Another Side, Another Story

Bright light filtered through the balcony doors, but Itazura had already been awake for the last hour or so anyway. Was he sad that he missed Toshie’s training lesson? Not one bit. Looking at the sun in the sky he hazard a guess at the time, and figured it was just after noon.

The festivities had stretched into the early hours and Itazura had been introduced to quality wine – which Fujimoto had watered down – and some fine company in the form of three young serving girls who, he recalled, where quite pretty. The first was a raven-haired beauty by the name of Serena Natsume, with vibrant red eyes and sharp facial features that where quite striking. Apparently she was also a cousin of Shiro’s. She’d took his breathe away the minute he’d seen her. The second was a girl with short-cut blond hair – obviously she was trying to mimic Tomoko. He’d barely given her the time of day and she’d left to dance with someone who would. The third he couldn’t even recall and she’d left for similar reasons as the second before her. From there he and Serena had danced till they dropped, which was exactly what had happened. He went to ground and she landed atop him, all laughs and giggles, which was when Tomoko, Mariko, and half the party turned to look at them. Thinking back he couldn’t help but grin. Their faces had been priceless!

He and Serena got plastered on watered down wine and danced some more. Right up until Fujimoto told them they’d had enough. His head was sore and his arm was bruised. How he couldn’t fathom, but if he couldn’t remember it, then it never really took place. What really pained him was his back and legs. He’d spent the night asleep in an armchair which was far from comfortable, in the same position, and now he was paying for it. Serena had taken his bed, and he couldn’t very well hop in beside her with Mariko lying in the bed on the opposite side of the room. There were certain lines a brother just didn’t cross. Shacking up with a hot raven-haired beauty while your sister slept in the room was one of them. So he’d been a gentleman about it and surrendered his bed. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done… next to fighting the urge to leap in beside her.

Serena stirred in the bed, turned into the light, and woke with some protest.

‘Morning,’ he greeted.

‘Good morning,’ she took a look around. ‘Where am I?’

‘The guest rooms. Fujimoto said we’d had enough to drink and I was too plastered to ask where your room was and you where to drunk to remember where it was too. So my sister dragged us back here.’ Her eyes asked the question. Did we? ‘No, I slept in the chair. And now I can’t move.’

She laughed at his misfortune and kicked off the blankets and Itazura was once again speechless. She had subtle curves and long legs, a figure shaped like that of an hourglass, and nice full hips. Mariko had been kind enough to lend her a sleeping gown, and had even helped her change out of her party clothes. Not that she should’ve been partying. He’d spirited her away from the party, got her something new from town, and brought her back – all so she wouldn’t be recognized. He coughed and she took his jacket from the back of his chair.

‘You poor baby,’ he didn’t remember her being this cruel.

‘Oh yeah, poor baby. That’s me… wanna give me a hand up?’ She did, and she directed him to the bed, where she pushed him onto his stomach. ‘Oh, things are starting to look up.’ Then she began massaging his back. ‘Oh, god! Yes!’ Now all he needed was a happy ending and his morning would be complete. ‘That was amazing! No, really. Thank you.’ She had the hands of a healer, because he could now move.

She titled her head and smiled at him. She was of a height with him. ‘If you where really thankful you’d buy me breakfast.’ Oh, she was a manipulative one! And he loved it. They dressed, with Itazura taking special care to conceal his firearms, and snuck out of the palace with Serena on his arm…

‘Are we not to be graced by your brothers company on this fine day?’ He didn’t know why, but somehow he enjoyed annoying Mariko.

Once again he found himself roused by this girl in the early hours. Didn’t she ever sleep!? The private room he kept as his own office in the Leaping Lion was brightly lit as opposed to the dimed scene he’d went for before, and a fire blazed gently in the hearth. They where each eating a bowl of cut up fruit and enjoying a cup of good wine, which he had opened for her especially. If one was to be roused from ones bed, then one needed to do the thing right.

‘Oh, he’ll be here. I’m counting on it.’ Was that anger he detected?

That probably meant the poor boy was in some kind of trouble. So he decided to cease his jibes and keep that gate firmly closed. His eyes and ears had already reported that she thoroughly trounced her brother in a sparring session the day before, and that she had an interesting Shikai ability that allowed her to teleport herself and others to any location she had been to previously instantaneously. A woman with a power like that should be kept sweet and amiable. Not ready to attack you for some perceived sleight or in their anger. Otherwise he wouldn’t wake again.

‘Try the grapes,’ he suggested. ‘They’re in season.’

As she picked one out Kain used the diversion to take a better look at the situation at-hand. She was awaiting her brother here, meaning that they had finally grown tired of waiting on him. How he disliked impatience. It was a good thing that he had their information then. Or at least most of it. The only thing he lacked now was a definitive date of attack.

‘They are good. You should try the peaches,’ he did and found them particularly juicy.

They ate their breakfast with pleasant conversation. She talked to him about the landmarks she’d seen when on her tour, and asked if he had ever been on a boat. He had. He remembered the experience with a degree of hesitance, but he recounted his tale regardless. ‘I was once a servant to a lady called Saya, who lived in Kōhai Tochi, with an occupation identical to my own. I plotted and I schemed until I was the head of her household. Seeing my potential, or perhaps my stunning good looks, she took me as her student and, at times, her lover.’ That made Mariko go beat red. ‘I’ll spare a sweet girl like you the intimate details, so do not worry, my dear. Suffice to say our relationship soured, and she attempted to have me killed. I escaped to Heisekai, and booked passage with an old sailor by the name of Hikaru, who took me here. The entire trip I was seasick.’

‘I’m sorry about… Saya.’

‘Why would you be? I used her as much as she used me. I survived using the techniques she taught me. If anything, I should be thanking her.’

‘Where are you going?’ Serena asked him when he ducked into an alleyway near the Leaping Lion. He took her by the hand and walked through a series of thin streets, which eventually took them out at a backdoor illuminated by a small lantern.

‘I know the owner,’ he said at last. ‘This way we avoid the crowds, and I get the information I came for as well.’

‘You know Kain Akai?’ The sudden fear in her eyes, which she quickly hid, make Itazura stop all movement.

‘You’re one of his eyes and ears in the palace, aren’t you?’ He grinned and shook his head. ‘If you are you’ll be happy to know I don’t care, so don’t worry about it.’ She heaved a sigh of relieve. Up until she done that he hadn’t even been sure she was. He’d just gone out on a limb. ‘Come on, it’s time to meet your boss.’ And this time it was she who smiled.

He went straight to the private room he knew Kain to be in and closed the door behind Selena, who Kain paid a particular amount of time to. ‘… I wasn’t expecting this.’ He admitted.

‘And I wasn’t expecting to be named a hero either, but we take what we’re dealt.’ Itazura offered Serena a seat and then took one himself.

‘Truer words have never been spoken, my young friend. Here, have a drink of this. You like you need it.’ In Kain’s hand was a cup of red wind. Itazura took it, looked at it suspiciously, shrugged his shoulders, and sipped it. The explosion of flavour in his mouth was amazing and he suddenly felt like kissing the man. It wasn’t watered down!

‘You know, I haven’t had a decent cup of wine since I came to this realm. People look at me and immediately assume I’m a lightweight who can’t hold my drink, so they water it down for me. I’m delighted to say that this is the best damn wine I’ve had since I came here!’ He took another larger drink. ‘Thank you, Kain!’

‘Now that we’ve dispensed with pleasantries,’ Kain began, ‘we can move onto business. Mariko, Zura, I have names of the people who will lead the attack against the Collective Vices, but a date yet eludes me.’

‘… Who are they?’ Mariko asked carefully.

‘Fujimoto, his sister, Shiori, and Hiei. The Marshal-General acts with supreme authority.’ At least he now knew who needed to be quizzed.

‘Why can’t you get the date?’

‘Because they’ve yet to set one. Zura, I have a contact in the Shuuten. This contact is quite high up-’ so he had a Captain-General in his pocket? ‘- so I will know sooner rather than later.’

Before he said much of anything else though Kain sighed deeply. ‘… Where you followed?’

‘No, I took the back alleyways, and made sure I wasn't. Why? Are you expecting some company?’ Itazura replied.

‘I wasn’t, but now I am. Mariko, would you be kind enough to take Ms. Natsume back to the palace for me? Quickly now.’ When she made for the door with Serene, Kain sighed. ‘I know about your Shikai, dear. So please. Use it and vanish from here.’ She nearly blinded them with a flash of blue light, which left no one else but Itazura and Kain in the room.

‘Numbers?’ Itazura asked as he removed his firearms.

Kain picked up his own firearms – which appeared like dual Uzi. ‘I may say a lot about information being a powerful weapon… but at times I like nothing more than a gun in my hand and a cigarette on my lips.’

‘Remind me to ask you for the name of your wine supplier after this is done,’ Itazura’s guns looked like a Luger and a Mauser, both of which where popular Human designs. ‘Oh, and you’ll probably be fit to set me up with some parts for these? Finding them in the Seireitei is a little difficult.’

‘No problem. I know a Quincy who does good work.’ Kain locked and loaded and simply waited as he puffed on a cigarette. ‘As for the Seireitei. There’s an inventor who lives in the first district of the western Rukongai. Goes by the name of Dylan. He makes some… interesting trinkets, amongst other pursuits.’ Black-market talk for supplies. This Dylan would be getting a visit very soon.

The door burst open to permit men and woman dressed in black cowls, and Kain and Itazura squeezed the triggers together, and the first group fell in screams of pain. ‘That’s what they get pushing in here without a plan.’ Itazura jibed. ‘No style at all.’ Kain went on. ‘I know. Such a shame.’ Itazura picked up and downed another with a shot between the eyes! ‘Oh, nice shooting! Watch this.’ Kain made a slashing motion and curved the bullet he fired out the door, where a scream soon sounded. ‘That’s nothing!’ And Itazura ricochet’d his bullet off the wall, which then hit a woman in the throat. Kain, however, done one better and performed a mixture of both techniques. ‘Gunmanship my friend is an art… and I’m this cities finest artist.’

Itazura merely shook his head as he tossed his gun into the air, turned, plucked it from the air again, and shot the man who had just burst in through the wall right behind Kain. The bullet whizzed past Kain’s face, hit the man in the heart, and toppled him instantly. ‘I’m not from this city.’ And they stepped over the bodies and walked down the street as though nothing at all had happened.

‘Fancy something to eat?’ Itazura asked him.

‘Now that you mention it, I’m famished.’

Next Story > Saying Farewell.