot. I heard the state minister ad his daughter was
almost assassinated by the Jiyu Minken Undo extremists. They probably
came back to finish the job."

The blood on Seta's head drained from his face as he clenched his fists
until his bloodstained knuckles turned white. The Akahoris. They were
probably trapped inside their burning mansion after the remaining (and
alleged) members of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement served as
the arsonists that started the fire from the get go.

As Soujiro was about to unleash his sprint of sprints in order to make a
quick beeline into the Akahori Mansion, he heard a mother cry out to one
of the members of fire brigade. "My baby! My baby is trapped inside our
room! I went out to buy some dinner for him, but when I came back...
Please, please save my baby!"

"Where is he located, Ma'am?" asked the fireman.

"On the second floor, on the west wing of the inn. The third room to
the right of the stairs. Please, hurry!"

The firefighter took his hat off and grabbed the mother's shoulder. "I'm
sorry to say, Ma'am, but the fire had already spread across that portion
of the inn."

"No! NO! If you're not going to rescue him, then I will!" said the
mother, which prompted the firemen and some of the volunteers to hold
her back. "LET GO OF ME! I'M THE ONLY ONE HE HAS! I DON'T WANT TO LOSE
HIM LIKE I DID MY HUSBAND BACK IN NAGASAKI!"

Soujiro disappeared, moving at top speed towards the burning house.
Three minutes later, the soot-covered Ten Ken emerged from the flames
(because he was afraid of what would happen to his "shipment" had he run
using the full Shukuchi speed), walked towards the hysterical mother,
and smilingly asked, "Is this your baby?"

The mother embraced and kissed Soujiro's cheeks as she retrieved her
beloved and crying infant son from his hands. The firemen and the
volunteers applauded Soujiro for his deeds... one of them scratching his
head, wondering how exactly did this random boy know where to go and
what had happened to the woman's baby... before hearing the edge of the
inn's west wing collapse and the fires start eating at the center and
east wing of the building.

"There are still several people trapped inside the east wing!"

"MAMA! PAPA! They're still inside!"

"Has anybody seen my husband? He's a tall, thin man wearing western
clothing!"

Soujiro grabbed hold of a firefighter and asked, "The mansion where this
fire started, has it already burned down to the ground? Didn't the
firefighters make it in time?"

"Uh, it probably will be the last building standing, to be honest. It's
fully insured and holds one of Sapporo's  most influential people inside
it, so most of the fire brigades should already be there, rescuing
people and stopping the blaze from spreading!"

Seta let go of the fireman and made his decision right then and there.
'I still have enough time. Just you wait, Akahori Rin-san. I'll save
you. I'll save them. I'll save everyone and prove you wrong.'


===


Next: Secrets of the past.

The Meiji Government wanted to cover their tracks and bury the
skeletons inside their closet, unaware that one of their own is
presently gathering all those secrets for his own personal gain.

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.

Say my name,
Abdiel
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