"[AAM]Strife presents... 500 years had passed, and still the country remained closed." "Cut off from the world, knowing neither hope nor despair the land breathed an air of quiet stagnation." "Reformers driven to armed rebellion had been suppressed by the State." "The House of Takemikazuchi were assassins hired to suppress the rebels." "From ancient times they had been guards to the rulers of a neighbouring kingdom." "That country, modernizing, had overthrown its monarch." "Driven into exile, they had reached this land." "Now they were a tribe of assassins who would kill anyone they were paid to." "The Takemikazuchi..." "Mother..." "Byakurai wants you." "Anka fled this morning." "He who flees the Takemikazuchi is a traitor who will sell our secrets." "He's headed across Shikon Mountain." "But with his leg, he won't have reached the old mine yet." "Yuki take Kiri with you." "I'll go alone." "I'll go!" "He'll slow me down." "Take me with you!" "Byakurai told you to!" "Could you really kill Anka?" "Yes." "What if he begged?" "I'd still kill him!" "I don't think so." "Yuki... it's you..." "I'm unarmed." "Don't kill me." "Please..." "Take my sword." "Tell them you killed me, OK?" "I see I'm no match for you any more, Yuki." "Who are you?" "My name is Kuka." "I served your mother." "I have something to tell you." "It's about who killed your mother." "You were told she died in an attack but it was Byakurai who killed her." "Liar!" "Byakurai killed your mother Azora, Princess Takemikazuchi." "You must either take revenge and succeed to your mother's place or leave." "Tomorrow you turn 20." "On that day a princess assumes leadership of the Takemikazuchi." "You must choose either to take over the House or to leave it." "If you choose to leave, come to the old mine." "I have delivered the message of Azora." "Did Anka beg for his life?" "Did my mother beg for hers?" "What do you mean?" "Your voice is shaking." "Your mind's racing." "Are you aware what you're doing?" "Tell me." "Byakurai... did you kill my mother?" "No." "Put up your sword, Yuki." "I'll overlook this." "I didn't want to tell you." "Your mother was killed because she meant to betray us and flee." "Liar!" "Lashing out won't help!" "I have no choice." "Die!" "Wonderful news from the Union Assembly." "Under our Great Leader, we are winning the production war." "The Ministry of Consumption reports living standards have risen 20 per cent over the past year." "Celebrating this news the citizens have come out into the streets in a spontaneous parade." "Aya?" "What is it?" "Is this to kill me with?" "You're a Takemikazuchi, aren't you." "Who hired you?" "Talk." "Where are the others?" "There's no one else coming." "I'm not here to kill you." "Liar." "You think I believe that?" "Trust me." "Trust you?" "You guys kill anyone you're paid to." "If I trust you I'll end up dead." "If I was after you you'd be dead now." "Trust me?" "Doesn't that hurt?" "Yes if you let it." "I saw a girl." "Where is she?" "I'm alone here." "That's my bed." "Good night." "We lost her at the road through the Forest Zone." "You came back to tell me that?" "No." "Someone saw a truck." "We'll watch the road." "She'll be back." "She wants revenge." "Someone told her." "Who?" "Hmm..." "Yuki's 20 today." "Whoever told her about Azora knew that, and what it means." "Kuka..." "So you think she wants to kill you to avenge Azora?" "That means she'll come here." "If Kuka wanted to talk to Yuki, where would he call her to?" "To his home?" "I'd find a better place than that." "How have you been?" "It's Kidokoro." "I'm back." "There's something I want to talk to you about." "I'll come today." "No." "I'll come to you the day after tomorrow." "Roger." "I'll be waiting at the usual place." "A man had pledged with Azora, heir to the House of Takemikazuchi." "He swore fealty to the House but Byakurai framed him as a traitor and killed him." "That man was my father?" "You wouldn't remember." "You'd only just turned two." "There were still many of Takemikazuchi blood." "Byakurai sought to marry Azora himself and make the House of Takemikazuchi his." "But Azora refused." "Discouraged, she sought to bring the Takemikazuchi to an end." "Byakurai found out and killed her." "Then everything changed." "Many were unhappy with Byakurai, and tried to leave." "But only very few managed to escape." "Princess Azora was killed here." "I'm sure she hoped you would leave the Takemikazuchi." "She wanted you to succeed where she had failed." "You need not take revenge on Byakurai." "The fate of the Takemikazuchi is to disappear." "Princess Yuki..." "Your mother had been tortured almost to death but the final blow came from me." "Kill me if you will." "My life since then has been one of waiting for this day." "I offered to accompany her to the next world but she wouldn't allow it." "I was commanded to tell you everything when you reached 20 years of age." "If Princess Yuki were to do me the honour of killing me..." "Don't say that." "There's no point." "So it was you, Kuka..." "Soma..." "My, how you've grown!" "By your leave..." "Kuka!" "This is what I wanted!" "Princess Yuki!" "Don't die!" "Kill me if you want but don't raise your blades against Princess Yuki!" "That I can't promise." "Kuka!" "When I was small I was always happy." "I never dreamed things would turn out like this." "You know why people thought that way then?" "It's because no one had any ideals." "Yes, people died when we put a bomb in the Assembly." "But it was very effective." "You should be proud." "It was a holiday." "No one was supposed to be there." "You told me that." "Losses are inevitable." "You don't get something for nothing." "Mimura knew that." "His death wasn't wasted." "No one pays any attention unless a few dozen citizens die." "I'd like to move on to the next project." "Mr Sugimoto didn't think so." "He called you while I was gone?" "Last month." "He's been expelled." "I trust you." "We have to do whatever's necessary to achieve our ideals." "Takashi what's the safest place in the jungle?" "On the lion's back." "The fleas there enjoy the most peaceful life there is." "Hey..." "Hey..." "Hey!" "Shit!" "Where are you bleeding?" "You need protein, or you won't heal." "Put these on." "That's all there is here." "Hurry up!" "It suits you." "What are you doing?" "Throwing these out." "You saw Mr Kidokoro?" "Yeah." "Takashi...be careful of him." "Did you hear about Sugimoto?" "Mr Kidokoro told me he'd been expelled." "He's dead." "Murdered." "I'm leaving this country." "There's happiness somewhere." "You just have to go there." "Who's that?" "A guest." "A guest?" "So you've found happiness?" "Take care." "Call me if you want to come." "Thanks." "Why did you come back?" "What's happened now?" "Don't want to say?" "It's probably safer for me if I don't know." "Does it bother you to kill someone?" "Why do you kill people?" "For money?" "My body moves." "When I hold my sword and close in on a target, my body just moves before I can think why." "Aw, you poor dear!" "Some king stops paying his guards so they put their skills on the market." "You kill people for no reason." "Not to defend your country, not to defend yourselves..." "You have nothing to defend." "You just kill." "But I had a reason." "I had a reason." "I'm sure I had a reason to kill." "Come with me." "My sister." "When she was eight I came home from school to find blood everywhere and just her alive." "The guys who did it were let off for lack of evidence." "So I killed them myself." "I was caught, tried, and sentenced." "Four years later when I got out, I couldn't see things the way I had before." "Everything looked completely different." "Then I met someone who said he wanted me to be as happy as I'd been before." "No one else said that." "I've done things, and been pushed into doing things." "To get back to being happy, I've rationalized everything." "Renkyo?" "Yes." "I need to talk to you." "About what?" "Can we really kill Yuki?" "Without her, we have no leader of Takemikazuchi blood." "And then..." "Then what?" "We've already lost just about everyone of Takemikazuchi blood." "But what reason do we have to exist without that name?" "We don't need a reason." "Now we have nothing left to guard any more." "I've enervated our ancestors, I believed in the motherland." "But when the monarchy fell our swords were taken from us." "Those who were caught had their memories erased with drugs and to slow their arms needles driven into their elbows." "We fled, without turning our swords on the motherland." "Remember, Renkyo?" "Those tanks on that southern island we saw as we went?" "A group of ruined tanks all eaten away by acid rain and stinking of corpses." "But there were no corpses." "The stench was coming from us." "At that time we were dead." "Hello?" "Hello?" "It's me." "Mr Kidokoro..." "Why are you phoning?" "I sent you a schematic." "Can you take a look at it?" "Sure." "Be right back." "Did you see it?" "I want to move in ten days." "Are you there?" "Ten days..." "I can't." "OK, when?" "Never." "No?" "No." "All right." "I'll be in touch." "You always look so sad..." "And you have no expression at all." "Have you ever been sad?" "I make it go away." "Just like pain." "And that's how you can kill people?" "When you're sad you should grieve, and when you're happy, celebrate." "Have you ever laughed?" "When I'm sad I grieve." "For hours..." "For days..." "For years..." "Have you ever heard of a miki-ishi?" "No." "It means 'beautiful precious stone'." "They're rare." "You can look all year and be lucky to find even one." "When you grind it on a whetstone, you get a little green crystal." "My mother collected them." "When she found one, she'd carefully polish and save it." "When she had 30, she was going to make a necklace for my wedding day." "She said she'd put it around my neck the day I got married." "She started collecting them at 18 had me at 22 and died at 27." "When she died she had nine of these crystals in a little treasure box." "Not enough for a necklace." "Soon I'll pass the age she was when she had me and then her age when she died." "But I haven't collected anything I could leave to anyone." "I don't have anyone to leave anything to." "There's no one I feel like I want to treasure." "Let's leave here leave this country." "There's nothing holding us here." "Somewhere there must be a place we can forget everything." "Let's go there." "Mother now I'm happy." "You think you'll ever be happy?" "Even if you kill me, you still walk the path of blood." "You can't avoid it." "Mr Kidokoro..." "Your sister looks well." "What do you want?" "Oh..." "If it's about that schematic..." "No." "I changed plans." "This one's a great idea." "I'm sure you'll like it." "What is it?" "We find common ground with the government." "We achieve our ideals, and very few people get hurt." "What do you think, Takashi?" "Good plan, huh?" "You're selling me out?" "It's a deal." "We respect the law, and our ideals are realized." "Traitor!" "In spirit we will continue." "The plan I sent you was to be the last." "Because we'd all be killed?" "Don't talk like that!" "Isn't that what you've wanted all along anyway?" "But this way you're safe." "I said it was a deal!" "A fair deal." "So why did we do all that?" "Why all those victims?" "!" "It meant something." "We all acted because we believed in our ideals." "No." "We believed in you!" "Manabe shot..." "Kazuki tortured Mimura blown up..." "They all believed in you!" "You said we'd be happy again." "You're the only one who did!" "Happiness will come." "Of course it won't be free." "I told you the price would be high." "All we can do is pray for the victims." "But you don't have to pray, Takashi." "You're one of the victims we'll be praying for." "You bastard!" "I am Azora's daughter Princess Yuki of the Takemikazuchi." "In the name of my mother, I take your life!" "Don't you understand?" "It's over!" "Get lost!" "I'll keep this." "Live." "Be happy." "Live for me." "Takashi..." "Takashi..."