The Hinomoto Rebellion (39 page)

Andrea let out a huff. “You should have taken your own advice a long time ago then,” she reached out and brushed one of her fingers down a crimson leaf. It was smooth and kind of leathery, but still soft.

“It’s different when you have a family to worry about.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” and as Andrea said that, the leaf she had touched fell off the tree and landed in her palm. Andrea’s eyes widened and she looked at Shogun Kunota in panic. “I didn’t mean- It just.. It fell off!”

“Oh no, don’t worry about it, that hap-”

Kunota was interrupted by someone opening the door to his office. “Excuse me, sir?” said a voice as it was opening. Kunota spun, suddenly panicking. If someone came in and saw him with a
ronin
in his office, there would be hell to pay.

“Don’t come in!” he managed to shout, but it was too late, the bodyguard had the door all the way open.

 

The other man looked at him in confusion. “What’s wrong, Shogun?” he asked.

Kunota looked back toward the small red-leafed tree, but Andrea wasn’t there. “Where?” he turned all the way around, but aside from him and the guard at the door, no one else was in the office. A breeze stirred the curtain by the open window, and Kunota realized that his new
ronin
friend had left. He turned back to the guard. “It’s nothing. What can I do for you?”

Out on the ledge that went around the building from the Shogun’s window crouched Andrea. She clutched the three novels to her chest as she balanced on the small shelf, waiting for an opportunity to climb back down the way she’d come up. She looked down at the palm of her hand and watched the moonlight gleam off the surface of the red leaf for a moment before she tucked it under her obi and adjusted her grip on the books.
It’s time to go home, Andrea.

Foxfire paced back and forth in his small holding cell. He could hear Bear in the next area over from him, shifting on the small slab they had been given to sleep on.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor, Foxfire. Stop it,” Bear said after listening to him pace for nearly half an hour. Foxfire turned to face the wall. “You would be doing this too if you were as worried as I am about tomorrow!”

 

Bear grunted. “Why are you worried about it? It’s going to happen, there’s nothing you can do about it, get over it.”

“I’m worried because I care about
ronin
! You’re a
ronin
, I thought you’d at least care about what happens to them. You’ve known Andrea for a long time and you
know
what Yasakuto is capable of! Can you honestly sit there and tell me you don’t care!?”

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the wall. Foxfire continued. “Yasakuto was always a little off anyway, but now you’re going to help him destroy our way of life!? What is wrong with you!?” he yelled.

“I know when I’ve been beaten, Foxfire. In the end, it will be better to go along with Yasakuto than to try to stand against him. Sometimes you just have to throw your lot in with the bad guy in order to stay alive.”

Foxfire furrowed his brows at the wall. “Well, you can be apathetic if you want to be. I’m going to sit over here and wear a hole in the floor if you don’t mind.”
From the other side of the wall, Bear let out a snore, and

Foxfire went back to pacing.

 

Andrea walked back through the darkness to the
Kemono
mall. She stuck to the back alleys and side streets, away from main roads and crowds of people. As she walked she ran her conversation with Shogun Kunota over in her head a few times. She sincerely hoped she’d gotten through to him just how important this was for the entire country of Hinomoto.

Fighting for a cause now, Andrea?
It was kind of ironic. She’d fought for all kinds of things before: revenge, money, protection, survival, but never for something noble like this. She’d told D that after the warehouse raid and she’d meant it too.

But then again, she’d never actually believed in anything before. Life had been one constant struggle to be the best, to prove that she could be just as good as any man at fighting. And it was all because she had been beaten so helpless when she was a child. Andrea sighed as she walked, thinking back to telling the other rebels about her past.
It’s hard to uncork something like that when you’ve let it fester for nearly 20 years. But I’m going back now, and tomorrow this will be over, for better or worse. Time for the final showdown. I just hope we’re ready. Yasakuto will bring his police and his guns, we’ll bring ronin and Kemono, and the world will finally know that something is going on here.

Andrea allowed herself a small smile as the mall came into view. She started across the blackness of the abandoned lot, and hadn’t gotten far when she stopped. The hair on the back of her neck raised, and she got the distinct feeling that she was being watched. Her eyes darted around, trying to figure out if someone really was out here.

Suddenly, there was a noise behind her. Instinctively, Andrea leaped forward, hitting the asphalt with her shoulder and rolling forward as something crashed into the spot where she’d been standing. When she finished her roll, Andrea leaped to her feet and spun around to face her attacker, the books still clutched against her chest.

“Aki! Don’t do that!” Andrea yelled.

The black-haired, teal-eyed member of the Aka Ryuu stepped into a patch of moonlight, her bo by her side. She had a sadistic grin across her face that almost made Andrea flinch. “Welcome back, Andrea.”

Something suddenly clicked in Andrea’s head– something she’d overlooked in all the weeks that Aki had been with them. Her eyes widened. “No.. It can’t be...”

Aki’s smirk grew wider. “Finally figured it out, eh, Tiger? I admit, I’m disappointed that you didn’t catch on sooner. I guess you wouldn’t remember the face of one more opponent after five years, would you?”

Andrea’s anger flared up and she found herself seeing red.
Stupid! Why didn’t you see it before!?
“You’re the spy!”

Aki let out a laugh. “Of course I am, idiot. This was the best way to get my revenge on you, so I took it even though I had to sell my soul to Daimyo Yasakuto. It’s well worth it though to make you pay for sending me to jail.”

Jail?
“What the hell are you talking about? I never sent you to jail, I just challenged you to a fight!”

A scowl crossed Aki’s face. “Let me refresh your memory, little Tiger. You attacked me because I beat you in the ring at Tony’s Place my first night competing. When you saw me on the street the next day, you assaulted me because I had beaten you! Some ‘law-abiding citizen’ saw the two of us fighting and called the police. Well guess what, Andrea? They caught me and threw me in a tiny, windowless cell! If it hadn’t been for you, I never would’ve been in there! You took away five years of my life! So when Daimyo Yasakuto approached me and offered me a chance to get revenge on you, I leaped at it.”

Andrea bit her lower lip, then exploded into cold laughter. Aki snarled. “What are you laughing about!?”

The Tiger quickly gained control of herself. “You left out a few facts from your little story, Aki. You’ve conveniently forgotten that Tony was deathly ill at the time, and after you beat me in the tournament, I spent the rest of the night working behind the bar to try to get enough money to buy him medicine. When I ‘attacked you’ the next day, it was because
you
ran around a corner into
me
while I was carrying the medicine I’d scraped together everything I had to buy! I only reacted like that because you made me drop everything! I had to win the tournament and work the bar that night just to go buy it again!”

“It’s still your fault!” yelled Aki as she raced forward, holding her bo high above her head. Andrea barely had time to leap out of the way before the staff came smashing down on the asphalt. As Aki turned to face Andrea, the silver-haired
ronin
slowly put down the three novels she’d been carrying.

“Alright, fine. You want to fight, we’ll fight,” Andrea’s eyes flashed with anger. “But I hold no mercy for traitors!” Her sneakers dug into the asphalt as she leaped forward, pulling back a fist that was aimed for Aki’s face.

Aki quickly spun her bo around and smacked Andrea’s arm aside as she stepped to the right, evading any possibility of being tackled by the silver-haired girl. Andrea’s momentum carried her forward as the black-haired girl swung around and attempted to connect her staff with the back of Andrea’s skull. She managed a grazing shot across the Tiger’s neck, but it didn’t do any damage. Andrea turned around quickly to see Aki’s bo rushing toward her stomach.

Almost instinctively, the Tiger moved her hips backwards, trying to get enough out of the way to avoid being hurt, but staying close enough to grab the pole. The weapon was Aki’s advantage, Andrea knew. Unfortunately, she had miscalculated both how fast the traitor could swing the bo and how far her reach went with it. The blunt end of the staff rammed into Andrea’s gut, knocking the wind from her and sending her tumbling to the asphalt, coughing and gasping for air.

Aki walked over confidently and kicked the silver-haired
ronin
in the ribs to roll her onto her back. She put her boot on Andrea’s throat and pressed down. “It’s kind of sad that I can’t kill you right now, Andrea. It would be a rather fitting end to your existence, since you and Shinrai would both have died on your backs, looking helplessly up at me.” Aki grinned as she watched Andrea’s eyes burn with anger at the mention of Shinrai. She clutched at Aki’s ankle and tried to break free before she passed out. Aki applied more pressure, watching as Andrea’s eyes rolled back in her head. The Tiger clawed desperately at her boot, trying to remove it from her windpipe.

Just as it seemed that Andrea was going to give up, she gritted her teeth and furrowed her brows. One of Aki’s eyebrows arched in confusion just as Andrea’s left hand sparked with blue energy. She pulled back her fist and smashed it into Aki’s supporting leg just as she was moving to step away.

Aki let out a shout as the ki arced around her leg, sending shock waves of pain up her entire body. The bo-wielding
ronin
joined the Tiger on the broken asphalt, both trying to regain their bearings. Andrea rolled over to her stomach and worked her way to her feet, still coughing and gasping as she did. At the same time, Aki grabbed her bo and got up, her skin ashen.

The two warriors faced one another. Blood dribbled from the corner of Andrea’s mouth down her chin. They glared at each other, their pupils burning with mutual hatred. “You burned down the temple! And killed Daimyo Shinrai! And set us up at the warehouse!” snarled Andrea, her anger rising to an all-time high. She was literally seeing red around the edges of her vision, and she didn’t think it was from any injuries or loss of oxygen.

Aki smirked. “Yeah, I did,” she said, her voice holding no remorse.

Andrea let out a roar and raced forward, letting her right leg fly out in a kick that would’ve likely broken Aki’s jaw if she had not gotten her bo up and knocked Andrea’s foot away. Before she could swing the deadly staff around, Andrea stepped in and punched Aki in the chest as hard as she could.

Aki let out a grunt and stumbled backwards from Andrea’s blow, allowing Andrea to move in again and slam her knee into the other woman’s gut. As she stumbled backwards, Aki managed to raise her foot enough to catch Andrea in the shoulder with it as she was moving in to strike another blow. Andrea reeled back, instinctively clutching her shoulder as pain shot down to her fingertips. With the Tiger distracted momentarily, Aki stepped in and roundhouse kicked her in the shoulder again, sending her spinning to the side, her back exposed.

Aki’s staff crashed down on Andrea’s lower back, sending her face-first to the rough asphalt. Stars were swimming in front of her blue eyes as tendrils of pain went from her back all the way through her body. Instinctively, she tried to get up to her fee, knowing that Aki and her deadly bo were still out there.

The Tiger coughed and felt warm, thick liquid come out from between her lips.
Great... internal bleeding...
she thought, idly wondering when she’d last coughed up blood.