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Doc : Yoshinaga Gorou
Kechapoo : Manzou Kagetoki
Kechapoo : Manzou Kagetoki
The sun hung at its zenith, beating down with relentless force. For a moment Gorou gazed up at it, but only for a moment - not nearly long enough for him to ask himself why he hadn’t followed Manzou’s example and found a straw hat of his own. Both Heralds had been traveling for nearly a day, and after stopping briefly to rest had taken to the roads of North Rukongai once again.
It seemed that until then, he hadn’t been able to appreciate how everything about the city’s earlier districts reminded him of peacetime Edo. It was far better for his nerves to simply relax and take the journey step by step, rather than worriedly obsess over their destination. Upon meeting back up, the old man had been fairly quiet.
“Gah...!”
The raven-haired man groaned aloud listlessly, making audible the sores in his knees and the soles of his feet. Reaching up and pulling the hat off, his head craned nearly all the way back as he walked, exposing his eyes to the rays of the singular star in the sky. Internally, Manzou mulled over exactly why he decided to forego the wooden sandals he typically wore in favor of the woven waraji adorning his tired feet now.
The Herald was typically never one to take to heart any advice other than his own---at the very least not anything Shimura advised him to. Why he had now, of all times, made his moist brow furrow. The sweltering heat melted it back into flatness the same as the rest of his expression.
“Why is it so fuckin’ hot,” Manzou spoke aloud, peering around the bland town and its similar citizens. “There’s gotta be a bathhouse around here somewhere.”
Following a puff of smoke, Gorou briefly scanned the area and came to the firm conclusion that his ability to navigate Rukongai was still terrible. That they had even made their small bit of progress at all had been thanks entirely to Manzou, even though a man such as he would never admit to not knowing the way.
“A dry heat,” said the old man whose only layer of clothing was a light cotton yukata, “cool water will do us good.” His quiet demeanor failed to express his disdain for heat. Back in Edo they didn’t have machines that kept the air cool. Only water could do them any good, and so they set off.
Little did they know that a conniving figure had been following their trails for some time, and had overheard their conversation. A crooked grin spread across the vagrant’s face, and he took off.
“Hey!” an infantile-like call rang out, aimed in the general direction of the two officers. “Hey, you!”
At first, Gorou ignored the boy’s cries and continued to walk, but the second call grabbed his attention. The last time he’d turned his attention to a child in the middle of Rukongai, it had gotten out of hand. He turned and beamed a stern glare.
The samurai’s eyes met the grey-green orbs of a young, pale brunette-haired boy with what seemed to be a natural florid blush about his bulbous cheeks. A red band wrapped around his round head, its tied and tattered ends hanging from his temple. His kimono was colored the same, the sash holding it together a deeper crimson.
“Can I see it?” he asked enthusiastically, glaring at Gorou.
One red eyebrow raised up following the boy’s question. Against his better judgment, Gorou made eye contact and gave the youngster his undivided attention.
“Speak up. What is it that you want to see?” Though his tone was harsh, it was quiet. Speaking to children wasn’t something he often did, and unless he watched he’d end up sounding far more cruel than he meant to be. In this case he likely just came across as a strict old man.
“Your sword!” the boy shouted.
For just a moment, Gorou lowered his eyes to Gunshin in its place on his hip and could nearly hear the violent spirit crudely laugh. The same question had been posed to him before by another child, and his answer remained the same. Through a disapproving sigh, he looked back at the boy.
“This is not a toy,” he said curtly.
With almost unbelievable speed and ease, the boy’s expression transitioned from glee and awe to utter despair as if Gorou’s sword had been his and the sanguine-haired officer had stolen it from him. The deepest frown that Manzou had ever seen in his life melted just above the boy’s chin, the bottom lip quivering exaggeratedly. Swollen tears seeped from the corners of his eyes and, a moment later, the adolescent’s cries filled the avenue. All eyes turned to the kid and the samurai standing in front of him.
“I WANNA SEE IT?!” he begged over and over. “WHY CAN’T I SEE IT?! WHY?!”
The Sixth Seat panicked quietly, his eyes racing back and forth in their sockets.
“Gorou...!” Manzou hissed through his teeth, gesturing a stiffened hand back and forth across his throat. “Keep him quiet.”
It was enough that Gorou had to deal with the panicking child. Gaining the unwanted attention of everybody on the street was more akin to icing on their disastrous cake. He kneeled down to look at the boy eye-to-eye.
“Do you know what a samurai is, otouto-san?” The old veteran spoke quietly, a tactic he commonly used with children under the assumption that they’d imitate his tone.
The child’s eyes gaped wide open as his excitement peaked, narrowing an instant later as he assumed the same covert facade as the samurai across from him---albeit tenfold more serious than Gorou’s.
“Yeah,” he said as if one-hundred percent sure of what the sanguine-haired officer was talking about, his eyes shifting back and forth to their corners with exaggerated suspicion leveled on the passersby now paying little to no attention to the pair. “Samurai’s go around killin’ bad guys and challengin’ other samurais ta duels, right?”
A little grin crept across Gorou’s face, which he then repressed in order to maintain the seriousness by which the child had suddenly been inhabited. That his legacy and the legacy of his former brothers in arms still lingered made him proud.
“Sometimes, yes, a samurai’s job is to hurt people. I know this because...” he began to lower his voice in preparation for what he’d say next, “I am a samurai,” he paused for a moment to let his whispered revelation sink in.
The child reeled back and gasped loudly before silencing himself in favor of his dedicated covertness.
“And I can only show my sword to...’bad guys’ and other samurai. You would have to be bad or a samurai to see it, and that’s why you can’t,” the redhead stood up and exhaled.
A fist formed in one hand and pounded into the open palm of the other, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks.
“I see, I see,” he said, shaking his head knowingly. “I always wondered you guys were always so serious about everything. Now, it all makes sense!” Standing to his feet erectly, the boy drew the samurai the stern beam of soldier. He spoke with surety of a detective as if piecing together an elaborate mystery. “I got it! You can’t show it to me ‘cause I’m not bad and I’m not a samurai and you need all the time ‘cause a bad guy or another samurai could show up at any minute!”
Cocking Gorou a salute, his eyes shifted to Manzou, giving him a derisive nod of the head. The Sixth Seat stared back and forth quizzically before nodding awkwardly back.
“Don’t worry, mister samurai. Your secret’s safe with me!”
“Very good, otouto-san. We’re on an important mission, and we have to be secret,” Gorou kept his look of dire seriousness as he spoke. He looked over at Manzou, nodded slightly, and then looked back at the boy.
“We need to go. Be careful of the...bad guys,” he still had trouble using that term. Regardless, he’d wait for the boy to make his exit before taking his leave along with Manzou. That they’d had a screaming child to deal with hadn’t made the sun any less bright, nor the air any less hot and dry.
As his counterpart neared him again, Manzou’s anxious expression faded, gradually giving way to a thinly-amused smile.
“Didn’t know you had a way with kids,” the Sixth Seat quipped.
He was better than he was, at the very least. The boy reminded him a bit of Shimura and conjured memories of the more-recent exchanges between him and the relatively-new initiate of the ‘Heralds---and how Manzou had, so far, failed to rein him in as a tempered and disciplined officer. Shimura was, of course, not as easy to sway or fool as that child was, but what little shred of progressed Manzou had expected to have made with him hadn’t been reached yet.
The raven-haired man could still feel the sting of Nana’s remark as if she’d just told him right then and there how unbridled the swarthy-haired Walker still was. The heat of the day compounded it and forced a deep and exhausted sigh out of him.
“Hey!” an elderly voice called out to his right. “Hey, you! The tall one! And your friend!” Manzou turned toward the old man, staring at him just under the brim of his hat, catching the anonymous citizen’s amiable smile and the hand next to it beckoning the officers over. He stood in the double-doorway of a humble building with the kanji for ‘Sentou’ hanging on a placard over the door. “You two look like you could stand a shower or two!”
One brow drew up on the raven-haired man’s expression.
“No, no! Not like that!” the old man chuckled. “I know it’s hot out here and you two ain’t from around here. Come on inside and take a load off! We’ve got a few baths inside I know you’ll wanna take a dip in!”
Not wasting a moment, Manzou pivoted and made his way to the door held generously open for them. A gruff exhale of agony and relief slammed out of his throat as he took his hat off again, passing by the old man without either a glance or any gesture of appreciation.
He moved with listless desperation, reaching into his Kan pouch and tossing an amount on the front counter that he simply assumed would be enough for him and Gorou, stripped down to his underwear and headed toward the pool.
It pleased Gorou to know that he could still, if nothing else, try to treat children properly.It occurred to him that he had a similar issue to deal with, though it would have to wait until the business at hand had been dealt with. A satisfied sigh left his throat as he walked alongside Manzou to the eager old man’s bath house. Unsettling as the proprietor’s demeanor was, he suppressed the thought and walked in.
Being one of the only bath houses in the entire district, a number of patrons relaxed and milled about the establishment. One of them happened to be the duo’s nefarious watcher, who’d arrived there minutes ago and had hidden himself as soon as the two reapers had made their entrance. Throughout their journey from the entrance, all the way to the bath, the thug carefully bided his time.
In a somewhat stark contrast to Manzou, the ronin entered and sat down in the pool in the ancient style of dress (or lack thereof) that all men “wore” back in Edo. The cool water was soothing, and set him at such ease that he didn’t notice the vagrant that had snuck into the chamber. A ninjato was then clutched in his bony right hand, its edge tinged in an oily residue that betrayed the poison covering it.
Manzou floated up from the base of the shallow bath, his eye twitching awkwardly and disgustedly with the deepest of frowns beneath it---a look of horror gripping his very essence.
“Gorou...,” he fumbled from his lips, the tone of his voice exuding the nauseousness centered in the pit of his stomach. “...what, uh...” He searched for the appropriate words, the softest way to say it before eventually desisting. “...where the hell is your underwear?”
Still in the midst of sitting back and relaxing, Gorou groggily brought his head up and cocked an eyebrow at Manzou. What the disgusted Herald was asking seemed strange, perhaps as strange (though arguably less sickening for Gorou) as the subject that was bothering him.
“What do you mean? You can’t bathe with clothes on, Manzou,” he said matter-of-factly. As far as he was concerned his way was correct, and he had no reason to think that bathing etiquette had changed in the last three hundred years.
The two Heralds’ discussion helped drown out any little noises that the surreptitious thug made as he approached. As he moved, he quickly identified his target, he was getting ready to make his move.
“Yeah, I know,” Manzou returned adamantly, his head turned to the side and staring blankly in that direction. “You don’t wear clothes, but you could at least cover it up or... I don’t know, hide it a little better.”
To think that Gorou had thought society was becoming more perverse back when he was growing up, only for him to be faced by prudishness seemed ridiculous and strange. He crinkled his nose, thereby showing his confusion.
“This is how men bathed in Edo,” he stated flatly, “to think that there’s a need to hide, especially among soldiers, doesn’t make any sense,” he finished the thought.
“I, uh,” he began, scratching the back of his scalp sluggishly.
His eyes drifted involuntarily back to the surface of the pool---landing inadvertently on the rippling image of his discomfort. Manzou snapped back toward the wall, his face shriveling up again.
“I guess so, but, uh... how about, next time, just leave something on... down there... when I’m around.”
His eyes were drawn to the door to his left and the faint black silhouette reaching from the floor to just above the door knob on the other side. The Herald’s brow raised disturbed, but forewent delving any deeper into what it could’ve been.
“So be it,” he heaved a sigh and relaxed back again.
The raven-haired Sixth Seat sighed any and all discomforts through his nose, sweeping back his sopped bangs and laying his head back on the edge of the bath comfortably. Aside from the natural musk floating within the greyish haze surrounding them, it was peaceful, the first rest that either of their legs had been afforded since setting foot outside the broad North gate of Seireitei. It was the first time wherein there were no distractions, no people to watch or approach them---nothing to magnetize either of their thoughts away from what lay in the center of their hearts.
Yusumi’s face flashed in Manzou’s conscience, unblemished and sincerely the very definition of beauty in his mind. As queer a thought as it was, it seemed to him that the obsidian-haired peasant woman even managed to retain more than a simple hint with bruises and her own blood trickling down the flawless contours of her skin.
At that very moment, the ruffian chose to strike out. With all the lethal precision that years of playing at being a swordsman could bring, he made a wild charge and swung the deadly sword out with the intention of killing the naked old man.
Manzou gave a half nod before the partially-cracked door exploded open---the silhouette from before coming into resolution. Brunette hair and widened eyes coming to life, the boy from before burst forward.
“Mister samurai! Look out!”
Manzou could only flinch and trace the youth’s path as he dashed to save Gorou. With the fearlessness of any officer of the Courts, battle-hardened or not, hoisted himself on the attacker’s back and dug his fingers into the bony man’s eyes.
“Fuck! Get off me you crazy kid!” His cry rang out as soon as the boy had jumped into action.
All too quickly did the attempted attack and subsequent diversion crop up, to the point that Gorou had only managed to gather his wits once the would-be assassin was being assaulted. Desperately, the thug swung his fists at the young boy and eventually tore and threw him into the pool. However, the damage had been done and he’d been mostly blinded by the attack.
While the boy flew into the cool waters, the samurai had risen out and tackled the thug up against the wall. In addition to the indignation he felt from being his target, seeing a grown adult assault a child had spread rage throughout his entire body.
“F-fuck man! My f...are you naked!?” In the midst of loudly complaining about his eyes, the vagrant realized that the man holding him down was the naked one. Hearing complaints from Manzou about his bathhouse etiquette had been one thing, but he wouldn’t accept the same from some nameless criminal.
“Yes! And if I hear one more thing about how I’m dressed I’m going to break something,” he spat angrily. Being soaking wet and without shoes made staying still while also holding a dazed assailant was slightly difficult, and it only made him more irritated.
Just before the water was to settle, Manzou plunged his hand through the surface and pulled up the youngling by the collar and brought his eyes to the would-be assassin. The officer’s onyx orbs sharpened, boring into the pitiful thug with deadly intent---and then softened a small degree as his gaze floated to the back of Gorou’s head.
“...I told you.”
Heaving the child up to the stone floor before stepping outside of the pool himself, Manzou stepped toward the pair, coming to the sanguine-haired man’s side. As focused as his gaze was, the sight of the samurai’s genitals in the corner of his eye refused to go ignored and forced the raven-haired man’s head aside again.
Manzou reached up and grabbed the thug by the collar, his eyes still drawn to the side.
“I got him, Gorou,” he said, his tone and next words full of restrained suggestion. “...why don’t you, uh... you know.”
Exasperated, annoyed, and defeated in his stubborn dedication to an ancient habit, Gorou snorted and retreated to the changing room. After he’d left, the ruffian relaxed a little before he realized that Manzou was still there. His body tightened back up and he fruitlessly struggled for a moment, and gave up.
“You’d better let me go, shithead,” he snapped, “you ‘n your naked buddy are marked men,” he somehow managed to grin and make threats despite being held down. Slowly, his vision was coming back and the pain was fading, and his confidence only continued to build from there.
“That right?” Manzou said, countering the man’s boldness by maintaining a reserved visage. The hand at his collar ripped harmlessly across his throat---the brawny forearm of the arm came in and barred itself against the thug’s throat. The raven-haired man applied just enough pressure for him to still be able to speak. “So there’s more of you around here?”
In a desperate bid to clear his airway, the attacker pawed at Manzou’s arm as he struggled to breath.
“Yeah...we’re all over the place...gonna overtake Hikari’s shitty little outfit soon...” he rasped. All attempts to escape were proving fruitless, and the pressure on his neck was seriously starting to hurt. It was supposed to be a simple mission and yet there he was, in the middle of a bathhouse being strangled - though it was admittedly preferable to being beaten up by a butt-naked samurai.
“You?” the Herald remarked, an amused smile surfacing. “I know Hikari. And I know his men aren’t as shitty as you are.” Realizing the thug’s struggles only after hearing the sound of spit gurgling in the back of his throat, Manzou let up slightly on the preverbal guillotine that was his forearm. “And I know for sure that he wouldn’t send someone shitty enough to get caught by a little kid to go after two Shinigami.” He leaned in probingly and intensely serious, narrowing his gaze appropriately. “So who was the idiot that sent you?”
Just then, Gorou emerged from the changing room in his gray yukata. From his distance he could just barely hear the duo’s conversation, and he could see from Manzou’s stance and the placement of his arm that he was fairly apt at speaking the language of a thug.
On arriving he merely gave Manzou a slight nod and continued a few steps to the boy, at which point he hardened his expression and gave the most discerning nod of approval he could.
“Our boss, dumbass...haahh,” the vagabond gasped for breath as soon as the opportunity arose, “head of the Red Hand, Izaya.” Again he grinned widely, expecting that Izaya’s name carried as much weight with shinigami as it did with him and his fellow gang members.
The name rung a bell, a bell that chimed in the deepest recesses of his mind. There were a plethora of gangs that plagued the sixty-eighth district alone; it’d be nearly impossible for Manzou to have remembered all that he and his now-defunct band of pseudo-guardians crossed paths with outside their hometown.
“Nope,” the sopping-wet raven-haired man said, shaking his head tightly and diverting his eyes in feigned pensivity. “Never heard of ‘em.”
“That right? How ‘bout Yusumi? That name ring a bell, asshole?” He might have laughed were he not nearly being choked, but he didn’t allow his eyes to move away from making eye contact. At the utterance of the girl’s name, Gorou moved forward somewhat and immediately took careful watch of Manzou’s stance.
The Sixth Seat’s eyes sharpened, his gaze hardened on the bony man without fire restrained pitifully beneath the surface. For all of the blankness of his expression, a level of hate---almost tainted by mortal intent---was utterly palpable in his frozen eyes.
It was as if Manzou had him in his grasp.
In a smooth motion, the pressed forearm came back, the brawny muscle replaced by the vice-like grip of his hand around the thug’s neck. The flesh between his fingers converged around the man’s esophagus, applying even more stress to the columns of his thin vertebrae. Manzou felt the meat in his palm meld like puddy, slowing wrenching life away.
Somewhere deep in his mind, somewhere that he’d ignored or perhaps forgotten and hadn’t revisited in an untold span of time---a perverse euphoria swelled.
“Say her name again,” Manzou whispered near his ear in a deathly-serious and controlled tone. “Say it again. I dare you.”
Talking or grinning were made impossible by the inescapable chokehold. All that the thug could do was gag and desperately paw at the hands locked around his neck.
That the assassin couldn’t escape was plainly obvious to Gorou, and with that knowledge in mind he took a step forward.
“Manzou,” his tone was grave and without ambiguity, “this is not the way.” Though he said no more, he had every intention of moving to action if even thirty more seconds passed. In the onyx-eyed reapers position, he might have--he had--reacted the same way, and nobody had ever been there to stop him. This time, there would be a voice of reason.
The instant that the samurai’s voice hit his ear, the devastating grip on the ruffian’s throat loosened, relaxing to the point where oxygen could pass through and return to the once-aggressor the life that the raven-haired man had nearly taken from him.
And, subsequently, the bit of sanity that the thug had so easily managed to rob from Manzou---with much less effort than the amount of pressure the Herald had applied to his esophagus---returned to the Sixth Seat. His gaze softened and the deep scowl lifted.
“I know,” Manzou said, turning his head halfway toward his counterpart. It was a lie, of course. What little control he displayed the moment prior was proof. “What does your boss want with us?” He spoke to the thug without making eye contact, his own irises blank, both oddly aware and unaware simultaneously. “Why kill us?”
For a moment, the minion considered letting loose and endangering his health yet again just to get another rise out of the violent death god. In spite of how hard he had to work just to catch his breath, and how much his neck hurt and how fast his blood was pumping, the desire to crack wise remained present. While Gorou was no mind-reader, he knew a stubborn idiot when he saw one. He was prepared to at least knock the fool unconscious if even one sideways word rolled off his tongue.
“Fuck, man,” the assassin relented and took a second to reacquaint his lungs with oxygen, “not both. Just your naked buddy. We kill him, and Izaya gets inaugurated as one of Hikari’s lieutenants, our gangs join together, and the guy that did it gets a night alone with Hikari’s newest pair of legs,” he couldn’t help but grin at the thought of unhindered access to the aforementioned “pair of legs”.
“And they know you’re coming, asshole. If this piece of shit,” he gruffly motioned with his head in Gorou’s direction, “lives then they’ll know you’re alert ‘n probably just kill her to spite your sorry ass,” he gasped out a chuckle.
The Herald’s tensed fingers sprung out toward the man’s neck once again, Manzou’s palm planting firmly against his esophagus and his fingers pressed into his flesh with fierce pressure.
“If she dies,” Manzou growled lowly. “I’m sending each and every one of you with her.” After a moment, calm breaths came. He hinged himself again, letting up on his grip and shedding a bit of the madness. “So what you’re basically telling me... is that if I want to prevent the word from getting out, all I have to do is kill you and all the rest of Izaya’s people before that happens, right?” The Herald leaned in closer again, inflating his feigned aura of devious. “All I’d have to do is cover my tracks, kill any witnesses and be on my way. What the Court Guard Squads don’t know won’t hurt ‘em...
Manzou looked over his shoulder at Gorou and winked.
“...isn’t that right?”
Had Gorou not been paying attention he might have missed Manzou’s signal. After a moment’s pause a thought occurred to him, he glanced at the boy and then looked away at nothing in particular.
“There is no way to police Rukongai’s further districts,” he said grimly, “and Soul Society will not miss a handful of dishonorable thugs,” he looked back at the assassin and popped a few joints in his shoulder by rotating it. In addition to being unable to breathe, the vagabond was becoming less and less convinced that the duo was bluffing.
“N..nuh...” he rasped as best he could through the Herald’s tight grip, “ih...ih...” despite his best efforts he couldn’t get the words out. A sincere look of dread and genuine fear for his own life had spread across his face.
“Go get Gunshin, Gorou,” Manzou said with underlying cynicism in his tone, his mischievous eyes still locked on the thug’s as he spoke to his counterpart. “I’ll hold him down.” The pressure heightened a bit and the ruffian’s eyes began to waver out of Manzou’s. “I would offer him a bargain, tell him to go back and tell Izaya that we got away in exchange for his life... but he’d probably go and rat us out anyways, wouldn’t he?”
Hearing the words sealed it for the young killer. Silence by the hands on his throat, he desperately wrenched his head left to right. Though he could only gasp for breath, his wide eyes and shrunken pupils indicated that he might otherwise be screaming in pain and fear. That Gorou trusted Manzou enough to maintain control meant that he wouldn’t move a muscle, nor falter for even a moment in order to keep the ruse up so long as it remained just that.
“You can’t trust assassins,” he stated, “he’ll die and so will all of his cohorts. Every single one dies today,” he said in a voice he hadn’t used in a long time. Back when he had made those threats to rogue mercenary groups in Edo, he’d had every intention of making it a reality.
“Wait,” Manzou said suddenly, turning his head to the side as if a light bulb of an idea sparked on in his head. Just like that, the raven-haired man released his grip and put his hands on his hips thoughtfully. “We could just go the diplomatic route and have a talk with Izaya ourselves.
“So... where is he?”
Finally, there was breathing room. The hunter-turned-prey wouldn’t try his luck again with the choke-happy reaper.
“Acch, my fuckin’ larynx,” he whined, “there’s a tea house without a sign near the district border. That’s where he is,” he took a deep breath just because he could. Following the explanation, Gorou focused his attention on the child.
“Do not follow us, otouto-san. Where we’re going is no place for a young boy,” he turned and looked to his fellow Herald, “Manzou, let’s go,” he was curt and terse. Without wasting another moment he began, expecting that his comrade would quickly follow suit. Not so much as a passing thought crossed his mind in regards to the assassin.
***
Walking outside through the entrance of the bathhouse, his long haori balanced over one forearm as he situated his adorned obi appropriately, Manzou surveyed the crowd through the corners of his eyes. In light of recent revelations, the scrutable gaze cast on everyone without much regard was warranted.
To say there was nothing to be said of an innocent face would be ignorant---not fatal, but ignorant nonetheless.
“How’s my acting skills?” Manzou said with a thin, sly smirk.
“You nearly had me convinced,” Gorou jutted out his jaw, “you’ve got better self-control than I ever did,” he said with a hint of bitterness. Rather than allow his lamentation sit and stew, he picked up his pace until he was nearly running. The end of the district was some distance away and it was heavily trafficked, but the duo would arrive at the aforementioned tea house within minutes.
Just as the assassin had said there sat an establishment with no sign, though it seemed to be filled with patrons and servers with no clue as to its supposedly nefarious core. Nothing immediately set any of the patrons from the others, and in point of fact they all seemed to blend in. Everybody, from the customers to the staff, either wore red gloves or had a pair of red gloves sticking out of their pockets or set down nearby.
Manzou arrived at Gorou’s side, exiting a flash step with one sleeve of his haori still flailing unadorned behind him. His eyes were immediately drawn to quaint that his counterpart was eyeing inquisitively. A teahouse with no banner.
“You think this is it?” Manzou said, fitting his arm through the sleeve and straightening the collar along the edges of the fronts. All of them unobtrusive as ever---excluding the gloves on their hands and the slight look given to him and Gorou by the denizens---one brow lifted up ponderously. “You know... we probably should’ve asked what this guy looks like before we left.
“How do you wanna do this?”
A careful survey of the establishment revealed all that Gorou needed to know. That mercenaries insisted on identifying themselves had always worked against them Before stepping in, he turned to Manzou with a proud grin on his face. He never seemed to tire of teaching his street-savvy friend about the ancient ways.
“Back in Edo, samurai were more than just soldiers. It was our duty to bring the Shogun’s law to the lawless,” he spoke plainly and then walked into the tea house. As he stepped in his last few steps were made as rough as he could make them, so much so that his aggressive entrance was enough to garner some attention.
“We have come here on the authority of Amaterasu-taichou of the Third Division of the Gotei Thirteen. Izaya of the Red Hand has been found in contempt of Seireitei’s laws,” he pressed his hand against the hilt of his zanpakutou, “give him up and the rest of you will be pardoned for your crimes against Soul Society.” Back in his day, those threats were usually followed by a lot of lawless thugs getting killed. That he had no intention of killing anybody and wished only to find the leader had no bearing on his actions.
“Who the fuck are you?” one of the anonymous indwellers grunted from his seat just beside Gorou. The other three at the table drew an equally-impetuous glare at the samurai. “You know where the hell you are?”
A low murmur began to spread throughout the dining floor, many intent gazes surfacing and daggering across the room into the two officers from nearly every one within. Manzou stepped up to Gorou’s side, sighing through his nose. In the blink of an eye, nearly every unassuming face had unsurprisingly turned for the worst---all of them fixed on the two.
“Koji!” the bartender said, his voice booming throughout the room and silencing all others with undefiable command. The deep bass in his voice made even Manzou’s eyes snap toward him instinctually. “Shut the hell up!”
The anonymous aggressor scoffed defiantly out of the side of his mouth. One last sharp look was given to Gorou before he turned around in his seat properly. Everyone else wearing the same red glove as him submitted to the bartender’s authority with even more immediacy.
“You two,” the bold and thick mustached man said, the dirty towel in one hand scrubbing away at the small cup in the other. With his bald and glistening head, he motioned to the guarded stairs in the back. “Up the stairs and to the left. Nowhere else.”
An impressed grunt emanated from Gorou’s throat. That one of the gang’s higher-ups was not only present but clear-headed was surprising. For a moment, he beamed a steely glare at the bartender, breaking off only to approach and ascend the stairs.
At first he’d assumed that the Red Hand would be a disorganized bunch of brutes, but they’d so far shown themselves to have some kind of structure. In his experience, well-organized gangs merging together was never positive for anybody outside of the gangs until they’d been taken down.
By the time the ancient samurai had reached the top of the stairs, he’d begun preparing himself for whatever might be waiting behind the door on the left. Though it was open by a few centimeters, nothing could be discerned from within other than the old paint on the opposite wall.
The door parted, pulled open by one of the two men standing on either of the door within the syndicate leader’s decadent quarters. It was as if stepping into another building in and of itself. The walls were layered in roseate velvet, each section trimmed in gold and white beyond it with polished oakwood molding in each and every seam between the wall and floor.
All of the furniture in the room consisted of the same oakwood material, each long table and short dresser and broad bureau immaculately crafted and topped with silver cutlery and small trays filled with gold bangles. The floor was the same, covered in luxurious carpeting and animal-fur skins.
Across the rectangular room, laying top the velour-esque sheets with two scantily-clad and entranced women, Izaya looked on at Gorou and Manzou with a confident smile. He was a man of average stature and disposition, no more older than a late-teenager in appearance. Thin eyes and lips gave him was all to be said of his insidious aura, albeit limited as it was. His attire was a mockup of a noble’s attire, with small personal touches to the shade of the fabric, no doubt an effort on his part to separate himself from them yet give the inclination that he was somehow at their plateau or perhaps higher.
The extravagance set the raven-haired Herald off-kilter a bit.
“Manzou-fuckin’-Kagetoki!” Izaya said, lifting himself up. Both his palms planted on the faces of the women on either side of him and pushed back carelessly. The pair backed away obligingly. “So we finally meet! I trust you and Gorou’s stay has been befitting of an officer of the big Gotei!?”
Of the things Gorou hated, gangs and thugs were chief among them. Cocky, arrogant teenagers that reminded him of himself at their age also ranked high on his list. Overconfident teenage crimelords, rare as they were (which is to say that Izaya was the first he’d ever seen), managed to be both despicably vile and irritatingly juvenile.
“We’re not here on vacation,” the increasingly impatient old man spat, “you sent an assassin after me. What are you playing at,” he folded his arms disapprovingly. What unnerved him most of all wasn’t just Izaya’s manner or position, but his manner of dress and decor. It all reminded him too much of Juzo, and that boiled his blood more than anything else.
“I see,” Izaya said from his lazy perch, the two women still coddling his hands. “So you met Naoki? Didn’t do too good of a job, did he?” He laughed under his breath, smiling with misplaced humor about him. “Though I doubt he was about to do much harm, I do still apologize for what I’m sure was his usual curtness and sharp tongue. And since I’m sure he didn’t do it,” The gang leader stood from the bed and situated himself in front of the two and, in the most exaggerated motion, bowed lowly. “Let me welcome you to my humble district.”
“It’s real easy to take over a district when everyone feels so comfortable under noble protection,” Manzou inserted, staring down at the black-haired youth beneath the brim of his hat.
“Ha!” the boss laughed once and stood erect, staring at the Herald. “So it is! I’m not too proud to say that I likely had a much easier time bending these people to my will than our mutual friend did.” He took on a slightly more serious expression, his bold grin softer but still there. “However, the fact remains that this district is my district. That I’ve managed to make it so right under the nose of the nobility is no less impressive.”
“That is until Hikari gets here, right?” Manzou interjected once again. The perturbation began to slow slimly in Izaya’s visage, his brow dipping gradually.
“Straight to the point,” Izaya said. “Just like I’ve heard. However, I’d like to know exactly why you’re here, wasting time instead of heading to Hikari’s camp and getting your little friend back---oh! By the way---!” He leaned in and gave him a thumbs-up and a coy wink. “---good job! She’s gorgeous, if I may add. And I’ve seen some tight bitches in my day, believe me.”
“Did you really think---?” the Herald began before being cut off as he had done the fervid young boss.
“Nope!” he said, waving a finger dismissively at Manzou. “You really think I’m stupid enough to think he’d be able to stop the both of you? Hmm? Surely, you don’t think so little of me?” Izaya sat up as if preparing himself for an elaborate speech. “You’re worth more alive to me than dead. I’m well aware of why it is that Hikari has kidnapped your friend and why he wants to come face-to-face with you, and what plans he has set into motion. I do not, however, know exactly what those plans are. There are only a privileged few whom he shares his plans with and those particular details themselves are very hard to get my hands on.
“What I do know is... is that you and I both hate that piece of shit and have a score to settle with him. Hikari wants you to join with him. Well, I propose this,” Izaya straightened his back and leveled his shoulders, gathering what little stature he had. “And, again, I will say to you myself what Naoki failed to say for me: join me instead and, together, we’ll both kill that son-of-a-bitch... hmm?”
Every word that came out of Izaya’s mouth set Gorou closer and closer to the edge, but he could at least tolerate everything the smug grunt could spew. Slowly, he began piecing together what he believed the young gang leader’s answer true ambition would be.
“What would you do if we agreed and, as one, struck Hikari down? What’s your next step after that, Izaya-chin?” There was little to no expression on his face aside from mild contempt, and that was largely because he’d already assumed the real answer regardless of what Izaya was about to say, and was attempting to hold back in the event that his suspicions were confirmed.
“Ah-ah!” Izaya wagged his finger at Gorou once again, shaking his head lightly. “For lack of a more flattering title, you two are simply hired muscle. Your concern is---and shouldn’t be---what I will do at that point, your main concern should be to get back your friend’s gorgeous little friend back any way you can before something happens to her.”
The pompous leader diverted his eyes to one of the stoic men guarding the door whom snapped to attention upon eye contact.
“Yoshifumi,” Izaya beckoned.
“Sir!”
“Why don’t you go and get everything ready, huh?”
“Sir!” the anonymous man said, snapping a precise salute and pivoting around the corner.
“As I was saying,” Izaya continued, returning his attention to the two evenly. “I know it is not in your nature to bargain with my kind. However---” one finger pointed to Manzou. “---you haven’t been home in over six years and, believe you me, things have changed. There are a plethora of details about how Hikari works that only I am privy to, as far as everyone in this room is concerned.” The same finger then pointed to Gorou. “He is a liability to you, Manzou. If I know Hikari, he’ll see anyone other than you as an immediate threat. We both know, in spite of all the gangs he’s managed to subdue under his control, that the man isn’t all that intelligent and may resort to the most drastic of measures, prematurely.”
“I get it,” Manzou interrupted again.
Izaya smiled cocksurely. “...smart man.”
The Sixth Seat crossed his arms and stared off thoughtfully, considering the options, the pro’s and con’s. His gaze went to Gorou’s beside him. Without speaking, his eyes suggested he was searching for his friend’s opinion.
Much as Gorou wanted to, he couldn’t deny that there was truth in Izaya’s words. However, he had no intention of putting Yusumi in danger. As his gaze met with Manzou’s his expression shifted, indicating the smallest modicum of anger. In his eyes lay unambiguous meaning, but he wouldn’t allow his unspoken decision hang in the air long enough for questions to be asked. Metal ground against metal. Gunshin was loosed from its sheath and violently clutched between its wielders calloused hands.
“I’m a liability!? Is that right, Manzou!?” Neither the soldier’s tone nor stance were anything less than genuine, but he clutched the reverse-bladed katana in the traditional way as a sign to the only man in the room that could know the difference.
It took bit of control that he had over the pithy muscle in his visage to suppress the smile that wanted to stretch across his face. In the coming commotion, Manzou gathered himself for his part in the routine.
Alright then...!
With frantic quickness, Yoshifumi reached over his shoulder and unleashed the broad axe handing down his back and readied himself to strike at the seemingly-enraged samurai. His knees were bent and his double-handed grip was tight, albeit shaky. The sound of Gunshin sliding from its sheath had echoed out into the adjoining hallway, bringing three additional bodyguards stampeding through the door and encircling the two officers.
The tension had skyrocketed instantly---yet the leader of the Red Hand remained serene, looking on at Gorou with unshakable placidity.
“Gorou, wait!” Manzou said, batting both hands anxiously at his friend as if trying to calm him down. “Don’t do it! You know what’ll happen!”
Before Manzou could say a thing, Gorou had already struck out at Yoshifumi. In one swipe the axe had been knocked out of the thug’s hands, and with another he was knocked off his feet and onto the ground. That other guards had entered the room didn’t seem to phase him as he turned his attention back to Izaya.
“He is a cowardly, honorless cur,” he leveled his katana in Izaya’s direction, “He serves no purpose other than himself. Justice must be done. Evil must be punished. Izaya of the Red Hand dies today,” he spoke just as all samurai were taught to speak. As if preparing to reel back and strike, his grip on the weapon tightened and his arms began to coil back.
The guards cringed and gasped, lurched forward as if they wanted to stop the strike---none had the fortitude to actually try. Izaya remained unaffected, however, his brow steadily furrowing in a mixture of ire and contempt.
Moving just as frantically as the guards, Manzou reached inside his black haori and unsheathed Tatsunokuchi, sloppily sweeping its edge up and under Gunshin’s. With feigned difficulty, the raven-haired man gradually was forced to one knee, forming a strained expression as his sword arm began to quiver as if yielding to the weight of Gorou’s blade.
“I---zaya!” Manzou growled in frustration and struggle, striving to form flowing and coherent sentences. “I can’t stop him when he gets like this!” His back began to bend as Gunshin pushed harder and harder still, sparks screeching off of the contact point. “I suggest you---!”
“ARE YOU DONE YET?!” the leader roared, an uncanny amount of vehemence exploding into his expression. Manzou stopped, dropping his guise and steadying his sword. “YOU THINK THIS IS A FUCKIN’ GAME?! HUH?! YOU REALLY THINK YOU ARE IN A POSITION TO PULL SOME BULLSHIT LIKE THIS!?” There was supreme anger and, oddly, both belief and disbelief in his tone. “I suggest you drop the bullshit routine and think about what’s going on right now!
“This district is my district and, here, I’m king and I make the rules! You couldn’t lay a finger on me and, even if you wanted to, I suggest you think about the consequences before you act!” Izaya folded his arms and raised his chin boldly, lowering the volume of his voice before he continued. “I wanted to explore reason, appeal to your sense of justice and see Hikari eliminated for both our sakes. But you seem to think that this will somehow go your way and not mine. Even worse, you look to make a fool of me at the same time. So how about this?” He raised one hand, counting as his ultimatums were announced. “Your first and only real option: you join forces with me and not Hikari and help me dispose of him, or---” A second finger was raised, a deathly-serious slant forming on his brow. “---you don’t accept my offer and the dozens of citizens that my men have hostage right now have their throats slit!”
All throughout their play, Gorou had done his best to appear as honest as possible. On the other hand, samurai were not trained actors. That Izaya could see through their ruse was troubling, but it didn’t seem that anything would come of it. He backed down immediately and held his sword cautiously at his side. It wasn’t until more threats were made that he actually began to feel actual anger, and his ability to tolerate the young overlord was then severed.
“That was a mistake,” the old man spoke slowly and put his sword away, “I want you to listen to me very carefully, Izaya.” Having finished for the moment he took in a deep breath, and then stopped suppressing his reiatsu. For what little good it might have done, he attempted to keep his pressure within the room. Through no conscious effort on his part, his power held every little bit of repressed violence and hatred that he usually kept locked away in his heart.
“Your offer is now off the table. None of your men will harm a single innocent soul. They’ll withdraw because you’re going to order them to. But that’s not all. You’re going to tell us everything you know about Hikari and his gang, and you’re going to continue keeping tabs on them but you won’t have anybody following either of us.
“You’re going to do this not because I’m threatening to kill you. I won’t come after you Izaya, but I will come after everybody around you. If you disobey, if you step out of line or if you harm a single civilian, I’ll know, and I’ll come and I’ll take away everything that’s precious to you. I won’t tire and I won’t stop. No place is sacred or safe. I am a Herald of Death and if you push me,” he paused and sealed his reiatsu back within once again.
“I will wrench away control your control over your life and turn everything you know into an empty void,” he maintained eye contact through his terse speech. Every little thing that upset or angered Gorou had been captured by the smug warlord, and he’d finally allowed himself the luxury of briefly trading Seireitei’s rules for Edo’s rules. It felt good, and it had been a little difficult to put it all back at the end.
Izaya remained idle, moving nothing but his forearm as he folded it back under the other. With an aura of control and easy composure about him, he challenged Gorou’s staunch gaze with his own. Manzou stood partially in the gap between them, his own eyes fluttering back and forth between the two and the guards slowly absorbing the confidence of their leader. One obstruse grin was contracted by another and eventually the tide seemed to turn more so in favor of the Red Hand surrounding them.
The young leader said nothing for a long moment. Then, with a carefree motion of his eyes and hand, Izaya looked at one of the men in the hallway and waved his hand dismissively.
“Kill them. Kill them all.”
Manzou turned his shoulders quickly halfway toward him and locked gazes with the instructed lacky. The nameless minion’s eyes gaped wide open in fear at the leveled blade of Tatsunokuchi. Pulling what little sovereignty he had left in him, the lacky stood erect and saluted panickedly before pivoting and sprinting down the hallway.
“Shit!” Manzou scoffed tersely. Without any hesitation---or much idea what to do in that split-second---the Herald turned on the teeth of his sandals and dashed at Izaya. “Gorou, let’s go!” Unable to react to his supernatural speed, the leader couldn’t help but yelp and cringed as he was grabbed up by the collar. Manzou careened through the window next to his canopied bed with the young leader in tow.
Planting his feet on the shingled rooftop, Manzou leaped across the peak of the building to the front side. He landed rough, Izaya even rougher. Surveying the street hurriedly, he eventually tracked the man ordered to deliver the execution order running out of the teahouse entrance below, stampeding through the crowd.
“Where the hell are they?!” Manzou yelled at his captive fiercely.
Still spitting and wiping glass from his face, Izaya managed a low chuckle. “You’ll never fuckin’ know until you hear them scream, you son-of-a-bitch!”
All of Gorou’s threats had been for naught, but even as he turned and dashed out with Manzou he had no intention of being made into a liar. The street’s massive crowds made it difficult for him to identify the messenger, and it didn’t seem that Izaya was willing to cooperate. Standing above and using his eyes wasn’t good enough.
“You’ll regret your error,” he briefly addressed the psychotic gang leader before descending from the rooftop and into the crowd. There was no time for him to be pleasant or courteous, and so he pushed through the crowd as quickly as he could in the attempt to stop the running vagrant.
A clearly-audible whistle sirened from the crowd, its origin imperceivable for a moment to Manzou. Eventually, the flailing arm of the thug was spotted, his frantic moment centered on someone that he still couldn’t see. After a moment where it seemed no one responded, a few high-pitched yelps caught his ear, its origin much more perceivable than the whistle’s. Off in the distance, amidst the many citizens thronging the streets, a cluster of people lurched back frantically.
“You’ll never find them or even catch them in time!” Izaya laughed. “Give up, Manzou, you fa---!”
The back of the Herald’s clinched fist slammed into the gang leader’s cheek, knocking him for a loop. Narrowing his vision, Manzou could see a slender figure bulldozing through the crowd the same as his counterpart was---a red glove adorning his hand.
With hastehe raven-haired Herald bent his knees and launched from the teahouse rooftop, landing on another one of the apexes of one of the main street’s buildings, moving from one to another on the thug’s trail. In a few bounds, Manzou had nearly caught up to him before the thug whistled a similar tune to the last before stopping. The Court officer stopped where he landed, surveying the crowd diligently and hurriedly for someone else. Several meters down the road, another host of citizens were pushed aside as another man daggered through them and across the cluttered street. Manzou stayed hot on his trail.
In spite of Gorou’s determination to charge as fast as he could, he was better at preventing anything from getting in his way than actually gaining on his nimble quarry. As his feet continued to pound the ground beneath them, Manzou eventually overtook him. Their path would quickly careen out of the district and into the forest that surrounded it.
A clearing quickly came into view, which was where the messenger’s path seemed to end. Numerous civilians stood in the clearing, most cowering before the Red Hand members that had gathered them there.
From somewhere in the crowd, a young voice could be heard calling out “samurai!” over and over again.
Though Gorou recognized the voice, he didn’t believe for a moment that he was right. Much to his chagrin he indeed spotted the same boy from earlier in the day amongst the hostages. Even though not a hair on his head had been harmed, he was immensely upset that the boy had been taken at all.
“You shouldn’t be here, otouto-san,” he spoke to the boy without paying any attention to the grunts that threatened his life.
The flailing hand stopped and settled in the direction of one of the numerous Red Hand thugs surrounding them.
“LOOK! BAD GUYS!”
WC : 9246
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