Do Not Go Gentle

When Shugo came to, he was sitting seiza in front of a small table, in what looked like the living room of a traditional house seemingly straight out of a classic painting dating back to feudal times.

'…Am I finally dead?'

Obviously, Shugo had been in a near-death situation not too long ago: back when he'd interfered in what looked like a marriage spat gone wrong and was shot twice in the gut for his trouble. However, the sight that greeted him now was vastly different dimension compared to the one where he found himself in back then. What greeted him then was a world of blinding white light, as well as a deafening silence that was only broken by the voice of the spirit who he'd come to trust, regard, and rely on as his partner. As it was, he couldn't help but feel like he was Harry Potter at King's Cross toward the end.

And then suddenly, as if out of nowhere, he was joined by someone else.

"Greetings, child," said a vaguely familiar voice behind him.

Shugo stood and turned to face the newcomer.

'Who…?'

It was a woman, with long, floor-length chocolate brown hair and cold, ice blue eyes that seemed to hint at lifetimes' and centuries' worth of experience and suffering. She wore a simple yet elegant white kimono, with a blue obi wrapped around her waist and a sheathed sword at her right side. Between her general appearance and the way she carried herself, Shugo couldn't help but be reminded of O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill – and, for that matter, the titular Lady Snowblood herself.

'Where do I know her from?'

Shugo's bafflement grew with every second that passed in that mysterious realm. On one hand, he was sure he'd never met her before now. Yet somehow, he just couldn't shake the feeling that he somehow knew the hardened, world-weary warrior woman who now stood before him. And with each moment that passed, his mind's certainty that she was a stranger to him continued to clash with the nagging feeling of familiarity stewing in his gut.

'Try and remember, Shugo,' the voice urged the teen as he racked his brains in an attempt to do just that. 'Who is she, and what is she to you?'

And even the woman seemed to pick up on his ongoing inner struggle, if the way the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly was anything to go by.

"We finally meet, face-to-face."

Her smile widened a little as she said those words. "Meeting you now, I must say you look very much like my son."

'Her son?'

"…I'm sorry," Shugo finally said. "Have we met before?"

The subtle smile on her face instantly vanished at the teen's inquiry.

"Come now, child," she admonished him in a tone of mild reproach. "Can you not recognize a friend? More to the point, is that any way to greet someone who has guided you and fought alongside you all this time?"

The woman's response only served to confuse him even further.

'A friend?'

"Think on it carefully," she prompted him one more time. "Do you really not recognize me?"

'Who…?'

And then it clicked.

'…Oh.'

Technically, it was true that the teen had never actually heard her voice before. But now that Shugo really thought about it, he did, in fact, know her voice very well. In fact, it probably wouldn't have been much of an exaggeration for the teen to say that he'd come to know and recognize her voice just as intimately as he had his own. Now I know.

"You're the one who saved me that night," he finally answered after several moments.

When the woman gave no verbal response, Shugo went on.

"It's your voice I've been hearing in my head up until now."

Though she remained silent, the smile of approval the warrior woman gave him nevertheless served as sufficient confirmation of Shugo's guess.

"You're the spirit," he finished, finally reciprocating her smile with his own.

"'I shall be your angel of wrath'," she replied, repeating the exact same words she said on that fateful night. "I still am. Our contract is not yet complete."

"'Not yet complete'?" Shugo echoed in confusion. "But, back there…"

Shugo recalled it vividly. The attempt on his life not long after the outreach had ended with him being stabbed through the forearm with a silver-coated tanto, and as the spirit herself had warned him, silver disrupted the bond between them and prevented her from hastening his healing the way she normally would. He turned down several offers to have him brought home, only for this to prove ill-advised when he was then ambushed by a dozen gangsters on his way home from the RCPD. At that point, the miscreants proceeded to finish what Harusaki Ayumu had started by thoroughly wrecking him, before they finally executed him with a bullet in the head.

Next thing he knew, he was here.

"…Didn't I die?"

In response, the warrior woman placed her right hand on Shugo's left cheek.

"This does not have to be your end," she reassured him as she caressed his face in motherly fashion. "Remember what I said."

"At the time, you said something about overriding our weakness to silver by 'binding our souls more closely to one another'," Shugo recalled, using the exact same phrase that she herself had used. "But you also said it wouldn't be without risk, and that it's more of a last resort option than anything else."

"This does not have to be your end," she repeated, confirming his words. "There may be a price to pay, but this does not have to be your end."

The teen thought about it for a moment, even as he knew full well there wasn't much for him to think about; after all, he was literally out of options at this point. Between his evil counterpart wreaking havoc, the criminals still out there targeting his friends and loved ones, and his own life goals, the fact of the matter was that Shugo still had unfinished business to take care of.

'Do not go gentle into that good night.'

As Shugo contemplated the lifeline the woman was offering him, he couldn't help but recall the words of an old poem they once discussed in class.

'Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

If there truly was still a chance for him to make a difference, he simply had no choice but to take it.

'Do not go gentle into that good night.'

All consequences, considerations, and costs be damned.

"Choose life, Shugo."

She called him by name for the first time.

And more than anything else, that was what finally erased the lingering traces of doubt from his mind.

"Let's do this, then."

And with that, Shugo watched the world around him disappear into light.

------

"Oh, there we go," the enigma perked up from his perch. "Took you long enough."

He watched the youth pick up the sword that lay forgotten beside him as he got to his feet, his wounds and injuries healing and fading away within seconds, before brandishing his sword at the hired guns in what was both a challenge and an attempt at intimidation.

'Give me one hell of a show, both of you,' he thought as he sat back down on the rooftop.

'Give me something to look forward to…'

------

The look on Isurugi Hajime's expression went from triumph to terror in no time flat as he watched the dead young man stand back up, the wounds having disappeared as though they'd never been inflicted.

"What the hell?"

And he didn't need to look at his comrades to know that the looks on their faces were exactly the same.

"Didn't we just kill this punk!?"

They'd seen this before, back when the punk had gotten in their way on their last job, but Asakura had assured them that their target's troublesome regenerative tendencies had been taken care of. And up until barely a minute ago, all the evidence pointed in that direction. Still, that didn't change what they were now seeing in front of them. The punk who they'd just annihilated with extreme prejudice mere moments ago had inexplicably gotten back to his feet, his eyes alight with an unnatural shade of red as he pointed a sword at them in a manner that strongly conveyed eagerness for another round.

"YOU GODDAMNED MONSTER!"

"KAIDO, NO!"

Hajime yelled out the warning in an attempt to dissuade his comrade's rash course of action, but it was too late. All he could do was watch his fellow criminal charge the youth, his sword raised high in an exact imitation of the ill-fated move Kiriya had tried earlier.

"Sloppy."

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Kaido's desperate attack ended in failure. The young man quickly drew the sword he'd pried from Kiriya's hands earlier, deftly meeting the overhead blow with an rising parry. Hajime then watched, horrified, as the youth knocked Kaido off-balance with a kick to the gut and, in one fluid motion, impaling him cleanly through the heart with the sword he'd taken from their unlucky compatriot.

'What's with this kid!?'

Two more of their number – Aikawa from the left, Mishima from the right – rushed down the youth from both sides, without much more success. Of the two, the former was sent reeling in pain when the kid slammed the butt of his scabbard in his left eye. The latter fared marginally better as he exchanged blows and strikes with the adversary before him for several seconds, but his fortune ultimately proved short-lived.

"All too easy."

Mishima let his guard down for a moment, only to pay for this lapse in judgment when the kid ran his sword though his neck, before following this up within seconds by planting the tip of his blade through the dead center of Aikawa's forehead and dispatching him, too.

'It's like he's a completely different person…!'

Hajime desperately willed his body to move. He and his comrades were being picked off one by one, with four of them having already died like animals, and he knew he had to do something, anything at all. Unfortunately, this knowledge did little to help as he remained rooted to the spot, almost as though the mortal terror he felt at that moment had all but frozen him in place. As it was, it was all he could do to stand there as four more of his comrades desperately charged the enemy before them, only to be cut down one after the other when the kid responded in kind.

"JUST DIE ALREADY!"

By this point, the dirty dozen had been reduced to a mere filthy foursome. At the rate things were going, their numbers would inevitably be whittled down even further by the end of the night. Hajime stood petrified as two of his surviving comrades charged forth, while the third provided covering fire by frantically squeezing off shot after shot with the guns he held in either hand-

"Scatter-"

Their enemy then cut down yet another one of them-

"-And-"

-And then did the same to the other-

"-Die."

-Before finally slashing the gunner's neck open after having closed the distance between them in the span of a heartbeat.

'Am I gonna die here?'

Isurugi Hajime was the only one left by that point, once all eleven of his comrades had been massacred in increasingly messy and macabre fashion. And even that wasn't likely to be the case for that much longer – at least, if the way the youth slowly walked towards him with a look on his face that screamed murderous intent was anything to go by.

"…You."

Sure enough, Hajime soon found himself staring up at the same youth he himself had executed mere minutes ago. Even as he assumed that pose of supplication, however, he felt the barest hint of confusion mingling with his terror at the same time. Just earlier, the kid's voice shook with fear, however much he tried to hide it behind arrogance and false bravado as he taunted the dozen hardened criminals who had ambushed him with lethal intent.

"I need you to tell me something."

Now, the voice that spoke to Hajime was somehow different. While it projected all the warmth of an arctic wind, the tone that had been dripping arrogance and bravado earlier that night had now been replaced by a more subdued and controlled sense of hostility and menace.

"And I need you to talk as though your life depended on it, because it does."

But as he gave the youth a nod that was both mechanical and perfunctory, Hajime couldn't help but notice how the voice also sounded more… feminine?

"Who sent you?"

"I don't know," he answered numbly as he forced himself to look his interrogator and likely executioner in the eye. "Asakura just got the job offer, and we were the ones assigned to carry it out after Haru failed."

Hajime's answer came quickly and easily, mostly because it was entirely true. In contrast to most of their clients, who were usually willing to provide at least basic information about themselves, their client this time around had disclosed next to nothing about himself. He'd contacted Asakura from an obvious burner phone earlier that evening, just as the email he sent last night had come from a dummy account. There was nothing stopping his interrogator from killing him for perceived deception, but the kid – or whoever happened to be puppeteering his body at the moment – would gain absolutely nothing out of it.

"I sense truth in your words."

Luckily for Hajime, he wasn't the only one thinking along those lines.

"Your life is yours…"

The hardened criminal was about to exhale the breath he'd been holding for the past several seconds-

"…On one condition."

-Only to look up at his interrogator questioningly as he realized he wasn't off the hook just yet.

"Leave this place."

No sooner had Hajime heard the dire warning than he felt a blunt edge of sorts striking him on the top of his head. And as he fell face first on the dirt and landed on his nose, he heard his adversary's voice from somewhere above him.

"Never return."

His world went black.

"I will not show you mercy a second time."

And at that moment, Isurugi Hajime knew no more.