CHAPTER 9 – BUSTED
Everyone was waiting outside the tent as Sakuragi was taken in for medical treatment. They were utmost worried when they saw their heroine (?) bleeding in the waist and fainting on the spot. They realized that Sakuragi’s wound was really serious when the blood that seeped through Sakuragi’s armour was covering the white snow in red. They moved as quickly as possible to Rukawa’s aunt, Rukawa Kaoru’s base camp where the Primal City’s military doctor was at. He was immediately carried into the medical tent and everyone waited anxiously outside.
Perhaps the most anxious one would be ours truly Rukawa Kaede. He paced back and forth in front of the tent non-stop and nothing and no one present could stop him from doing that. The girls could’ve guessed he would do that though—they have branded them a couple anyway. All they could do know is pray that their Sakuragi Minako would turn out alright.
As Rukawa paced outside the medical tent, millions of thought went through his mind. ‘What would happen to Minako? Will she be alright? Will the wound be deep? The blood actually redden the snow; it could be deep…But Minako is a strong woman, I’m sure she’ll pull through…I hope she pulls through. But what if she doesn’t? What if this time…she’s not that lucky? If she doesn’t pull through this, I’m afraid I won’t be able to…’
He suddenly stopped in his tracks when the thought came to his mind. What was he thinking? That he won’t be able to handle or live with it if Sakuragi dies? What the heck was he thinking?! Were the girls in his troop right all along? He had heard them talking about him liking Sakuragi but he had ignored the fact by thinking that this redhead has nothing worthy enough to be liked. ‘Well, she has all the qualities a woman should have—strong, tough, spunk, bravery, the smarts and all that, but…’ Rukawa slapped his head and felt his face burning as he groaned to himself, ‘Who am I kidding? I…I do like her! I like her a lot! I like her too much to let her leave this world! I…’ he hesitated before the thought came to his mind, ‘I want…I want her to…God! I even want her to marry me! Damn, I really am in love with her! Please, please, gods and goddesses. Please don’t take her away from me, please!’
Just as soon as that thought came to his mind, the doctor came out of the tent. His face looked pretty confused and all and everyone was anxious to know how was Sakuragi Minako was doing. The threesome Haroko, Fujii and Yuki and the other girls looked at Rukawa and the doctor talking in serious tones and saw that Rukawa’s face switched from anxiousness to shock. What has happened? Is there something wrong with Sakuragi Minako? They were getting more and more curious by the minute. Only Mido and Noma, who were held in Haroko’s arms, knew what was going on and feared the worst.
Rukawa couldn’t believe what the doctor had just told him. He had to confirm it for himself. He rushed into the tent and saw Sakuragi lying on the mattress on the floor with the blanket pulled over him. He was slightly awake and when he opened his eyes and saw Rukawa standing at the entrance of the tent, he smiled and sat up, much to Rukawa’s horror. He saw that the big-breasted, model-figured Sakuragi Minako was not there anymore. Instead, what he saw was a redhead wrapped in bandages on his waist and yet with a flat chest, broad shoulders, quite muscular arms and definitely a masculine face. It wasn’t the Sakuragi Minako he knew, but the Sakuragi Hanamichi he used to be and never seen before.
Sakuragi realized that the kitsune was staring at him. He looked down and saw that his body has returned back into his original form. He was shocked. How could this be?! How did he turn back to normal?? What has gone wrong?? Then he realized that he was wounded and like a bolt of lightning, Mido’s words came back to him:
“Shed no blood or all that is female on you is lost…”
Quickly, he pulled the blanket up to his body and stammered, “Annou…A-re…Rukawa, I can explain…”
But Hikoichi, the Queen’s counselor, barged in before he could say anything else. He widened his eyes at this sight and hissed, “So it’s true! You have committed a serious crime! I should have known about this heathen treachery! Come here, you outlaw!”
Disregarding Sakuragi’s stinging wound, he pulled Sakuragi out of the mattress and out of the tent. Surprisingly, Sakuragi didn’t attempt to fight or head-butt the haughty counselor nor did Rukawa tried to stop Hikoichi from pulling him out of the tent with such harshness. Hikoichi flung the redhead onto the snowy ground and said, “This is treason, ladies! We have a law-breaker among us! And he’s a man!”
Everyone gasped, especially Haroko, Fujii and Yuki. They found it hard to believe that the Minako they knew and seen naked before was actually a man. It was an unbelievable sight. They didn’t know what to think at first. Rukawa stepped out of the tent and stood before Sakuragi who was kneeling on the floor.
“My name is Sakuragi Hanamichi. My mother Sakuragi Midori never had a daughter. I am her only child,” Sakuragi tried to explain to Rukawa, his eyes unable to meet his. “I did this because I wanted to save her life. She had a bad knee and I can’t risk her dying out here like…like your mother. I had to…”
“But…But that’s impossible!” Haroko exclaimed, finally getting back her voice. “We were bathing together! We saw you naked! You were a girl! How could you have…?”
“I had help. Sorcery, from a…old friend of mine…” Sakuragi said, his eyes trailed towards Mido who was hiding behind Yuk’s feet. He didn’t want to expose him though.
“Whatever method you’ve used to get in here, you know you have done a serious crime!” Hikoichi exclaimed, his face a very disapproving look indeed. By then, Rukawa Kaoru’s troop was gathering around the area to see what the commotion was about. “You are a man and you shouldn’t be in war, not unless you are the son of a high-ranking soldier! Your mother is only a common private, not a general! Such crime must be dealt with! Take his sword!”
At that command, everyone knows what fate lies for Sakuragi, even his own stallion Oukutsu. He whinnied and stamped in protest and Hikoichi ordered the members of the troop to restrain him. One of them took the sword that was tied to the horse’s saddle and handed it to Hikoichi. Hikoichi then handed it to Rukawa and stopped Sakuragi’s girlfriends from coming any closer. Man or woman, sorcery or not, Sakuragi was their best friend—their ‘girlfriend’—and they can’t just let him die like that.
“You know the rules, girls,” Hikoichi said in a warning tone before turning to Rukawa and said, “You know what to do, captain.”
Rukawa unsheathed the sword out of the case and brandished it in front of Sakuragi. Sakuragi knew that his time has come, but he found it hard to believe that he was going to die by his family sword and by the man he had finally come to love. He sighed in defeat and lowered his head, exposing his neck to Rukawa. If he were to die in the hands of his secret love, so be it. He knew he had committed a serious crime and he knew that he had betrayed his love. He would ask for nothing more than to be relieved of the guilt by the one he once hated and now loved. He could hear several protests and whining from his fellow troop members but he knew that they have no way of going against the law of the Amazon Island. He could feel Rukawa’s aura as he raised the sword over his head. He was ready…
When he opened his eyes, he saw the sword before him. He stared at the sword that gleamed under the light of the setting sun. He was surprised; why was he spared? He had committed a crime and he should be punished. Why was his head still intact? His head should be rolling on the snow right now. What was going on? He looked up and saw the cold eyes of Rukawa Kaede upon him. Those eyes. The same exact cold eyes the first time they met. Sakuragi shrank back, his heart going sour.
“A life for a life,” Rukawa said quietly. “You saved mine and now I saved yours. I owe you nothing. Ladies, we’ll move out with Lieutenant Rukawa Kaoru to the Primal City first thing tomorrow morning. I expect you all to wake up early before the sun rises.”
Everyone muttered in obligation. Hikoichi witnessed all this in disbelief and rushed to Rukawa, saying, “What are you doing? He has committed a crime! Why aren’t you…”
“I said,” Rukawa glared coldly at the Queen’s counselor straight in the eye, “we move out tomorrow morning. Is that clear or do I have to repeat myself again?”
Hikoichi wanted to protest but he could feel that all eyes were looking at him warningly. So finally, with one last look of disapproval at Sakuragi Hanamichi, he walked off with the other troops to set up their tents, leaving Sakuragi alone at the snow with sad eyes staring at the sword in the cold.
When Sakuragi woke up the next morning, he noticed that his tent was the only one left in the snowy grounds. Everyone has already left to Primal City, including Rukawa Kaoru’s troop. He was all alone in the snowy wilderness without anyone by his side, well, except Mido and Noma and his stallion Oukutsu, that is. His friends Haroko, Fujii and Yuki were nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t seen them since his secret has been found and they have never come to approach him later last night, like they used to when he was a girl, giggling and chattering and gossiping all night long.
He was alone. All alone.
As he sighed and sat down looking at the vast emptiness around him, Mido and Noma came out of the tent and sat down beside him. After about 10 minutes of revered silence, Mido decided to break the ice.
“So, uh, Master Hanamichi…What are you going to do now?”
“I dunno…” Sakuragi sighed as he picked up the helmet to look at his reflection. “I’ve tried to explain it to my mother that if she ever come out here to this war, she’ll die. No one ever listens to me. As a matter of fact, no one ever listens to a boy. I thought I did the right thing. I thought that by allowing you to change me into a girl and blend in with the troop, I’ll sell out as a girl and win this war, and at the same time, save my mother’s life and honour my family’s namesake. But what do I get now? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!”
Mido dodged the helmet that was flung away by Sakuragi in frustration. He tried to make things clearer, “Well, at least you won the war. I mean you’ve defeated the Shirogane Clan, didn’t you? You’ve earned everyone’s respect, and you earned Rukawa’s trust.”
“He gave Minako his trust, not Hanamichi! They respected Sakuragi Minako, not Sakuragi Hanamichi! I can’t believe I have fallen for someone who only believes in the girl-me, not the boy-me! He’ll never like me now that he knows who I really am!”
Mido didn’t expect his master to finally admit that he does have a liking for Rukawa Kaede. He tried to say something nice but when he saw that Sakuragi’s eyes were welled up with tears and was trembling in sorrow as he sobbed, emitting mists out of his mouth, he decided to let his master cry his heart out before he said anything else. As the warm tears trickled down Sakuragi’s cheeks, his eyes shifted back into the vast emptiness before him.
“Maybe I didn’t come here to save my mother. Maybe I didn’t come here for her wellbeing at all. Maybe I came here just to prove that I am as great as any woman can be put together. Maybe I’m here to make my point—that we men should be treated just as equally as women are…I guess I blew it now. Not only I didn’t make it clear to them, I have dishonoured my family…”
“Now don’t you ever say that, Master Hanamichi,” Mido said as he went up to Sakuragi and wiped away his tears. “You didn’t blow everything up, well, except the mountain, that is. But the point is you didn’t dishonour your family. What you did, whatever reason for you to do this, is unique and one of a kind. And if anyone of your family doesn’t feel proud of you and appreciate you for doing this, I would personally think that they are the ones being dishonourable, not you. And I mean it too.”
Sakuragi smiled and as he took Mido into his arms and embraced him gratefully, he replied, “You’re right. I should’ve known better than to treat myself like trash. Well, I guess we have enough excitement for one day. Let’s go home.”
Oukutsu whinnied, Noma chirped and Mido mewed in agreement. Sakuragi quickly dressed up in his boy clothes and hopped onto Oukutsu and was riding towards the east where his village was when all of a sudden, he heard a loud roar of anger and defeat. He led Oukutsu to a secluded place and hid to see what was going on.
To his shock, he found himself at the place where the avalanche had buried the Shirogane Clan. In the middle of the thick mound of snow, there stood the giant leader of the clan Uozumi looking very angry indeed. Sakuragi was struck beyond disbelief. How did this 2-meter giant survive the 10-feet thick heavy snow that covered up the entire Shirogane Clan and came out alive without a single scratch?? As he continued to watch, more and more people actually came out of the snow. He recognized all of them—they were the men who were fighting for him during the attack. Sendoh was the first to come out, followed by the wild-haired Kyota, the dark-skinned Maki, then Fujima, Koshino and lastly Hanagata. The 6 of them stood tall and mighty without as much as a single cut on their skin.
“That darn redhead!! She almost got us killed!!!” Kyota was the one to complain. “When I get my hands on her, she’s going to suffer so much that she’ll be begging me to give her mercy!!”
“Don’t you dare lay your hands on her yet,” Hanagata said. “I’ll personally do the honours of giving her a night she will not forget for the rest of her living days.”
“Boys, boys, be nice,” Sendoh said in his usual macho, nonchalant way. “She’s a woman. A woman needs a gentleman’s touch, not some ragamuffin’s ass-kicking attitude.”
“And what a fine opponent she is,” Uozumi said in his low authoritative voice. “She’ll make a fine Queen once I’ve taken over the Amazon Island Queen’s throne. Come on, men, we still have an island to conquer.”
“Yeah! We might be able to catch up that redhead!” Kyota cheered as he ran ahead everyone else. The rest followed suite with Uozumi leading the way (that is, after pushing the leading Kyota aside).
Sakuragi started to worry. They were heading towards Primal City and if he didn’t do something, Amazon Island would be doomed as they would be caught off guard. Everyone thought that the Shirogane Clan has been defeated. They wouldn’t stand a chance against a surprise attack like that, not with the 2-meter giant Uozumi around. Without thinking twice, he turned his stallion around towards the Primal City’s direction.
“Uh, Master Hanamichi,” Mido said, pointing towards the east. “Home is that-a-way!”
“I gotta go down there and warn the people about the surviving Shirogane Clan! They’re in deep danger now!” Sakuragi said anxiously.
“Um, hello! In case you haven’t noticed, you’re off the team, remember?! They’re not gonna listen to you! And did you see those Shirogane guys?? They practically came out of the snow, like some zombie coming out of their graves!! Doesn’t that freak you out a little??”
“Well, I know it’s not the smartest thing to do,” Sakuragi replied as he stopped Oukutsu for a while, looking at the bronze-eyed neko in determination. “But I know it’s the right thing to do though.”
Mido stared at Sakuragi for a while, then chuckled. He should’ve expected this. He clapped him on the back and said, “Now that’s the Master Hanamichi I know! Come on! Let’s go kick some Shirogane butt!!”
Soon, the Sakuragi dynamic team went racing down towards the direction of Primal City.
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