The Lost Samurai

Chapter 10 - Father and daughter.

After defeating the stronger prey the fearsome monster turned towards the weaker prey, sending shivers down the spines of Hori and her disciples.

“Kenshin! Come Back Please! The battle has already ended, come back!” Master Hori shouted at the top of her lungs with tears covering her face, but the desperate scream didn’t seem to halt the skeleton’s movements for even a moment nor did it change the look on it’s face.

“Kenshin! I-if you don’t stop, i-i won’t love you anymore! If you lay your hands on me like this you can’t be my husband!” Not giving up on trying to bring Kenshin back Hori screamed trying to bring his feelings out but the skeleton was just confused without knowing what it’s prey was saying.

Not halting it’s steps the skeleton reached Hori’s position in no time and grabbed her collar lifting her tiny body to his line of sight without any effort.

“Gah! K-Kenshin, if you kill me it’s ok, gah! It’s no good for me living without you, but don’t you dare touch my girls!” Hori had no strength to fight back, be it physical or emotional, but she managed to scrape some chi to control the blood spilled on the battlefield, her own blood, the dragons’ blood and her disciples’.

Burning all the blood the energy contained within it turned into green flames and the flames rushed towards now uncontrolled Kenshin and pushed him away leaving some small burn scars on the bones that composed it’s body.

It was a strong shot, probably the strongest so far and the only one that could hinder this absurdly strong thing for a second, but now it was gone, blood wasn’t infinite so after using all the blood in the battlefield there was nothing more to use for attacks and Master Hori was defenseless, only looking towards her loved one coming to kill her.

“I…Love…You…” She just muttered those words with the bit of strength she had left and waited for her demise, the enormous skeleton in front of her lifted it’s hand and would end her existence any moment now, everyone watching this was screaming desperately and the joy of getting saved was destroyed by the actions of their savior, he was suddenly the enemy and the reaper that would take their lives.

“Daad! Stooop! Please just stop and listen to me a bit, please.” Kyoko threw herself in front of Master Hori, tears rolling down her face and legs shaking so much that she was almost unable to stand on her feet, but she still stood up in front of this monster that took control of her dad.

Every single person looking at this scene thought the young girl would die together with the Master that always represented their protection, but the skeleton’s hand stopped mid-air the moment the girl shouted.

Inside the skeleton Kenshin still had consciousness but he couldn’t really control his body anymore, another being was in control, or maybe not even a being, just the murderous instinct and hatred of the undeads, he couldn’t see anything and his earsense was so numb that he couldn’t really recognize the sounds from the outside, but even if only one vibration from Kyoko’s scream came to him he instantly recognized and knew his daughter was in danger, so with all his effort he paused the skeleton’s moves.

No, even if it meant destroying himself to destroy this undead thing with him he couldn’t let it hurt Kyoko, Kenshin had a flash of memory recalling the time she became his beloved daughter.

“Hey Kenshin Kenshin, why are you so aloof? Are you thinking about confessing to me? You should do it soon or else I won't be waiting for you and will accept someone else as my boyfriend, got it?!” Kyoko Hori was excited for this mission because she could be alone with Kenshin for a really long time. She has been in love with Kenshin since the first moment she could remember and now it was her chance.

“No way i’m confessing to you, you’re my friend, F.R.I.E.N.D not girlfriend, i will be happy if you find a boyfriend.” Pushing away Hori’s face that was trying to kiss him Kenshin wasn’t affected in the least by her weird flirting.

“Rum, you’re no good, someday you will be running to me i swear! Well my dear Kenshin, where is this place we're heading to?” Unaffected by Kenshin's rejection, Hori was still happy to be with him and jumping around him as they walked.

"Well we're going to a small village near Pegasus Mountain, they have no dojo or master so they're always low on protection and the village has reported a big pack of giant wolves really close to their location, so we need to go there and exterminate the pack to avoid a tragedy." Ignoring Hori while she circled around him he looked forward seeing Pegasus Mountain on the horizon, they were getting close to their destination.

"Waa! We need to kill those wolves! They're too aggressive and can easily decimate the village's population!" Getting more serious, Hori started walking fast so they could finish their mission sooner.

Passing by Pegasus Mountain they saw fire in a small village there, it wasn't their destination but seeing the fire the duo ran towards the village to see what was happening.

Reaching the fire's location the scenery there was frightening, bandits were raiding the city, some dead bodies lying on the floor while lots of persons were hurriedly running around the houses and getting everything valuable to put in a pile in front of 7 men.

"Faster you idiots, we haven't got the entire week! You don't want to end up like those idiots that tried to resist us right? So you should run and get everything to us!" He was the chief of the Pegasus horseshoes bandit group, they were feared by all the small villages across Pegasus Mountain and raided villages from time to time, whenever they attacked the kingdom would send groups to take them down but with their skills in hiding it was easy for the group to survive, they just needed to hit fast and run faster and not be greedy.

"Hey, 3 seconds, if you guys are alive in 3 seconds you can go, else, well, the only thing opposite to being alive is being dead." Kenshin pulled his sword and was already running towards the bandits to do justice.

"Who the f**k ar…" The bandits' chief was finishing his sentence when his head was decapitated, all the bandits around him were startled by their leader's death and even more by this stranger's speed, but a bandit right besides the leader didn't have time to be startled as his head was decapitated almost at the same time as the leader's head.

"One!" Kenshin expressed a smirk and ran to the five members running in all directions, they could easily raid villages with more than 200 inhabitants with a small group because they had control over chi, almost getting to the level of a swordsman, but to Kenshin who already was able to materialize his chi spirit they were the same as scared sheeps.

*s***h!*s***h!* To the bandits it seemed as Kenshin was in two places at the same time, the after image left after he decapitated one bandit didn't vanish til he killed the second one, he was too fast

"Two!" The three last members ran at their top speed each one in a different direction trying to avoid him. If they could do it for one more second this monster promised to let them live.

*s***h!*s***h!*s***h!* Kenshin waited a moment and moved when they were in the perfect positions to form a triangle,with a single move he killed the three and the blood spilled drew a triangle mid-air before falling.

"Aand Three, yeah you didn't last long enough." Putting his sword back in it's Sheath Kenshin went back to Hori's side, even she was startled, Kenshin was way above her level, and above anyone in their age, even if you consider all the masters Kenshin would still be one of the strongest.

"Oh, you saved us hero, please have dinner with us, we will prepare a feast to thank you." The persons in the village instantly were relieved and grateful to him, to honor his deeds they offered a feast and he and Hori stayed here that night as it was already dark.