Hidden Past

Chapter 4

Recap:

1:54 had passed.

She was taken aback when her world turned to black.

1:55 had passed.

Hatori looked at Kaoru when she fell forward when he pressed a pressure point in her neck. Sasame took her from his arms.

The other children too were knocked out by Hatori and taken away by Sasame, she took them to a room hidden under their home.

Sasame stared at them while she closed the hatches.

“I pray that they don't find you children.”

1:58 had passed.

Sasame and Hatori prepared themselves for what would become of their peaceful day.

1:59 had passed.

They stood ready.

2:00 had passed.

All Hell broke loose.

Sasame and Hatori tensely went outside to greet their guests. The moment the 2 hours were up, they sensed various presences established on the front of there home. Once they made it outside they searched the area.

Surrounding the two, were approximately ten men, all armed with swords and guns. But the one Hatori kept his focus on was the man in front of the others. Hatori sighed once again, he had a nasty feeling that he wasn't going to get out of this alive; Sasame shared his sentiments exactly on the matter at hand.

“I see that you went out of your way to dispatch the children under your care instead of preparing for this encounter. It seems that you are still that kind hearted fool you were back then.”Said the man in front, his eyes telling the things he planned to do to them.

All Hatori could do was chuckle. The figure smiled, but not a normal one, this one was full of malice and insanity. The ones behind him froze in fear, too scared to even move. And glad that this man was on their side.

“I'm guessing you're still a bloodthirsty ass, right?... Udo Jin-e?” Hatori said this with a face full to the brim of fake joy.

“You don't know the half of it my dear friend.” Jin-e had been itching to try his blade on Hatori for years and he was going too finally get his chance to spill his blood.

Hatori took up a sword stance and prepared to fight for the little happiness that he had acquired throughout the years. Sasame also took a stance, but a more familiar one, the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. Only difference was that she had a sword instead of a shinnai.

Hatori carefully slid his eyes from opponent to opponent, looking to see who would throw the first punch. Sasame too was watching with caution, her eyes had a battle ready look on them.

Their enemies also waited to see who would start the unavoidable event. A tense silence engulfed them, the wind ruffling their clothes slightly and the dust kicking up giving it a battle appeal.

A single leaf fell from the top of a tree slowly making it's way to the ground. It's steady pace bothered no one, the others paid no heed to the lonely leaf, when it fell to the ground and the tip touched the earth, the signal was flared.

Five of the samurai to Hatori's left charged at him with their swords ready. One came to his midsection another to his shoulder, he raised his blade vertically and blocked the hit to his side, he twisted his weapon quickly while knocking him over with his leg, He forced the katana out of the man's hand and hit him with the back of the sword, knocking him out.

To the other blade coming his way he ducked and smashed his handle to the guys chin. The three that were left went at him at the same time to try to overwhelm him, to bad it didn't work. They thought that by coming at him from different sides they will have a chance, tough luck. Hatori stopped the attack to his front with his fingers while he halted the two others in their tracks with his sword. Hatori took the katana in his fingers and pulled, freeing it from it's owners hands.

Hatori then pushed the other two with his sword, he turned quickly and swung his sword to the two's chests. The blood sprayed out of the wounds in floods, but none got on him for he was already getting rid of the one left.

His opponent tried to dodge the hits coming his way but he was no match for Hatori's speed, the head of the perpetrator hit the ground with a soft thump.

Jin-e watched the scene with glee, “I am going to have fun killing you and your wife.” He didn't hear that so Hatori ran to where he still heard sounds of sparks flying, he made it to see that Sasame was just finishing with the last of them.

“You okay?” He asked.

She was walking towards him as she answered.“Yeah, don't worry.”

He released the breath he didn't know he was holding.”Good. Because if you were hurt, somebody would be living for the rest of his life without his procreation system.”

She giggled, “You don't think I can hold my ground?”

He sweatdropped, “Hehehehe...sorry.”

“Good, good, good. You're still in your game...but it's still not enough to beat me.” Jin-e's grin stretched even more across his face.

Hatori took to his stance once again and without moving his eyes from Jin-e's figure he mouthed.'Run away. I'll keep him busy for a while.'

She shook her head no and mouthed back.'I will not leave you.'

Hatori sighed at her stubbornness and felt something wet slide across his cheek, he breathed in what he supposed was his last peaceful breath before his impending fight with Jin-e.

“Let's get this over with Jin-e.”

One second later and all you could see were the sparks of three blades crossing each other.

(WITH KAORU)

'Ugh...What happened...?' Kaoru was trying to get the feeling back into her sore limbs,'Ouch, my neck hurts a lot.' She was digging in the back of her mind to try and remember. 'The last thing I remember doing was talking to Hatori and Sasame. After that I really don't remember anything that happened.'

Kaoru then stood up, stumbling, but she still managed to stand her ground. Her surroundings were a deep black, she could see nothing. She rubbed her eyes, letting them adjust to the poor, almost none existent light. The only available light came through some miniature cracks above her. She looked around and found that she could see faint outlines. Kaoru vaguely heard noises from above her but dismissed them when they stopped suddenly.

She headed over to the nearest outline. Because of being so close to the person on the ground she could at the lest tell who it was.

“Hey. Heeeeeyyyyyy.” Kaoru was lucky, the person she first found was Aki. She shook and kicked her softly but firmly to make her come to her senses.

“Five more minutes...” Aki mumbled tiredly, but Kaoru kept kicking her, Aki had a frown on her face.

“Leave me alone!”

“Nope.”

“Please.”

“Hu-uh.”

“Why not?”

“Because we're trapped inside who knows where and you are making it difficult to escape.”

It was now that Aki took notice of the place she was in. She looked frightened as she finished looking around her. Seeing nothing but pitch black save for the few strands of light that escaped the cracks, her fear doubled.

“Where a-are we K-Kaoru-chan?” Her voice was tiny and echoed pitifully inside the room they were in.

Kaoru gave her a sad glance but remembered that she couldn't see it, so she answered instead,” I don't know. But I think that it would be better if we stayed here. I have a very bad feeling that just doesn't want to go away.”

It was true, since Aki had found that blasted dagger a bad feeling started to make its way trough her stomach, and now it almost made her puke.

But Aki had not listened to a word that Kaoru said, instead she was almost half way to what seemed to be a stair case. Kaoru fumed, “Aki! Don't go there!” She whispered furiously while making her way trough the sleeping bodies that hindered her greatly.

Aki hadn't ceased her pace at the least, instead, it seemed that she increased it. Kaoru cursed under her breath when she stumbled across, “Aki! Please! Stop! Don't be so stupid!” If Aki had heard Kaoru she made no move to acknowledge the request.

While Kaoru was still stuck in the middle of the room Aki was already going up the stairs while shaking terribly.

Kaoru looked up to her in hopelessness, but saw nothing but a faint shadow. 'That's it!' Kaoru was not about to be beaten by unconscious bodies so she didn't care anymore about the people on the floor, she started to run over to where she last saw Aki's disappearing outline.

As Kaoru finally made it to the stairs she sighed in relief, but headed straight back to worrying because Aki was not at the stairs. Then a light blazed into the room, Kaoru blinked countless of times to force her eyes to adjust to the new brightness. But when they did adjust she sighed once again in relief when she saw Aki at tho top of the stairs.

“Don't you ever scare me like that again! What were you thinking in that peanut sized noggin of your's!” Kaoru still was a little bit upset but, she really didn't care anymore. Kaoru laughed in an attempt to get Aki to join, but instead of a response all she got was a nasty gurgle. That had her worried. Kaoru began to turn her around when she started talking.

“Hey, what's wrong A-” Kaoru broke off in mid sentence. Her face unreadable the moment Aki was face to face with her. Kaoru turned completely numb, her body, her feelings, her mind and her heart.

"ki..." Kaoru felt her hands fall to her side as she was consumed in...nothing, pure nothingness threatened to enslave her being. Kaoru couldn't believe just what she was seeing.

Aki stood there, unchanging, unmoving, unfeeling, unliving. Her eyes bore themselves into Kaoru's similar eyes. But Aki's were much more worse, they were so terribly...Dead, so...DEAD.

Kaoru's were numb, almost life less in feeling, but, they were still alive. But what caused Kaoru's terrifying reaction was that...the dagger they had found...the same freaking dagger that had started this...was deep inside Aki's stomach. The handle was the only piece that could be seen, the rest, was inside Aki's body.

Kaoru stared numbly at Aki, watching as the blood covered her once white kimono, staining it a dark crimson.

Because Kaoru didn't take her eyes of Aki, she didn't notice when the dark shadow engulfed her and Aki.

Not until he spoke that is.

“Well, well,well. What do we have here? Are you one of the parasites that lived here?” Kaoru raised her head to him but said nothing. Not one sound escaped her lips, not even when Aki's body tumbled over her, slid down Kaoru's body to the ground,into a large puddle of her blood. Aki's blood left a trail of blood on her, but she still didn't move. Kaoru's eyes were faced in the direction of his face but it was like she was actually staring past him, she couldn't keep her focus on anything at that moment.

Jin-e was known to have no patience, so he spoke with an irritated tone.

“Listen here brat. I have no intention of leaving anybody that is inside here alive so just sit still...no, ignore what I just said, run. Run as fast as you can...so I can kill you!” His face held a dark and insane expression.

But Kaoru didn't move a fraction of an inch, she was as still as a statue, looking, but not seeing. He let out a irritated sigh. He didn't like to wait so he decided that if she wasn't going to run he might as well have some fun killing then.

Just as he raised his sword and aimed at Kaoru, another blade came flying at him from nowhere, it hit his and instead of his sword hitting her it hit the ground beside. Even though this happened, She still didn't move.

“Kaoru!” This time a feminine voice called out to her. In the back of her mind she knew it was Sasame, but her conscious mind just couldn't form a coherent thought.

“Bitch.” Jin-e muttered under his breath.

Two strong arms grabbed her and pulled her so fast that she thought that she going to be pulled apart. Kaoru was squished in the arms of Hatori, and Sasame was by his side both were panting like crazy, and injuries covered there bodies from head to toe.

Kaoru laid not reacting to anything that happened around her. Sasame looked at Aki's body and gave a heart wrenching sob, her shoulders had dropped in defeat while painful sobs wracked her body. Hatori hands tensed an unimaginable amount under her. He slowly put Kaoru down and gave her simple instructions.

“Run and don't look back.”

It took Kaoru a while to process that but even though she couldn't move, her body reacted on it's own. She was running before she could comprehend the things that were happening. Even though Hatori told Kaoru not to look back she did, and immediately regretted it. Her feelings returned to her in a horrifying wave of despair and stinging painful fear. Her scream left her mouth before she could stop it.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

“Kaoru-dono!”

Hope you like this chapter! See you later! R&R Please! - (smooch!)