125. Behold, the Bastard's Blade
The sun rose into the sky over the moat of the Royal Palace,
setting the black clouds over Kyo aflame with a red glow. In the remnants of
the guardhouse below, Saffron Morrigan stood tall before Todo Heisuke, who suddenly
looked much smaller. Watching as the blond swordsman allowed the Shisengumi to
rise back up, Sabine felt both relief and anger bubbling up inside her.
To her left, lying in a scorched puddle of her own blood
and sweat was the wounded body of Miyako Bara. In the direst hour of these two
women's lives, a deathbringer had arrived just on time.
Wrapped underneath Saffron's vibrant blond bangs was a headband
with three interlocking circles in the center, on which Todo's eyes were locked.
"Come what," Saffron spoke, "lapsed be thee
at my trinket?"
"The Iga clan..." Todo murmured. "They're
here?"
"I've not come to brabble." Saffron reached back
and grabbed the ruby hilt of Rosencrantz. "Rivo, at thine mark! By the venting
of thy vaultage doth the battle-luster vade."
Incredulous, Todo took a step back. "Wh-what the
hell did you just say?!"
With a snap, Saffron's arm arched back and around, whipping
Rosencrantz out toward his enemy. Left with only enough time to parry, Todo was
thrown backwards yet again, overwhelmed by the man's force.
This time Saffron did not stop, and was on the downed warrior
like a mad dog. Awakening to the danger, Todo desperately evaded the slashes. A
chain of explosions crackled out from Todo's body, riding along flame-razed
psynergy.
Saffron raised a gleaming silver gauntlet, took the blast head
on and rode it backward across the moat with ease. Finally, he used his own psynergy
to change the stream's trajectory, knocking out a section of the Imperial Palace's
moat wall in the process.
Shaking cinders off his armor, Saffron flexed his arm and
began moving forward again. After catching some breath, Todo took a good look at
the sword for the first time. Extending out from the ruby hilt was an unusually
wide katana with a tempered edge of crystalline steel.
"Muramasa," Saffron sounded out. "Th' likes of
such qualified stithing mine eyes hath ne'er peeped."
When Todo heard the name Saffron dropped, his horror only
increased. "Muramasa...the demon bladesmith? He crafted a blade for a
foreigner?!" Todo frantically activated a watch-like contraption
and looked for the result. "A-Class..." His lips remained open, as if
he planned to say something more, yet failed in the process.
Todo swallowed fear and looked at Saffron with bold eyes. "Todo
Heisuke, 8th Captain of the Shinsengumi. I will fight you to the
death, invader of justice."
"Saffron Morrigan, the Hellflower," he replied. "Let
us cut each other up, feyling."
In the next second, two sonic cracks sliced through the putrid
atmosphere. The first happened when the two swordsmen leapt from their positions
on the ground, and the second when their psynergy-infused blades met with each
other, releasing torrents of force.
By now, the guardhouse on the western corner of the Royal
Palace had been completely flattened, and the walls of the inner moat that supported
it were also beginning to crack. At the height of the ear-shattering parry,
Todo released an explosive blast. With a vibrant yellow aura, Saffron burst through
the smoke, lashing out once more. Sparks and cinders exploded into the atmosphere
with each clink, and while Todo's form was impeccable, there was nothing to
match the Hellflower's raw power.
Parrying an upward strike, Todo shoved forward and curved downwards
in an attempt to twist Saffron's wrist. With only his left arm, the foreigner
was able to push Todo backwards, and their strikes continued. Every time his
blade met Saffron's, Todo made sure to let loose a crippling explosion, but
despite getting singed and scraped, Saffron only seemed to come on stronger.
Todo panted. Another sharp swing from Rosencrantz-Muramasa
sent a numb sensation running up his arm.
"Prithee," Saffron smirked. "Whatfore art thou?
A man or a mouse?"
Hearing that, the 8th Captain burned with silent
frustration, and the words of his mentor echoed back into his mind.
"You have great potential, and are capable of becoming
strong. But your name shall never echo in the heavens as a woman."
From the moment his mentor Ito Kashitaro spoke these words
during Todo's seventh year, he had thought of nothing but masculinity.
That Todo possessed the body of a woman was a quiet secret
to which only choice members were keen. Femininity was something he had sacrificed
in order to join the Shinsengumi, a militia that forbade female recruits. Todo
Heisuke thought of himself a man. He was treated by his comrades as a man, had
become famous in the world as a man, and intended to die a man.
For the past 20 years, Todo Heisuke had faced unending
adversity that threatened and tried to deny his identity, but with a cold blade
at his side he had been able to press on, climbing over mountains of his
enemies' corpses. He was a man – a man who fought as well as any other man. But
when he felt himself losing ground against Saffron, a dark voice in Todo
Heisuke's heart made him waver, wondering if all the naysayers who he had withstood
until now had all been right.
"No woman could ever beat a true man in battle."
What came out of Todo's mouth next was too shrill and primal
to be understood. Then, an explosion larger than Saffron's field of vision
enveloped him. Instead of unleashing a single attack, the Shinengumi pumped
psynergy blast after volatile psynergy blast through his blade. He went so far
as to endanger his own body, overpowering his own psynergy index and burning his
skin within the eye of the storm.
After minutes of destruction, the smoke cleared. Saffron remained
on both legs, with blackened armor and reddened skin. Flames leaped from the
edges of his hair, and he looked a veritable hellbeast.
"Aye, man..." Saffron licked his dried lips.
"Thou may giveth me a bedlam battle yet."
Assuming he had the advantage, Todo dashed forward with his
blade outstretched, but Saffron's body eclipsed his view before he could even
finish his stride. Rosencrantz crashed down hard overhead, and a hiss erupted from
the katana as it clashed with his own.
This time, instead of pushing hard, Saffron raised his blade
and began repeatedly crushing it down on Todo from overhead, gradually knocking
the warrior back further and further. A shrill laugh erupted from the Dog,
reveling in the burning pain as he pressed on. Before the swordsman could stomp
his metallic boots on Todo's sandals, the Yamatoan turned heel and ran, leaving
a small explosion in his wake.
The path lining the moat between the inner palace and the
outer wall was big enough for two people to run down side-by-side. Beyond the
moat was a steep castle wall, which housed not only the Royal Palace, but a
small town's worth of houses for guards, royal servants, and other personnel.
This inner citadel had already been freshly painted with
black yokai blood
*************
stained the sandals of Satoka, Chiaki, and Azuka as the
three women dashed toward the entrance to the Royal Palace. Once a maze of tiny
chambers and claustrophobic stairways, it now bulged with pipes and machinery, clashing
with the castle's classic wood and stone architecture. All the Shinsengumi equipment
snaked upward to the Emperor's chambers, where Azuka knew Tani Sanjuro waited.
While some weak yokai remained, the palace was mostly
vacant, and the women made their way through the mess of stone and metal in no time
at all. Soon, they reached a long, tatami-floored hallway lined with tattered picture
scrolls and walls etched with elaborate patterns. At the end stood a pair of
gold-and-black doors, beyond which Azuka could sense a muffled tin aura. They
had reached the end of the line.
Azuka burst through the doors. Standing in the center of the
dome-shaped room was the burly figure of Tani Sanjuro, the 7th
Captain of the Shinsengumi.
"Only three left, I see." Tani smirked. "Not
bad for a hurried job, I suppose. I've been waiting for you, Empress."
But Azuka was unfazed – in fact, she wasn't even focused on
the mustachioed spearman. Her eyes had been drawn up to the eastern wall, which
had become a spider web of wires, screens, and wood. One of the panels in the
upper left corner displayed a man in his early twenties sitting in a chair
painting on a wall-sized canvas with black sumi ink. Trailing out from the back
of his head were thick wires, connected to terminals that surrounded the young
man like dominoes.
Brush strokes expertly arced across the canvas. He leapt up
and around, with masterful skill, drawing all the while. Wild strokes formed a
horn, two eyes, a wide, gaping, fanged mouth, curly hair, and a spiked club in
one hand, and soon, a rough sketch of an oni was complete.
Mechanical whirring echoed through the small speaker in the
viewing screen. Inky black psynergy bubbled around the young man's body, and in
a flash, a three-dimensional oni stepped off the canvas and into reality.
The man exchanged only a look with the oni, then it walked
out of the room.
"Who?" Chiaki couldn't believe her eyes.
"Who is that?"
"My brother," Azuka spoke in disbelief.
"The key to our conquest." Tani sneered. "Oh
Empress, I think you know him well."
"What have you done with him?" Azuka's voice
shivered. "What have you done with my brother?"
"Not much...yet," the Shinsengumi cackled.
"Trust me, we could do much more."
Following that, Azuka let out a guttural roar that
*************
echoed throughout the palace, and would have reached the
ears of Todo Heisuke had he not been in a mad rush down the western side of the
royal moat.
The 8th Captain only made it three steps before he
felt a torpedo of psynergy coming at him from behind. Turning around at the last
moment, he just barely missed being skewered in the back by the Rosencrantz-Muramasa,
attached to Saffron's hand by a chain stained with blood. As Todo swerved, the
keen blade of the katana cut straight across his robes, slicing through stomach
flesh and absorbing the blood as it continued.
Blocking out the pain, Todo grit his teeth and, with a
grimace, brought his own blade in a failed attempt to break it. By that time,
Saffron was already in the air, shadowing his prey with an unsheathed Guildenstern.
Todo released another explosion from within, melting through both psynergy and
the blade's chain, then wrenched his body around at a speed so fast his brain was
unable to catch up.
Unfortunately for Todo, neither his speed nor his instincts
proved worthy enough to fight off the foreigner. The lack of an extra
split-second left his right arm bent in a weak parry with a slanted blade, and
his back was wide open by the time Saffron reached point-blank range.
Had Saffron been attacking with his left hand, the combination
of Todo's resilient stamina and honed body may have been able to hold off the
Hellflower. But Saffron brought down Guildenstern, which he always held with
his right.
Like the paper of a screen door, Todo's katana was cut in
twain – and with it, his right arm, from the palm straight up to the crux of
his shoulder. Guildenstern stopped embedded in bone, inches from Todo's face.
Saffron alighted on the ground with a thud. "For prey that
runs loose, I've nary a use."
With a splat, two halves of the right arm Todo had spent every
day of his life honing hit the ground, followed by a mosaic of blood. It was as
if in a second, Saffron had reached into Todo's body and plucked out his very
soul.
Time seemed to flow in slow motion, and Todo Heisuke could
watch every individual drop of blood leave his gaping cavity. What is this feeling?
Have I truly been defeated by a man, at long last? Or... Todo Heisuke was
drawn into the glinting madness of Saffron's eyes. No, this is no man...he's
a monster!
"I heard 'twas a capital of demons," the Hellflower
cooed. "But alas, I've yet to descry a single one."
At the very least... Todo
struggled to regain control of his body. I can die honorably.
A mechanical sound whirred from behind the man's ears, and
Todo's eyes glazed over with a ghostly light.
"Shin-Kei-Sui-Jyaku."
With a glow, psynergy surged into every piece of skin and
drop of blood lining the man's gored arm, each bit of power acting as a catalyst
for a different explosion.
"Bakkyaku."
Red-and-black clouds of fire bloomed one after another, filling
the moat and incinerating the outer wall on the spot. Within seconds, the western
side of the Imperial palace was bathed in fire.
Swallowed up by his own explosions, Todo became less dense
than the colder air surrounding him, which pulled the warrior up in a violent updraft.
Vertical columns of vacuuming smoke sucked up dirt, rubble, and whatever else was
hot enough, rising into a massive mushroom cloud that towered over the northwestern
tip of Kyo.
As the dome cloud expanded, more and more of the land was ripped
from its surface, resulting in a massive crater that leveled the western side
of the inner citadel. The northern side of the moat, which stemmed from the Ima
River, soon began to flow into the palace.
Todo Heisuke's right arm had been incinerated, along with
his hair and his clothes. He was naked, but that mattered little now. Above all
else, he was a warrior, and he had sworn to fight to his dying breath.
Saffron Morrigan utilized the updraft, a yellow bullet
piercing through smoke. Despite the dense psynergy that caked the man's body,
the extravagant silver plate mail that once covered him had been blown to pieces,
along with the chains and tunic that had decorated the swordsman's chiseled extremities.
Painting his face was a mad grin coupled with wide, bloodshot
eyes. In his right hand he gripped Guildenstern, and in his left, the Rosencrantz-Muramasa
that Todo had been unable to sever from its chain. Two blades flashed, and crimson
lines splashed up vertically from Todo's body.
Todo Heisuke closed his eyes with satisfaction as he hit the
ground. Saffron landed next to the sprawled-out body of the warrior, his own
body a red-and-yellow mess. Power pulsated from both blades resting on his
shoulders, but the man's eyes were dark.
"I ask thee again," Saffron said coldly. "Man
or mouse?"
The surrounding area was a maze of smoke and baked earth,
sloping down to the bottom of the crater, where the two combatants now faced each
other for one final time. All the power dissipated from Todo Heisuke's body,
and the glow evaporated from his eyes. Smoke wafted out from the back of his head,
and he struggled to pick himself up with nothing but his own exhausted muscles.
But he was still in one piece. Despite all his failure, he
had not fully balked to his enemy.
Memories kaleidoscoped in his brain: when he first met up
with Kondo Isami and Hijikata Toshizo, when the nine of them were chosen to
create the Shinsengumi, and when he reunited with his childhood mentor, Ito
Kashitaro, and began on a plot to overthrow both the squad and the government
itself in order to instill Ito as its new leader.
"I know," Todo Heisuke whispered softly,
"that hypocrisy runs deep through our ranks. And I was trying to do all I
could to change that, but despite knowing the truth, I cannot bring myself to feel
any pain for all the death and destruction I have caused. Regardless of the
results, regardless of the fact that I utilize foreign technology to combat
foreigners, I believe that I have lived my life honestly, as an honorable
servant. It is because of that, Saffron Morrigan, that I can die without regrets."
Saffron stared down at his defeated prey with bored eyes.
"A true man speaketh with action."
"You're absolutely right," a third voice croaked
out from behind Saffron, as the bloodied body of Sabine Cune plunged a fragment
of Todo's katana into the Dog's naked neck. "Now die, you bastard..."
Next: Aquarian Ataraxia
