Through the heavy rain, Keiji stood to the side, panting for breath as wiped the mud from his face and regathered his strength for a moment. The rain fell in delicate drops across his katana and armor, leaving tear-drop trails in their passing. Around the katana's tip and hilt the trails turned pink as the blood that had accumaleted on both mixed with the tears of the sky. Overhead he could hear the roar of dragons and the cries of the combatants around him over the storm's thunder.
"You have done well," Kazuo gasped as he leaned against the defiled katana where it stood out of the mud, "To bad you must die. Too bad you didn't die young, you wouldn't be feeling the pain you feel now, it would have been so painless then. I can see you wince with every step and move you make, you have been fighting since the sun rose, haven't you, young man? Too bad the sun will soon set upon this day, and soon Keiji, you will be in the night."
"I am hardly beaten, Kazuo." Keiji countered as he straitened his shoulders, surpressed a shiver from the cold that had settled between the armor and his skin, and ignored the pain from the bruises, cuts, and strains from the day. He was tired, Kazuo didn't lie, but as odd as it was, too much emotion, too much raw will ran through his veins at this dreary moment He would not to be stopped by such trivial nusnances.
Everything mattered on this. Nothing else mattered till it was over.
"I see that, then why do we need to waste words, especially between enemies?" Kazuo replied as he pulled the defiled katana from the mud and leveled the soiled tip up Keiji and the blue katana.
"No more words, then." Keiji replied.
Keiji answered by springing forward, the rain flailing in a silver veil around him and his katana, as he arched for the massive man before him's chest, well and ready to end it all in one deadly strike. Overhead he heard the sharp cry of what must have been Koreikyo as he and his sister battled on. They, Keiji decided resolutly, no longer mattered. Only a end to everything did he desire. Nothing more.
The katana bared its silver fang and was ready to pierce the the chest of Kazuo when a second blade, a wakitashi, flared out of some hidden sheath. Keiji found himself pulling back and landing ackwardly in the mud, a long and narrow slash that had torn its way through the top part of his armor and scored a red line across the skin beneath.
It burned as Keiji turned in time to see the older man advancing towards him the two blades poised, ready to finish him.
Keiji regathered himself and was ready to counter Kazuo when the two blades crashed down upon the violetnly against the blue katana and Keiji shook from the force of the two downward seeking blades, each ready to end his life should he falter now. He could see sparks coming to life where the rain water and friction of the three blades meet and as they slid and scraped against one another.
He could feel the tiredness of his arms, even his bones ached from the long day. Father...he begged silently. Yet the samurai did not come, nor did Juzo. They were abscent. Two clever eyes and the twin katanas were what answered him. She was with him, somehow he knew it. Risako was present, yet he couldn't see the woman anywhere near him, but he had seen her eyes and the glare of her twin katanas as they glared at Kazuo beside him as though she had been there the entire time.
He broke the gridlock and forced the two blades back with a angry hiss of metal. Kazuo took a surprised step back, but then plunged forward a second later. Keiji dove under the defiled katana's attack and with a vicious strike, sent the wakitashi whirling away from the battle to land somewhere in the mud, away from Kazuo.
Kazuo grinned and brought the defiled katana around for a second sweep which Keiji dodged and was ready to come up under Kazuo's guard when Kazuo drew a dagger from its hiding place and stabbed Keiji's shoulder.
Dazzed, Keiji stepped back as he furiously yanked the weapon from his shoulder as he dropped to his knees from the pain the threatened to overthrow him. He looked up in time to see the dark form of the man swooping in for the kill, and Keiji went to counter act him again when his shoulder ceased to function and his left arm suddenly hung lifeless beside him.
This was the end, the fate Tamafune had showed him was true he though darkly as he tried to defend himself with his katana, one handed and half strength supporting it. He glared at Kazuo. He would have that small satisfaction, the knowledge that Kazuo never saw defeat and death in his eyes, though he was certain that it lingered in the shadows. Yet he would take that with him...to join his father. They both had failed, he thought with gloom.
Here, was his last stand.
From somewhere to his left something moved, but little did it matter to him, all that mattered was not letting Kazuo win so easily. He was broken, not dead.
Kazuo, intent upon the kill, slashed forward, ready to kill the man he had crippled. Victory this day would be his!
Suddenly another form appeared between him and Keiji. Kazuo leapt back weaponless as the blade of the defiled katana lodged in the chest of another who had jumped between the two of them at the last moment. Keiji looked upward, horrified as the defiled katana glared upon him in a bloody red fang from the back of Conlan's armor.
Conlan fell backwards and keiji moved beside him, intent to remove the blade and save the older man. A gnarled hand stopped him.
"No Keiji, its too late." Conlan coughed, "Wait till I am gone. I hope your father can forgive me for not saving his life instead of yours all those years ago. But I am finally going to be reunited with them, my kenin! I hear her calling me, Keiji, calling me home. You will do us all proud, a shougan could do no better, that much I can foresee! Live long...son of my dear friend...this day will be but... a faded memory...of a unpleasant past...in the future...goodbye and remember me and my family..."
Keiji felt unshed tears brim to his eyes as the older man died his eyes looking off into some unseen land Keiji knew nothing of. The old knight had deserved better than this, not this miserable end on a miserable day. He deserved his wife and son, but not this way. It should of been he, Keiji, defending him at a moment of need, not this. He reached for the hilt of the defiled katana and pulled it free, as quickly as he dared and turned to face Kazuo where he had remained silent throughout the small drama that had occured before him.
He leveled the defiled blade upon Kazuo, the self sytled damiyo of Bandithaven. Keiji dared to glance at the blade to see that the blood upon it had vanished and that the rain had erased some of the darkness in the hilt. He could see hints of the former crimson and warning golden diamonds. Yet Kazuo smiled and Keiji could see the glitter of another blade, possibly the lost wakitashi.
"Well then," Kazuo began, "Today has been a great day indeed. The nusnance of the Ronin leader, old Conlan was it, has been vanguished and the son of the former kenin of my Bandithaven, once Dansha, what a ridiculous name, has a cliped wing and my katana. Yet, you aren't long for this world are you, Keiji? I can see the edges of glass around your eyes. How tired you must be, let me lure you to your sleep!"
"I still have enough time left to end this, Kazuo. You never had a right to Dansha nor this katana. Time you pay the price of your theft, bandit." Keiji answered as he advanced forward, the crimson katana bared and ready.
As if to herald Keiji, the two dragons crashed to the earth, Tamafune pinned beneath her brother as he coiled himself to pin her to the ground and to force her to watch what was about to transpire. Keiji heard the dragon growl, "Watch the end, Tamafune. Its over. The gods will have it as they wished to in the beginning."
Keiji strode forward, left arm trailing behind him and the right and blade bared and ready to battle.
"How ridiculous you look! Fighting one armed! How absured! Here, let me test your strength, you cannot have much left. Ha! Your pain and death have made you delirious to the truth of the defeat that lies before you. You are a dead man walking, Koreikyo has played a trick upon you." Kazuo taunted as he advanced forward, his taunts sharper than the concealed blade.
"Am I ridiulous or are you afraid to face me as I am?" Keiji growled.
"Very well then." Kazuo answered as he took a tenative step towards Keiji.
Keiji sprang forward once more and the concealed blade...yes it was as he guessed...the wakitashi...met and glanced off the blade and the katana slashed off a piece of Kazuo armor and scored a wound across arm as he parted, turned around and made to attack Kazuo's mid section and finish his opponent off when a bellow went up from the man, "TAMAFUNE!!"
The black dragon aswered by a small wall of mud standing erect and as Keiji watched in horror, the mud became flesh and Keiji was forced to slash at the ground to keep from harming the shivering man that had been created between him and Kazuo. Before Keiji or the man could react, Kazuo had reached around, grabbed him by the hair and held the wakitashi a hair's breath away from his throat.
"Care to loose your father again, Keiji? I killed him once and I can kill him again. His life is in your hands now." Kazuo demanded as a roar of outrage erupted from Koreikyo and Keiji took a menacing step forward.
"Keiji, my son Keiji? Here? Where?" the man wheezed as he struggled against his captor and his eyes searched around him.
"Here I am father." Keiji answered through gritted teeth at the man using Masake as a living shield.
"You are as I hoped you would be, my son." Masake began, "Now then, end it. Do your duty."
"Silence, you!" Kazuo growled as he edged the blade closer and Keiji saw a singled droplet of blood run across the tip of the wakitashi.
With that, Keiji noted with some humor, Masake from either surpris or some unknown force, shoved his shoulder backwards into Kazuo's chin and he flipped him forward, squarely before Keiji.
"No!" Keiji heard the black dragon cry as she struggled against her brother and the ground in which he pinned her to.
A swift kick from behind sent Kazuo forward and closer to Keiji.
Keiji didn't hesitate this time, he advanced forward as Masake watched from behind their target.
Kazuo, realizing he was undone, bowed forward, a massive jumble of apologies erupting from his mouth and the murkey mud.
"I swear, I'll make right!" was the end of the torrent.
"How can we trust you? You have plundered, most likely raped, burned, and pilaged our land. You are a villian and deserve a villian's fate." Keiji answered, taking another forward step.
"I'll make things right!" Kazuo pleaded.
Keiji raised the katana and rested it upon his shoulder, "You deserve death, but I cannot strike a helpless man as you did Conlan. He gave his so I would honor his sacrifice by sending you to be his slave in the halls of his ancestors. Stand up, take your weapon, and fight with your fate. Neither my nor my father's pardon can forgive the terrors you have done here."
Keiji stepped back and watched as the man took the fallen wakitashi and made a shakey stance to face Keiji. Then he grinned as he sprang forward.
His attack was aimed for the katana, but the helpless arm that trailed at Keiji's side. Outraged, Keiji whirled around and the crimson katana found its target.
Withering, Kazuo fell into the mud in the final throws of life. Keiji remained unmoving as he watched until Kazuo slowly stopped moving and the heavy gasps that marked the attack soon ceased. He waited a moment more and waited till all was silent. Then he turned to face Masake.
"You did well, Keiji." Masake sighed as father and son stood side by side after ten years.
As if a final sign of victory the dark shadow that had been the dark tower of Bandithaven erupted into flames and over the crest of the hill that Keiji and the Ronins had crossed into battle, the gold and white banners of Baiko emereged.
"Excuse us," Koreikyo explained as he grabbed Tamafune by her shoulders and ascended heavenwards, "I'll be back, however."
"Its over." Keiji sighed as he drew a deep breath.
"Yes, it is finished." Masake replied, "Let me see my katana, son."
