Himura Battousia Book 2: Kenshins Past
Copyright© 2007 by Trojan_85
Part 211: Not Zero
Tonight, we're going to unearth Kamiya Kaoru's grave-- (Late at night, four figures gather around a gravesite.)
(Earlier)
Yahiko: Unearth Kaoru's grave?! What are you thinking? For what?
Aoshi: It's the surest way to verify that it's Kamiya Kaoru's body.
Yahiko: Verify?
Aoshi: Listen. You didn't see the circumstances that led up to Kamiya Kaoru's death yourself, but didn't you think they were odd? Beginning with the destruction of the Akabeko, the persistent, malicious attacks of Earthly Justice came one after the other. The murder of Kamiya Kaoru was the greatest and the last, the crucial finale. But he only showed her dead--he kept her murder out of sight. Her final moments--Yukishiro Enishi knew full well that those would be the most painful for Battousai. But his revenge was completed when one of his friends was fighting him. Although it's not impossible that he had to change his plans when the fighting exceeded his expectations, Yukishio Enishi got that far by planning with singleminded intensity. Nothing was overlooked.
Yahiko:... But, there was a body. I saw it.
Aoshi (pointing): Look.
Yahiko: That's the second Iwanbou, that Sanosuke brought back...
(The skin of the Iwanbou is putrefying; flies gather around it.)
Yahiko: It's rotting!
Aoshi: It seems it couldn't be maintained without periodic treatment to prevent decay. I've examined it. It's constructed partly out of human skin, tissue and bone. He probably stole bodies out of graves and took them apart to make it.
Yahiko:... He made it out of corpses.
Aoshi: I read a great deal to prepare for the position of Okashira. I remember a record of a similar technique in the books left by my forebears. In the Warring States period, generals would leave substitute "shadow warriors" in their places to ensure their own security. But training shadow warriors took great time and expense. What was developed was a secret method of constructing dolls out of corpses that couldn't distinguished from real people at a glance. If the puppet master called Gein had inherited these techniques--
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