Beast - Final Chapter
Chapter 8 [Final]
Series: Gintama
Characters: Takasugi, Bansai + rest of Kiheitai
Rating: T/M
Length: 3,580 words
Summary: Murder and a new Kiheitai
Warnings: some violence
Notes: This is it - the final chapter (now you know what I've been doing during those two months I didn't have Internet...)! I don't really think any readers are left but if there are - a big hello and thank you all for hanging in there until the end! Re-reading the story is actually kinda weird for me because my style has changed quite a lot since I wrote this - may, at some point I will rewrite this thing and it'll hopefully be better. Still, I'm happy I managed to finish it after all :).
What he needed first, though, was a weapon. It wasn’t hard to find one despite the continuing swordsban of the Amanto. The idiot who sold him the sword, and, at the same time, wanted to cheat him of the money, wasn’t sharp enough to see the monster inside him. His blood was the first that the new blade got to taste.
Sometimes Takasugi woke up in the middle of the night, his body covered in sweat. In his dreams, he was back in the prison again, fighting against death, pain and loneliness whilst he wished for nothing else besides being able to die. He saw them fall, saw all of those die that had once been important to him. In those moments he had to give everything he had not to scream even when he was awake again. It’s over, a voice whispered in his head. It’s over and you have learned your lesson. Now it’s your turn. Kill them! Kill them all! And destroy them like they destroyed you and everything that was once important to you.
Blood was the only way to silence those whispers. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough. In those nights he roamed the streets and killed, murdered, slaughtered everyone in his way, especially Amanto or members of the Bakufu if he could find them. He didn’t care if he got hurt himself; everything that counted was to follow the everylasting call for murder in his head.
At the beginning, those murders were random and without method, only served to satisfy the longing for blood in his venes. The continuous use of his sword strengthened his muscles again, renewed his reflexes. The first murders were sloppy, messy work. But soon, his cuts became more precise, the time he needed to kill shorter and shorter.
At some point, he started stalking out his targets, narrowing down his efforts to certain people, just like this very night.
They were drunk. He knew it even before he could see their reddened faces and wet eyes. Their dissonant singing cut through the silence of the night and hurt in his ears.
Nobody saw him as he slowly approached them through the garden of the guest house. He didn’t want to make a grand entrance - his only purpose was to kill, to shed their blood with his own hands.
They didn’t stand a chance.
Within seconds, three high-ranking officers of the Bakufu and two Amanto lay dead on the floor, covered in blood and remnants of the meal they had been enjoying just moments ago. It was strange - when he looked at the dead face, frozen in shock and fear, he didn’t feel anything. Not even real satisfaction, but simply nothing apart from a strange, biting cold. Many claimed that thoughts of revenge were like heat streaming through the body, but he knew differently. It was nothing more than the cold frost of emptiness slowly crawling over his soul and freezing everything.
Takasugi knew that, at the moment, the only thing able to fill this emptiness inside him was blood. The wrath surging through him, this clamouring beast, would be satisified with nothing else. He would keep on destroying until the animal inside would stop rampaging.
He turned around to leave the room. Suddenly, a shimmer of light fell into his eyes and grabbed his attention. A shamisen. He was drawn to the polished wood, attracted like a moth to the flame. Slowly, he went closer and carefully closed his hand around the hilt, picking the instrument up from the floor. On a second thought, he also grabbed the bachi next to it. Then he left this room filled with death as quickly as he had come. He could already hear the first sirens in the distance.
His hiding place was a simple boat on the river. It was convenient since he could change his location as often as he wanted to. Furthermore, it was strangely comforting with nothing else besides the waves and the voices in his head for company. He didn’t even take off his blood stained clothes when he came back this time and lit his pipe. At some point, he had come to enjoy the smell of his hate together with the smoke. Sitting on the windowstill, Takasugi kept staring at the instrument he had leaned against the opposite wall.
For a moment, a vague memory flashed up in his mind: the feeling of the smooth wood in his hand, the strings under his fingers. The many hours he had once spent playing. He had buried those thoughts so deeply inside him that he had thought he would never be able to remember. But still...
It started raining outside. The sound of falling hitting flowing water made him sleepy, but at the same time he felt himself tensing up. It was a strange rhythm, one that was almost calling for him to accompany it.
Carefully, he picked the instrument up again. Then he sat down on the floor. His body still remembered the posture. It had been etched deep into his sinews and muscles by countless times of playing so that it felt strange only for a moment. The fingers of his left hand were still slightly stiff, especially compared to back then, since so many of them had been broken. It would take some more time until they would have reached their former agility again. His right hand still hurt where the Amanto had stuck his knife through it.
However, something within him didn’t want to give in to the pain, wanted to play this instrument no matter the cost. The first notes he played sounded hesistant, unsure, floating through the air and dying quickly. It took his body a while to remember again what it meant to play. But maybe for the first time since he had woken up in the cruel darkness of the Amanto’s prisons he could feel something else inside him but this terrifying, biting cold. Almost unconsciously, his fingers moved over the strings, playing a melody that seemed to belong to a different life and time. Still, it touched something within him. He didn’t know what it was, but it felt oddly familiar and comforting.
Memories.
Melodies were inadvertably tied to faces, to stories. By now, he didn’t know anymore if he was playing to forget or to remember. Maybe it was both. But no matter the reason, his fingers kept sliding over the strings for hours until the sky turned red in the approaching dawn.
***
He began to play more often after he had killed. At first, he withdrew to his boat, but later, he could often be found at different places. In those moments, there wasn’t much - sake, the sweet smell of the smoke from his pipe and the sound of his shamisen. Sometimes he went on for hours after hours.
It was the same after these murders - a high officer in the Bakufu and his two guards. Takasugi didn’t know for how long he’d been sitting in the shadow of an old tree in his bloodied clothes, plucking the strings of his instrument without paying any attention to his surroundings. Suddenly, a silhouette was looming in front of him.
He paused his play and looked up.
A tall man, with dark hair and dressed in an equally dark, long coat. Large Headphones were draped around his neck, with the noise of a shrill voice and the hammering beat of some current idol coming out of it. Although it was night the man seemed to wear sunglasses which covered his eyes. Takasugi could see parts of the outline of a shamisen protruding from his back.
Something seemed to set him apart from everbody else Takasugi had met so far, although he couldn’t tell what it was. Maybe his aura, the way he moved. He had something of a predator about him, always ready to jump his prey. Like a black panther, equal to him in his dangerousness.
“Please continue.”
He voice was dark and full.
Takasugi didn’t say anything. Instead, he indeed took up his play again, if a bit hesitant to do so at first. After a while, the stranger sat down next to him, took his own instrument from his back and began to play as well. A few moments later, he was already in perfect rhythm with Takasugi’s song. The melody flowed through the night and seemed to surround them like an invisible blanket.
His unknown counterpart obviously seemed to enjoy their shared play. After the last notes of their song had vanished in the air, he said, after a moment’s silence:
“Your melody intrigues me. There seems to be an aura of dark wrath around you...a cruel, destructive song, but one which holds a lot of fascination, I daresay.
I apologize for my insolence, but...would you eventually consider a collaboration between the two of us? I am sure I would be delighted to follow the orders of a man as interesting as you seem to be.”
His proposal came as a surprise to Takasugi.
However, he, too, had felt the strength that lay in the play of the other man, the quiet destruction lurking in the background. Takasugi smiled.
***
Bansai was the first one to join him. Soon, they made their way through the nights together. Instead of restraining him, however, it seemed like Bansai’s presence only served to make Takasugi even more dangerous; his murders became now even more precise and destructive in their impact. Could he be compared to sword wildly slashing around in his fury and hurt before, then Bansai was like a whetstone, sharpening him and his abilities and giving them a direction, a new aim to strike at. At the same time, he had his back and merged his own strength with Takasugi’s.
Over time, they gained more members. They were attracted by Takasugi’s iron will, his determination and radicality that he used when relentlessy pursuing his aim. Almost everybody he met was captivated by his plans and his personality and more than once, he could win them over. All his people seemed to be fully aware of the fact that they were nothing more than tools to him, but nobody really seemed to mind.
In his thoughts and only unconsciously at the beginning Takasugi started to call them ‘Kiheitai’ again, almost embraching the red and black emotions those thoughts stirred up. He swore to himself never to have to give up on this name. He would never again see the severed heads of all those men who trusted and followed him stacked up in front of him.
Amongst the new members there were many different and strange kinds - from ghosts of the past to youngsters who had never gotten a taste of what war was really like. But Takasugi didn’t care where they came from or what they believed in, if only they could serve his purpose. No matter if they were a blind assassin, a tactical genius and Lolicon or a young blonde who could handle guns better than anyone else he’d seen before - he simply didn’t care. Not even the sporadic encounters with Gintoki or Katsura could deter him from his way. On the contrary, he was disgusted with what had become of his former comrades: Gintoki had apparently thrown away his sword completely and put down the white demon inside him. Zura was only a shadow of his former self, spouting beautiful but empty words and doing nothing to pursue his so-called aim. And Sakamoto...he had tried to completely ban the idiot from his mind. It made him mad to think of them. The few moments of sadness he felt when their faces turned up in his mind were quickly extinguished by anger and hate. A single look at the scars on his body and soul were enought to make the black beats inside him howl out in fury again.
***
The larger his group got, the more elaborate his ideas became as well. Now, they started to plan their attacks even more systematically and together with his closest acquaintances he drew up plots to finally bring down the Bakufu. It was his aim to get as close to the government as possible - even if this meant he had to work with some Amanto to do so. However, even now that he had men and women carrying out his orders for him, often enough he still found himself thirsting for blood he had shed himself. This time they planned on attacking an entire Amanto embassy together.
The room was lightened only by a few lamps whilst they were sitting on the floor with only the four of them. Maps and drawn-out diagrams were spread on the floor. Takasugi lit his pipe and drew in a lung full of smoke. Then he emptied it with a quick tap on the pipe head, using the pipe to point at a certain spot on the map lying in front of him.
“We will do it like Takechi said: divide our forces and come in through different parts of the building. Kijima, Takechi, you will take two thirds of our men each and get in through the two back entrances. We found out the schedule of the guard changes and paid somebody to disable the alarm system in the house. Bansai and me will come in through the front entrance as soon as the situation on your side is resolved and you successfully made your way inside. We will take them from the back and heckle them. This should make it possible for us to eliminate the rest of the guards and get to the really important people before they have too much time to notice. You know what to do afterwards. General Oshima will hold a meeting in the private parts of the embassy house that he invited some high members of the Bakufu and Amanto to come to. Kill them all and torch the place.”
Everbody nodded and grabbed their weapons.
The night was awaiting them.
***
It was one of those nights that seemed to be almost perfect for an assault: the sky was clouded and the drizzle seemd to wash every single noise out of the air. The building was nothing more than a large, black shadow against the sky, but all of them had memorised even the smallest details of it with great accuracy.
Takasugi could hear the quiet breathing of the musician next to him, felt the tension running through his body. His own hands gripped the hilt of his sword more firmly, every part of him tensing up whilst they were waiting. Finally - he could hear screams from inside the house, quick gunshots from Matako, saw guards running quickly to the other side, towards the source of the commotion. Takasugi smiled quietly when he finally gave Bansai and the rest of his men the command to advance into the building with a wave of his hand. He left it to the rest of his Kiheitai to kill the leftover guards and men on the ground floor. Together with Bansai, he himself advanced into the heart of the building on the first floor where the great dinner was supposed to take place.
The attendands of the dinner had apparently been warned by the commotion on the lower floor, but even the fact that some of them had guns or sword only served to extend their lifespans by a few moments. Bansai and Takasugi were moving in perfect harmony and in the end, no one could rival their speed and fury. It was like a frenzy; he could feel his unity with Bansai when they fought their way through the Amanto and drowned the ground in red. The beast inside him started howling, louder and louder - much too long he hadn’t given it room to run free. The last one Takasugi faced was the host of the dinner himself. He stood in front of him, crouched in a corner and holding a strongly bleeding wound on his arm. His eyes widened as they fell on Takasugi, knowing those were the last moments of his life.
“You! I knew we shouldn’t have-“
Takasugi’s only reply was a nasty laugh. He ignored the quiet whispers in his head that told him he had heard the voice before. Without letting him finish his sentence, he pushed his sword into the Amanto in front of him with all his might. He enjoyed the expression of agony on his victim’s face before he turned his weapon around and jerked it out again. Slowly, the Amanto sank to the floor, murmuring a name with his last breath.
“Ono...”
Takasugi could hear steps behind him. He turned around when he could feel Bansai’s presence behind his back. The question in the tall man’s eyes he only answered with a shrug. He didn’t know what the Amanto had wanted to say with his last words. His hand searched for his pipe in the folds of his blood splattered yukata. He lit it at the flame of a burning candle and let the smoke spread deep into his lungs. Then he nodded to Bansai who kicked down the candle so that the paper walls quickly caught fire. It was a strange thing that the Amanto, who always claimed their superiority of this country, had copied the ways of building from the local humans. How ironic in this case. Paper and wood burned so much easier than stone.
Soon the first flames were licking at the thin walls. Thanks to Bansai, the other floors were soon afire as well and the house burning like a dry box of tinder. For a moment, Takaugi thought he’d heard a noise from one of the rooms in the back, but it was hard to make out details in the roaring of the flames. And even if somebody HAD still been there - it wasn’t important.
Together with the rest of the Kiheitai, most of who had survived the attack on the house, they vanished as quickly as they had come. As the sky over Edo turned red in the sunrise and the first citizens noticed what had happened, they had long since disappeared in the darkness.
Takasugi drew a strange satisfaction from watching the news on a morning after a successfull attack in the night, often in the middle of a crowded place. It filled him with excitement to stand amongst all those shocked humans and amanto asking themselves desperately and full of fear where and when the terrorists would attack the next time. Not knowing that the most dangerous man in Edo was standing right next to them.
This morning was no exception. He was prowling the streets, his hat drawn down deeply over his face to avoid being recognised by the police. In all their nervousness the people around him didn’t even notice that he was carrying a sword. One of those new, big video screens on one of the skyscrapers showed the burnt-down ruin of a house, together with photographs of the victims.
“Ketsuno Ana? Ketsuno Ana? Hello?”
“Yes, yes this is Ketsuno Ana reporting in. I’m standing here directly in front of the remnants of what was the private house of the frist ambassador of plant Kiha. Apparently there has been a terrorist attack this night and it looks like this act of violence has been well organised and planned out in advance. According to police reports, everybody in the house was killed and the building itself burnt down completely. Amongst the dead are the ambassador himself and his wife, as well as diplomats from other amanto nations. And, just coming in, we also heard that one of the victims was his...daughter Ono that become famous last month with her continuing effort to create a bond between humans and amanto...”
Takasugi’s hand with his pipe stopped halfway to his mouth. The last photograph they showed...Ono. He remembered. A voice that seemed to be neither male nor female and a body that had neither complied to any of these human conventions. Strong arms lifting him up when he was half-crazed with pain and close to death. The only amanto in the universe he had owed something. His other hand grabbed the grip of his sword more firmly so that his knuckles started to shine white. With a sudden move he turned around.
This evening he spent alone in his room on board of their ship. His fingers were gliding over the strings of his shamisen, endlessly and without a break. Apart from Bansai nobody dared to approach him in this kind of mood. He could hear the sound of his heavy boots and smelled the leather of his coat even before his closest confidant entered the room. The musician wasn’t stupid; he seemed to suspect what was wrong with their leader.
“Is there a problem, Shinsuke? It’s unusual for a civilian victim of one of our attacks to bother you for more than a moment...”
“It’s nothing.” Takasugi put his instrument aside and hid his hands in the folds of his Yukata. The same one he had received in that hospital room so long ago. Then he look up to Bansai again, an angry smile on his lips.
“No, it’s nothing.” He repeated. “Everything is the way it’s supposed to be.”
Yes, that was right. Together with the beast inside him he wouldn’t rest before this world had finally been destroyed by their hands.