Part 233: A Man's Back 6--Avalanche

(Fudozawa has assembled his men into an armed, torch-bearing mob.)

Fudozawa: All right, you bastards, the village is up ahead. Make sure they know it's ours! First, we get Kamishimoemon--huh?

(Sanosuke stands alone before them.)

Sanosuke: Hey.

Fudozawa:... What do you want, street fighter. If you're here to apologize it's too late.

Sanosuke: No. I just settled the fight you hired me for the other day. The tough old guy's lying up the road a ways. But it was nothing. One punch and he went down. That changes things. Know why? That didn't entertain me at all.

Yakuza: What! Say that again! Hold it!

Fudozawa: So he was no good. I see. Then why don't you try me!

(Stripped to the waist, he slams his open hand into a nearby boulder, leaving a handprint in the stone.)

Yakuza: There it is! The oyabun's trick move! The Demon-Killer! Who knows how many faces he's smashed in with that killer technique!

Fudozawa: I've got business to take care of tonight, street fighter, but first I'm gonna make you bleed.

Sanosuke: Ex-sumo wrestler? Not surprising, a big guy like you.

Fudozawa: Shut up! Take this!

Killer Technique Demon Killer!

(His open palm smashes Sanosuke in the face.)

Sanosuke: Yeah?

(He hasn't so much as changed expression.)

Sanosuke: What was that? Not much of a killer technique.

Fudozawa: What?

Sanosuke: Demon-killer? You thought that would work? I've fought an incarnation of a Wisdom King that would crush that demon like a bug.

(He punches Fudozawa in the chest; Fudozawa falls back against the boulder, and rolls to place the boulder between himself and Sanosuke.)

Fudozawa (thinking): What... is he... ?

Sanosuke: Now the demon-killer is playing tag. Or is this hide and seek?

(He thinks of an earlier boulder, bursting into fragments.)

Sanosuke: I just remembered. That technique I inherited from the Bright King. It's a string of instantaneous impacts that nullify an object's resistance and pulzerize it. Basically.

(The boulder behind Fudozawa all but explodes; Fudozawa is knocked out, foaming at the mouth.)

Sanosuke (shielding his face): I see... Not as good as the main attack, but not bad for improvising. I'm using both hands so I can't go nuts like before, but it's a lot better than nothing.

Yakuza: What the... He smashed that rock... with the oyabun!

Sanosuke: That's still only three punches total. Not what I call fun.

(He beckons them on with a single finger.)

Yakuza: You think you can beat two hundred men?!

(In the Higashidani house, Uki, finally quiet, has lain down.)

Uki: Dad...

(Outa covers her with a blanket. Then, strapped all over with makeshift weapons and armor, he steals out of the house. He runs along the path until he finds his father, still collapsed in the road.)

(A dull roar rises from the mountains.)

Villagers: What's that? Voices... Is it an avalanche? Dogs howling? Or something else?

(Sanosuke runs through the horde of yakuza, felling them right and left, a broad grin on his face.)

(Outa reaches out toward his father, who sits up.)

Higashidani: Outa... What are you doing here?

(He notices his sticks, mallet and kitchen utensils.)

Higashidani: I see... You came to fight. Uki's always protecting you, but you really are a man. When the time comes you do what has to be done. (getting up) If we don't hurry that idiot's going to be killed. C'mon, Outa!

(They run off.)

Higashidani (thinking): Let me be in time! Let me make it in time!

(They stop. Ahead is Sanosuke standing alone. As they come closer, they see the bodies of two hundred battered yakuza lying around him.)

Sanosuke (sweating and still grinning): I finally did it. You want to clear your head, what you really need is a brawl!