FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination 
mobile edition|
Author of 20 Stories |
Vocab: buke – warrior class (literally 'martial families')
"Don't be so sure that my life is the one that would end first!" Kanbei said with the barest hint of anger in his voice.
"Look here," the enemy officer holding twin swords responded with more than a hint of impatient scorn, "You pick your priorities. You can either choose to salvage your wounded pride by trying to destroy me in a duel, or you can do something for your friend, who can't possibly flee this place without help."
Kanbei cast a quick glance at Shichiroji. The blond lay sprawled on the ground. His eyes were closed and his pant leg was stained with blood.
"I cut a major artery, but he still has time." the shinobi woman standing behind the enemy samurai announced matter-of-factly. "That is, if the castle does not blow up first."
Kanbei turned to face the tall pale-skinned commander once more. His dark eyes narrowed.
"It serves me no purpose to kill you, since my forces have already accomplished what they came here to do." The warrior with the blue-black hair stated. "You and I can fight to the death here, or you can leave this place without incident while there is still time. The choice is yours."
Kanbei lowered his blade with slight reluctance. But the next moment, he decisively sheathed his sword and went over to his fallen aide. The commander shook Shichiroji's shoulder lightly and patted his cheek. "Kanbei-sama…" Shichiroji murmured weakly as he regained a degree of consciousness. Colonel Shimada helped the younger man to his feet and turned to leave. But something made the dark man pause for a moment. There was a familiar ring to the enemy samurai's voice. Kanbei was sure he had heard it before. But where? Then came to his mind the tall Southlander he saw in the Northland village of Kaneda eight years ago.
They say, when you address a demon by its name and without fear, you take away some of its power.
"Tashiro Haruhiko," Kanbei spoke without turning to face his enemy. "Is that you?"
Haruko was surprised. It was against policy for a Special Forces soldier's identity to be publicly known. How did this man know her alias? Was there an intelligence leak? The victorious officer felt vaguely uncomfortable but she showed no reaction.
Without waiting for a reply, the dark samurai went on. "I should have killed you then, if I had known this day would come."
Now Colonel Shimada turned his head so he could look the enemy commando in the eye. "You told me you were not in the army." The dark man said accusingly. Haruko stared back at him with unblinking coal black eyes.
"So… it is you… I regret I never learnt your name then. Though I guess now you must be Colonel Shimada," the reply came through the commando's face mask. "I did not lie to you when we first met. I was not in the army at that time. Someone as honorable as yourself would not have killed me then even if you could see the future."
"Then perhaps honor is my downfall," Kanbei responded in an unreadable tone. "Why did you decide to fight in the war? The Southern clans don't conscript the women of the buke. You must have volunteered."
"I joined the Army of my own accord because I thought I could be the kind of humane and just soldier that you are. A jingi no samurai," the reply came with a cold, bitter laugh. "But now I see that I was wrong. I am not like you."
Kanbei regarded his adversary with an icy expression. Shichiroji was by now quite conscious, though still groggy. He stared from Kanbei to Haruko with confused blue eyes.
Yaeko too looked uneasily from her commanding officer to the enemy commander. The air between the two tall warriors, one pale, one dark, was heavy with the weight of present doubt and past guilt.
"By the way," Haruko spoke to Kanbei once more, "My little brother thanked you for the stuffed toy. He would liked to have met you in person."
"And where is your little brother now?" Shichiroji could now hear the undisguised anger in Kanbei's raised voice. "Is he here, killing my men?"
"No, he's not under my command. At this moment, he is probably fighting in Akashima Province," came the cool reply.
Kanbei's jaw clenched visibly. But the man's voice was even when he asked, "Before we part ways, I'll like to know why Takeo betrayed us."
"Takeo? Is that the Raiden's name?" the Confederated officer responded. "Your friend did not betray you. What flew into your base was a soulless shell. Your comrade does not live in that body anymore."
"What did you do to Takeo?" Now it was Shichiroji's turn to shout with what little strength he had left.
"Nothing much. You'll be pleased to hear his brain is still alive. Though disembodied."
"You rat bastard!" Shichiroji screamed. "You son of a b-!"
"We'll give your friend a new body after the war. It just won't be as imposing as the old one - probably a factory reject Mimizuku." The 'man' said charmingly in 'his' deep smooth voice. "And watch your language. There's a lady present."
"What lady?" Shichiroji glared at the ninja woman as his outraged voice quivered. "That's a professional butcher! A murderous, underhanded b-!"
"She's no more a professional butcher than you are." Tashiro Haruko's eyes narrowed. "Now leave!"
Two men, the younger supported in the strong arms of the older, made their way down from the fourth floor of Irakawa Castle, stumbling through corpse-lined hallways. Samurai, some still holding their swords, had fallen left and right. The ninjas did not come to take prisoners.
"Everyone evacuate! Abandon the castle now!" Colonel Shimada shouted as he dragged Shichiroji along, hoping against hope that any still-living samurai left in the castle could still hear him.
There was no response. If only the intercom was still working, then he could warn everyone. But Kanbei knew the line had been cut.
When they reached the first floor of the fortress, the hallways were littered even more thickly with dead bodies. This was probably where the enemy commandos met with the most resistance.
Kanbei and Shichiroji recognized the dead faces of men they had once eaten and drank with. Still, Kanbei called out again and again . "Everyone, evacuate!"
The only answer was an eerie silence.
"Shinji-dono and Hideki-dono… Are they still in the command center?" Shichiroji asked Kanbei suddenly. The dark commander did not reply.
"We must go back for them!" the aide said weakly.
"There is no time," came the matter-of-fact reply. Kanbei continued to drag the younger samurai forward without the slightest pause. He knew, much as it pained him, that he probably only had time to save one.
"When the castle is destroyed, Shinji and Hideki will probably perish," the Colonel realized, "My last order to them has sealed their fate." Shimada knew that Captain Sanou and Lieutenant Izumi obeyed him unquestioningly, and that meant the two samurai would stay in the command center until Kanbei returned – or until the castle imploded. Shimada felt sick at the thought, though he placed some hope in the reinforced metal walls of the commander's room. Maybe those walls would hold. But would the floor hold up?
As they passed through the hallway outside Hangar 1, the Colonel stubbed his foot against yet another dead body. He looked down and saw the corpse of Major Machida, his former aide. The man who six months ago had saved Kanbei's life now lay dead with a shuriken embedded in his neck. But Colonel Shimada did not stop in his stride.
"Yes, I'm the type of man who walks over the dead bodies of his comrades," Kanbei remarked to the groggy Shichiroji as he stepped over Machida Mahiro.
As the aide staggered on, Shichiroji was vaguely aware of the blood seeping through his trousers as he felt more and more faint. "Leave me and go, Kanbei-sama," the aide whispered. "I'm not going to make it."
Kanbei laid his friend down on the floor. Then he removed his own jacket and ripped off its sleeve with his teeth. Quickly, he bound up Shichiroji's wound with the torn fabric. "That would slow the bleeding," he said reassuringly to the blond. "You will live."
Then Kanbei carried the younger man down one more floor to the river level of the castle, an enclosed waterway that led out to Ira River. Kanbei sat the weakened aide against the castle wall, then he quickly punched in his access code on the key pad of the castle level's storage room door. The metal door slid open. Within the room were the individual escape pods intended for use in an emergency. The commander dragged one of the coffin-sized pods to the boat landing. Without wasting a second, he laid his friend in the pod. Colonel Shimada set the control panel of the coffin-shaped box to auto-pilot mode and was about to close the lid when he made the mistake of saying, "Farewell, Shichiroji."
That was when the semi-conscious aide realized his commander was staying behind. "Wha-?" the blond started.
Shichiroji did not get to finish his question before the Colonel shut the lid of the escape pod and pushed it off the landing into the water. Kanbei had watched Shichiroji grow from a boy into a man. He did not want to watch him die. Then the tall samurai turned away and sprinted up the stairs to the castle's first floor as the fiberglass case glided towards the exit that led to the river outside.
"Kanbei-sama! Kanbei-sama!" The commander could hear Shichiroji's muffled screams grow fainter. He knew he was out of time to save the rest, but at least he had to die trying.
Shichiroji struck ineffectively at the clear bullet-proof glass imprisoning him inside the escape pod even as he drifted towards the castle's exit. He wanted to get out and go back to Kanbei.
"Kanbei-sama!" the pale young man cried out weakly once more. But his cries were drowned out when loud explosions tore through the fortress. Concrete blocks and pieces twisted metal fell left and right into the water around Shichiroji. The exit was only meters ahead. For one who wanted to live, that opening to the outside world would seem so close and yet so far away. Only that Shichiroji did not want to live. He wanted to die with his commander. Yet that choice was not his to make. For at that moment the weakened samurai passed into unconsciousness against his will. The twenty-five-year old drifted into oblivion as the pod drifted out into open water.
On the opposite bank of Ira River, a Raiden sat with its head bowed, its posture almost like that of a human in deep dejection. Standing beside the giant mecha, the Confederated Army Special Forces commandos and their tall samurai commander watched Irakawa Castle fall in a deafening series of explosions.
The north wall of the castle crumbled into the swirling brown waters of Ira River as the ninjas looked on impassively, except for the youngest commando, who was little more than a child. "Wow…" the youthful shadow warrior mouthed silently, staring awestruck at the fireworks bringing down the mighty fortress.
Next to Commander Tashiro was a kneeling woman. This female commando was cradling the body of the ninja Kanbei had killed. Yaeko, her wounded neck now wrapped with a bloody bandage, looked upon the other woman's gored face without revulsion. The kunoichi was speaking to her former comrade in a strange voice that might have sounded comforting in another time and place. "We succeeded, Suzu. We destroyed them. We could not have done it without you. Now everything will be all right. We're taking you home."
"War is an ugly, ugly thing." Major Tashiro said to herself. "It changes people into monsters. But perhaps we need not be monsters or fight monsters for much longer. The end is in sight."
If the strategies of the Confederated Army high command came to fruition as planned, the Allied Forces would be crushed and this seemingly interminable Great War would soon be over. The Major and her ninja commandos successfully carried out their role in the plan. Now it was time for the rest of the Confederated Army to do their part in the battle for the West.
See Wolf Warriors Ch 3-5 for the Kanbei-Kyuuzou-Haruhiko history. When Kanbei first met Haruko/Haruhiko, he sensed an equal worth dueling. Haruko/Haruhiko chose not to fight Kanbei not because she was certain she can't beat him but because she has other options and other priorities. Sun Zi's Art of War put forth the idea that the ultimate in the Art of War is to win the conflict without fighting. In Retribution chapter Revelation, Kyuuzou apparently believes that Haruko could have killed Kanbei if she wanted to.
The choice of Hangar 4 as setting is because one of the kanji pronunciations for the number 4 has the same pronunciation of the kanji for 'death;.
- "May 'honor' be a trap to him, be his downfall, his doom" was part of a curse little Kyuuzou placed on Kanbei in Unforgiven. Maybe it's a coincidence that Kanbei said, "Then honor is my downfall," in this chapter. Or maybe not.
perhaps the ninja infiltration in this story is the reason why Shichiroji says later to Heihachi in S7 that the most dangerous adversary is a spy or traitor in their midst.
one could say Kanbei learnt from this defeat – he used Haruko's 'infiltration by giant mecha cargo compartment' trick in S7.
