Red And Black - By Kirika
k_yuumura@hotmail.com
http://users.bigpond.net.au/kirika/
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The seventeenth chapter. A chapter *without* Mireille and Kirika in it! Eeek! Sumimasen!
- Kirika
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Chapter 17 - Return, Act I
Kaede's breathing came in measured, steady rasping pants as she glared intensely at her opponent through her veil of snow-white bangs, the long overhanging fringe matted to her forehead in places with light perspiration. The smile that was seldom absent from her countenance if ever was larger than usual, all but dominating her ashen face, the corners of her mouth pulled high into a feverish, feral grin; clenched teeth bared between tightly stretched lips. The slender yet solid length of wood she clutched in her white-bandaged hands before her creaked as she twisted her iron grip, lifting it slowly but surely until her fists, enclosed right above left around its bottom end, were in line with her head. A gentle curve bent the erect length of wood, the lower span where Kaede held it a smooth shaft of a handle, with the rest carved into the likeness of a katana; a delicate single-edged blade. It was a bokken; considered a practice weapon for the martial art kenjutsu, and for other Japanese sword techniques. But intended for practice or not, when wielded by Kaede she swung and thrust with it as if engaged in a real life or death duel, and struck with akin precision and ferocity, holding not a shred of her expertise or strength back. Restraint served to only blunt a warrior's skill in the long run, impressing a poisonous acclimatisation on the psyche to curbing blows that could generate hesitation in actual combat, hesitation that could spell the difference between glorious victory and blood-soaked defeat. It was solely amateurs, weaklings, or idiots who willingly handicapped themselves by indulging in spineless, stupid habits. Kaede vehemently believed a fighter should release all of their raging spirit in battle regardless of the circumstances behind it; to deny your spirit unmitigated liberation whilst in conflict of any kind was to deny your true self.
Kaede carefully shifted her stance a fraction, her bare right foot snaking backwards a few inches, squeaking on the immaculately scrubbed and polished dark wooden floorboards where not a speck of dust made its home. Dominique was *very* fastidious about cleanliness no matter what a room's purpose, even if that purpose routinely splattered rugs and furniture with spilt bodily fluids. There wasn't a stain that lingered for more than an hour after it had been made in Ishinomori Tower, and most suffered from an even shorter life span on the penthouse levels at the summit of the building where Kaede's family and the French woman herself took residence. Kaede's martial arts training hall where she was presently spending her time honing her proficiency with the sword fell under that latter umbrella, which was a good thing given how frequently she smashed this weapon rack to bits or sliced apart that wall hanging to ribbons during the mayhem of her practice sessions. Her blazing spirit once unleashed was hard to control, like a rabid beast let off its chain, hungry for carnage and thirsting for chaos. Fortunately, for all of her tsking and tutting at the sight of hacked furniture and scuffed floorboards, Dominique scolded Kaede light-heartedly at worst for her occasional frenzied destructive binges. She rarely lost her temper with Kaede, but when she did, it rendered the younger woman a weeping wreck. A cross word from Dominique could tear her open like no weapon existing on Earth or even forged in the Heavens could.
The shrill, curt sound of Kaede's movement filled the otherwise quiet training hall, and she tensed as she braced her right leg on the ball of her newly-positioned foot. Her eyes had stayed firmly on her sparring partner in front of her while she had arranged herself and thus she noticed his body stiffen in response to her altered stance, raising his bokken slightly in preparation to counter whatever she had to throw at him.
Kaede's opponent who she had been trading heated blows with for the better part of a half hour was a greying, bearded man a dash past his middle years, but what could be seen of his body underneath his loose garb of white uwagi and indigo hakama was all sinewy muscle, like the hard roots of an old oak tree. It was as if every ounce of fat had been boiled away from him, leaving behind no more than the base constituents of a man. Spry as he was, he could brandish a sword with the grace of a viper, and strike with the alacrity of one, too. Horiuchi was a kenjutsu master; the newest of a lengthy string who had been persuaded to further Kaede's already enormous understanding in the art of the sword. How he and his predecessors had been persuaded or even chosen the swordswoman hadn't a clue--Dominique saw to it all, but the instructors she arranged for always met Kaede's requirements… for a time. Horiuchi may have been as strong as aged oak and as quick as a viper, but Kaede was vengeance personified; implacable hatred fuelled her muscles and divine fury propelled her hand. And sooner of later, vengeance caught up with the damned… and delivered holy retribution.
Unlike Horiuchi, Kaede's clothing deviated vastly from the traditional dress of a kenjutsuka. A baggy white tank top and equally loose-fitting grey silken drawstring slacks made up her outfit, and was informal attire to say the least. But Kaede didn't care. She held no stock in tradition or customs. They were merely ornamental, superfluous; it was the art itself, the method of handling the blade, the method of piercing flesh and cleaving bone, which had bearing with her. If it did not help in broadening her knowledge of the raw skill, then it had no value and thus was cut away like a bad piece of meat. With this severe mentality only the choice parts survived--the all-important core. The fundamentals of killing with a sword.
Neither Kaede nor Horiuchi wore padding or protective gear of any kind over their differing garbs; this was a duel between masters, not some lay spar between teacher and student despite what the pair's affiliation may allude to. The snow-haired woman was an expert kenjutsuka in her own right, the gore of dozens upon dozens of slain enemies having tarnished the purity of her hallowed katana's delivering razor edge during her lifetime, followers of kenjutsu and other sword arts among them. But being an expert, a master, wasn't enough; she sought absolute perfection. She had already achieved oneness with her katana, yet still she strived for more, still she relentlessly pitted herself against fellow kenjutsu masters and their particular, sometimes unique styles, adapting her own to counter theirs before drawing on her new-found or modified techniques to crush them in single combat, forcing them to submit beneath her conquering wooden blade. Kaede could tolerate no margin separating her from perfection; she had to narrow it at all costs, come as close as she could to perfection with her katana if not actually attaining blessed perfection itself. Weakness could sneak into that margin at any instant for as long as she let it linger, and no margin was too small not to invite it. Kaede couldn't afford to be weak. Not now, not ever. She *had* to be strong. Strong enough to take on the devil-spawned ilk of Soldats. She would show them that she was not some gnat buzzing at their ear that would desist if swatted aside often enough. The ghosts of Soldats' past sins had come back to haunt them; the spirits of the wrongfully slain were compelling Kaede to bring their murderer to justice. She was their vessel--a righteous avenger. She had to be strong… like steel.
A nervous tick suddenly developed in Kaede's right cheek, a rapid muscle spasm that made one corner of her wicked grin twitch erratically. Yes… strong, like steel. Like Big Brother. He was strong. He was the strongest person Kaede knew. And he never betrayed any weakness of self to anybody--certainly not to his enemies, but not even to his friends or family. Kaede wasn't as stalwart as Big Brother and doubted she ever would be, but she at least never openly bared weakness to any of her foes, or to those who could potentially become one… in other words, anybody who was not among her closest, most loyal circle of allies. That was another reason why you shouldn't ever inhibit your fighting spirit, why you shouldn't ever hold back. Holding back was a sign of frailty, that you had a crippling dearth of mettle to see things through completely. Kaede didn't hold back; hadn't ever. She would make Soldats taste the bitter tang of fear, force it down their throat, make them acquainted with it as though they were constant bedfellows, make Soldats fear's whore. No weakness would cause her to waver from her sacred mission. She would be strong--she *was* strong! She *had* no weaknesses! Kaede would drive the accursed Soldats out of Japan and all the way across the ocean back to their roots in Europe, with those few who survived the expulsion having the privilege of being put to the sword in their motherland, their blood watering their native soil. All the lands of the world would be purged of their vile presence. The vengeful Heavens had judged them as the most deviant of sinners, beyond salvation. Only eternal damnation in the pits of burning Hellfire awaited them. Kaede would see to it that all of Soldats met their just fate. They would pay! Oh, how they would *pay*!
Kaede's breathing had quickened in tempo little by little as her thoughts had raced, and had become heavier, deeper, her chest heaving up and down like a thoroughbred steed's--a warhorse's--following a fierce gallop into the frontlines of an awaiting army, a rank-breaking charge. Her pants came in louder and louder rasps while her body tightened like a compressing spring, the rock-hard, lean and well-toned muscles in her bare arms become increasingly defined with every passing moment. The bokken that Kaede held aloft trembled as her grip on it intensified, as though she were attempting to squeeze the life out of the weapon and it was giving its final death rattle.
All of a sudden Kaede seemed to reach a peak, a boiling point, and her breathing stopped dead. Her bokken ceased shaking, and her muscles locked. In the next instant she was surging forwards through the air towards Horiuchi, springing off her right foot with the ferocious roar of a vicious dragon leaping for the jugular of its prey, its maw open wide. The swordswoman knew for certain that this would be the last round of their duel.
Kaede's bokken flashed diagonally downwards at her adversary with enough force to break his neck if the blow connected, but Horiuchi had obviously foreseen her opening attack and matched it strength for strength with a countering crosswise swing of his sword, the two faux blades striking one another with a sharp crack. Neither bokkens budged more than an inch once they had joined, not even when Kaede's feet had hit the floor and she utilised what remained of her leap's momentum to throw her weight against Horiuchi's sword. Both kenjutsu masters' unyielding arms shuddered alongside their wooden blades as they tried to push the other off balance, Kaede's muscles noticeably bulging with the effort, the cords in her neck as thick as rope and as taut as violin strings. Her quick breath seethed past her gritted teeth, spittle flying and dribbling down her chin as she stared defiantly at her opponent, less than a foot between their rigid faces; one harbouring untamed fury, the opposite a mask of determined calm.
The seconds ticked by with neither Kaede nor Horiuchi gaining the upper hand, their swords locked in a stalemate, until by some instinctual mutual agreement they broke apart, momentarily darting away from each other, before launching themselves headlong across the gap separating them to exchange blows yet again.
Horiuchi led his rush with a thrust from his bokken aimed at Kaede's chest, a thrust that was deftly slapped aside and safely clear of its target by the sneering woman with a single swipe of her own sword. Kaede retaliated immediately afterwards, executing a stabbing thrust herself but at her opponent's throat, aggressively attempting to press home the advantage she had gained by smacking his weapon out of the way of his body. However, Horiuchi's reflexes were on par with Kaede's. Almost as soon as his bokken was knocked away, he swung it back obliquely across his chest from his lower right to his upper left, intercepting the snow-haired woman's lunge in the nick of time and smashing her weapon up over her head.
Kaede managed to hang on to her bokken as it was violently bashed into the air above her. The hit had not come anywhere close to endangering the death grip she had on it, but she still spat an angry curse through her gnashing teeth regardless, aware of how open the parry had left her. Yet her sword was not her only defence. Kaede's unbridled rage was a shield; the potent, reckless fervour it lent her body and mind a stubborn if crude, brutal, form of protection. But Kaede had no aversion to the crude and brutal. Vengeance's fury coursed hotly through her veins, and the cruel ferocity it endowed her with was not meant to ever be tempered.
Horiuchi quickly reversed his bokken's trajectory, his sights set on the opening in Kaede's defences he had wrought. If his blade had been real, the ensuing slash would split the woman's chest from breast to navel. It was an obvious move, one that a kenjutsu master or a beginner would have struck with, foreseeing the sure end of the duel with them the clear victor. But Horiuchi's discipline would be his downfall. He was too strict in his ways, in his technique--devoid of passion. He could not compete with Kaede and her pious rage. He would be cut down.
Kaede reversed the arcing path of her own weapon, chopping cleanly and keenly downwards a mere fraction of a second after the length of wood had been deflected in the opposite direction, having expected her grizzled opponent's uninspired manoeuvre before he had even altered his sword's position to commence the sloping finishing stroke. There wasn't any means to block Horiuchi's incoming attack, but Kaede wasn't looking to. Her bokken's swing came behind her confident adversary's, yet it was the one that counted. Kaede heaped all of her strength into the slice, all of her avenging power, which equated to thrice what Horiuchi had put into his. Consequently, when her slashing bokken linked with the greying man's from the rear and their momentum was pooled, stacked behind the latter kenjutsu master's sword, it was *she* who controlled its stroke.
Horiuchi grunted as wood shoved wood with indomitable brute force, whether in shock, alarm, or because of the impact of the hard blow itself, Kaede wasn't sure. In truth she barely registered the grainy rumbling emitted from his throat, her mind clouded by the heavy red haze of burning anger, the lone parting through the fog a roiling tunnel that only channelled thoughts about seizing revenge for past defeats beneath Horiuchi's tutoring sword… a revenge within reach.
Kaede exercised her dominance over Horiuchi's swing to viciously hobble its range, literally cutting the slice short with the deft and compelling cleave of her bokken so that his once sure finishing blow missed her by a hair's breadth. But a miss was still a miss by whatever distance irrespective of how slim, and thus it was more than enough to turn the tables in the snow-haired woman's favour, enough to transform Horiuchi's certain triumph into certain doom.
Kaede's sword pressed her opponent's downward until the latter's tip was scratching the varnish off the floorboards, and then she held his bokken steady there beneath her own imitation blade, trapping it. Consequently she couldn't bring her weapon to bear against him and put an end to this duel without releasing his, but a kenjutsu master did not rely solely on their sword. Or at least a master of Kaede's calibre did not. If separated from her katana she was still very capable at defending herself and at neutralising aggressors--permanently. Her katana was just an extension of herself; both she and it were weapons, two weapons that could forge a partnership together and become one--a combination that was devastating. Kaede's sword had done all it could now. It was left to her to finish the task.
Horiuchi's eyes dropped for a split second to his and Kaede's crossed and wedged bokkens, their depths for once showing a glimmer of distress--a glimmer that flared to utter panic once he lifted his attention back to his foe and saw the young swordswoman's snarling face converge rapidly on his stunned own. Kaede's forehead struck like a battering ram against Horiuchi's face as she decisively head-butted him, and with an audible crunch of shattering cartilage and an eruption of bursting blood vessels, his nose was pulverised into a satisfying red and black pulp.
To his credit, Horiuchi did not scream in unchecked anguish as most would upon suffering the grievous though essentially superficial injury, but he did make a gruff grumble of pain and reel back a step, his clearly dazed head bobbing and lolling indolently on his shoulders as if attached to his body by a spring. Before he could recover his senses or recoil further, Kaede reared back her head--her fringe of formerly pure white hair now generously speckled with dark, clotted blood--and delivered a second crushing impact with her hard skull against Horiuchi's gore-splattered visage.
This subsequent blow so soon after the first proved too much for the old kenjutsu master and he lurched back a few more steps, his arms dangling stiffly by his sides with his bokken held limply and seemingly forgotten in his left hand. Horiuchi's ruined nose streamed blood down to his chin like a thickly flowing river and coloured his grey moustache and beard scarlet. His eyes were scrunched in abject agony, his tortured face a web of wrinkles previously unseen. He was aged oak tasting the bite of the woodcutter's axe and on the brink of toppling. Cracks had appeared in his spirit and were splintering then spreading like wildfire; just one more hit and it would break, one more chop and aged oak would be felled.
And chop Kaede did. With splashed blood now streaking the middle of her face to be a near match to Horiuchi's, Kaede hoisted her bokken in her two hands up into the air beside her head, adopting the same stance she had before at the beginning of this duel's final round, and then swung the length of wood at her swaying adversary's temple. The faux blade struck its target unopposed while Horiuchi floated in his stupor, the clean hit punctuated by a dull thud. The grizzled man's head snapped violently to the side before prompting jerking the rest of his body along with it, the kenjutsu master spinning around before crumpling heavily onto his forearms and knees, subjugated at Kaede's feet, his bokken whirling away from his limp hand across the floor.
Horiuchi moved feebly, crawling on all fours like a whipped, pathetic dog with its tail between its legs and its head bowed, the once imposing and dignified kenjutsu master brought low to his rightful place kneeling, cowed, before an invincible, self-assured Kaede. She towered over him in her proven superiority while blood dripped profusely from his broken nose and dotted the floor in a quickly amassing puddle, his bloodied and bruised face illustrating her victory over him; her dominance. But their duel was not done. Horiuchi was bested, yes, but his lesson had not been fully learnt yet. Now Kaede was the teacher, and Horiuchi's lesson had to be hammered home so he would not forget it. He had to *recognise* that his rightful place was prostrate beneath her, that her triumph over him today was a product of her outstanding skill and not of mere luck, and that the same result would transpire any other day from now on if he ever challenged her to cross swords again, seeking to regain his lost honour. He had to accept that Kaede was his better, that her blade cut swifter and cut deeper than his--that she was the greater sword master. Because she *was*. Because his rightful place *was* beneath her, because she *would* triumph over him again in battle. So that he would remember those truths, so that they would be imprinted permanently on his mind, his defeat had to be devastating. *Crippling*.
Stepping nimbly around her fallen opponent on the balls of two light, dancing feet, Kaede threw her bokken out to the side in her right hand, and then without hesitation or mercy, brought it crashing down on the back of Horiuchi's head, on the tender spot where the base of his skull connected with his vertebrae. She made no effort to moderate her coup de grace despite the aged man's all but conquered condition, concentrating all of the ferocity that surged within her turbulent spirit into the potentially paralysing blow. Such was the ferocity's strength that Kaede's bokken exploded on contact with Horiuchi's drooped head in a shower of wooden shards, half of a coarsely splintered carved blade spiralling off to clatter in some far corner of the training hall.
The loud crunching snap of Kaede's bokken fracturing asunder echoing off the walls heralded the conclusion of the duel, Horiuchi succumbing to the comforts of unconsciousness upon having his head used to split the sturdy weapon crudely apart. The kenjutsu master instantly slumped flat onto his stomach as if someone had suddenly exchanged the muscles in his supporting arms and legs for water, his cheek hitting the hard floorboards with a slap and his tortured face settling into the expression of an uneasy sleep. A bloody paste of a tint verging on black matted his formerly shaggy hair, the thick grey covering seeming to have done little if anything to cushion the punishing impact of Kaede's sword. Needles of wood varying in size and shape were knotted in the sticky tangle of blood and hair, and more littered the back of Horiuchi's white gi and were scattered haphazardly atop the floorboards surrounding him. Horiuchi uttered not a sound, not now in his slumber or before when he had been ruthlessly bludgeoned. Whether his neck was broken or not, Kaede couldn't tell. She mused that he might not even be sleeping; he could be dead, his body now a vacant husk and his soul already on its last and most important journey. His slumber could be the sacrosanct one that all women and men must one day yield to, the one that wrenched the soul from the earthbound shell and ushered it towards final judgement where its ultimate fate was carefully weighed and then decided by the Gods--saint or sinner, the Heavens or Hell.
Whatever the case, it was beyond Kaede's concern now, although she would feel no pity if Horiuchi was dead. Honour would be more like it. Delivering a soul into Death's waiting hands to be carried away for judgement was something to be venerated, more so if that soul were immaculate. Slaying sinners was a duty, but slaying saints was an honour. Kaede could not distinguish for certain which Horiuchi was--or had been--but she believed she had seen the good in his unblinking steely gaze underneath the cloud of discipline that had obscured it. If he were dead, then he would be welcomed with open arms in the Heavens.
Kaede stared down at her vanquished sparring partner as she stood over him imperiously. Gradually her arms lowered to her sides and her severe grip on the remains of her bokken slackened. Her heaving chest softened its swells and their frequency diminished, the heart that had once thumped maniacally there mellowing to an easier rhythm. In tandem her hot blood calmed its crazed gush through her veins, its spur no longer quite so adamant. The red haze that pervaded her mind thinned and then cleared, taking with it the heat from her temper, cooling it to a low, edgy simmer. It felt as though her skin was on fire, that its pallid complexion should instead be a bright red, flushed, with rising steam hissing from every pore. Her sweat was abruptly chilling to her body and she was made very much aware of it trickling down the middle of her back and sliding past her temples. The young woman had an urge to shiver and even hug herself; such was the loss of warmth.
Kaede's spirit was receding within her, withdrawing its influence over her heart, mind, and body; the beast retreating and becoming caged and muzzled once again. With its exodus and restraint Kaede felt weaker, the strength fading from her limbs and her body suddenly feeling more sluggish and ungainly. Her fiendish, manic grin shrank in intensity too, and in width, dwindling from a frenzied rictus to her usual smirk. It had been as if Kaede's feral fighting spirit had possessed her face to convey its tempestuous, murderous rage in the mêlée, the beast contorting her visage to mirror its own and spit its vehemence. But it was exorcised now, as was the rest of her spirit's sway over her. The duel was done. Vengeance had been dealt.
"There is nothing more you can teach me," Kaede said to Horiuchi's prone and unresponsive form, undeterred by the latter. "Begone." She tossed the stump of her shattered wooden sword unceremoniously on her former tutor's back, the latest of many who had met similar fates, and then crisply turned and walked coolly away.
With Kaede's dismissal of Horiuchi by word and by sight, the two women who had up until then been mutely standing adjacent to the walls at relaxed attention opposite each other in the rear half of the training hall, abruptly left their posts and advanced on the lifeless kenjutsu master, as if new life had been shot into their previously idle bodies. The pair was smartly dressed in trendy black business suits that clearly once had had expensive price tags attached to them, and both their outfits were cut in identical styles, albeit for the difference of slacks on one and a straight skirt that ended just above the knees on the other. The short thick heels of their black leather shoes clicked on the polished floorboards as they walked, their stride and posture exuding poise and pride, and the silver pins on the left lapels of their jackets flashed under the lights of the room. Up close, those small round badges portrayed two kneeling young women swathed in robes, facing each other, and bearing double-edged swords of European origin in their hands. It was an ancient emblem--or so Dominique had claimed when Kaede had pressed her on the subject--and one that was apparently still in use today… by the hated enemy, Soldats. However, purportedly that use was rare and grudging at best, owing to the shame those of Soldats felt from turning away from the true purpose of their secret society, of forsaking their true dogma ratified over a thousand years ago when the world was tearing itself apart. Now, Dominique had said, she used it as a symbol of Soldats' roots, of Soldats' ancestors come back to punish their wayward kin. Those who wore the pin were unshakably loyal to the Soldats of old, and totally committed to overthrowing the fetid Soldats of present day.
But what Kaede saw when she espied a silver pin on a black collar or lapel was a lot simpler than what Dominique invested in the insignia. To Kaede, those badges and dark suits marked out those of her faction who were the most reliable and trustworthy, and the most capable--her elite soldiers. They were like Dominique, in that they had all seen the light and had defected from Soldats, sharing the same conviction as the French woman's; that Soldats was a sinful organisation needing to be purified by fire and sword. Consequently all of Kaede's elite soldiers lived up to the title. They were Soldats trained, making them the equivalent of a Special Forces military platoon where each member had diverse abilities--some were excellent tacticians and outstanding commanders, others flawless snipers and experts at evading notice, several were masters of unarmed combat and explosive wizards; the assortments were as plentiful as they were varied, skills from every walk of life wielded by people just as divergent. There were even a few historians and fencers; a couple of the second had invited themselves into Kaede's training hall to watch her practice her kenjutsu forms once, muttering between themselves in a foreign tongue while scrutinising her katana's strokes intently.
Strangely, every last person that made up Kaede's elite detachment was female. But when considering that Dominique supervised the division and screened every new defector wishing to enlist with the utmost diligence to weed out possible Soldats spies trying to infiltrate their ranks, it was not that surprising. Dominique did have a low opinion of men that was quite widely known, and even though Kaede had never seen her being intimate with anybody, the snow-haired woman suspected her personal assistant's taste in romantic companionship ran alike with hers, favouring the female persuasion. There was the possibility that Dominique was just a complete prude, but Kaede found that notion highly dubious with a Parisian woman like Dominique who emanated elegant sensuality from every fibre of her being no matter what the circumstances. Perhaps she was merely picky, or married to their mission of retribution. In any case, Kaede sincerely doubted she would ever see a man sporting the illustrious silver pin on his clothes.
While they were elite soldiers, the women converging briskly and portentously on Horiuchi also held a mantle that was greater than that. They currently belonged to Kaede's personal bodyguard, a shadowing quartet that had been appointed to serve and protect her by a concerned Dominique at the commencement of their crusade against the scourge that was Soldats. Trusting the young woman's welfare only to those whose loyalty to their cause and whose competency fulfilling the imperative task were above question, Dominique had decreed that the elite detachment's primary role was to always safeguard Kaede's life first and foremost beyond any other duty they might additionally be bundled with. But to make absolutely certain that she was being continuously looked after rather than merely in passing, the French national had ordered that at least four members of the elite Soldats renegade branch must accompany Kaede at all hours of the day and night regardless of what the snow-haired woman was doing, the sole exception being when she retired to her quarters where they instead stood vigilant outside her door to allow their charge her privacy.
It was all too much in Kaede's opinion. She was not some delicate damsel needing to be coddled; she was a battle-hardened warrior with the spirit of vengeance on her side. Even so, Dominique had shooed away her protests about being babied, and four was the lowest sum of guards the young woman had been able to talk her overprotective assistant down to. Kaede reluctantly confessed that despite her objections she was fairly fond of Dominique's doting, but she wished the older woman would give her a little more credit. It didn't help that Big Brother behaved much the same, habitually having their old yakuza friends quietly tail her or escort her under the guise of keeping her company. Both Dominique and Big Brother knew what she was capable of and that she had been chosen to be an avenger; why did they persist pampering her? None of the guards they allotted to watch over her could even come near to matching her power. They were like wolves defending a dragon.
Kaede picked up soft breathy grunts of exertion behind her as her two dark clad protectors, unconcerned whether he had spinal damage or not, seized Horuichi by the arms and roughly hauled his face from the floor, the rest of his rag doll body closely following suit. His sagging, floppy bare feet squeaked against the wooden floorboards, skidding along in tow behind him like dead weights as the duo dragged him off to the training hall's side door at the back of the room to see him disposed of. What that entailed precisely Kaede wasn't wise to and hadn't bothered enough to remedy that deficiency. Whatever happened to her ex-kenjutsu tutors, suffice to say that after they were bodily removed from her training hall she never had another opportunity to lay eyes on them again.
Not deigning to so much as glance over her shoulder at the activity taking place behind her, Kaede continued to stroll towards the front of the hall unperturbed. The pitter-patter of lively clapping coincided with her approaching footsteps, its source the small group of women gathered near the training hall's front entrance ahead of her. One of their number was another of Kaede's bodyguard, set a little but obvious distance apart from the other two women where she leaned casually with her back against the wall next to the room's double doors. Her arms were folded below her breasts and her head was lowered, her eyes hidden behind the lenses of jet-black sunglasses, giving the erroneous and potentially fatal impression that she was asleep on her feet and oblivious to her surroundings. She was a foreigner, as were the two guards lugging Horiuchi off to the unknown behind Kaede and the fourth and final sentry of the quartet standing watch outside the room's entrance. Three quarters of the elite Soldats deserters under Kaede's flag hailed from overseas, representing ethnicities from all across the globe. Approximately half that called countries in western Europe home like their colleague Dominique; France, Spain, Germany, and Italy standing out as the prevailing native lands. Never before had Ishinomori Tower been so bustling with foreigners. But Kaede bore no prejudices against her non-Japanese allies; they were all comrades-in-arms, united for a singular righteous purpose. It was a glorious thing.
The applauding tapered off as Kaede joined the other two women of the group; the one responsible for the ovation stepping keenly forwards to meet her. Like the members of Kaede's bodyguard, the woman in question was born outside of Japan, yet her distinctly oriental attire certainly suggested the contrary. A voluminous yukata complete with obi hung from her bare creamy shoulders, scarcely clinging as though just a touch would send the garment sliding entirely off her body to puddle about her feet clad in white tabi socks and zori sandals. Kaede knew the obi wrapped securely around the woman's midriff would prevent such a calamity from happening--indeed, it was probably the only thing barring the yukata's shameless descent to the floor--but without it she would have been risking a sudden total exposure of her feminine beauty at any moment she so much as breathed too hard. While the brazen arrangement of her clothing revealed a wide 'V' of beguiling cleavage deep enough to swallow anyone's gaze, what it didn't reveal was that beyond the woman's shoulders, upper chest, and the narrow valley between her luscious and ample twin swells, she was just as naked underneath the yukata's folds. Kaede was one of very few and select people who was privy to the private personal detail; after all, Claire regularly dressed and undressed in front of her, the latter normally to bare her body and all of its exquisite treasures to the snow-haired woman. Kaede was intimately familiar with every inch of that alluring form concealed and unconcealed by the enveloping yukata, and not only by sight but by touch and taste as well. Claire was her whore.
In truth, Claire could really be called Kaede's concubine instead of being labelled a mere common tramp. She diligently tended to all of her mistress's personal needs like washing and drying her, dressing and undressing her, and seeing to her general comfort as if she was a body servant… although she was more of a servant to Kaede's body than other help typically was. As Claire's title implied, in addition to ensuring that her mistress's daily needs were catered to, another of her responsibilities was to gratify Kaede's… other, even *more* personal needs. To Kaede's chagrin, the pleasures of the flesh were a vice she had considerable trouble denying, a weakness she realised, but one that even her indomitable will could not withstand. However, she admitted she didn't really try that hard to resist her desires that frequently led her to find succour in the arms of other women. Favoured by the gods she was, but Kaede was still human with a few yet to be conquered human frailties… some more tolerable than others. Besides, her weakness for female bedfellows was innocuous and taken care of by her concubines; it wasn't as though it put Kaede's campaign against Soldats in jeopardy.
Claire stood a couple of inches taller than Kaede, and her loose-fitting yukata couldn't hide a build that was rather petite, the obi emphasising a waist that was even smaller than her mistress's already slender own. Her slightly diminutive physique was hindered by a quite impressive muscle tone however, along with curves verging on voluptuous for her figure made more so by her tiny waist, her chest in particular prominent. Dark red hair akin to the colour of a ripe cherry, red wine, or congealed blood, fell in several plump and untidy spiralling ringlets to roughly a hand's breadth past Claire's shoulders, the two shortest framing a cute angelic or impish face--however one wanted to look at it--that seemed to never be long without a tickled smile upon it. A few stray bangs jutting out from the top of her head where the tapering ringlets began their swirls hung over eyes a duller shade of red, almost a subdued orangey-brown like a pair of unpolished garnets. Yet despite their tint Claire's eyes had a naughtiness about them to go with her mischievous face. And naughty Claire could certainly be if her playful antics around Kaede, explicitly whist in her bedroom, were any judge. But there was something else Kaede occasionally glimpsed in her eyes… something that emphasised the imp in her--the demon inside--her roots as a sinner. Depravity of the body was Claire's obvious sin, but this demon espied was of a different variety. Strange… but it could just be a figment of Kaede's imagination. Dominique had done all of the arranging of the woman's 'services' and had sworn to her that Claire was of the faithful. Kaede's guardian would not see a snake share her bed.
Her adorable countenance made Claire appear young, and at a casual glance one could mistake her for a girl in her late teens. Like her perceived innocence, her real age slanted more towards the opposite end of the spectrum. Claire was in fact older than Kaede, in her early thirties, although her exact age was a mystery to the snow-haired woman. Claire had been warming her bed for a couple of months now, yet many things about the woman still were to Kaede; her race, her probably debauched background, even her family name. They were details she could easily find out by talking to Dominique, but she had no interest in them. She was not looking to be Claire's friend, nor did she wish for the woman to be hers. Claire's purpose was to perform as her concubine; to fulfil the function she was allotted. So long as her finer points did not intrude upon that duty or any of the other personnel's in Ishinomori Tower, they were irrelevant.
In her spare moments spent in Claire's company, Kaede sometimes did idly speculate on where her concubine was from, however. Her facial features marked her clearly as a westerner, as did her odd wielding of the Japanese language, the pronunciation of numerous words peculiar to Kaede's ears. Kaede sometimes imagined that Claire was European, although she had no concrete basis for that presumption besides that most of the foreigners packing Ishinomori Tower's halls came from that continent. She did however recall hearing the redhead mutter things under her breath in English every so often, too low to actually decipher but with recognisable heat, and thus the possibility that Claire originated from an English-speaking country had crossed the kenjutsu master's mind. Nonetheless, at the end of the day Kaede's ponderings were moot and remained what they always had been--idle.
Claire's fat coils of ruby-red hair corkscrewing their way down from her head were striking, but it was the garish and graphic yukatas she wore that first drew the eye. Apparently having a penchant for traditional Japanese culture--or at least for the fashion at any rate--Claire was nary seen outside of Kaede's quarters lacking a yukata on the verge of slipping from her shoulders, each one as extravagant and lurid as its predecessor. Red was forever a prevalent colour, although the shades did change, and the yukatas' rich decorations encompassed every available square inch of fabric--often even the obi was involved. Subtle designs in the vein of a handful of falling cherry blossoms or a pair of birds in flight were notably absent in favour of sprawling hectic scenes featuring conflict of some kind; order versus chaos a principal theme. Today Claire's yukata told the tale of a fierce battle waged between ancient fully armoured samurai brandishing katanas and the sporadic wakizashi, and burly malevolent oni of many sorts and shapes grinning wickedly while their fangs and talons put their enemies' defences to the test. The yukata depicted a struggle unresolved, neither samurai nor oni giving the impression of having the upper hand, or that they would gain it anytime soon. It was another customary theme of all of Claire's yukata pictorials; eternal stalemates between two opposing sides, the combatants locked in a war without end.
The broad, deep sleeves of Claire's yukata flapped amid her quick movement towards Kaede, a samurai with raised sword bristling and a horned oni's bulging muscles flexing. A cheery smile brightened her pretty face and washed a further five years from her youthful veneer, the beam for her mistress just as sycophantic as the clapping had been.
"A splendid performance," Claire praised, adding predictable verbal accolades to her ingratiating routine at the same time she intercepted Kaede's march, positioning herself to block the swordswoman's path. "But one to be expected from a warrior of your calibre! Your expertise with a blade has been evinced to be unparalleled yet again."
Kaede, unfazed by the obsequious behaviour, did not slow her stride and pressed onwards, Claire swinging her body aside smoothly to make way yet not missing a beat with her fawning talk. The head of the Ishinomori family expected to be treated with a healthy dose of deference from her underlings, but Claire's toadying every so often bordered on patronising, her tone cavorting dangerously close to sarcastic. It was a very subtle bordering, but the objectionable trace of rebelliousness was there. The conduct was not considered by the kenjutsuka to be befitting in a subordinate, and rendered worse when that subordinate satisfied a function as intimate as the one Claire did. Kaede contemplated that she might have to put her sometimes disrespectful concubine firmly in her place someday--strict, defining discipline that the younger woman contemplated she possibly should have administered at the very beginning of their relationship--teaching her that her mistress was not ignorant to her condescending attitude, and that her position in the kenjutsu master's life did not impart her any leniency from her stern and punishing hand.
Walking past Claire, Kaede came to a stop a short distance behind the redhead, standing in front of the last woman of the little group loosely assembled in the vicinity of the training hall's chrome main entrance. The woman was the most subdued of all of the room's occupants--other than Horiuchi, of course--but in a very different manner to the nearby guard's relaxed alertness. Like the guard her head was lowered, but a cowed gaze was settled uneasily on the floor, sunken eyes rimmed below with dusky shadows numbly staring. The subjugated atmosphere smothering her was thick, heavy and oppressive; her bowed head, her hunched shoulders, her broken and deadened stare; all contributed to paint a bleak portrait of defeat and desolation, human misery at its deepest and darkest. She was how a servant was supposed to be: submissive and quiet. And a servant she was. Fumiko Morita had been serving Kaede for a long time, benefiting from several years of precision sculpting courtesy of her mistress that was responsible for shaping her into the painfully shy and subservient being she was today.
Fumiko was a young woman around Kaede's age, comparable enough to have potentially been her classmate in high school back in the day, and reached about her height as well, standing virtually at eye-level with her mistress. But where Kaede's slender physique had been toned to a trim muscular thanks to her life of martial pursuits, Fumiko's slender form was just that--slender. While she was not bony by any means, she was quite lean, missing the well-rounded curves and generous bust of Claire. But that was not to say she was any less ravishing in her own fashion, or that she was bereft of shapely feminine lures, lures that Kaede most certainly enjoyed in as many ways as they could be enjoyed.
Fumiko was not second to her counterpart Claire in looks, either. She was tremendously pretty, blessed with a wholesome beauty like that of a fresh-faced country girl. Her pallid, sickly complexion of a hue that rivalled Kaede's pale own and her worn-out and miserable appearance did diminish her splendour somewhat however, and coupled with her spare frame gave her an almost ghostly, wraithlike quality. Yet even then Kaede still considered Fumiko the most exquisite creature she had ever seen. From her light blue eyes as distinct as though they had been cut from azure crystal, to her lustrous dark green hair that flowed down in thick waves about her slim shoulders like a crimped mane of overlapping lush forest leaves, she was quite simply beautiful. Kaede reflected that Fumiko might very well have been the woman accountable for her deep appreciation of the female form just for simply being the marvellous example of feminine majesty she was. After all, Fumiko was the first woman--the first *person*--Kaede had ever been intimate with.
Contrasting Claire, Fumiko was not devoted to Kaede voluntarily. While Claire could be described as a concubine, the green-haired maiden was the closest match to a slave there was. Fumiko had not been recruited; she had been *enslaved*. The young downtrodden woman was a relic of Kaede's stint in the Kanagawa Koutetsu, her finest and most cherished relic.
To settle an outstanding monetary debt to the yakuza clan's cutthroat loansharks of a sum he could never hope to pay off himself, Fumiko's father had consented to have his eldest daughter, a university student at the time, butchered and her organs harvested to later be sold on the black market. Kaede's bosses in the Kanagawa Koutetsu decided not to immediately kill Fumiko however, instead electing to have some 'fun' with their new acquisition first before her trip to the human slaughterhouse. As it was, Kaede had stepped in before either foul fates could befall Fumiko, exploiting her respectable standing in the yakuza group--which had been mainly built on the substantial stack of dead bodies she had amassed during her career--to claim the previously damned woman as hers.
Make no mistake; Fumiko's plight had not incited pity in Kaede. It was her unblemished beauty inside and out that had captured Kaede's interest--her unspoiled virtue. To see a pure soul, a true saint in a world overrun with sinners, was a rarity. Too frequently where they consumed by the hateful environment they were forced to co-inhabit with their polar opposites in, their decency shining brightly like a star in the night's sky and attracting the darkness that would close in around it and one day dim and distort that light, before snuffing it out altogether and replacing it with more shadows. Kaede had wanted to preserve that light, that beauty, and bottle it in a sense, keeping it for herself to admire.
Legally dead attributable to a forged death certificate and with her family having forsaken her, doubtless believing that certificate to be testifying the truth by now, Fumiko's life was utterly in Kaede's hands to do with as she desired, at the mercy of her every capricious whim. Fumiko was a slave until she truly did die, for only in death would she find freedom. Kaede owned her as someone owns a pet, feeding and clothing her and providing the living dead woman with shelter and care within the walls of her home, walls that were effectively those of a kennel.
No collar was visible around Fumiko's neck, no binds restraining her hands and feet; there wasn't a need. Acute drug addiction made up her chains, the finest of Ishinomori Pharmaceuticals' outlawed products snorted up her nose or injected into her veins regularly every day. While Fumiko may dream of escape, her dependency on Kaede to supply her with her desperately craved-for banned substances kept her in line and malleable to her owner's will. The costly drugs she was hooked on she could never afford to buy on the street--if she could even find a purveyor who sold the quality product she was accustomed to imbibing--and so all the prospects of escape presented at best were that of a harsher existence where Fumiko would be forced to scrape for a meagre income any way that she could to support her expensive habit. Her family would not help her; her own father had traded her life for money, after all. There was nowhere for Fumiko to go; her home, prison may it be, was wherever Kaede's home was.
All those factors had their part in making Fumiko the perfect concubine in Kaede's eyes, the perfect toy for her to play with, a saint whose esteemed purity she could test the endurance of and see for herself what the limits were before a saint chaste of heart and innocent in soul de-evolved into a sinner vile in heart and twisted in soul. Claire, for all her lovely charms, wasn't really necessary; an extra treat after the main course. But Dominique believed she was, declaring that Kaede should have a 'proper outlet for her lust'. Kaede was not one to ever spurn her guardian's kind gifts, or not gifts that belonged in her bed at any rate, so she had graciously accepted Claire and while not quite welcoming her, had partaken of her services on many occasions. There was no danger of Claire usurping Fumiko's special status with Kaede however; the innocent doll would always be the white-haired woman's primary means in which to vent her primal desires.
Fumiko held out a fluffy white towel in somewhat unsteady hands to Kaede, her head staying down and her eyes remaining dropped to the floor and turned away from her mistress's blood sprayed face, deference and fear glimmering with parallel uneasiness in their watery blue depths. Fumiko's trembling extended to her whole body; her slim shoulders delicately shivering; and escalated ever so slightly as Kaede's hand neared to take the proffered towel, her muscles tensed to such rigidity it was as though they were about to shake apart under the strain.
Fumiko clearly relaxed once Kaede took the towel from her without incident, her chest collapsing as she released the breath she had been holding. Kaede supposed her slave had a right to be petrified of her when bearing in mind what ill-treatment she had put the young woman through in the name of her experiment, an experiment that had been ongoing now for more than a few years with indignity and torture heaped upon indignity and torture. And yet underneath her wretched and whitewashed veneer Fumiko's goodness had survived, her heart still pure and her soul unsullied. Her body was withering, her mind shattering… but her virtuous essence remained unharmed. In Kaede's eyes, Fumiko was strong. She had the spirit of a warrior.
Kaede scrubbed her face clean of Horiuchi's blood and of her light sheen of built up sweat, and then ran the towel down the back of her neck, mopping up more droplets of cool perspiration. Before she could do much more however, a pair of hands materialised over her shoulders and took the white towel now grimy with maroon smudges from her. Kaede felt the towel drape about her neck and shoulders, followed by firm hands massaging her recently exercised muscles through it, wiping skin as they went. It felt good, soothing after giving over her body to her furious spirit, the strong kneading fingers penetrating deep and their motions loosening muscles in readiness for another bout of training or combat, whenever either may come.
"Now that you have soundly trounced Mr. Horiuchi," Claire intoned from behind Kaede, the owner of the hands, "I presume it is time for another…?" The warm breath belonging to her words spoken close to Kaede titillated the nape of the white-haired woman's neck, very nearly triggering an electric shiver to tickle her spine that would have had nothing to do with the sweat chilling her body. Kaede masked the affects of Claire's breath teasing the hairs on the back of her neck to rise and of her concubine's rubbing hands liquefying her muscles well, aloofness her cover. She stood there stoically, immobile and with a shrewd smile frozen on her features while Claire tended to her, for all intents and purposes appearing oblivious to the redhead's stimulating ministrations.
"No. Enough," Kaede murmured quietly, partly in reply to Claire and partly to herself. There would be no further sparring against any more kenjutsu masters in the safe confines of this training hall. A war was being waged outside its secure walls; skills would be honed in true duels to the death from now on, perfection with the sword found in the ordeals of the battlefield; be they blade against blade or blade against gun.
Under Kaede's seemingly eyeless stare owing to her bangs and adopted indifference, Fumiko nervously clutched at the front of her sky blue sundress while keeping her head down, wrinkling the thin, virtually gossamer material in two tight, clammy, and quivering fists. The dress was a sky blue that moulded to her trim frame like a glove to a hand, accentuating the shape of her willowy curves such that they were all the more gratifying to behold in spite of their narrowness. Kaede had picked out the dress for Fumiko to wear herself, as she did the captivating woman's entire wardrobe. It was to be expected that she considered the dress enriching to her pet's natural beauty; it was the core purpose of all the outfits she chose for Fumiko. Beautiful creatures should be wrapped in beautiful things.
Kaede lifted her bandage-swathed hands and presented them before the apprehensive Fumiko's wilted gaze, trusting that having a task to carry out would pose as a distraction and put the frightened lamb a little more at ease. A tentative blue gaze slid from the floor to consider Kaede's hands, flitting uneasily between both back and forth, as if she was scared to let her eyes loiter on her mistress's death-dealing hands overly long. However, Fumiko was implicitly aware of what was required of her and that dawdling or refusal to comply would be frowned upon--and frowned upon *hard*--thus her dithering persisted for only a couple of seconds before her fear of punishment superseded her fear of touching her subjugator's hands, hands that had disciplined her on countless occasions through her and Kaede's years together.
Fumiko's hands cupped Kaede's right one as they would cup a ceremonial goblet or prized trophy; carefully and with grave veneration. Kaede's left hand fell to her side as Fumiko's graceful fingers sought out the start of the bandages binding its equivalent, light fingertips smoothing and pitter-pattering across the white mesh. The green-haired maiden's touch was soft and gentle and yet possessed an oddly warm trait, and Kaede could not help but be lulled by it. It was a simple touch in comparison to Claire's hands working her neck and shoulders, but it did much more for her than the massage could ever do.
Kaede could feel her hand beating rhythmically within Fumiko's two, throbbing in time with her heart, as if she were somehow deeply aware of every drop of blood pumping in every vessel criss-crossing through it. She longed for the bandages to be removed, for the numbing buffer to be stripped off and the tactile sensation heightened, experienced as it should be with no restrictions, skin on skin. Her breathing was sluggish and level, held rapt along with her senses, her being concentrated on her hand; ensnared. Everything else seemed to become muted, the peripheral slowly dimming; Claire's pompous voice flattering her on her decision to discontinue sparring with fellow sword masters, the redhead's kneading fingers, the rasp of the towel on her flesh, the chill of her sweat on her body; it all seemed to fade and become part of a dispensed with background, overlooked ahead of an infinitely more compelling attraction--the caresses of an angel. Fumiko commanded divinity at her fingertips, the quintessence of Heaven contained in her every touch. It was calming to Kaede, a taste of the tranquil. For the time Fumiko touched her Kaede's personal crusade didn't seem so important any more, her furious war against Soldats all but forgotten and her lust for vengeance gone as if it had never been. There was no need to fight and kill, no need to roar and rampage, no need sate the desire to avenge in her heart. Kaede was at peace with herself and the world around her.
But peace never lasts. It was the concept of dreamers and weaklings, blinkered idiots who did not see the world for what it during was--a constant battlefield where conflicts continually arose, hearts and minds and bodies pitted each other. Kaede mused that there was truth in the scenes Claire's yukata's illustrated. Kaede's peace was ruined in this instance while Fumiko was unwrapping the last of the bandages around her left hand and Claire was swabbing her back with the towel pushed up inside her tank top. That ruin came by way of a curt succession of raps on the reverse side of the room's front doors, booming thumps inside the cavernous training hall. Kaede instantly stirred from her blissful torpor, her body jerking stiffly to attention as recollection of exactly who she was returned in a deluge of memories and emotions; that old bitter vendetta, that old hot-blooded fury, and that old deep-seated hatred.
Kaede turned her head towards the double doors just as they swung open, a familiarly uniformed Soldats renegade appearing between them with her hands resting on the handles. The elite soldier tilted her head in a crisp nod upon her entry--a nod respectful for Kaede's position and apologetic for the interruption. The snow-haired warrior accepted the gesture through a stony visage, her smile cold now that her sacred duty was restored in her mind to consume her every waking thought once more.
"Pardon the intrusion Lady Kaede," the guard said, standing in the fissure between the hall's open doors and with her hands still on their handles. She was another foreigner, and spoke in clipped French. Not all of the Soldats defectors who wore the prestigious silver badge knew Japanese, thus the many who did not had resorted to drawing on what French they were conversant in to communicate with Kaede. It was fortunate that Kaede was very articulate in wielding the language, the upshot of abundant lessons with Dominique as a young girl and recurrent chats with her former teacher using the tongue while growing older. "But Mr. Ryosuke has returned from his trip."
Kaede gave an immediate start at the mention of her sole surviving and dearest blood relation, and a moment later a softer, warmer aura overtly took nest around her. The incessant smile on her face lit up tenfold, icy and sinister no longer but radiant, a smile that was all ingenuous joy simply at hearing that a loved one had come home. Gone was the seething crusader; that element of Kaede receding from the fore yet again, diluted in an instant to expose the adoring little sister shrouded deep underneath.
"Big Brother?" Kaede said, very nearly gushing. "R-Really?" She tried to keep her tone level, but the excitement quivering just below her words was clear, so close to the surface that it caused her voice to quaver also. She so wanted to believe the elite guard's news but needed to be totally sure that her elder brother had in fact returned to Yokohama, to the sheltering fortifications of Ishinomori Tower, and not to mention still with life in his body. Kaede *had* to see him. See him with her own two eyes and verify for herself that he was back and all right.
Big Brother had been away for so long--too long. Away on an important mission for the pious cause, yes, but still for too long. Kaede had missed him terribly, her loneliness compounding as each day went by bearing no word from him either good or bad, and her mounting worry had fared no better with the lack of reports. Big Brother's friends who had stayed behind in Japan had tried to reassure her that he could look after himself, that he was an adept soldier, a battle-hardened warrior like her, but it had not done much to lessen her concern. France had been a distance place to Kaede where anything could happen to her older brother while he was there, in the middle of a notorious bastion of Soldats, the land swarming with the enemy. The fretting sister had known that her brother was not entirely alone in the hornet's nest with Vincent to watch his back, the Chinese triad associate an accomplished soldier in his own right, but they had still been merely two against innumerable opposition. The pair had bet on their small number being what would let them slip inside France's borders and roam within them undetected, however Kaede had known that there was little that escaped Soldats' myriad of ever-vigilant eyes. Kaede and her supporters had gouged most of those eyes from the lands encircling their headquarters in Yokohama, but Kanagawa prefecture was a place unique in that regard. Soldats' eyes remained very wide open in every other locale across the globe.
But that was all moot, now. Big Brother and Vincent had been in the thick of enemy territory unaided yet had apparently returned with new war stories to recount about their exploits there. Kaede didn't even really care if her brother's assignment had been fruitful or not; she just wanted--needed--to see him. No, that was not completely true. Dominique had coveted that old French tome quite badly, and had seemed to believe it critical to the achievement of their goals. Therefore a part of Kaede did hope that Big Brother had been successful, if just to please her cherished guardian. Even the prospect that the book would somehow assist them in instigating Soldats' fall was secondary to that. A very close secondary, but secondary nonetheless.
"Take me too him," Kaede half demanded and half implored, not waiting for confirmation to her earlier inquiries from the guard. The young woman took an impulsive step towards the black clad foreigner and the training hall's front doors, forsaking the nurturing of Claire and Fumiko. The first concubine shot her mistress an exasperated glower as she was forced to hurriedly jerk the towel out from underneath the back of Kaede's tank top. Claire then crossed her arms huffily, the towel suspended between a thumb and forefinger, and twisted her lips in displeasure at being totally ignored--the equivalent of a sullen but adorable pout for her cute face. Fumiko on the other hand slumped to her hands and knees, Kaede's unexpected movement making her drop the bandages she had just unravelled from the kenjutsu master's left hand. Her hands scrambled frantically on the wooden floorboards like a pair of ashen spiders for the strips of white fabric, her rather wiry fingers their skittering legs, while she whispered a deflated apology. When Fumiko had finally gathered the bandages she clasped them to her chest and sat upright on her knees, lingering there genuflect on the floor looking as meek as ever. But Kaede did not pay heed to the differing actions of her pets, the two women all but unseen. She had only one interest at the moment. "I must see my brother now," she reiterated, this time with a dash more demand bolstering her voice.
"Not in that state you are
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