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War Of Shadows	By : TurtleNinja Category: +S through Z > Samurai Jack Views: 3353 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Samurai Jack, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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I followed Chimitsu-chan through the dimly lit corridors, heading down deeper into Aku's fortress and into the belly of the beast. It was eerily silent for what was usually a very active place, with Chimitsu's heels and my sandals clicking audibly against the stone floor. It was rather creepy being down here, but neither Chimitsu or myself had the time to feel any fear.

We both knew that it was only going to get tougher with each Dark Elemental we fought, working our way up to Aku himself. A part of me was anxious, remembering what happened the last few times I had faced Aku and another part of me knew that I could beat him this time. Actually, I was a bit more worried about Chimitsu, knowing that she could not do a thing to hurt any of these Dark Elementals or Aku.

I also worried about the others, wondering how they were faring outside against the minions and destroyer droids.

I paused and glanced back towards the direction we had come from, then turned back and continued on my way alongside Chimitsu. As much as I wanted to help them, I could not take the time to do so. If I wanted to help them, then I would have to make my way through the tower and defeat Aku, not go back and waste my time fighting with them.

We traveled down the corridor for what seemed like an eternity before we entered a room that was illuminated in eerie, pale blues. Both of us came to a stop, instinctively reaching for our weapons when we felt a dark presence enter the room. We had finally reached the next Dark Elemental and would soon be making our way even deeper into the demon's fortress.

There were a few moments of silence, but nobody appeared. We could feel them in the room, knew they were here, but they failed to show themselves. I looked to Chimitsu, who looked back at me, and then looked around the room, trying to see them.

I doubted they would make an attempt to take us by surprise, not when we had clearly sensed us and were ready for them.

"Show yourself!" Chimitsu cried.

There was another moment of silence before the Dark Elemental answered.

"As you wish." a husky voice said.

Slowly, a figure rose up from the floor, twisting and melting into a slim female form. She was scantily dressed and very attractive, but the seductive smile upon her lips told us instantly which one of the Dark Elementals had come to fight us next. The blue lights grew slightly brighter, increasing the eerie appearance of the room and the shadows that danced upon her face.

I had not seen her face before, but got the feeling from the lust that radiated from her aura that she was the one who had invoked jealousy and desire within myself and Chimitsu in Hub Four. I could feel the rage coming from Chimitsu and the tension in the room grew quite heavy, weighing down upon us like a suffocating mist. She knew this woman and recognized her face, even when I did not.

"You...you're that bitch I saw in that alley with Mad Jack in Hub Four. It was you who invoked all that jealousy and lust while we were there." she said.

"Very perceptive. Wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not. Not when you of all Elementals figured it out. I wonder...did your little samurai figure it out, too?"

She slowly turned towards me with that lecherous smile on her face and I narrowed my eyes at her, hardly amused. Slowly, that smile faded and she straightened, her expression serious now. It was time to get down to business and I reached for my katana, intending on drawing it and attacking.

Off to my right, I heard the sound of Chimitsu's nodachi sliding from its sheath and into her hands. I kept my eyes on this Dark Elemental, noticing that her expression was serious and her eyes almost smug. She was apparently not afraid of either myself or Chimitsu, despite that one of her comrades had already fallen.

"Enough talk, Netami. It's time to fight." Chimitsu said.

"Of course, but I won't be the one doing the fighting."

"Oh, really?"

"Really."

There was a moment of tense silence in which Netami and Chimitsu stared each other down, neither one afraid of the other or willing to move. My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for one or the other to land the first blow, my katana growing heavy in my hands. The longer I watched them stare each other down, the more I got a bad feeling rising in my chest about the entire situation.

Suddenly, I felt a light breath of wind brush across the right side of my face and turned to come face to face with Chimitsu's nodachi. My eyes widened and I took a step back at the sight of her holding it threateningly towards me with both hands. She advanced each time I stepped back away from her, her normally cheery emerald eyes hard and cold with hatred.

I held my katana ready, but knew that I was unable to block if she struck with all her strength backing that nodachi. Even my enchanted blade was not meant to fence with such an enormous sword, especially when wielded by a powerful Elemental. I could block, but it would shatter my sword and she would likely kill me as a result.

Netami leaned casually against a rock, smirking in satisfaction as she watched Chimitsu back me up, enjoying my discomfort.

"Chimitsu-chan, what has come over you? We are on the same side, remember?" I asked.

She raised the nodachi and slashed at me, forcing me to dive aside or be sliced in two. I rolled away and came to a stop near another rock formation, watching her carefully as she advanced again. I could not understand her sudden change of heart towards me and began to look for a way to keep myself out of her range long enough to figure it out.

"Same side? Why should I be on the same side as you?" she asked.

"We are fighting for the same goal, Chimitsu-chan. Remember, your sisters and the others out there fighting the minions and droids for us?"

"Tch. Cannon fodder. They're of no use to me any more than you are. You're nothing to me, samurai, just a means to get into this fortress so I could kill you myself."

"Kill me? Why on earth do you want to kill me?"

I dove out of the way of another strike, watching as the sparks flew from her blade, leaving a small boulder in two perfect halves. I spun my own blade in my hand, but refused to strike at her, not when this did not seem right at all. Chimitsu-chan would never want to kill me and I knew it.

"My sisters died because of you. They've died and left me all alone in this world all because of you, but you're nothing. You're worthless. You can't fight to Aku yourself. No, you have to use me and the little ones outside as cannon fodder for the sake of your own goals!" she snarled.

"You know that is not true! I did not force you or them into this battle at all. I am perfectly capable and willing to do this myself if that is what you so wish, but you told me you did not want to do such a thing. You told me you would not allow it, that you and the others were ready to lay down your lives to fight this war with me."

"Lies! All lies! You're just using me! My sisters died for nothing because of you and I'm all alone because of their sacrifice! I hate you!"

Her words stung and for a moment, I was so startled by the revelation that I could not bring myself to move. All this time, I had thought that Chimitsu loved me with all her heart, but in hearing this, I began to wonder if this was how she really felt. She was all alone and appeared to bury her feelings, but were these feelings the real ones or were they what I knew in my heart to be real?

Suddenly, I felt something sting my right shoulder and I jerked away, gasping in pain. Hot blood began to soak my kimono sleeve and trickle down my arm beneath it, staining the white silk a deep wine red. I stepped away from her as quickly as I could, reaching up to press my left hand to the wound to stop the bleeding, staring at her in disbelief.

Hatred radiated from her aura, darkening her appearance and hardening her lovely features into a cold, emotionless mask. She smiled cruelly at the sight of my wounded arm and the blood that stained the blade of her nodachi as she advanced again. She had failed to kill me or perhaps she had simply meant to strike me in an attempt to provoke me into fighting, but I refused, backing away again.

Netami stood leaning against a stone pillar, grinning as she watched the fight, clearly enjoying every minute of it. I glanced between her and Chimitsu, realizing that she had to be doing this, playing with Chimitsu's mind to make her hate me. I had to do something to break the spell's hold on my beloved before she struck me down without Netami having to launch a single blow.

"This is your doing, is it not?" I asked her while avoiding Chimitsu.

"Of course. You expected anything less from me?"

"Not particularly. Manipulation of the mind and heart seems to be the way you deal with everything. Why do you not let her go and fight me yourself?"

"Because where's the fun in that? Why waste my energy in destroying you when your little angel can do the work for me?"

I furrowed my brows and dove out of the way of another overhead strike from Chimitsu. She was strong, but that blade was too heavy and clumsy for her to be completely quick with it. Granted, she was fast enough, but if I could get far enough away, she would not be able to strike in time to stop me from lashing out at Netami.

Sheathing my katana, I sprang up high into the rock fixtures along the wall, hearing Chimitsu take flight behind me. I knew that she was faster in flight than on foot, but it did not matter to me at the moment. Forcing her to chase me up amongst the rock fixtures gave me enough time to get an opening in which to strike at Netami with.

Once I had sufficiently escaped her striking range, I leapt back down to the ground, reaching into my obi for a small dart shuriken that I kept there for such a purpose. The moment my feet touched the ground, I threw it as hard as I could at Netami, who had been unable to anticipate my move and move out of the way in time. She shrieked in pain as it hit her in the neck, her hold on Chimitsu's mind breaking.

Chimitsu tumbled to the ground and came to a stop, her nodachi lying on the floor beside her hands. She was breathing, but not moving, stunned from the sudden fall. She would be all right for the moment while I took care of business with Netami.

I turned around and drew my katana again, finding Netami gone and my dart laying on the ground where she had been standing, its tip bloody. I wheeled back around towards Chimitsu, expecting Netami to attack me from behind, but now, she, too had vanished. I knew that Netami and the others would not be so foolish as to try and capture her again, but neither of them could have gone far without me knowing.

Chimitsu would not have teleported herself away in the middle of a battle and Netami would not have run out of fear of facing Aku's wrath. If not a hostage situation or escape, then they still had to be in the room with me somewhere.

"Minamoto-chan..."

I whipped around, shocked to see Chimitsu standing there, unharmed and unruffled from her rough landing seconds before. Her nodachi was sheathed on her back between her wings, her eyes shining with their usual happiness once again. There was something strange about all this, but I was not about to complain if it was really her.

"Chimitsu! Are you all right?" I asked.

"I'm fine. Not the first time I've had a rough landing."

"Right. What happened to Netami?"

"You destroyed her."

I blinked, finding that hard to believe. I had struck her with a simple dart shuriken, not my katana, and I knew that no ordinary piece of metal could cause fatal damage to a Dark Elemental, no matter where I may have managed to strike her. My katana, yes, but not a simple metal dart.

"I destroyed her?" I asked.

"Yes. I saw it with my own eyes. She turned to dust, just like the other one."

"How could I destroy her with one simple strike that was not even from my katana?"

"You have purity backing you and you hit her in the neck. She's as weak as the other was."

I sighed a little and lowered my katana, looking up at her. She certainly looked like my Chimitsu, but there was something in her eyes that I was unable to read, making me wonder just how real this all was. Perhaps I had struck down the Dark Elemental with one blow, but it did not seem very likely and even if it was, Chimitsu could not have possibly regained her wits so quickly.

"Well...if we have indeed destroyed this Dark Elemental, then we should be on our way." I said.

"Yes. Let's go."

Chimitsu turned towards the way we had come and I furrowed my brow.

"Chimitsu-chan, that is the exit. We want to go this way." I said, pointing towards the opposite exit that led to the next room.

She slowly turned around and walked back to me, taking my free hand in hers as she gazed into my eyes. Slowly, I began to felt relaxed instead of anxious as I was, my focus starting to slip away. I was no longer in Aku's fortress, fighting my way with Chimitsu through the Dark Elementals, but back on the plains in the empty, cool countryside.

"Chimitsu...why...why are we fighting?" I asked her.

"You tell me. Why'd you want to fight?"

"So...I...could get home. So...I...could...free your sisters. Do you not want me to free them?"

"How can we free them from death? They're happy where they are, Jack, at peace where Aku can't touch them anymore. There's no need for you to fight anymore, samurai. Put your blade away and let's go home and spend eternity together."

Her idea sounded so tempting that I did not want to resist. I did not want to fight any more, just go home and live my life out here with Chimitsu at my side. Slowly, I reached up with my free hand to lift up her chin, leaning down for a warm, deep kiss, forgetting about everything that had been in my heart moments before.

Yet, despite the tempting offer and desire to take Chimitsu-chan home to make love to her the moment we arrived, I could feel something inside me screaming that this was not right. Chimitsu-chan would not have asked me to lower my katana and go home when we had only begun the battle we had both been waiting for for so long. She would not have asked me to turn my back on her and her sisters and what they had sacrificed to accomplish on my behalf and if this Chimitsu was asking that...then she was not real.

And if she was not real, then that meant only one thing...a spell.

Slowly, we broke apart and Chimitsu gazed into my eyes, her brow furrowing when she saw my expression. She knew that something was wrong and I knew that I would have to strike fast if she was the Dark Elemental. If it was Netami, she would know that I knew something was up and I could not give her any time to escape.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Chimitsu would not have asked me to walk away from everything we have been fighting for for so long. If you are asking me to do that, then you are not real, and if you are not real, then..."

In a flash, I gripped the handle of my katana with both hands and swung up, ramming it through her midsection until a good part of the tip protruded from her lower back. Her eyes widened in shock and disbelief as a thin trickle of blood ran out of the corner of her mouth. She struggled to say something, but could only choke as the blood began to fill her lungs.

"You are not my Chimitsu." I finished.

A moment later, she slipped off the blade and fell backwards in a heap on the floor, her blood staining the floor as the illusion of Chimitsu melted away, revealing Netami lying there instead. Very clever of her indeed. She almost had me believing that she was Chimitsu, but her mistake had been trying to talk me out of this battle with Aku and forget about Chimitsu's dead sisters who had sacrificed so much in the name of hope.

Her dead eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling for a few moments before she dissolved into dust, just as Hideri had before her. Behind me, Chimitsu groaned and I could hear her pull herself up onto her feet, struggling to lift her nodachi enough to sheathe it. She walked over to me, rubbing at a small bump on her head, staring at the fading pile of dust.

"I missed it?" she asked.

"Hai. She tried impersonating you and tricking me into walking away from this fight."

"Then...how'd you kill her?"

"She made the mistake of trying to tell me to forget about the sacrifices your sisters made. She said that she thought they were happier dead and safe from Aku and I knew that you would never say such a thing."

"I'll be damned. That's very strong of you, Jack, to break through such a powerful spell."

"It was not strength. It was just knowing that you would not have said something like that to me or try to pull me away from my quest. Once I realized that, I knew that she was not you."

She reached up and gently rubbed at my shoulders before sighing softly.

"C'mon. We had better go. This one makes two, but we still have three more to go before we get to face Aku. It's only going to get tougher from here on out, samurai." she said.

"I know. I am not afraid. I have been looking forward to this for a long time."

"As have I."

Without another word, she turned and headed towards the exit and on towards our next opponent. I followed, pausing only to turn and look back towards where Netami had fallen as I neared the door, wondering if I would be seeing Himoto there. I would have been rather disappointed if I had not seen her, but I doubted that the Fire Elemental would let me down.

Sure enough, I saw her there in spectral form, her guardian phoenix resting on her gloved right hand, both shimmering with gratitude that I had freed them. I caught sight of a loving glimmer in Himoto's eyes, but knew that she knew I was already spoken for, no matter how lovely she was. Still, she could not help but wink and blow me a kiss before reaching up to stroke the wings of the phoenix resting on her other hand.

I chuckled softly and gave her a nod before turning around and hurrying to catch up with Chimitsu again.
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War Of Shadows