Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ False Echoes ❯ Samurai Stories ( Chapter 14 )

Witch Hunter Robin
False Echoes

Chapter XIV - Samurai Stories

Disclaimer: You know by now I don't own Witch Hunter Robin®, which belongs to Sunrise® and Sci-Fi® Channel. You know this already.

Nor do I own the song False Echoes; I just borrowed its title.

Storyline, Plot, Kenny Avery©, Roger Williams©, Kichiro Wantanabee©, Rick Richards©, Michael Campbell©, Rosalind Nichols© and David Rica© are all mine.

Author Notes:

Here's fourteen.

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The small apartment on Delaney street was where Amy Campbell and Tai Lee had come after their wedding, and it was in this tiny apartment where Michael was conceived that very night. It had been here that Amy had been forced to deliver Michael after her water broke while she was home alone, during a storm which had knocked out phone services. It had been in this very room that he now lay that a young baby had been painfully delivered by his mother.

And it was here that the now seventeen year old Michael Lee now lay sleeping peacefully, allowing the large quantity of morphine inside his body to naturally wear off and bring him back into the world of reality. Robin, who had been forced by herself to leave the room while the very high hacker asked her to become his young wife, was now back at his side, sitting on the bed. Her face was strained with tears, as she had been crying once again, this time over the idea of marriage.

She could marry. Yes, she was only fifteen, but it was not considered odd in Japan for someone so young to be wed. She had quickly learned that Japan was a country where the elderly were respected, and the young admired. She could marry him by the law of the country, but not by the law of the office. For while she knew from Karasuma's reading that her boss, Takuma Zaizen, had murdered Touko (something that made her sad just thinking about it), she also knew that Zaizen would be replaced with a new boss.

Kosaka, perhaps, would take his place. That would mean changes. While she, being brought up by a man as strict as Juliano Colgui, had never once questioned Kosaka's orders, she knew many of the others ignored him, feeling that his only real purpose was to boss Hattori around. If Kosaka became the new Administrator it would be bad for Doujima, but hell for Robin. Because Robin knew that Kosaka was deeply against employees becoming involved in one another, and she knew he would forbid inter-office dating, and marriage as well.

After all, SOLOMON wasn't like some offices, where there were legal loop holes and high courts to go too. No, SOLOMON was strict. You did as they say, or you die. It was just that simple. While she doubted very much that Kosaka would ever order her or Michael's death, she knew he would make problems in their relationship. Besides, once she obtained the secret of the craft she was going back to Italy, something she had tried to deny to herself, but something she could not.

Robin's mind turned away from her troubles with her own love life, and back to the subject of Zaizen. Throughout their recent troubles with people like Kichiro Wantanabee and David Rica, she had forgotten the fact that Zaizen was their true enemy. He was the one who killed Touko, and while she could not prove it, she was sure he had done much worse. She often wondered what would happen if SOLOMON ever fought Zaizen, and she was afraid that the STN- J would have to take sides. Of course she knew in the end SOLOMON would win, and she knew that her friends would never fight for Zaizen, she also knew there was no guarantee for their personal safety.

Sighing, Robin tried to shake all thoughts from her mind. All the painful feelings inside her heart and mind were overwhelming her and making her feel as if she had been dropped into a ocean, a deep, black ocean of horrors, and now she had to fight to keep afloat, to keep from sinking into despair and being lost forever. And while the sky was thick and black, and great storms like Rica and Zaizen were still burning overhead, she was not alone. She had people like Michael and Amon who were her life rafts, people she loved and trusted who could protect her.

She sighed once again, but no longer out of the bleak life she led, this time she sighed a happy little content sigh and smiled as Michael grunted in his sleep and rolled on so that he was now facing her. While Robin was never one to get "hung up" on looks, she did see beauty in it's ascetic form. The way the Greeks of old had seen it. And truly Michael was beautiful to her, especially when he was sleeping. Not so much because of his physical form (although she had to admit, he was cute) but because of how peaceful he looked when he was asleep.

Not many realized it, but Michael had the worst luck of all of them when it came to their lives. They took for granted the fact that Michael was trapped in the STN-J. He had had to set and watch as they talk about Harry's and the park and all the places they saw everyday, when they were no more than dreams to the hacker. They also took for granted the fact that between being shot by Rica's henchmen, witnessing the murder of his beloved cousin Jeri, being forced to kill Kita Nobunaga, being lit on fire by the woman he loves, being stalked by a ghost who had currently possessed a dead man's body, and never truly knowing his parents, Michael had the worst luck of any of them.

And yet, even with all his pain, Michael managed to smile all the time. Sometimes just fake smiles to make Robin feel better, but at times like this, when he was asleep and dreaming about things that were innocent and sweet, he had a real smile on his face, and it made Robin smile her own genuine smile at the idea of seeing her most beloved person so happy. It was very rare that Michael was as happy as he seemed to be while he slept, and for some reason, most likely the deep feelings of love she had for him, she leaned down and placed her small lips onto his cheek softly. She could do no wrong around Michael, he made her life perfect. Regardless of the horrible things surrounding them, Michael seemed to make it all go away, even if only for a second.

Doujima stood at the doorway, her body weight all leaned onto one foot as she tilted in the doorway. She gave a small sniff, and couldn't help but let her eyes water a tiny bit as she beamed inside at Robin and Michael. They had something between them that was unlike any relationship she'd ever seen. It wasn't love. Michael and Robin were in love, they were in deep love and would probably stay that way until they were dead and gone, and even then their love would live on. No, what Doujima saw was innocence. They had a free spirited innocence that was so rare in relationships these days that it made her weep. She knew that, if things were different, and if the young lovers before her didn't already have a full plate of witch hunting and surviving, then they would marry. And Doujima suddenly felt as if she had to go find Sakaki, and just be near him.

----

Japan, of course, has a truly remarkable history and most of the world is fascinated with the Japanese customs. With the exceptions of the years 1937- 1945, the world seems to love everything about the country. Their Video Games and Technology is by far better than anything that comes out of the rest of the world. They make most of the cars supplied for most of the countries around the earth, and of course from Star Wars to Halloween costumes, the fame of the Samurai cannot be matched.

The black van stopped outside of a small tea house on the street. It was just a small pub that had been named 'Bushido no Ryu', just as a catchy name. David Rica exited the van and gave a small yawn as he walked forward towards the small tea house. Today he had changed his usual suit and tie look for a long, navy raincoat, the very one he had worn when employed by the STN-A office in New Orleans, Louisiana.

"I'll be back Ken." Rica spat to the driver, who nodded his blonde head in boredom and leaned back into the seat. While Kenny and Roger talked quietly inside the car and complained about their current situation, Rica slowly strolled into the small coffee shop and walked up to the counter, taking a seat.

"Konnichiwa, sir. Can I help you?" The owner, a elderly Japanese man with hair a snowy shade of white and eyes that were like large black coals. Rica smirked behind his sunglasses and began to speak quietly.

"Domo. I'd sit around and ask for some tea if I had the time for games, but I'm a busy man."

A flicker of emotion behind the man's coal-like eyes made the old man seem to come alive with both fear and excitement. He gave a small chuckle and then looked Rica up and down for a few moments before at last he spoke in a low voice.

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm in need of your finest steel." Rica spoke softly, in a voice that reflected the man he truly was. A man with dark desires, but a calm soul.

"You see the Masamune?" The owner of the tea shop said, his voice filled with both awe and amusement.

"I do. You are Oda Masamune, are you not?"

The old man -- Oda -- blinked his coal black eyes and he nodded his head slowly, as if afraid what this revelation of his name would mean. He gave a small yawn and then drew himself up from behind the counter to his full height, and even for a old man nearing his seventies, Oda Masamune was a man who commanded respect to all. He smiled.

"I am actually Oda Tobuwai, but I am all that remains of the Masamune clan of this region of Japan. I myself have no skill in forging swords, not the skill of my ancient kinsman at any rate. Yet there is one remaining."

Rica's pale mouth began to twitch, and slowly the pinkish lips curved themselves into a grim smile. A smile that reflected the perfect twist inside his soul. The perfect combination of black and white that floated inside his mind, lingering just behind the hallowed out sockets and swam around his heart.

"How much?" Rica asked quietly.

Oda Tobuwai smiled, and it was a smile that showed his own malice inside his own soul. He lifted the edge of the counter and allowed Rica to walk through the back, behind the shelf of the small tea bar. Slowly Rica followed Tobuwai down the deep paths that led to a small wooden door at the end of a narrow, tan-painted hallway. After entering the small door, Rica found himself in a darkened room that held a single burning torch on the floor and a long Katana suspended on the wall by two small hooks.

"This sword is not for sale by any money. It shall be given to the one whom is meant to possess it." Oda explained in a almost misty voice as he stared at the sword with a father's pride. Rica would have rolled his eyes, if he had any.

"I'll give you three million American dollars." Rica said swiftly, reaching under his navy raincoat and pulling out a small envelop. Rica quickly unsealed the white paper and pulled out a small napkin with a set of numbers written on it. "This is the access number for a bank account in the Virgin Islands. Check it if you want."

Oda raised a brow and picked up the napkin. He then smirked a rather mischievous smile and walked over to the corner of the room, where he pulled a blanket off a table to reveal a laptop already connected to the Internet.

"May I check the sword while you check the money?" Rica's tone floated across the darkness that engulfed the room.

"But of course."

As Tobuwai slowly typed away on the computer, bringing up a account page from a web-site for a small banking company located in the U.S. portion of the Virgin Islands, Rica walked across the room to the sword. He extended a pale hand and gripped the scabbard tightly, pulling it off the wall and raising it up to eye level. In one swift motion he flicked the blade out of the scabbard and admired the stunning silver. The steel was folded over two hundred times and it was, by far, a wonderful forged sword. Rica set the scabbard back down on the hooks and slowly took the sword into his left hand, while running his right index finger across the blade. Rica felt his finger slice down to the bone at the slightest touch of the sword, and he watched sticky blood ooze from the new, deep gash.

"I love it." Rica laughed.

Oda smirked and turned around, now satisfied himself with the account and his new proof that it was as David had told him. "The sword is yours."

Rica then did something that made Oda confused. Rica sighed disappointedly. Tobuwai cocked a brow and walked over slowly as he slipped he napkin into the pocket of his black shirt. "Why so sad? You have the finest sword in the country."

Rica shrugged. "I had hoped you wouldn't sell it to me, so I'd have a excuse to do this."

Rica quickly spun around on the spot, flashing the sword out beside him and allowing it to sail across Oda Tobuwai's chest, slicing his shirt open. Tobuwai did not flinch as the blade sailed lightly across his clothing and made a perfect tear, although he did look annoyed.

"You did not kill me." Tobuwai inquired.

"Gnaw, but I did make you piss your pants."

----

Sakaki was sitting in the bedroom that had once belonged to Tai and Amy Lee. He sat on the edge of the bed, the clicker in his hand. He was watching a old American movie, and while his English wasn't the best in the world, he knew enough to be able to get the gist of it. The movie was currently depicting a group of badly animated zombies chewing the head off a man in a sports coat.

"What are you doing?" Doujima's voice floated in as she appeared at the doorway. Her eyes held the same tender look they had gotten when she had seen the love between Robin and Michael, and yet she now had a rather mischievous smirk on her lips as her eyes fell on her boyfriend.

"Watching some film about zombies who kill people." Sakaki responded, stating the obvious.

Doujima quirked a brow and walked over, sitting down on the bed next to him with a gentle plop and wrapping a arm around him. They had both borrowed some clothes from Michael's parent's closet and they fit surprisingly well. Doujima enjoyed the soft wool of the pajamas she wore as it rubbed against the old T-shirt Sakaki had picked out.

"Why?" She inquired.

"Between Rica and my dad, I'd kind of like to be prepared." Sakaki responded.

Doujima grabbed the clicker and pulled it away from his grasp. She then clicked off the TV just as the sport's coat wearing man was abandoned for his blonde girlfriend, who was screaming over-dramatically. Pouting a bit, Doujima turned to Sakaki and looked him in his dark sapphire eyes with her own aqua ones.

"What's really bothering you?" She asked softly, tightening the one-armed hug between them.

Sakaki gave a sigh and looked down at the floor. Of course he had already confided in her about his most horrible memories, so he would have to tell her this latest problem. He just hated it. Every time he thought he was rid of his father, that old bastard managed to come back, worse every time.

"I hate him so much." He whispered. "I hate him and he won't go away."

Doujima bit her lip and laid her head down on his shoulder. His pain was radiating through the room, and she could feel the horrible heartache all too well in her own beating chest. "I know. Believe me, I know what it's like to hate someone with all your heart."

Sakaki shook his head. She was talking about Rica, obviously. Yes, he knew Doujima hated Rica, but that wasn't the same. Her hate of Rica stemmed from Rica's abuse of Sakaki, and Rica's attack on Michael, and Rica's general rudeness. Sakaki's hate of his father was so much more. Sakaki hated him for hurting his mother. Sakaki hated him for that horrible day on December, years ago when his mother had met her end. But mostly Sakaki hated Kichiro because he had never been a father. Kichiro hadn't even been a bad father. He wasn't a father at all.

"Rica isn't the same." He breathed.

"I'm not talking about Rica." Doujima explained in a voice barley above a whisper. Sakaki turned to her and saw a new depth in her eyes. A depth that was full of pain beyond any he had ever felt. He started to ask her, but she shook her head and began to explain on her own.

"I . . . I won't say her name. It's too hard. And I can't tell you the story. I've been in therapy ever since . . . listen, forget it--"

"I came home from shopping for a birthday present, only to find my mother's blood smeared on the walls." Sakaki said with a bitter sarcasm. "I think you can tell me what happened to you."

Doujima turned to him as her eyes began to tear up, and she gave him a grim, dark smile. "Yes, but you didn't have to watch your mother die. You didn't watch the life drain from her eyes when Kichiro killed her. You were lucky."

And before he could ask a question, Doujima began to sob. It wasn't one of her fake fits of tears to get her way while on a date, or a actual crying session because they had had a fight or because she had been sad about something. This was a uncontrollable sobbing that had been caused by memories of pure trauma.

Sakaki didn't even bother to ask, he just hugged her.

----

It had been so long since the first dream, Michael had forgotten it.

He had forgotten the rooftop in the black sky. He had forgotten the sheets of icy rain that poured down from the heavens above. He had forgotten the sound of thunder smashing overhead as Robin Sena tried her best to keep breathing, but with no avail.

The second time he had the dream, it was very different.

In his first dream, Sakaki and Doujima had been lying by the door of the room, both of them dead. Now they were gone, their bodies had vanished. David Rica, whom in his first dream had been standing in the doorway with a gun, was still there. Only now he was not alone. He had a redheaded woman Michael didn't recognize with him, she looked European. And he had not only a long silver revolver, but a even longer, even more silvery sword with him.

The tall, burley man with brown hair, who Michael had come to realize was Kichiro Wantanabee after being possessed by Rick Richards, was also gone. Now there stood a old man with a cane and dark glasses, and the black Rapier in his hand. He had taken Kichiro's place as being the possessed man.

"Rosalind is taken from you, and the cycle is repaid." Father Juliano Colegui spoked in both his toneless, aged voice and the cold voice of Rick Richards.

"She is not Rosalind!" Michael screamed as he cradled the still-dying Robin in his arms. Her neck was once again the source of her demise, but this time it had been a slit throat from a sword wound, and not a gun-hole. From the dream, Michael could not tell if it was Juliano or Rica who had cut her, but he knew she was dying.

What was different, mainly, was this time he knew he was dreaming.

"Just go with the flow, Mike." The redheaded woman spoke with a thin accent, somewhere between Scottish and Irish. "Ya'll enjoy your life if you let the lass go."

Michael ignored the woman, and he ignored Rica beside her. Instead he kept his eyes on Robin. Before he had prayed for her to survive, and she had died. This time however she was trying to speak a word. What it was, he could not tell.

"Tell me Robin. . ." Michael pleaded both in his sleep and in his dream. "Tell me Robin!"

"Michael?"

Michael's eyes flashed open and he looked up to see a very confused and slightly pink Robin Sena standing above him. She was alive, and it came as no surprise that he had been dreaming this time. He only wished he had stayed asleep long enough to learn what the dream Robin was trying with all her might to say.

"Sorry." Michael breathed quietly. "Just a dream."

Robin bit her lip and looked down at him with her bottle green eyes full of worry. She ran a petite hand over his smooth cheek and brought it down to cup his chin in her hand's palm. "Michael?"

Michael shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

He didn't want to share the horrible dream with her, because he was sure that the dream would only cause her more pain, and the last thing she needed was pain. She had enough to last for her entire lifetime. Smiling warmly at her, he grinned for a minute before turning around and lying back down, determined to finish the dream.

"I love you." He mumbled softly just before he allowed his eyes to close.

Robin smiled quietly at him.

----

Kichiro was slowly stalking towards Delaney street.

Of course, he really wasn't Kichiro. Kichiro Wantanabee was rotting in hell right now, just the way he was intended to. Instead this creature was just Kichiro's body, with a new, even fouler soul inside of it. The gunshot wounds on Kichiro's face had not healed, and Rick Richards found it annoying that he could go nowhere in this body without people screaming and causing a seen.

Richards could feel the usefulness of this flesh melting away. It was one of his feelings. He could also feel the presence of Michael. By this time Richards did not known nor care if this boy was Michael Campbell, his heir, or just a boy who looked like him, but what was clear was he had to die. That orange-haired fool had taken with him the stop-watch and the bracelet and had already found their secrets.

Richards had waited too long, and been through too much to lose his one chance of revenge now. He refused to let himself die, even if he was dead. He refused to give up his plans to kill Michael a second time. If this body became useless, he'd simply find another one.

The sound of tires scraping over the ground reached his ears. Richards was unused to cars, but he did not care. He gripped the sword -- the sword so precious -- and lifted it up in-front of him. Footsteps clicked on the ground, and from the distance Kichiro saw the figure of David Rica step out.

"Yo." Rica sneered in a all too casual manor. He wore the same dark glasses, and he wore a navy raincoat that bore the SOLOMON crest. In one hand was a black gun with a long clip at the bottom and a short, stubble nozzle. In his other hand was a sword inside a sheath.

"You disturb us." Kichiro's body spoke in both it's salty laugh and in the colder voice of Richards.

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Rica admitted with a smug smirk. Rica set the gun down into the waist-band of his pants and he focused his attention on the Masamune Katana. Quickly flicking the sword out of it's scabbard, he extended it's full, terrifying length. Richards sneered behind the face of Kichiro, and then lifted his own rapier.

"Death to you." Richards shot back.

Rica laughed. "Did you think I bought a sword so we could have a fair fight?"

Richards tilted his head to the side. Before the possessed body or it's possessor had time to react, Rica had taken one hand off the sword hilt and grabbed the gun from his waist. The automatic pistol clicked and fired, ejecting gold-and-black shells as it poured bullets into the dead man's body.

Rica did not fire in the way he would have if his enemy was human. If his enemy had been human, he would have aimed at the chest and head and other places that contained vital organs full of blood. But since Kichiro was without blood and his organs served no purpose, Rica fired at his legs. He watched as the bullets chewed small holes in Kichiro's knees, and by the time the cartridge was empty, the body weight of the huge man caused his upper body to snap off of the torn knees and fall backwards like a broken toy.

"The sword is merely for making sure you don't come back." Rica laughed as he walked over slowly. He lifted the sword and made three quick passes, two of them being used to disconnect the arms for the torso, and the third chopping him at the waist. Kichiro grunted but obviously felt only annoyance and not pain.

"We shall find another body." He spoke.

"Yeah, but by then the puppies will be dead." Rica responded with a gleeful laugh.

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-Listening to If you ever stop loving me by Montgomery Gentry-

Hope you liked it. More will come soon.