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Absolution: Chapter 8 - The Fires of Hell

by Sakusha

Warmth. Can’t move. Maybe I’ll just lay here. So tired. I know I’ve forgotten something important, but for the life of me I can’t seem to remember what it was. Through the warm haze I started to realize I could hear crackling, like a campfire. That and I have an enormous headache. Slowly I sat up, keeping my eyes closed as wave of nausea passed. What I did open my eyes too, was far bigger than any campfire. I got to my feet swaying slightly. My plan had worked very well. Maybe to well. The entire warehouse looked like a battle zone, fire and debris scattered everywhere. The blast had thrown me clear into the far wall. How I managed to avoid the falling glass that had shattered there I do not know. As my eyes came back to the wall, I noticed that Miko-sama had not been as lucky. Large shards of glass had impaled his body to the point that I did not bother to see if the man was still breathing. It was clear that he was not. I steadied myself further and only then did I remember that Youji was still in the warehouse. Oh Gods let him be all right!

All I wanted, from the time I saw those sad brown eyes, too when I discovered his family and here in Niigata, was too protect him. I turned crate after damaged crate over in a desperate attempt to find him before the flames over came us both.

I saw sandals before I saw a body. Small plain sandals peeking out from underneath a rather large crate, It was tilted about a foot off to the right and leaning against another large crate. Oh Gods. I didn’t even think of what the implications might be.

“YOUJI!” I yelled, smoke getting thicker by the second. It was a vague reminder of Shishio-sama’s ship that had gone down in the harbor off of Kyoto.

“YOUJI!” Yelling again over the roar of flames, panicking as I made my way over to those little sandals. The roof creaked overhead, a warning that I had mere minutes if not second’s before the whole building collapsed. There was so much debris it took forever to make my way over. The blast itself had thrown everything in its path a good twenty feet away on almost a perfect radius, the real damage had been further away, where all the crates had been stacked upon one another, now had been thrown down atop of everything else. Right on top of Youji.

I knelt beside those sandals, feet, connected to legs and I pulled him out. It was then that I realized that the initial shockwave of the blast must have knocked him down to the ground and uncontouse, before the crates themselves had given into gravity. Through sheer luck or divine intervention, the crate that had fallen on top of Youji had fallen at an angle, to where it was resting slightly against another, so as to not crush the boy outright. If it had landed any other way it shurly would have.

Something broke inside of me then. Relief. Joy. Guilt. Maybe even forgiveness. I could not stop the tears from forming, regardless of the raging fire and crackling roof boards above, I held that boy close to my chest as I sobbed. Cough

“ Soujirou” It was little more than a whisper, then louder.. “Soujirou”

I blinked through my tears, my eyes searched for his.

“ Are you alright?” He is asking me? I tightened my grip before letting go, giving him a slight nod, for there were no words to describe how grateful I was that he was still alive.

“ We need to get out of here,” I croaked.

Youji seemed to just have noticed the storm raging around us, his eyes widening a bit.

“Uncle?”

“No” I replied, “I’m sorry”

Youji nodded in understanding.

Quickly we climbed over the crate that had been on top of Youji and I looked for and luckily found an exit that had not been overcome with fire. Staying low I ushered Youji safely out of the warehouse.

We stood in the early morning air, coughing and full of soot watching the blaze. At first there had been a futile effort to beat down the blaze. It was quickly abandoned however, in an effort just to keep it contained to just that area. Youji watched silently as the fire took a second warehouse and the dock that his uncle had owned. I could see his dreams die in that fire. I watched him as he watched the flames rise higher, then slowly lower and then smolder. I could have cried for him, for what he had lost, he himself shed no tears. Eventually, slowly, he turned to me.

“ You’re a swordsman.” A statement more than a question.

“ That was a long time ago,” I said wistfully, still watching the smoke. “Now I’m just a wanderer.”

“ A ruroni” he said.

“ Ya, a ruroni.” I answered softly “A ruroni, a wanderer who has only the clothes on his back.” I could not offer him anything. Least of all my protection apparently.

“ But a ruroni has nothing, Soujirou-san.” And then he did something I least expected. He put his hand into my own and looked at me with determination.

“ You are not a ruroni, you have me.”