Two Lives, Crashing...

An assassin, cold and merciless. A noble's daughter, lonely and easily frightened. Fate has brought them together, but what else does it have in store for the two?

Thus begins our tale, set in Japan's Feudal Era... Our tale of fate, our tale of love against the odds... Of hearts, weak and hardened...

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He had been trained since birth to be a god with mortal skin and bones. For he, just like the gods who oversaw all, held sway over life and death. Who would live, who would die... The who and the names and the lives attached meant nothing to him. All that mattered was that he carried out his job to the letter, no messy ends, all loose strings tied up with his blood-stained hands. So that he could obtain his name in material form and then vanish into shadows.

Kin. A hired killer's name. Not the man's true one, given by his mother at birth. He forgot his birth-given name most of the time. He was only Kin; a slayer for hire, a human who decided fate, a man out for gold.

An assassin.

Now, crouched on a thick branch of the tree that grew on the outskirts of a particular noble's land, he had another job to carry out. Kidnap the daughter of the noble for whatever petty political reason. Turn her over to his employers of the moment, collect his payment. Disappear, like always, until he was next called on.

Surveying the land, Kin observed that there was nobody about; none of the noble's family, no servants, no visitors. It was three hours past nightfall, and the house was sure to be asleep. The perfect time to clap a cloth doused with sleeping potion over the nose of the daughter, condemn her to an even deeper sleep until she woke in a strange place as a political pawn.

Kin dropped easily from the tree branch and began to make his way stealthily across the noble's land towards his house. He knew the lay of the place, having researched it thoroughly before choosing tonight to carry out the job. He knew where he could hide, where the best escape routes were should something go wrong. He knew where the noble's daughter slept.

The sliding doors near the targets' room opened and then closed as she slipped out into the dark garden near her room. She closed her eyes as she took a deep breath, glad to be out of that hell of a house. Sikura looked at the blue rose she had gotten as a tribute to her mother. Her father went corrupt after her mother died when she was ten.

"Momma, Dad has gotten out of control these days and all I can do is sit and watch. And he leaves me alone for day or weeks at a time. What do I do? I can't take the loneliness anymore." The eighteen year-old girl said to the flowers never thinking that there was someone out there to get her.

Sikura stood up and let herself be bathed in what moonlight there was. Her long, golden-brown hair brushing her waist as her deep sea eyes went to the moon. She wore a long, blue kimono that rivaled her eyes, unsuccessfully.

Kin drew closer to the daughter's room, abruptly concealing himself once more as he caught sight of movement.

His eyes widened as he saw who it was. It was the daughter herself--she fit the description he had been given to the bill. But he had not been prepared for the brilliance of her eyes... A deep blue, like the waves on the ocean. Who in Japan had eyes like that? Silently, he prayed for protection from the gods against whatever unknown sorcery this girl might possess because of her blue eyes.

The prayer done, he readied his sleeping potion and snuck around, unseen, to clamp the cloth doused with it over the girl's mouth and nose. He restrained her arms behind her back with the strength and practice of long years in his trade as a hired murderer.

"...I can't take the loneliness anymore."

Kin did not hesitate in restraining the girl--everyone had their problems, didn't they? And her problems were about to get a whole lot worse, he thought unremorsefully to himself. A whole lot worse.

The blue eyes of his target opened wide before closing as she slipped into unconsciousness. Her body went limp against his as a guard went into her room to check on her. The guard opened the backdoor since the garden is usually where she went. He saw Sikura in the assassin's arms and yelled at him. "Hey, what do you think you're doing with her?! Stop!!" His gun was pulled from his breast pocket as he went after the man.

Sikura dreamed of the blue roses as she didn't know what else was going on. Her hair clip slipped from her head and revealed long golden brown waves of hair, down to her waist. She looked like a sleeping doll in the middle of a war.

Hardly glancing at the guard, Kin loosed one hand from the unconscious girl in order to hurl a small, yet deadly, knife in the man's direction. Without looking to see whether or not it had hit--though he would have bet his pay for this mission that it had, as he had not survived as an assassin this long for no reason--he then gathered the girl tightly in his arms and dashed away from the house and across the grounds towards the forest at shocking speed.

Once concealed amongst the combined darkness of the forest and nightfall, Kin relied on his above-average night-vision (again, a result of his years of assassination missions) to find his horse. Tossing the girl over the horse's saddle, he quickly and efficiently secured her in place with rope before beginning to lead the horse away from the house. He did not doubt that some form of pursuit would be coming after him soon, and he planned to be far away by the time the house guards managed to muster themselves to action.

A map of the house, grounds, and surrounding area clear as day in his mind, he followed the route that he had found days before that would let him escape with the girl both quickly and silently. Once he had reached a self-assigned checkpoint on the route, he leapt into the saddle behind the girl and spurred the horse into a swift gallop; he was far enough away from the house and grounds now that he could finalize his clean get-away.

* * *

An hour later, the horse was exhausted, but had succeeded in bringing Kin and his captive to their destination. Swinging down out of the saddle, the assassin gathered the girl into his arms like a child--his intentions for her, however, were far from fatherly or nurturing. Striding up to the door in a building set in the middle of a copse of trees, he knocked three times and waited.

A muffled voice came from the other side of the door. "The moon is bright tonight."

"So bright the stars are strangled," Kin replied in a low voice.

The door swung open and he stepped inside.

Sikura laid in his arms as she had no other choice due the cloth he had placed over her mother. Her eyes were closed as her kidnapper held her in his arms. She looked like a doll with the figure of a full grown woman and the face of an angel. The thoughts going in her head were of trying to figure out what was going on. That was about all she could do at the moment.

Her father say the dead guard and growled before calling the police. The guards were sent into the woods to see if they could find a trail or a clue. One of the guards found a blue rose pointing towards the direction the kidnapper took Sikura.

She heard people talking and the sensation of being held in someone's arms. The girl opened her eyes and looked around. Sikura looked up at the man holding her and started to scream. Her hands went to his chest as she tried to get away from the men and back to her house.

"I brought the girl," Kin muttered, his voice still low as he nodded to the unconscious girl in his arms.

"Good. You're early, no less. More pay for you." The man who had opened the door jerked his head at another man standing in the corner, who immediately hurried over with a bag. "This should be everything that we agreed on. You can count it if you want, and we can settle your extra pay after that."

"Her father will send a pursuit," Kin told the man, ignoring the bag of gold as he began to lay the girl down on the floor in order to free his hands. He was stopped, however, by the girl's sudden screaming and clutching at his clothes.

"What are you--Hey!" Kin growled, trying to pry the girl away from him.

The man who had opened the door stepped forward to drag the girl away. "What happened, Kin?" He asked in outrage. "Why is she not still asleep?"

"I don't know," Kin replied grimly as he finally succeeded in throwing off the girl's hands. Unfortunately, that did not make her shut up. "I did not mess up the dosage--"

"It doesn't matter, just silence her, now!" The man barked at the one with the money bag, who looked around hurriedly before grabbing a piece of cloth out of his pocket, obviously having had been used as a napkin and who knew what else, and shoving it into the girl's mouth.

"This is bad," the man spoke up once the girl had the gag in her mouth. "If anyone was nearby, there is no way that they would have not heard that. And if we're found with her too soon..."

He aimed a finger at Kin. "You, assassin! Double the pay if you take her with you and get her far away from us."

"Done," Kin replied promptly; his pay had been ample enough as it had been. He made to grab the girl's arm and drag her out of the building to a horse (not the one he had been riding before, as it had been tired out beyond use).

Sikura scowled as she tried to spit out the used cloth. Her eyes closed in protest as he dragged her out of the building. She kicked at him and tried to remove her gag. The princess moved the gag from her mouth and look at him in disgust. "That was so gross." Then she resumed her screaming.

The sounds of her screaming lead them after the assassin and their stolen treasure. Guards started shouting at them when they were in sight. Sikura smiled as she saw the guards and kept screaming for them. "Help!! Over here!!"