Falling
by L. Sith
Chapter
6: Retributions
Inspiration
didn't strike Saitoh until well past midnight, and it came from the
most unlikely of sources, but even vermin could make themselves useful
at times.
Saitoh kicked the Ishin corpse at his feet. It would do. He swung his
katana downwards and severed its head.
"What are you doing captain?" His second-in-command asked.
"Preparing a gift fitting for a lady." Saitoh said as he lifted the
skull by its hair.
All he lacked now was a bento box.
****************************
Moronic
orders deserved moronic responses, so with his bento box in hand,
Saitoh headed for the Takagi's 'first thing in the morning', like he
was ordered to. His nightly patrol had just ended, and the predawn
grayness still shrouded the city - etiquette normally prohibited
visitors from calling on their hosts at such an ungodly hour, but a
samurai's duty must come first, and if such duty and personal interests
should coincide, killing two birds with one stone became an issue of
efficiency.
Besides, Saitoh looked forward to hearing Tokio
chirp to HIS tune. It was time to force the unconditional surrender of
that silly fool.
He pounded on the front gates of the Takagi estate and barked,
"Shinsengumi business."
That
small phrase usually brought a household's inhabitants scrambling out
of their domicile at their topmost speeds, either to comply with his
every whim or to try to kill him - he didn't much care which, for such
events provided a welcomed break to his otherwise monotonous day. And
as usual, he wasn't disappointed. A servant - half dressed, out of
breath, and barefooted - rushed to pull aside the heavy gates to let
him in. But before he could enter, the servant fell to his knees.
"We are innocent, samurai-sama!" The man cried out repeatedly while
banging his forehead against the stony pavement.
For
a moment, Saitoh was almost tempted to ask what the servant was
innocent of - spontaneous confessions often produced such fascinating
and blackmail worthy material, things that could later be used against
adversaries like Tokio. But Satioh dismissed the impulse; he hardly
needed help to sink the girl.
"I'm here for Takagi Tokio." He cut in.
The servant looked up in confusion. "But ... but she's still asleep,
sir."
Which
was the whole point. Saitoh had wanted the girl dragged out of her warm
bed and into the chilly spring morning just to do his bidding, and to
show her who was in charge. However, his scheme depended heavily on the
servant acting with all due haste. So to encourage the proper behavior,
Saitoh thumbed his katana out of its scabbard. That sent the servant
scrambling off, almost running for dear life. Perhaps he ought to ask
the servant to hand Tokio over to him in chains; unfortunately, he
didn't have any with him and he doubted that the servant would keep any
around.
Too bad, next time.
Saitoh stepped past the
entryway and invited himself into the estate; the servant had departed
in such a zealous haste, the man had entirely forgotten to usher him
in. Saitoh strolled into the central courtyard. Even though the place
had none of the gaudiness that marked most merchant residences, he
could still smell the money in the air. The courtyard was larger than
the public square, filled with frivolities that must have cost a
fortune, like the intricate carvings on stone slabs underfoot that no
one would ever pay attention to. No wonder Tokio ended up such a brat,
her father probably threw money at all her problems and made them go
away, giving her the illusion of invincibility. Well, he planned to do
society, and the girl, a favor by knocking some sense into her.
Besides, revenge was always sweeter when served hot.
He smirked.
The
servant soon returned with Tokio in tow. And like a terrified villager
appeasing an angry god, the servant pushed Tokio into his presence like
a sacrificial virgin. But to her credit, Tokio acted more like an
abducted princess than a hysterical blood sacrifice. He wondered how
long the little kitten could keep her composure before her mask fell
off.
Tokio dipped to her knees with all the aplomb of a highborn
lady, and bowed deeply - even more than protocol required, "You honor
us with your presence, Saitoh-sama. How may this unworthy one be of
service?" She said in a melodic cadence that played like music to the
ears, sounding not one bit angry or frightened, just silky smooth, and
after her bow, she even kept her eyes demurely downcast.
It
almost made him wonder if the servant had found the wrong person in
haste. But the girl before him had the same slender eyebrows, the
identical pair of large brown eyes, and even the small red lips looked
no different - it had to be Tokio.
"You look horrid." Saitoh
said just to get a rise out of her, not that his statement was a
complete lie - too many strands of hair escaped her high ponytail, and
she was dressed in a light yakuta instead of a formal kimono. By all
social standards, she was a mess, but strangely, the imperfections
added to her beauty. Wisps of her loose hair cascaded down by her heart
shaped face, framing her delicate features, and the yakuta displayed
the slenderness of her waist in a way that a kimono never could. Not
that he felt compelled to point out all his observations, only the ones
that would crack her 'miss congeniality facade'.
But instead of
growing angry over his insult, Tokio bowed again. "I shall attire
myself more properly in the future. Please forgive my negligence."
And
Saitoh's jaw nearly dropped. The girl might look like Tokio, but she
behaved nothing like her - perhaps Tokio had a saintly twin. Or a very
stout mask.
No matter. He had the girl firmly in the palm of his
hand, and he knew ways and more ways of cracking her under pressure. "I
have something for you." He growled into her ear while pressing the
bento box towards her. "Open it."
The girl eyed the object in
his hand with obvious fear, and he gave her a bloodthirsty smile just
to push her to the edge of panic. Oh, his revenge was going to be
delicious.
"I'm unworthy of such a gift." She bowed again, and took the
opportunity to wiggle slightly away from him.
Not
that it fooled him any. He had seen much more impressive escape
attempts before. So the girl wasn't such an ice princess after all, the
kitten had shown her little tail. It was time for her to grovel for
mercy. "I insist that you accept my generosity." He grabbed her hand
and forced it towards the lid of the black lacquered box.
She started struggling so hard she toppled the box over.
And its content rolled onto the stony ground.
The
servant behind Tokio gave a terrified scream then dropped in a dead
faint, and Saitoh expected Tokio to follow suite, but she simply looked
at the skull curiously. No groveling, no retching, no going pale, not
even fear. Nothing
In fact, her reaction was so anticlimactic
Saitoh wondered which part of his plan had gone awry. He thought he had
her all figured out, but she acted like she wasn't even human.
"That
is so exceptional." Tokio said, seemingly in admiration. "I've never
seen anything like it before. Did you get it from the gaijins? Or did
you do it yourself?"
And Saitoh found himself staring at her
with no idea how to reply. What was she talking about? But whatever it
was, he didn't like her tone, it sounded a little too happy - almost as
he had showered her with gifts. Did the girl like corpses? Maybe he had
made a bad mistake coming here with an object of her sick obsession. He
had known that she was not quite right in the head, but he had
attributed it to her lack of common sense, not psychosis. She was
supposed to be frightened out of her wits.
Or maybe he did too good of a job and had caused her to snap
permanently.
He hoped Tokio wasn't going to start howling at the moon.
"The smell ... do you use chicken blood?" Tokio asked.
"I
am a samurai in middle of a city, where would I get chicken blood?" He
asked incredulously. Her questions made no sense - the girl's brain was
a scrambled mess. Perhaps he should have gone with the roses, he didn't
know how unstable the female mind was.
"Hmm ... the gaijin
spend their time making such strange things." Then like a kitten
curious about a new roll of yarn, Tokio half crawled towards the skull.
And Saitoh had a sudden image of her rolling the severed head
between her hands like a toy. Some concepts disturbed even him. He
grabbed her arm from behind and stopped her progress. "Go back to your
room."
Tokio reached towards the skull with her free hand. "But you said I can
keep it."
He
distinctly remembered saying no such thing. The girl was insane.
Revenge aside, for the good of society, she should be committed to a
mental hospital. Maybe he ought to check with the local police for any
unsolved serial murders, just in case this psychosis predated him. "You
are not well. A girl should not be playing with corpses. You need
help." He flatly declared.
Which only earned him a blank stare.
"What are you talking about? Isn't that a wax figure?" Then, a light
seemed to dawn on her, and all the blood drained from her face. She
started retching. "What kind of a psycho murders someone just for a
sick gift?"
And for the second time that day, Saitoh found
himself speechless. That girl's behavior changed faster than the blink
of an eye. He had no clue what Tokio did with wax, but perhaps she
fashioned it like play dough, no wonder she praised the skull like a
work of art. At least there was nothing wrong with her. But that also
meant she had foiled his perfect plan for revenge - this required a
reformulation of strategies. However, before he could sort out all his
thoughts, Tokio reached towards him.
For his daisho pair.
The
action was so incredibly stupid and unexpected, Saitoh got caught
staring while she grasped the hilt of his katana and tried to draw it.
But her angle was completely wrong - her motion required her body to go
one way while his grip on her other arm required her to go in the
opposite direction. So the blade only moved a few inches before getting
stuck in its scabbard, and she half hanged onto it, trying not to fall
over. "What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to kill you." She said with such composed and determined
sincerity, he had no doubt she believed it.
Nor
did he have any doubt that she still believed in tooth fairies. While
he admired her for her courage, this was the most inept assassination
attempt he had ever seen. She had zero chance of slaying a trained
warrior, twice her weight, even under best of circumstances, much less
while kneeling at his feet. And she dared to draw his katana? Bushido
required him to kill anyone, including another samurai, for offering
such an insult. The girl had a death wish. "What do you think you are
doing? I can behead you for just touching my weapon. And even if you do
manage to kill me, it will only grant my children the right to
slaughter your entire family."
That paused her for a second from her endeavors. "You have children?"
"No,
I ..." Saitoh didn't know why he even bothered explaining. He could
feel himself being sucked into her vortex of warped logic - he needed
to regain the conversation, fast. "Why are you trying to kill me?"
"Because all it takes for evil to triumph is for a good man to do
nothing!"
"You are not a man."
"So you admit you are evil!"
Saitoh
sighed. The conversation had deteriorated into absolute nonsense, in
fact, it was beginning to resemble dialogues from melodramas - Yamazaki
was right, Tokio was entirely out of touch with reality. Bushido
required him to execute her for slighting his mettle, but he might as
well be squashing a bug for crawling on the wrong object. The girl
wasn't evil and posed no threat to society at large, and being ignorant
isn't a crime; otherwise, Takeda would already be dead.
In the
end, Saitoh didn't know whether to laugh or to make her cry. He just
wished that she didn't live in such a fantasyland of her own - it was
impossible to threaten a naïve fool who had no survival instincts.
Tokio
drew him out of his thoughts by giving his katana another small tug.
She certainly was persistent. And part of him even grudgingly admired
her for her efforts to carry out her own version of 'aku suku zan'.
But the girl really could use a dose of reality.
He
slapped her hard across the wrist, and she yelped and released her grip
on the hilt of his katana. He wondered how he ended up in such a
ridiculous fix. He supposed he could still kill her and try to explain
it to Hijikata. Or, he could pretend that nothing happened and head
back home to his bed.
He opted for the latter. He had had a
long day, and the girl was giving him such a pounding headache. "Just
don't tell anyone about your run-ins with the Shinsengumi."
And having fulfilled his orders, he shook his head and walked away.
But before he could make a clean escape, Tokio called out after him, "I
don't want your head! Take it with you!"
He didn't even bother to respond to that one.
*********************************
Saitoh
woke up slightly after lunch feeling even more exhausted than when he
went to sleep. The image of Tokio cheerfully dribbling the severed head
like a bouncing ball plagued him the whole night, and it still bothered
him - he didn't know why for he had seen worse in real life. But
bothered him it did.
And unsettled him she did.
He had
never met any woman like her before. They usually either trembled
silently in his presence or prattled on incessantly until he told them
to shut up. None of them had ever dared to disagree with him, much less
provoke him. Women used to fit into such nice and neat categories. But
she turned all that upside down.
Her influence was like a
loose thread in his mind, the more he pulled on it, the more everything
unraveled. But he hated loose ends, so he tried to eliminate them
wherever they arose. By pulling on it.
He slammed open the shoji door of his room and stepped out - only to be
greeted by an enlisted men.
"Hijikata-sama wishes to see you." The boy bowed respectfully.
Saitoh
wondered how long the idiot had been waiting outside of his room. He
dismissed the kid and headed out to the bathhouse for a quick shave. He
had a pretty good idea what Hijikata wanted.
And as soon as he stepped into Hijikata's office, the black bento box
atop the desk confirmed his guess.
"Would you like to explain this to me?" Hijikata asked.
But
Saitoh didn't know where to start. Should he begin by telling Hijikata
how deeply disturbing Tokio was? That she was more dangerous than
anyone had thought? That she had somehow prevented him from exacting
his revenge without him even realizing it? That ...
In the end, Saitoh opted for the shortest answer. "No." He had nothing
to explain.
It
earned him a quizzical look from Hijikata. "In that case ..." Hijikata
paused for several seconds, as if trying to recover from an internal
confusion. "I'm assigning you to guard duty for Kondo-sama for the next
month."
In other words, baby-sit stupid politicians. Every
Shinsengumi captain dreaded that task, but for once, Saitoh didn't
mind. Guard duties usually took the whole day, and that meant he would
be spared from attending the mixers and he would never have to see HER
again.
Good, let someone else deal with that psychotic.
Saitoh nearly thanked Hijikata for the favor.
---------------------------------------------------
Next Chapter: The Visitor
Special thanks to Kamorgana for pre-reading.
*************************************
Japanese terms:
Yakuta - Japanese bathrobe.
Gaijins - Europeans.
Daisho - The long and short sword pair that samurais wear.
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