[Current Balance: 4,755,411,970,700 Mon]
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For a long moment that stretched into an eternity, the only sound in Arai Hakuseki's private office was the faint, almost imperceptible hum of the lanterns.
Arai, the brilliant scholar, the steady hand guiding the shogunate, the most powerful advisor in all of Japan, found himself completely, utterly frozen. His mind, a fortress of logic and political calculation, was shattered. The man lying on his floor, this towering, blonde-haired gaijin, was an impossibility, a living contradiction to the ordered world Arai had so carefully constructed.
He hadn't heard him enter. He hadn't felt a single ripple in the castle's intricate web of security. It was as if the man had simply… willed himself into existence in the center of Arai's sanctuary.
The gaijin's smile was the most unsettling part. It was lazy, confident, and held a depth of ancient amusement that made Arai's blood run cold.
"…why don't you sit down on the floor with me?"
The invitation, so casual and absurd, finally broke Arai's paralysis. His training, his discipline, his ingrained sense of authority, all screamed at him to act. He opened his mouth to shout for the guards, to call for his elite Silent Guard, the puppets that had been his secret project, his ultimate solution to dissent.
But no sound came out.
He couldn't speak. He couldn't move. He could only watch as the gaijin's piercing blue eyes seemed to look right through him, into the deepest, darkest corners of his soul.
Alaric remained on the floor, perfectly relaxed. He could feel it, the psychic stain left behind by the Apple of Eden, clinging to Arai's mind like a venomous vine.
It wasn't the active, overwhelming influence he'd felt from the Apple itself, but a lingering corruption, a series of deeply embedded suggestions and desires that had taken root in the fertile soil of the advisor's own ambition.
He saw the conflict within Arai's chakra signature, the man's natural, disciplined energy warring with the chaotic, foreign influence. He saw the pride, the fear, and the deeply buried, ruthless ambition that Caroline had so skillfully exploited.
'So, this is the man Caroline chose,' Alaric thought, a flicker of something almost like pity crossing his mind. 'She didn't just find a pawn; she found a man who was already dreaming of becoming a king.'
Alaric sighed, a soft, barely audible sound. This needed to be dealt with first. He needed to see the real man, the man without the Apple's whispers clouding his judgment.
He didn't make a hand sign. He didn't speak a word. He simply focused his will, gathering a small, precise thread of his own immense chakra. It was a subtle, surgical strike.
Kai.
An invisible, silent pulse of energy, no stronger than a gentle breeze, washed over Arai Hakuseki.
For Arai, the world fractured. The lingering sense of peace and purpose the dark sphere had given him, the obsessive drive to find the Kusanagi sword, the hazy but powerful memories of the beautiful gaijin woman… it all shattered like brittle glass.
He gasped, stumbling back, clutching his head as his own, unadulterated thoughts came rushing back in a dizzying, nauseating flood. The psychic chains were broken. He was free.
And he was terrified.
He stared at Alaric, his eyes wide with a new, dawning horror. The man before him was no longer just an impossible intruder. He was the one who had just performed some unspeakable sorcery, peeling back the layers of his mind with contemptuous ease.
"You…" Arai breathed, his voice trembling. "What… what did you do to me?"
"I gave you your mind back," Alaric replied simply, finally pushing himself up from the floor. He stood, towering over the shaken advisor, his crimson coat settling around his powerful frame. "The woman, Caroline… the sphere she carried… it was controlling you. Influencing your decisions. I just… cut the strings."
Arai stared, his mind racing to connect the pieces. The obsession with the sword, the creation of the Silent Guard, his increasingly erratic political maneuvers… it had all felt so right, so necessary. Now, in the clear, cold light of his own restored will, he saw the truth. He had been a tool. A puppet for a foreign woman and her dark magic.
The shame was a physical blow, followed instantly by a wave of cold, calculating fury. Not at Caroline, not at the Apple, but at the man who stood before him, the one who had seen his weakness, his violation.
"You think you have saved me?" Arai snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He slowly straightened up, his scholarly stoop replaced by the rigid posture of a man fighting for his life. "You have done nothing but reveal yourself, gaijin. You are the greater threat."
Alaric raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And why is that?"
"You possess a power far beyond that sphere," Arai stated, his eyes narrowing. He had felt the Kai release, a power so immense and controlled it dwarfed the Apple's subtle influence. "A power that could topple this shogunate, this entire nation, if you wished it. You are a loose cannon in a world that demands order. My order."
There it was. The truth, stripped bare of the Apple's influence. It wasn't Caroline's dream of order he had been serving; it had been his own. The Apple had just given him the means and the justification.
"Your order?" Alaric chuckled, a dark, humourless sound. "The one where you use Isu technology you don't understand to create an army of soulless puppets to enforce your will? The one where you plot and scheme in the shadows? That's not order, Arai. That's just tyranny with a prettier name."
"You know nothing!" Arai hissed, his composure finally breaking. "This country needs a firm hand! A single, unwavering will to guide it through the coming chaos! I am that will! I will find the Kusanagi, I will master these puppets, and I will forge a Japan of perfect, unshakable order! I will be the Shogun behind the Shogun, the true ruler!"
He took a step forward, his face contorted with a fanatic's zeal. "And you… you are an obstacle. A powerful one, yes, but an obstacle nonetheless. An anomaly to be… removed."
Alaric just looked at him, his blue eyes turning flat and cold. The playful amusement was gone, replaced by a profound, chilling emptiness.
"I gave you a chance, Arai," he said softly. "I cleared your mind. I gave you the opportunity to see the truth, to step back from the abyss." He shook his head slowly. "But it seems the darkness wasn't just from the Apple. It was in you all along."
He sighed, a final, weary sound. "What a disappointment."
Arai, seeing the shift in the gaijin's demeanor, finally acted on his survival instincts. He clapped his hands together loudly, a pre-arranged signal.
"Guards!" he shrieked, his voice cracking with desperation. "Silent Guard! To me! Kill him! KILL HIM!"
In an instant, the paper walls of the office slid open silently. From every direction, the masked, black-clad puppets appeared, their tantōs drawn, their movements silent and impossibly fast. A dozen of them flooded the room, converging on Alaric.
At the same time, from the corridor outside, came the sound of running feet and shouts as the castle's human samurai garrison responded to their lord's cry.
Alaric stood in the center of it all, surrounded.
He didn't even look at the puppets. He just looked at Arai, who was backing away towards the far wall, a triumphant, crazed look on his face.
"You see?" Arai laughed, a high, unhinged sound. "You cannot fight them all! You are trapped! You will die here, and your power will be forgotten!"
Alaric just smiled. It was a cold, terrible smile.
"You really shouldn't have done that," he said quietly.
And then, he moved.
He didn't use Swift Release. He didn't use Vulcan. He didn't even use his Sharingan.
He just… fought.
The first puppet lunged, its dagger aimed at his heart. Alaric's arm shot out, catching the puppet's wrist. He didn't just stop it; he kept the motion going, using the puppet's own momentum to spin it around and use it as a human shield. The daggers of two other puppets plunged into its back.
He shoved the now-useless puppet into another, then flowed through the opening he'd created. He moved with a brutal, terrifying grace. His fists became hammers, his feet became axes.
He punched through a puppet's chest, his hand emerging from its back, clutching the shattered control crystal. He grabbed another by the head and simply twisted, the sound of snapping wood and metal echoing in the room. He delivered a spinning kick that connected with three puppets at once, sending them flying through the paper walls into the corridor beyond, where they crashed into the charging samurai.
He was a whirlwind of destruction. The puppets, these unstoppable, unfeeling killers, were being dismantled like cheap toys. He tore off their limbs, crushed their heads, shattered their control mechanisms with precise, devastating blows.
Within seconds, the office was a wreck of splintered wood, torn paper, and the broken, lifeless forms of the Silent Guard.
Alaric stood in the center of the wreckage, not even breathing hard. He turned his cold blue eyes towards Arai Hakuseki, who was pressed against the far wall, his face a mask of pure terror.
"My turn," Alaric said softly.
He walked slowly towards the terrified advisor. Arai scrambled for the sword that was always displayed on the wall behind his desk, a priceless antique. He drew it with trembling hands, pointing it at Alaric.
Alaric didn't even slow down. He just kept walking.
Arai lunged, screaming, a wild, desperate thrust.
Alaric slapped the blade aside with the back of his hand, the priceless sword shattering from the force of the blow. He grabbed Arai by the throat, lifting the smaller man effortlessly off his feet until his eyes were level with his own.
Arai choked, clawing uselessly at the iron grip around his neck.
"You wanted to know my purpose?" Alaric whispered, his voice a chilling hiss. "My purpose… is to remove weeds like you from the garden."
He squeezed.
CRUNCH.
The sound was wet, final. Arai Hakuseki's eyes bulged, a final, silent scream trapped in his throat, and then his body went limp.
Alaric held the corpse for a moment longer, then tossed it aside like a piece of trash. It crashed into the remains of the lacquered desk, scattering scrolls and inkstones.
He stood there for a moment, listening to the shouts and running footsteps growing louder in the corridors outside. He could feel dozens, then hundreds, of samurai converging on his position.
A slow, terrible, and utterly joyful grin spread across his face.
"Well," he said to the empty, ruined office. "Time to give Kensei his gift."
He walked out into the corridor, right into the path of the first wave of charging samurai. He didn't even bother to draw a weapon. He just raised his fists.
The slaughter began.
He moved through the corridors of Edo Castle like a god of death. The narrow hallways became choke points of absolute carnage. Samurai, brave and skilled, charged him with yells of "Banzai!", their katanas flashing.
They died before they even got close.
Alaric's fists shattered swords, broke bones, and caved in chests. He tore off arms and used them as clubs. He grabbed men by their topknots and slammed their faces into the wooden walls until the walls broke. Blood painted the pristine white shoji screens a brilliant, dripping crimson.
He fought his way through the residential keep, then into the main barracks. He kicked down the doors, a terrifying, crimson-coated demon stepping into the midst of two hundred samurai scrambling for their armor.
They didn't even have a chance.
He was a whirlwind of gore. He ripped a man's spine out through his back. He punched another's head clean off his shoulders. He grabbed two men and simply smashed them together like cymbals, the sound of their skulls cracking echoing through the barracks.
He moved on, leaving a sea of mangled bodies in his wake. He fought his way up to the castle ramparts, where archers were loosing desperate volleys of arrows at him. He simply walked through the storm of projectiles, the arrows shattering against an invisible barrier of chakra, or bouncing harmlessly off his skin. He reached the archers and tore them apart, tossing their bodies off the high walls to crash into the courtyards below.
He descended into the inner sanctum, towards the Shogun's personal quarters. The Hatamoto, the most elite of the elite, formed a final, desperate line, their gleaming armor and masterwork blades a wall of steel.
Alaric just laughed, a wild, terrifying sound.
"Come on then!" he roared, and charged.
The fight was over in a minute. The Hatamoto, for all their skill and honor, were simply… outmatched. They died to a man, their fine armor crumpled like paper, their bodies broken and twisted into unnatural shapes.
Finally, Alaric stood before the last set of paper doors, the ones leading to the young Shogun's chambers. The castle behind him was silent, a vast, echoing tomb filled with the dead and dying. The smell of blood was overwhelming.
He slid the door open silently.
Inside, five-year-old Tokugawa Ietsugu sat frozen at his small desk, his calligraphy brush dropped, ink pooling on the paper. He stared at the giant, blood-splattered gaijin in the doorway, his small body trembling, his eyes wide with a terror no child should ever know.
Alaric stood there for a long moment, looking at the terrified boy-ruler. His bloodlust, his rage, slowly receded, leaving behind a cold emptiness.
He walked slowly into the room, his boots leaving bloody footprints on the tatami mats. He knelt down, bringing his face level with the child's. He reached out a hand, still stained with the blood of the boy's protectors.
The young Shogun flinched, a tiny whimper escaping his lips.
Alaric's eyes, which had been cold and merciless, softened, just for a second.
"Shh," he said softly. He gently placed two fingers on the boy's forehead. A faint, silver light glowed for a fraction of a second. A complex Fuinjutsu seal, one designed for memory alteration, settled into the child's mind.
"Forget," Alaric whispered. "Forget the monster. Forget the screams. Forget this night."
The terror in Tokugawa Ietsugu's eyes faded, replaced by a deep, sudden exhaustion. His eyelids drooped, and he slumped forward, fast asleep, his head resting on his ink-stained calligraphy paper.
Alaric stood up. His work here was done.
He walked out of the silent chambers, out of the castle filled with ghosts, and back onto the rooftop overlooking the city.
The first rays of dawn were breaking, painting the sky in the same crimson hue as the coat on his shoulders.
Edo was quiet. And its seat of power was now an empty, bloody shell.
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Y'know... I actually forgot that Alaric had Kotoamatsukami just after I finished writing this chapter... I'm too lazy to change it :(
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