2026-08-20: A Torch Borne For The Lost
- Cutscene: The Torch Borne For the Lost
- Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara, Kouhei Ryouhara
- Where: The Inscrutable Region, Mizunagi
- OOC Date: 2026-08-20
- IC Date: Sometime between Dec 30th and the new year..
- Summary: After forever, the shihaisha of Ryouhara takes a young man through the winding, twisting labyrinths of the disappeared ship, Mizunagi, to gather one of their fallen own who was left behind. But it was not just one that died on the shihaisha's watch, something he is going to be reminded of by the one with the right to hold the biggest grudge of all.
"...Don't throw away your father's legacy so needlessly."
The shihaisha watched the twisting, worming path ahead, trapping him between the past and the unknown, tumultuous future. His half-lidded gaze was impassive, his hands folded underneath the drape of his haori.
He spoke without looking back, without looking back at the boy behind him. It may have been foolishness to believe that Shiryuu was unaware of his heart. As much as the Akita pureblood seemed completely disconnected from the realities of his crimes, the rare moment of insight seemed almost absurd. But Shirogarasu had the devil's luck, and the devil's eye beside.
It was hard for Kouhei not to bridle against the warning, hard for him not to lift his sword right then and there. It was an abominable crawl across the upper deck. Before them was a still, felled form, wearing a black gi. Evidence of another crime -- the price paid for the shihaisha's mad, treasonous obsession with breaking away from their lords.
The air was still damp from the flooded holds below, where the moisture seeped upward through the deck by its endless mechanical reconfiguration. Even as he watched, deckboards and railing shifted restlessly as part of some abhorrent mechanism, driven by some cruel god's spring. The younger Ryouhara felt the same way, having fought through no end of mechanical horrors to escort the comparably defenseless shihaisha to the summit of the ship.
The shihaisha had left his ninkou Bankasoujin on the ship when ecaping with Kurou and the girl, leaving him only one of the clan's simple blades at his side. Without the ability to channel the full extent of his supralunar power, the field had been leveled between them.
He was waiting, Kouhei told himself. For the right moment. The right opportunity. The machines and psychosis spaces on the ship made it hard to get a clean shot at his father's killer, and Kouhei had no intention of dying for Shiryuu by getting distracted, not like Zakuro had. But soon, the older Ryouhara would be within reach of his full power again. The window was closing.
Time did not seem to pass in the same way on the ship as it did everywhere else. Or perhaps it was simply that physics worked differently here. Zakuro laid in place right where he fell, with the light from above shining off of the bright splotch of red still on the deck. There wasn't an ounce of decay, as if time had just forgotten to pass. It's not where he originally fell according to their cartography, but the body had been shifted to the skyward-oriented bow of the ship through unknown means. It was as if the ship itself were jealously holding hostage the memory of the man in black had shooting down their clan brother like a dog.
It could have been Shuuhei, Kouhei reminded himself, while watching the way the shihaisha knelt by the ashen-grey figure that used to be their family. Silken strands of hair had snaked through seams in the deck beneath Zakuro, emerging from the pool of blood to wind crimson-dipped locks at crossed angles about the body. The sleek, glassy tresses were as smooth and shining as any woman's, in a mindlessly abominable fashion. In a haphazard way, the taut bindings cinching Zakuro to the deck could barely resemble a botched kanji: enclosed on three sides, with a bright black saltire in the middle crossing his shoulders and chest. An evil symbol of misfortune, it felt like the boat was trying to pass judgment. The shihaisha examined the way the hair slithered around his fingertips, before he cut the questing strands short with the kodachi he carried.
'Don't throw away your father's legacy so needlessly,' he'd said.
It lent the words that followed the taste of poison, to Kouhei.
The shihaisha straightened, appearing cold and serene as if he'd never said anything at all. Those words of warning hung in the air, his back still facing Kouhei. The short sword clicked back into its sheath, hung at the front of his belt with cordage to make room for the empty saya that still hung at his side. "You can't see the moon from here," the grey-haired young man thought calmly. "But it exists, even so."
"...maybe it's the same, for all of those who came before."
Middling poetry. The gall was too much for the younger shinobi to bear. The guard plates on the backs of his sleeves tightened until he could hear the rivets click to the end of their tolerances for fitment. The outburst that followed was entirely involuntary, the result of months of dutiful compliance, of holding back. "Those are just the words of a scoundrel," Kouhei spat. "Words from a person who decided to do whatever he wanted! Who threw away our lives! There's no justice in that!"
The shihaisha didn't turn towards him. For a moment, a small, immature part of Kouhei flinched, thinking he may have already been killed. His father had told him the young man at the highest step of the clan was merciless, cold, and killed in an instant.
No. There were forces much, much more powerful than him, Kouhei reminded himself.
The grey-haired man's voice fell to an obvious hush when he tilted his chin down, his eyes settling on the body before them. "... you're right," the shihaisha contemplated. "There can be no forgiveness for those who throw away people's lives before their own."
The words didn't bring Kouhei any peace. Hypocrisy never could. Only action. Emboldened, he pointed at the symbol at the shihaisha's back, their clan symbol. As if he'd betrayed it. "Then what's your excuse? What's heaven's judgment for you!?"
And then, the older shinobi sighed. It was a quiet, diminutive sound, as he looked up to the cavern above, and the single stab of light emanating from above.
"...You're a misfortunate child..."
When Shiryuu turned to finally face Kouhei, his eyes were only pale paintings behind the darkness of his bangs. "I was born in a different light from you," the young man began solemnly. "Where you've endured the darkness of our endeavors and the miseries of our ambitions, I've lived a shining life. In that light, the amount of blood between us is more different than it is alike. To its extent, that difference between us is so vast that it's not just 'blood' but also 'power.' It is because of that difference that I have to hold all reins. And because of that, if it comes to something like excusing myself... I wouldn't be that callous."
The shihaisha was placid, flat and calm as he pointed out what should have been painfully obvious the whole time. It didn't matter whether he was behind him, or in front of him, whether he was trained or whether he was armed and Shiryuu was not. If he drew his sword....
Kouhei never finished the thought, as Shiryuu cut it short.
"...And so I implore you again. Live a full life. Get excellent grades, cherish your bonds and your family. Become strong, become exemplary. Keep that man in your heart. Don't throw this life away so carelessly."
No. What does it all mean, if traitors can just get away with doing as they please? "It's all so easy for you to say, 'savior from Akita,'" Kouhei bit back, spitting the title like it was bitter dirt. "You'd say different, if it were your father, if it were your brother, if it were your sister, if it were your mother--!"
He tried. Tried to get the savage, infuriatingly facetious little blonde runaway to distract the grey-haired tyrant long enough for the situation to take care of itself. But the shihaisha had the devil's own luck, and avoided getting killed by a hair -- instead, Zakuro died. It left it up to him. Dauntless, Kouhei drew his blade with a flash, holding it in front of his face as if whispering an oath before it and the shihaisha. "...If you're a savior," he declared, "then I'm an avenger, the tenchuu that even you must face."
Kouhei forced steel to his nerves. It was the reason the Order retained the services of the Ryouhara, as the hands in the dark who could do the things no one else could. And yet, despite reaching out to decide his own fate, the boy was stunned to see the silver-haired man do nothing in kind.
He did not respond in kind; that man merely shook his head.
"...no, you're not."
Instead of making any reasonable argument, the shihaisha reached into his haori, looking away. Instead of a weapon, he drew a flat piece of coal-smudged origami, a bisectional envelope blazoned with ink marks over its mottled surfaces. Junenhouin, a ninkou made to annihilate other ninkou. Its flames were measurably hotter than even most other fire ninkou, and the white crackle of the pincer-shaped ignition envelope as the shihaisha opened it was dazzing.
Like a flare dropped from the sky, the igniting flame fell onto Zakuro's body, the white sparks and coruscating trails of flame immolating hair, cloth and flesh all the same. The scent of the reactants overpowered the scent of the burning body with an acrid, bitter smell. It was part of the plan -- they were going to burn Zakuro to the deckboards here, and then gather his ashes to return them.
Now only a silhouette in front of that fire, the young man was solemn and quiet as he watched. That flame meant different things to the two of them, but what little fight Kouhei had dissipated in the face of the clan's loss. Shiryuu watched the flame impassively.
"You are... a memorial to everyone who ever cared for you."
It was hard to tell if he had it in him. If he ever did. He couldn't kill him here, not on this mission, not this way. The fittings of his katana made a soft sound as Kouhei reluctantly lowered his blade, the oath spoken over it seeming to settle and curl, like an avid, hungry viper. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that Shirogarasu and his pet blonde played on, while his father grew cold in the ground and Zakuro burned in front of them. "...I won't forgive what you've done," the dark-haired boy promised breathlessly.
"No matter what you say to me, no matter what they say about you. I'll protect my brother from you and avenge everyone. Even if I have to eat the shadows out from the foundations beneath you, I'll find a way."
Shiryuu stayed there, watching the fire burn.
"...good."