1559年11月15日 21:30 (Evening)
Then, he paused. Falling to one knee, Sanosuke felt the memory of pain once again shoot through his shoulder. He spoke what seemed like nonsense, holding one side of a conversation with a party Hōzōin In'ei could not hear. Unknown to her, Ryūzōji Ryōka was providing the other half of the dialogue, telepathically
speaking directly to Sanosuke's inner being.
Perhaps she could have ended it there, but In'ei held back. In a show of respect for her opponent, the kensei allowed this little drama to play out. It gave her a chance, too, to recover her balance from the pervious exchange. As Sanosuke stood again, the clouds rumbled and flashed overhead. A storm was gathering.
The Silver General's keen mind had been working at the problem even through his despair, and he thought he now had the answer. Pulling off his cloak, the air around him crackled with barely-contained energy. The air tasted coppery and lightning arced from his broad shoulders. It was as though Sanosuke had become the nexus for his own personal storm. Then came the thunder.
Weapons discarded, channeling pure lightning through his fists, Sanosuke slammed his foot into the ground and pushed forward. The liftoff was so powerful that it caused the earth itself to shudder. He'd tried to direct as much of the force as possible toward In'ei, but there were no half-measures with strength that great. Half the watching crowd fell over, the Tanuki's Glee creaked ominously as it bowed to the side, and Kono Minoko's angry shouting was drowned out by the sound of her
stable collapsing in on itself.
For all the violence of the impact, Hōzōin In'ei was not fazed. She took a half-step back to maintain her balance. Even this small movement, however, seemed to break her stance. In'ei could not perfectly deflect Sanosuke's attacks as she did before, and was forced to rely on using her ki-charged umbrella as a shield. This she did adroitly. Sanosuke's first and second punches slid off the parasol's unnaturally rigid surface without a chance to impart their full force. The third, however, pushed past that barrier and struck In'ei herself. The kensei was lifted partially off the ground by the force of Sanosuke's blow. He breath driven out as electricity shot up and down her body, she barely managed to keep her feet.
It seemed that In'ei's intense physical conditioning came to her aid. Even after such a hit, she would not fight at anything less than her full capacity. Sanosuke could tell though, veteran that he was, that his opponent would not withstand another such blow. The kensei seemed to realize it as well, but she showed no sign of fear.
Rather, In'ei's thin lips tugged up at the corners. Her eyes shone with an intensity to match the lightning crackling about Sanosuke. Finally, she exclaimed, he'd come at her full force. That meant that she no longer had to hold back either.
When the Guardian of Nara moved next, it was almost too quick for Sanosuke to follow. Her leap was indeed too agile for him to turn around as she flitted through the air over his head. Landing with her feet already perfectly set, In'ei delivered a perfectly-aimed strike to Sanosuke's back. He simply couldn't block in time. Fortunately, his body was enhanced by more than just training. With a twist, Sanosuke let the spear skid across the hardened muscles of his abdomen. Certainly, the blade met plenty of flesh, but without a direct hit, it could not pierce his ki-powered fortification.
Putting the momentum of his turn to good use, Sanosuke answered by slamming the ground again with an inhumanly precise exertion of power. Met with kinetic energy that countered it exactly, the ground abruptly stopped shaking. In'ei had been ready for another quake, but not this. Shifting her weight, she overcompensated and fell backward in a tangle of limbs and fine cloth. Of course, a man of the Silver General's reputation could not allow such an opportunity to go wasted. Stepping forward, he pressed the assault.
Even supine as she was, In'ei made a great show of deflecting Sanosuke's attacks. It helped that he was aiming for her head with each punch, apparently aiming to knock her out rather than deliver a deathblow. As a result, however, his attacks were predictable. In'ei almost blocked the first one. When it slipped through her guard, the punch had hardly enough force left behind it to be any real threat. Still, Sanosuke remained conscious of the destructive effects his titanic strength might have on an unprotected head. He stopped the first just shy of In'ei's head. In response, the kensei could only accuse him of underestimating her. She bowed her head forward, knocking it ungently onto Sanosuke's knuckles. To the Silver General, it felt like punching a solid metal plate.
As to underestimating her, however, Sanosuke could
deny that in good faith. While In'ei had been preoccupied with mocking his hesitant punch, the Silver General drew another one back. Seeking to hide his movements as much as possible, he launched an uppercut straight at In'ei's chin. The sneak attack was partially successful. While the kensei managed to get her umbrella in the way, it was much too late for a full block. Only partially hindered, Sanosuke's fist cracked against her chin, forcing her head to snap backward. Her eyes swam for a moment, but then refocused. Sanosuke had once again
held back his full strength, in a bid not to kill his opponent, but such an attack had also failed to down her. As In'ei managed to disengage and regain her feet, laughing about feeling fear for the first time in a while, Sanosuke reflected that this wasn't an opponent he'd be able to defeat without going all-out.
It seemed more and more likely, however, that he'd missed his chance. The incredible power flowing through Sanosuke, that rupture of destiny which allowed him to exceed all mortal limits, was beginning to ebb. At the same time, In'ei had increased her pace, calling upon that same inner storm that Sanosuke had been tapping since his first real assault.
The two clashed like a pair of circling hurricanes. Sanosuke's fists were a hail of thunderclaps, but they each failed to penetrate In'ei's skillful defense. When he launched a particularly powerful strike, she would just fall back upon a perfect defense which could not be pierced. Not so long as she held her stance. In return, the kensei's cross-tipped spear moved like lightning. It stabbed, twirled, and thrust, always seeming to find a way behind her opponent. Most of her attacks were futile. Shed of the weight of his weapons, Sanosuke could move like a cloud, parting and shifting in response to most any series of attacks. Some of them struck their mark, however. When they broke again, the Silver General was bleeding from more wounds than just the one on his shoulder. Inflicted upon a lesser man, they
surely would have been fatal.
Pushed beyond his limits long ago, Sanosuke cast about for any plan that might save him. In'ei was tired too, he could tell, but destiny was quickly withdrawing its favor from the Silver General. If he didn't end this soon, there'd be no way he could keep up with his opponent's superior skill. What's more, In'ei had already seen his ploy in shaking the earth. She likely wouldn't shift if he tried that again. Gathering up all the electricity he could in one leg, he tried something different.
His limb thundering with energy, Sanosuke swept the leg. In'ei blocked the attack easily, of course. She was far too experienced a fighter to be taken off-guard by such an obvious ploy. Or, that would have been the case if Sanosuke's ploy was just to trip his opponent. Cast off from his swing, the lightning storm gathered and roiled in the center of the yard. Raw electricity crackled and arced around In'ei at the center. From the darting of her eyes, the Silver General could tell that she felt threatened. He held his next attack back, waiting for her to play into his hands.
She did just what he expected, leaping behind Sanosuke with such speed that he shouldn't be able to follow, conveniently exiting the static storm in the process. This was exactly what he'd been waiting for, however. Sanosuke's foot hooked up and axed downward, catching the side of In'ei's head midair. There was no hesitation this time, no glancing hit, no hindering umbrella. The full force of Sanosuke's titanic kick crashed into and
through Hōzōin In'ei's head.
The Silver General winced. This was not how he'd wanted it to end, but what choice did he have? If he held anything back during that fight, he was sure he'd not have emerged the victor. A macabre mosaic unrolled in his head, tiled with pictures of In'ei's head bursting like a melon, spraying red and grey, the horrified gasps of the audience, the awful mess that Minoko would have to clean up, and the hollow feeling that always came from slaying a worthy opponent.
Why did all of Sanosuke's fights have to end this way?
Except that this one didn't. Hōzōin In'ei landed sprightly right in front of Sanosuke. She was cracking her neck and a thin rivulet of blood ran down from the side of her right temple. But she was very much alive. For all intents and purposes, In'ei claimed, however, she had died. That made Sanosuke the victor. Any evidence to her still being alive, not having her head crushed like an overripe berry, must just be a fluke of fate.
For a moment, Sanosuke just stared as he struggled to process this. A pressing thought broke through all the confusion, however.
He had won. The Champion of Susano'o had fallen, and he would take her place. From this point forward, he was truly a vessel of the storm, with the great power and responsibility that came with it.
While the monumental implications sank into her darling's skull, Ryūzōji Ryōka was busy trying to work out what had just happened. She shouted something to congratulate him, but the wheels in her head were turning all the while. Eventually, the answer came from an unexpected place. The only thing that Ryōka could reconcile to what she'd just seen was a trait specific only to humans. While often weak, fleshy, and small-minded, the greatest of humans possessed an uncanny ability to defy fate, destiny, and even physics in their direst moments. That was the only thing that made sense, but Hōzōin In'ei wasn't a human, was she? There was, of course, the rumored ability of Susano'o's champion to steal the abilities of those they defeated in a fair fight. Perhaps In'ei had, at some point in the past, vanquished a human hero...?
Across the yard,
Maxim had just shouldered his way through a weirdly adoring crowd. He'd been drawn, no doubt, by the cataclysmic symptoms of their battle. And, judging by the loving reaction Maxim's arrival had inspired in the audience, it seemed like he was bringing some new bullshit with him. Ignoring the chiseled chin and sparkling eyes that were not Maxim's normal face, Sanosuke turned and dispersed the lingering lightning with a great heave of his mighty lungs.
A moment after, In'ei grabbed his hand with one of her many. She lifted it to the sky, where a storm was only now starting to calm. Thunder pealed one last time as the kensei proudly announced Susano'o's new champion. Now he just had to choose his prize.
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