From: Jan-Yun Lou Hello! Here's the second part of the Prelude to Hate and Honour. Sorry that the Prelude is so long. Don't worry the chapters will be much shorter. Its just, well it *is* the Prelude. Bye! Pearl HATE AND HONOUR: THE MIND OF A KILLER PRELUDE PART TWO ********************************************************************* The smell grew stronger as they approached the village. It was the smell of death, of rotting corpses lying baking in the Sun, their eyes and mouths crawling with flies. As soldiers in the Shogun's army it was a smell that they were all familiar with. However no matter how many times your nostrils flared with the smell of putrifying flesh, you never got used to it. No matter how many battlefields you've seen, how many wars you fought you could never stop yourself from reflexly gagging as the smell of death reached your nostrils. That was why every one of the battle-hardened soldiers in his group had cloths wrapped around the lower halves of their faces. These thoughts wandered through the General's mind as they moved through the deserted main street of the village. Deserted that is if you didn't count the bodies clustered around the well in the centre of the street. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the heavy locks on the thick steel covering the entrance of the well. Everyone was walking. The horses were so spooked by the smell of death that it was impossible to ride them. Their eyes rolled and they made panicky grunting noises. They fought the urgent tugs of their masters as they tried to lead them through the village. However they were so exhausted that they could not put up much of a fight. 'Animals instinctively avoid places of death yet men actively seek them out. Yet we call ourselves wiser than they,' thought the General as they approached the scout team who were waiting in what remained of what must have been the head villager's hut as it was the largest building in the village. Throwing the reins to one of the scouts he approached the lead scout, Chiba Baiko, a small light weasel of a man. "Your man tells me that these people died of bad water." Chiba nodded. "That's what we think. There *is* the locked well with all the bodies found around it and the river which is little more than a creek due to the drought is overflowing with dead bodies from the rebellion we just put down down South. Also there are no violent marks on any of the bodies except...well except for one woman near the East edge of the village near the forest. It looked like she had been stabbed quite a few times. That's where we found the kid." "Yes your man told me a little about him." The General chuckled. "I gather that he is quite...spirited." Chiba flushed. "Well...you could say that. We thought that the woman might have been hiding something, which was why the other villagers turned on her. We almost didn't see it, it was so well hidden. It was underneath a large tree, a dead one of course because of the drought. A hole just large enough to fit a fox - or a small child. One of my men reached into it to see if he could find the thing the woman hid. Well it turned out we did find it. He bit my man and every other man that tried to get him out of the hole." "How do you know that it was a child and not an animal?" the General asked. Chiba looked insulted. "Sir! I think that me and my men know the difference between a human bite and an animal bite!" "Hmmm." The General looked thoughtfully at the forest for a moment. "Sir," Chiba asked. "Sir what should we do now?" The General turned his gaze back to the scout leader. "Bury the bodies of course." "Of course. I'll get some men to dig a mass grave..." "No." Chiba looked startled. "I want individual graves for each corpse." Chiba knew better than the question the General so he just said, "Yes sir. If you would just follow me I'll take you to the camp we set up outside of the village." "No." The General looked at the forest. "Which tree is it?" The scout leader blinked in confusion. "Pardon?" "Which tree is the boy under?" "Um, the big tree next to that large rock." Chiba paused for a moment. "Um, sir, if you don't mind me asking..." "Yes I do actually. Get back to your duties." "Um yes sir." Chiba watched in confusion as the old General strode off in the direction of the forest. ********************************************************************* The General sat on the rock next to the tree and waited. Slowly the bright red sunset faded to be replaced by the dark blanket of night. Involuntarily the General shivered. He wasn't normally bothered by the dark, but there was something almost eery about tonight. Finally he realized what it was. There were no life. The night sky with its blood-red full moon was framed by the leafless branches of dead trees. There were no sounds of cicadas or bird. Of animals rustling in the undergrowth for food. There was not even any wind. It was the silence of the grave, surrounding him in its smothering embrace... "Why are you burying the bodies like that?" The General was almost startled by the small disembodied sound coming from the tree. He calmed down as he realized it must be the child. "What do you mean 'like that'?" "I mean each body in one grave. I'd thought that you would have just thrown them into some pit together - after all they *were* just serfs. It wasn't like they were samurai or rich or anything so its not as if they really mattered." The General stared intently at the dark hole at the base of the tree. The small childish voice was not filled with hate or fear as he might have expected. In fact the boy was as calm as if he was discussing his pet cricket. "Once everyone is dead they are just bodies. It doesn't matter what you were when you were alive - serf or samurai. The dead are all equals. Your lord may have not given them dignity when they were alive. How could I live with myself if I could not give them some dignity in death. No matter what someone was like when they were alive I believe that everyone should have the respect of a decent burial." "Are you a monk? You seem to respect life so much." "No. I am a bringing of death. I do not respect life so much as death. If I respected life I would not be burying bodies I would be saving them before it was necessary to do so." "I-I do not understand," the confusion made the boy sound more frightened more childlike unlike the unnatural calm he was talking with before. The General smiled wryly. "I hope you never will. Only someone with a blood-stained soul like mine could." There was a deep silence for a moment as neither man nor boy spoke. "Why don't you come out?" asked the General. "My mother told me not to." "I promise on my honour as a samurai not to let any harm come to you." "I saw them kill my mother you know." The almost unnaturally calm voice returned. "She had a little clean water, just a little. She gave it to me and told me to hide here and not come out no matter what I saw or heard. They killed her when she wouldn't tell them where I was. I saw them kill her." The General noticed that the boy had a clear view of the village square from his position. "They killed her but I don't blame them. They were desperate. Everyone was dying from the bad water. They wanted the good water from the well but it was locked up for the lord. One of his men came here to get some water. They begged and pleaded with him but he just laughed and said that they were just useless serfs, slaves and that the water was for the samurai only." "You seem very calm." "My mother always said that crying was only useful if there was someone waiting to rescue you. I cried a lot for the first few days then I realized that I was just wasting water. It was hard tp stop crying but now - I don't think that I can cry anymore even if I tried." "I take it that you are not going to take my word as a samurai?" asked the General wryly. "No. I hate them all. I want to kill them all. I want to destroy everything." The threat should have been laughable coming from a child, but for some reason the General, a battle hardened warrior shivered. "But if you offer your word as a person..." The General smiled, his misgivings melting away at the humour in the boy's voice. He must have just imagined the cold nightmarish emptiness in the boy's childish voice. "Then I, Asuhara Tendo promise you on my personal honour that I will not let any harm come to you if you stop hiding like a damn rabbit in its burrow!" "I accept." A few minutes later a small fragile little boy with bright red hair and deep violet eyes stood before him if a little unsteadily. He smiled up at him and spoke in a more natural childlike voice. "Hello. My name is Shinta." ********************************************************************* "What are you going to do with him?" Natsu asked his father. The boy known as Shinta sat by the fireside laughing merrily as one of the soldiers made shadow puppets for him. The General was still reeling from the remarkable change in Shinta. Gone was the flat emotionless voice and despairing almost adult words. Shinta had immediately charmed the whole camp with his beautiful smile and gentle kind ways. The General sighed. He could understand why the redhaired dimunitive boy was such a big hit with his men. He was just so cute! Hell, even *he* wanted to go over and pat him on the head, ruffle his unruly red hair and then give him a lolly to add to his growing collection. But back in the forest he had been anything but cute...That flat emotionless voice, it was what what he always imagined that Death would sound like. And coming from a child's mouth especially one as beautiful and gentle as this one... Shinta...a flower and Death incarnate. The General's eyes narrowed. There seemed to be two different souls in the one body. He was sure that the Shinta he was seeing now was the boy that existed before the death of his mother. The boy in the forest was born as he huddled in the darkness for days possibly weeks, seeing only death, breathing only death until the stench had seeped so deeply into his young pores that no amount of washing could ever remove it. The boy had been given a thorough bath but sometimes when his gaze turned towards the village or the forest, the General could almost see a glint of amber in his eyes and if he was close enough he could almost smell a waft of the stench of Death. 'I want to kill everyone. I want to destroy everything.' 'I don't think that I could cry anymore even if I tried.' The General's eyes narrowed as he rubbed his hands. It seemed that the gentle boy was now the dominant personality. But the General knew better than anyone else the power of the darkness that rested inside the human soul. But the boy was still so young, things could still be changed, the wounds festering on his soul could still be healed...Then maybe he could find some peace for his own soul. "Natsu!" Natsu, who had been rather unhonourably waving his hands in front of his father's face jumped backwards. "Um, yes Father, I mean General." "I plan to make Shinta my ward." Seeing the poleaxed expression on his son's face, General Asuhara rubbed his hands. "Do you have a problem with that." Blinking, Natsu recovered quickly. "Of course not Fat- err General! I whole-heartedly support your decision! Its just that I've never seen you take an interest in such matters before..." However his father was already moving towards the laughing red-haired boy. ********************************************************************* "Humph!" The men entertaining the little boy jumped to attention as they saw their leader standing in the firelight staring sternly at them. "General we had no..." "Please clear the area. I need to talk to the boy alone." The area around the fire cleared so quickly that the General could see the dust trails. It was not wise to cross the General when he stared or glared more accurately at you like *that*. "Hello General," Shinta smiled. The grey haired soldier sat down next to the small red haired boy. "Shinta. I was thinking about your future..." "If you could just leave me at the next village I would be very grateful," the little boy said staring into the fire. "Shinta." The small boy looked up curiously at the General's grey grizzled face. "I was wondering if you wanted to become my ward." A long painful silence stretched between man and boy. "Why? I'm just a serf." "Samurai or serf. Remember what I said. The dead are all equal." "What about the living?" Shinta asked. "I said that I respected the dead not the living. That I was a bringer of death. Maybe you could help me change that?" "Besides, didn't I promise to protect you?" Shinta's small brow frowned in concentration. Suddenly coming to a decision he smiled brightly at the old warrior. "Yes." The General couldn't help but return that innocent young smile. "Well if you are to be my ward you need a surname. Hmmm. How about Himura. It means 'to come from a village' and well you do come from a village..." "Himura Shinta," the small boy rolled the words around in his mouth. "Yes I like that. Thank-you." Without fear little Shinta climbed into the startled warrior's lap and kissed him on a wrinkled dusty cheek. The General flushed in what must have been more than twenty years. "Well, well. Let's not get too emotional here. Remember Shinta you must always act like a man and men do NOT go around kissing people on the cheek," the old man said rather gruffly. "So don't do it again." Man and boy laughed. "Well at least not too often." ********************************************************************* "General! Someone's coming!" The young guard stood panting in the firelight. The whole atmosphere of the camp changed instantly from relaxed laziness to wary sharpness. Fortunately the General insisted that all his men always had their armour on, even when sleeping while on the field. "Stay here Shinta," the General spoke firmly as he strode to the gate. "Is this any way to greet a lord?" rang a voice from the darkness. Slowly the strangers came into view. There were about five of them. There leader was a huge man, dressed in black armour. He was about ten years younger than the General so his hair was still jet black though there were some streaks of grey. His face was almost beautiful in its perfection, but there was a sense of harshness and cruelty about the man that marred his physical perfection. "Lord Kajahara Gendo," breathed Natsu who was behind his father. Lord Kajahara smiled when he saw General Asuhara and his son. It wasn't a smile you particularly wanted to see unless you were several kilometeres away from the person who that smile belonged to. "Tendo." The entired camp stiffened at the dishonour displayed to their leader at his given name being used. However the General showed no signs of discomforture at the insult. "Lord Kajahara. I welcome you to my camp." "Really? Shouldn't *I* be welcoming you? After all, this *is* my land." The General heard his son mutter behind him. "How dare he! He can't treat guests like this!" However the General just smiled at the insult. "You killed my parents." The crowd of men parted to show the source of the comment. His head bowed, his long red fringe covering his eyes, Shinta repeated his comment. "You killed my parents. You wouldn't let any of us have any clean water. You said that we were serfs, subhuman unworthy!" The boy lifted his head, showing his furious violet eyes. Lord Kajahara smiled. "Ahhh. And what do we have here?" He motioned to one of his men. "Kill him." "Stop!" The General moved in front of Shinta. "He is *my* ward and he is under *my* protection." "Oh? Really? How can he be your ward when he is my - serf! *My* property!" "I won't let you - " "Won't? What authority do *you* have to tell me what to do? You are just a bastard! My father - " He regained control of himself. "You obviously care about this boy. For that reason and for that reason alone I will take this boy and make his life a living hell!" "No!" The General moved threateningly towards the younger man, his right hand on the hilt of his katana. "Come," Lord Kajahara smiled tauntingly. "I know that you are a better fighter than me. You have more men here. Attack me without reason to save this boy and destroy all the rules of samurai honour that you have lived your entire life by!" His teeth grinding, his face contorted with rage, the General stared at the younger man. Finally with a sigh of defeat he relaxed his stance and let his right hand drop to his side." Shinta stared open mouthed at the sight of the General's surrender. "No! You promised me! You promised you would protect me! You promised." He tugged at the older man's sleeve. "Don't leave me like everyone else!" For the first time since he was a child standing over his mother's grave General Asuhara Tendo felt like crying. "I'm sorry Shinta, it'd be different if I wasn't a samurai but the rules of my class... I'm sorry." The General turned around in surprise as he felt Shinta suddenly let go of his sleeve. He stood there, his head bowed, his long red fringe hiding his eyes. "So, I am alone again." The General's eyes widened as he lifted his head. Staring back at him were not Shinta's gentle violet eyes but the harsh cold amber eyes of the spririt he met under a dead tree in a dead forest. "You lied to me," the flat emotionless voice was now the one he remembered from the forest. "You lied to me just as the Shogun and his samurai lied to my village. You promised to protect me just as they promised to protect my village. " He smiled, a cold evil smile that made the General shiver. "I hate you all. I *will* kill you all!" As he watched Lord Kajahara lead Shinta away in chains, a single tear dropped down his cheek. Not for him but for a little boy he could have saved if only he had the will to defy the teachings of a lifetime. "I'm sorry...Shinta." He shivered as he remembered those cold amber eyes. He had a terrible feeling that the boy he had known as Shinta had disappeared forever. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- Was the salesman clueless? Productopia has the answers. Click Here ------------------------------------------------------------------------