Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 21:55:29 -0500 Reply-To: NancySSCH@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "N.L. Cleveland" Subject: Aloha Ch 3 p 202-208 c 1995 N.L. Cleveland Jonathan could feel fresh blood trickling down his hands, as his nails bit deeper into his flesh. He clenched his teeth and forced his expression to remain calm, controlled, displaying only polite interest. He could not quench his eyes, though, and he knew they burned with a desperate, tortured hunger. A hunger in his soul that needed the truth, to sate its appetite. A hunger that might choke that soul to death, on that same truth. "My father spent years preparing the groundwork Laying the foundation for his revenge." Aki paused, gripping the sword with both hands now. "Setting up a dojo. Attracting talented, impressionable youths. Training them in the martial arts. Molding them in his beliefs. Carefully. Subtly. Choosing his most promising students as the ultimate agents of his vengeance." She pointed the katana at Jonathan, the tip quivering with the emotion she just barely held in check. "He chose you, Jonathan. You were the best. The best he ever trained. You had the raw potential. All you needed was the rage. The anger. The burning hate. He took you, shaped you, and made you his tool. His puppet." Jonathan closed his eyes, trying to close his ears as well. Trying to close out the words that pounded through his brain, that speared his heart. He felt his breath catch in his throat, his chest squeeze with pressure as he fought to draw air into his lungs, to push it out His head drooped, his whole body slumped, as if the weight of the world had suddenly fallen on his shoulders. The weight of the dead, hanging around his neck. "The Black Dragons never cared about your parents. They were untouchable, above the law your father represented. They still are." Her voice stopped. He sat, huddled in on himself. Looked up, feeling the pressure of her eyes, insistent, on his form. Met her cold, icy gaze. Met it, his heart open, his soul laid bare, waiting for the next words, the next nail of truth she would hammer into his body. Waiting for the weal, the burning lash of guilt, that would follow. He could fight it no more. He waited. Numb. Patient. Waited to hear the words that would consign his soul to hell, for eternity. "My uncle killed your parents, Jonathan Raven." He heard her speak, the final fatal phrase sending a death knell through his heart. He knelt, suspended in time, remembering, reliving, once more, the moment he had seen his parents bodies, their blood everywhere, bathing the walls, in the ruined, looted bedroom. Remembered his shock, his terrror and his pain. Remembering the rage. The rage that had come later, when he understood. Thought he had understood.... who killed them, and how...and why. Aki's voice rolled inexorably on. "They knew him. They trusted him. They let him in to their home. Into their lives. He killed them only because he wanted to use you. He put the Dragon's sign over their beds. Written with their blood. Told you what it meant. Told you not to seek revenge, and taught you how. He set your heart and body on the path to vengeance, and let you go." Aki sighed. A universe of regret, of pain, encompassed in that sound. But it was nothing to the pain, to the crushing agony of guilt, that Jonathan felt. He had been wrong. So wrong. Had dedicated his life to murder and vengeance against those who had done nothing. Nothing at all, to him. And they were all dead, now. There was nothing he could do, to bring them back. Nothing he could do, to make right the terrible wrong he had committed. Nothing. Nothing at all. This was the ominous, frightening shape he had sensed, looming behind Aki's words. The shape of a manipulator, pulling his strings while he danced like a puppet across a wooden stage, sword in hand, blindly strewing death and destruction in his wake. Silly puppet, to think it decided its own fate, its own actions. Foolish, proud puppet, to think it understood life, and death. To think it understood revenge, and the true meaning of hate. Cold, ancient hate. Hate that waited a lifetime to be slaked. His parents had died because of him. Because of his talents, his abilities that he himself had barely understood. He had killed them, just by being. Just by existing. And he had never even had the wit, the insight, to understand. Never questioned his most basic premise. Never doubted his cause, his goal, his reason for becoming all that he was. All based on a lie. All this death. All because of him. He looked at her face, hoping only that this was all. Hoping that there was no more. Seeing in her eyes that indeed, she had more to share, more to say. He bowed his head to her, bowed it in humility, in pain. Bowed it, to show he understood the import of her words and that any price, any price was not too high to pay, would never pay, the full cost of what he had done. Bowed his head, and listened. The first, bare beginnings of his penance, to listen. "The Dragons found me, eventually. They had been searching for a long, long time. I had just started college. I had run away from the anger and the obsession that I saw consuming you...and then, you were gone...and the man I knew as my father disappeared, too . I thought he had died. A fishing accident. But his body was never found. They tracked me from the funeral. They watched me, without telling me who they were." Aki's voice was brusque now, moving quickly through the details, sketching in the unseen outlines of her life. His life. Filling in the blanks he had never know existed. Filling them with more pain, and more regret, than he had ever known could exist. "They knew nothing of you. Knew nothing of your parents' deaths. Not how they died. Not why. It was all hushed up. But you didn't know that . You were too young to understand, when it first happened. And later, you had disappeared. Gone underground, infiltrating their organization. Working out your destiny, and my uncle's hatred and revenge." She had lowered the sword now, resting the tip on the table top before her, the blade still pointed like an accusing finger directly at Jonathan. He wished with his entire heart that she would slide it forward now, slide it into his gut and kill him. Wished that he could simply die, that way. As if his death would help ease the pain that he had caused. As he knew it would not. As he knew, fully, now, that it never would. "I was lonely. Confused. Mourning my father, and you. Not knowing if I would ever see you again." There was a hint of the long dead passion, in her voice. Just a hint. Enough to remind Jonathan that he had once been loved. Had once been the center of this woman's world. Enough to sharpen the ache that had taken up permanent residence in his heart. Aki continued. "The man who was watching me...we met, we talked, spent time together....for him, it was an assignment, to be with me, yet, somehow....we fell in love. I discovered I was pregnant. I wasn't sure, couldn't be sure, if it was your child, or his. I told him about you, then. My first love. Not enough for him to know who you were, or what you were doing. I didn't know that myself, fully. I only guessed, from hints you dropped, that you were probably never coming back. I told him enough only to test his love, and his commitment. To me. To the unborn child. And found it was there. For both of us." She stared over Jonathan's shoulder now. Stared at Hata Shin. Her face filled with the look of love that once had been reserved for Jonathan alone. Glowing with pride, and shared respect. Shared strength, in the face of shared tragedy. Leaving him outside, looking in. The watcher, far from the warm flames that had once filled his heart, soothed his soul. Leaving him with regret, the empty ashes of loss dry and bitter in his mouth. "I had that child. A son." Aki looked at him, her expression of pride suffused with sadness. With mourning. Jonathan felt anew the grief, the guilt, his helpless complicity in the two boys' deaths. He knew now he had barely glimpsed the dimensions of her pride, and her sense of honor. Honor, that rigid code that broke the lives and bodies of men, of women, of children, on its cold uncaring sides. Honor...like vengeance... another bloody altar to death. "Then my father....the man I believed was my father...returned. He tried to kill me." Horror vibrated in her voice as she relived the moment. Relived the ultimate betrayal, of a parent for its child. "He tried to use my son against the clan, to hurt them, to destroy them, as he had sworn to. I escaped, with my life. And my child's life. For the short time he had left." She put a hand to her face, and touched her cheeks. Caught the tell tale tears as they slid across her skin, and wiped them angrily away. Continued with her story. "Hata saved me. But my existence, our existence, as I had known it, was over. I met my true father, learned our history. But we stayed hidden, to avoid my uncle. We separated, mother and child, for disguise. Went underground, until we felt it was safe for me to return in body as well as spirit to the clan." She shook her head, remembering the past. Remembering her hopes and shattered dreams. "I was coming to the great hall, for the first time, the day you destroyed it. You missed killing me, along with all the rest, by barely a hour. Hata and I were to announce our public vows, to reveal our private connection. To bring our son to join the clan. But instead of a celebration, I found death. Death, and your bloody signature. Of course I had no idea at that time that it was you, scrawling the deadly lines my uncle taught you, so long ago." Jonathan prayed to the deaf and dumb gods, knowing his plea was useless, knowing that the heavens, even if they did exist, had turned their back, had closed their gates, to him. Mute, he swung his head, the visible sign of negation all he could summon, to fend off the outpouring of memories, the sounds of the screams, the sights of the dead and dying bodies falling like leaves in the autumn wind, as he had moved through the Dragons' former compound. "There is a price to be paid. One I have paid, for my part, however innocent, in all this. For the burden of family guilt I bear, for the catastrophe my very existence has brought upon our... my... clan." Aki stood now, the sword still in her hands, and walked toward him. His eyes followed her, like a dumb beast, looking to be let out of its misery. Wondering at her intent. Hoping. "The price I have paid, the first installment on my family's debt, was the life of my first born son. Hata Shin's and my first child. Tawara's first grandchild. The pride, the future, of our family." Aki stepped towards him, slowly. Deliberately. Each word emphasized as she took another stride foward. "Hikari. Taken from me and trained to find you. To seek you out and kill you . And by killing you, to revenge our clan. Restore our honor. Or die." She stopped, so close to him now that he could smell the faint musky scent of her body. So familiar. So strange and so new at the same time. He heard the rustle of the stiff silk of her kimono, saw the fine embroidered design shimmer in the light. Butterflies and flowers. Aki had always loved the sun, the meadows, the light. Butterflies and flowers. He could die, seeing them. Remembering. He felt the slight subtle stirring breeze that fanned his face, as she lifted the katana over her head, poised the blade to bring it down. He raised his face to hers. His eyes open, and lucid. Met her dark, unfathomable gaze. He truly could not penetrate its depths. Was it his death he saw reflected in her eyes? He could not say. "I know Hikari is dead. He died trying to fulfill his destiny, as I will die to fulfill mine." Her voice hardly wavered, yet he sensed the pain in its depths. Sensed the grief, that rocked her to the core of her soul. Stared into her eyes, trying to read his fate, and hers. Trying to rekindle, if only for a moment, the connection they had once shared. Her eyes were cold. Untouched and untouching. " My life has been devoted to the search for my uncle. I have tracked him endlessly, but it is like pursuing a ghost. My husband, and my one remaining son, will continue that search, after I am gone." She brought the blade's tip to Jonathan's face, and drew it softly across his skin. Twice. Carving two parallel lines, on either side, from forehead to lips. He held himself still, not shrinking back. Letting the blade cut, and rip, and draw blood. Feeling the sting as the liquid welled across his cheeks, ran down his chin, dripped onto his neck, and chest. She pulled the blade back, its silver edge streaked and mottled with red. "It was my right, to taste first blood today. For my son. For myself." She stared at him, as if assessing her work, then shifted her gaze to Hata Shin, behind him. Held the blade out before her, displaying its crimson stain to the crowd. Spoke to her husband, now. Her eyes only on him. Spoke through Jonathan, as if he were already a spirit, one of the dead. "Because when you die today, Jonathan, I will die with you." She moved even as she spoke, and turned the katana deftly in her hand, reversing the flashing blade and plunging it deep into her own chest. Jonathan cried out, horror seizing his heart, his useless words of negation, of denial, lost in the sudden tumult around him. "No, Aki!" Hata Shin shouted in pain, and surged towards his wife, too late. He hovered, afraid to touch her, afraid to drive the blade in deeper, as she warded him off, with her red stained hands. Her fingers...slender, graceful, delicate...dripping with her own life's blood. Jonathan knelt, unable to help, to act, to move. Cursing the bonds which held him, a captive observer in this fatal play. Tawara half stood, his hand out to his daughter in silent entreaty. A frozen, silent tableau. Aki was still on her feet, bowed over the blade which protruded obscenely from her chest, a ruby liquid darkening, staining, spreading across the fine, embroidered silk of her kimono. The butterflies and flowers disappearing in the tide of red. She coughed, a pink froth bubbling at her lips. "I will die, to take away the stain of my life, on the clan." Her words were muffled, muffled by pain, and by the blood that crept into her lungs, making her stop speaking, breathe laboriously, and cough again. The pink froth darkened this time. Darkened to red. "I die, to remove my existence, which alone brought on the calamity that all my clan and family have endured." Her voice was trembling now. She staggered a bit, then forced her head high. Stared one last time at her husband. Her new love. Her last love. "I know I have always had my father's love, my husband's and my children's. I cherish them all. And I die, here, to help atone to all the others, for all the loves they have lost. " She turned her gaze back, back to Jonathan, who looked up at her, his blood sliding like tears, the tears he could not shed, down his face. Watching his lover..his heart... die. She stared at him, her eyes revealing her true thoughts, her last flicker of life, pulling aside in this final moment the curtain she had dropped over her emotions, and letting him see...see that she still cared, still held a place in her memory, in her soul, for him. ...as she hunched over, her body fighting with her spirit, one to die, one to speak. She gasped out the words, enunciating them clearly, around the bloody froth that thickened and slipped from her lips in a viscous ruby flow. "I "I loved you, Jonathan. And I loved my son. But I love my honor, and my clan...more." She choked, the red spurting now, darker, faster. Dribbling across her chin, wreathing her neck like scarlet silk. Meeting the darker, wider stain in her chest. "I die to atone for you." Her fingers jerked, convulsively, on the sword, twitching around the hilt as it slid deeper, ever deeper, in. "I waited for you...to see you...this last time." Her voice was fading now, ragged, almost inaudible. A sigh, from the edge of the grave. Her eyes were clouding, their clear sharp intelligence fading, as her spirit drifted away. A last whisper fell from her dying lips. Adding fresh pain to Jonathan's aching, bleeding heart. "My fatal lover.....my death.....my.....true....love. " Her eyes rolled up in their sockets and her body, held erect by her will alone, dropped, limp, to the floor. Her arm brushed Jonathan's face in passing. Her last caress. Her last touch. Her body, an empty shell now, lay curled at his knees. Her blood mingling with his, on the mats. Hata Shin knelt over her, his fingers smoothing back the soft tendrils of her hair, smoothing them away from her face, over and over, as he murmured her name. Jonathan stared at the floor. Stared at the dark congealing pool of blood that stained the mats, that crept up the fabric of his robe, at his knees. Remembering.. .treasuring ....lacerating his soul in the sweet, bitter agony, with the razor sharp edge of her last words... One more death. What was one more death, among so many others. But this one, this one was the one that mattered the most to him, now. The death of his heart. The death of his love. The death of his innocence, of his youth. The death of his soul. The destruction of his own identity, his self definition, his goals, and purpose, and meaning in life. All was empty now, inside. Forever. Aki was dead. She had torn open his eyes, and showed him the truth. Then she had died. And she had carried away his hope, his heart, his will, all his past and all his future, with her. Carried him, still alive, to the underworld. For he could not imagine that the pits of the inferno could hold any greater tortures than the pain that wracked his heart now. "You twice damned spawn of hell." Hata Shin, his face contorted with anger, grief, and hate, pulled the katana from his wife's body, and held it, the red dripping steel touching the Immortal's throat, the blade quivering at Jonathan's neck, as both of Shin's hands gripped the hilt, the tendons in his arms rigid and shaking with the inner battle he fought to hold back from slaying the man before him. He shouted out his grief and his rage, his eyes burning, his lips drawn back in a snarl. "Tell me why I should not kill you now." Jonathan shook his head. He had nothing to say, no argument to offer. He did not care. He hoped, at this point, only to die. But to take the rest of the clan with him... To compound the evil that he had already committed.... No. It was unthinkable. He must tell them. Must let them try to avert the fiery death that awaited them all, if he kept silent. "Wait." He broke Shin's concentration with his word. Not a plea. A request. Shin stood over him, the sword ready to strike, to descend. Jonathan knelt, welcoming it. Welcoming an end. A final escape from the hollow mockery his life and his quest had become. But his peace, his rest, must hold on the moment. He raised his voice, so it would reach Tawara as well. "I have explosives. In the shrine. Concealed in the frame of the palanquin. Enough to destroy this place. You have very little time. It cannot be moved. That will set it off. You must go. Flee. No one can stop it, now." The council members not already on their feet in shock, stood now, consternation and fear for the clan replacing the horror and pity at Aki's death that played across their faces. They looked to their leader. Looked for direction. For guidance. Tawara visibly forced himself to ignore his pain as a father, and stepped back into the role of the leader. He summoned his mantle of calm, and pulled it about him. Pushing aside for the moment his grief for the loss of his daughter. The anguish on Tawara's face smoothed into the decisive lines of command. His lips firmed, steadied, and he shot an inquiring glance at Hata Shin. "Is this possible? Or is this another trap, with our enemies waiting for us outside?" Tawara shifted his gaze to the corner of the room, suspicion shadowing his expression. Jonathan followed his glance, and stared, astonished, as he thought he no longer had the capacity to be amazed. He saw a silent, dark haired man standing, under guard. Staring back at him, naked pity on his face. He hadn't sensed the other Immortal, his aura overshadowed, subsumed, in the oppressive power of Shonte's continued approach. It was an amusing thought. The last joke. The final irony. The older Immortal turned away from Jonathan, and met Tawara's eyes. Spoke, loudly, clearly, his Japanese as fluent as Jonathan's own. "There is no trap. Not from me. Not from those I represent." Heh eld his hands out, empty, stressing his sincerity. "I pledge my word, my life, on that. Don't wait. Go, before you all die." Tawara chewed on his lip, visibly torn, not willing to trust, to commit, just yet. He glanced again at Hata Shin, his face demanding an answer this time. Hata Shin closed his eyes for an instant, took a deep breath and dropped the blade away from Jonathan's throat. Let it fall to the floor. He grabbed Jonathan's hair in a solid fistful, and yanked his head up, sharply, to face him. Stared hard into Jonathan's uncaring eyes, probing for the lie, for the truth. Demanded, furiously, "Why are you telling us this? Do you think it will buy your life?" "No." Jonathan met his stare. Matched it. Let it pass through him, like all the passions in his soul had passed. Let it fall away, like his life. "I do not wish to kill you. To be a pawn in another's game. To murder the innocent, for the guilty." Hata Shin nodded, thoughtfully, at what he heard, what he saw in Jonathan's eyes. Turned to the clan leader and bowed, his self control ragged but holding. Barely. "Indeed, Tawara-san. It is more than possible. I believe it is true. He came too easily to our hand. Too openly and far too easily. But Aki's death....my wife's death....has helped us more than we knew. I believe him. I believe he still ...cared for her. That is why he is telling us this. I do not believe it is a trick, this time. We must go, immediately." Tawara turned his face towards Jonathan's. His eyes hard and flat. Unreadable, hollow pits in the carved wooden planes of his face. He paused, a final instant. Assessing. Weighing the future of his clan, of his people, against the word of this returned prodigal, this killer in their midst. Then he decided. He spun and barked out a rapid series of commands to the clan members in the room, ordering their immediate evacuation, while Hata followed his lead, pulled a cellular phone from his pocket and punched a single code, his eyes flashing impatiently while it hummed and auto-dialed. =========================================================================