SailorMoon said
The demon was wrong, Kushiami was really a better person now, and it burned her up that that demon was trying to pull her back into her dark past. She couldn't let that happen! She feared that the ronin might try to sneak off and settle things on her own, and if she did... Hanami would make sure to be there too. "A-Asuka-san!" She rushed over to where Kaede and Asuka were, grabbing the ronin's hand in her own and staring into her eyes. "Why did you do that? You could have been killed..." Her voice drifted off at the last word, and she dropped the ronin's hand, taking a few steps away from them. She knew she had jumped in the way, but... it was foolish! Her allegiance was supposed to be to Mizuki! Nobody really cares if a Priestess dies in this type of situation, right?
Asuka's cheek resumed to bleed from the savage abrasion left by that nefarious bastard Kurohebi, not too deep of a cut into the woman's embittered features but enough to draw forth a steady stream of the warm,crimson liquid, a red line that was soon to be another battle scar to add to her ever growing collection. Even if the samurai did lay down her sword in favor of peace, the bloodstained memories of her former self still haunted her to no end, and now they were taking on physical manifestations unfortunately. It began when those three men attacked her in Kyoto over revenge for their slain brother, and now this grim and tainted recollection had to rear its hideous head upon Asuka, a face with eyes that spelled death upon the thin, blood-scented air she continued to inhale and exhale with such harsh breaths taken into her lungs, ablaze as with the rest of her battered body in such anger she had never felt in over ten long years.... What enraged Asuka most of this malicious assault was that it was not upon her at first. Kurohebi wished to incite such fury within the woman by what else, endangering the lives of those she held dear to her.
Even if it was the first day of their journey, Asuka indeed felt drawn to this eclectic band, their many quirks sparking a glow of happiness within her, happiness that long since she yearned to feel again. This group of warriors and honorable women, she became so naturally acquainted with them all, including the young miko...embarrassingly in more ways than one. And if it were so, Asuka would indeed give her life in place of theirs. Her grip upon her blade eased when she felt the touch of another hand, soft and serene, fall upon hers. It was Hanami's, and just by the look again, Asuka could tell that her recent actions had troubled the maiden so. "Miko-dono....." she whispered, her cold demeanor slightly fading from across her face and the warm visage of the lowly ronin returning as she listened to Hanami's scolding of her, noting her slight pause in her words, directly after Hanami said that Asuka could've gotten herself killed. She let go of the ronin's hand, and in a flash, she could see the tick of a sort of frustration in the woman's eyes before Hanami parted ways with her. What could honestly be the meaning of that?
The ronin then heard her crimsoned companion behind her, still in undress as ever. It must've been a natural custom of her kind since Kaede seemed to freely obliged to parade about in the nude, even-so among her once rivaled foe. But ignoring the half demon's naked exterior so blatantly exhibited to her, Asuka merely listened to what she had to offer in this abrupt and harrowing matter, the one of a madman that had returned to claim Asuka's life, in a duel no less where the woman would be coerced to cast aside her vow and adopt that once killing life she had so forsaken. "Kaede-dono, your voice in the matter is welcomed, that it is." Rather factually she spoke to her comrade, her sister of the blade, "But your hand is not needed, indeed it isn't. I shall face Kurohebi alone, for I do not wish to absorb my fellow companions into the blood-soaked cloth that is this fray the demonic one seeks with me. And as such, I must prepare alone, my body....and my mind to accept this challenge he bestows upon me, that I must indeed."
If they were to follow her, it would be a distraction, and distractions to the sharpened and honed mindset of a warrior could prove deadly, indeed so in the heat of battle. It pained the woman however to forsake her friends as such, but it was all in due to their safety that she had forgotten them, just for this moment. She could not allow Kurohebi, this sadistic fiend, to prey upon her any longer, or anyone else for that matter. With deep and somber eyes, she sighed regretfully, resting a trembling hand upon Kaede's bare shoulder. "My friend, I must ask you to tell them not of my whereabouts, but to protect them with your sword as I have done before. I cannot have them worry for me, indeed I can't, so it is best they know not of me obliging this bastard who dares to call himself a samurai, that they shouldn't. I take my leave now, Kaede-dono, and I entrust the lives of the honorable Princess, Miko-dono, and the others into your hands." Asuka gave one last look to the warrior before her hand slipped from Kaede and she tarried away into the thick of the forest, following the trail Masataka had so obligingly laid for her. Was his desire to kill or to be killed?
Walking along the meticulous passage through the trees and the heavy brush, Asuka closed her eyes, the rest of this known world was gone to her, even if the sounds of the meadowlarks and the cicadas chirping their lovely melodies persisted, they would soon be drowned out by the rancorous cries of war echoing through Asuka's mind, as reminiscence and reflection upon that dark past took root in her conscience. Upon opening her eyes, she could see the familiar and grim visage yet again of Nakasawa Castle burning into nothing but ashes and blackened timbers, and there
she stood amidst the towering flames and the thick plumes of soot and dark grey smoke rising to a blood red sky, her blade already crimsoned by her fallen foes who laid about her sandaled feet in a festering pile of death and mutilation.
"The Wind of Death is among us, men! Retreat! RETREAT!!"But no quarter would be given to the cowardly samurai who dared to flee her fleeting blade, for the samurai was to pledge honor, even unto death. In a matter of seconds of flourishing her bloodstained tachi unto the battalion of fearful warriors, hundreds had fallen by her blade in a mist of red, coating her once fair skin and dotting her armor of the same shade. The men, they shivered ever so terrified in their own armor, being forced to watch as their fellow comrades were slaughtered in quick succession, one by one falling upon the ground soaked and soggy with their own blood. Not one warrior even posed a challenge to the vicious woman, easily cut down, her blade gliding gracefully through their armor as though it were thin air. The last of the men were slain, leaving him with the corpses of his murdered companions, a sight the Wind of Death admired so licentiously and disturbingly as she sheathed her macabre weapon of terror and cast a torch unto the mound of bodies, setting alight another flame upon this scarred land riddled in fires and smoke, and upon those flames, she made remark to her men, the hardened life takers who assembled before her, all donning her blood red armor the same.
"Men, today we are victorious! Today, the winds have blown forth and toppled yet another lord unto this bloodstained soil and ash! We have suffered our share of casualties, that we have I will agree, but....for the lives of our fallen, the enemy has paid forth with their own blood shed from their bodies! Rest this very night, my brothers of the blade, for at daybreak, we march for Edo, and we shall bathe the city in blood and fire! KATSU!!"
"KATSU!!" The roar echoed from the ferocious mouths of her warriors across the land, victory, they cried forth. Asuka looked upon her men, indeed pleased by their devotion, their will to slay any and all who stand before the dreaded Shi no Kaze.
Just that memory alone....it sparked the flame within the ronin's heart, a flame....that dared to consume...
