"Kenshiro"
by Val
Loosely based on the characters from the Japanese anime series "Hokuto No Ken" (Fist of the North Star). The characters belong to whoever thought of them first, I just borrowed them for a little while, and then I've given them back.
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Airi's voice was but a whisper, yet still it echoed off the naked rocks that surrounded the small sandcove where they had come to rest after escaping from the dying city where Kenshiro's great love, the Lady Yuria, had met her death at the hands of his brother Shin.
She wiped tears from her dust-streaked cheek and tried without much success to keep her wild mane of red hair from blowning into her eyes. She was moistening a cloth to cool his face and thought to herself how fortunate they had been, considering how rarely one came across a spring of sweet water in the middle of this desolation. But when she turned around to walk back toward Kenshiro, her heart broke into a few more pieces. Witnessing his pain was almost more than she could bear. She could see it in the way his eyes, bloodshot and burning, stared blankly without seeing, the stooped shoulders … she had never, not in her most vivid nightmares, imagined it would get this bad. His tall warrior's body with the well-defined muscles, he seemed smaller now, as if he were shrinking, making himself less of a target to the pain that emanated from his soul and surrounded him like an aura.
A shudder when through her body every time she looked at him. This once proud warrior, his spirit and body reduced to a shadow of its former self. For days now, he had remained almost motionless, sitting on that rock, staring into nothingness, the only movement his dark hair being whipped around his face by the wind. Once in a while, he'd silently accept a drink of water from her, or he'd slide off the rock to fall into a restless sleep, tossing and turning in the sand. As long as Yuria had been Shin's prisoner, hope and the determination to find her and free her had given Kenshiro a purpose. Now it seemed as if nothing would ever again make him take up the path that he had been chosen to follow, the never-ending fight against the evils that haunted their burned out, post-apocalyptic world where a few pockets of humanity fought bravely to survive, hampered every step of the way by horrible mutations, spawns of the atomic apocalypse. For such was the destiny of the Man With The Seven Stars, which proclaimed him the one and only living master of the art of Hokuto Shin Kan, the mystical fighting style that had served him so well in his stand against the enemies of humanity.
And so Kenshiro sat on his rock, staring empty-eyed at the vast expanse of desert that stretched for miles in front of him, the gently swelling dunes of red sand only here and there interrupted by jagged boulders, the sad leavings of a once-proud, but ultimately self-destructive, civilisation.
Airi knelt by his side, her hand gently resting on his shoulder. "You must eat, Kenshiro, you know your enemies will sense your weakness!"
Angrily, he pushed her away. A bit too angrily. Airi lost her balance and let out a scream when her head slammed hard against a rock. Her cry penetrated even Kenshiro's clouded mind. He look around and gasped when he saw what he had done … his friend, his right hand in battle, the woman whose fighting skills had helped get them out of many a tight situation, now blood was trickling down her face from a cut in the right temple. It was beginning soak into the fabric of her jumpsuit and almost disappeared in the suit's the reddish-brown colour.
"Airi, forgive me!" His voice strangled, raspy, these were the first words he had spoken since they had made it out of the city. He had gotten up and was tearing pieces off his shirt with which he tried to stench the flow of blood.
Airi's eyes filled with tears. "It's nothing, Ken." But a sudden dizziness forced her to lean against the man. He held her up with one hand, the other still holding the cloth against her forehead. Airi could feel his heart beating in his chest, could feel the power still emanating from the scars that formed the Seven Stars. She had started to weep again. But this time, it was not for Ken and her friend Yuria, this time the tears were for herself. For her love for Kenshiro which must remain forever undeclared. How well she knew that it would remain forever unrequited.
But the warmth of her body and the nearness of another human being, were beginning to have an unexpected effect on the man. He felt a wall being breached, the wall he had put around himself when the terrible realisation hat hit him that he would never again hold his beloved Yuria in his arms.
He was shaking now, his teeth shattering when memories of happy times with Yuria flooded his mind. He dropped the cloth and pulled Airi closer to him, seeking her warmth because his soul felt like ice. In the heat of the desert, he was frozen. His face was buried in her shoulder, she could feel his ragged breath on her skin as sobs began to rack his body.
For a long while she just held him, his hot tears mingling with the blood on her jumper. His tears frightened her, but she knew that this was the breakthrough she had been waiting for. Kenshiro was finally beginning to give air to his feeling.
Then things began to turn strange. His sobs subsided, but he didn't let go of her. There was an urgency in him now, in the way his hands were moving over her back, and with a shock she realised that his mouth had begun to probe the skin of her neck.
Airi didn't know what to do. She had seen this before, survivors banding together, trying to numb their pain by getting close to one another, huddling together, holding on to each other, seeking whatever comfort their coupling might bring. Anything to keep from facing the terrible void inside, anything to forget that horrible feeling of emptiness that comes with losing everything. So that's what it feels like, she thought bitterly, this love among the ruins.
But being held and caressed by a man to whom she had lost her heart while he was grieving for another? Airi knew she had to stop this before it went any further. She tried to struggle free from his embrace, but he growled, a terribly hollow "Noooooooo" as he pulled her even closer. She tried to fight down her own feelings, she knew it wasn't right for them to be together like this.
But our conscious minds are one thing, our bodies are quite another.
He had pulled her down onto the blanket that she used to sleep on, warmed by the sun and the hot sand below, his arms still around her shoulders, his mouth seeking her lips. He fell on top of her, kissing her hungrily, his hands tearing at her clothes.
"Kenshiro, no!"
His voice an angry groan, "Don’t push me away!" as his fingers dug painfully into her shoulders.
Her protests could not hide the way her body beginning to respond to him. She was helpless. She could bring herself to neither stop him nor did she dare to encourage him. Only Kenshiro needed no encouragement. His nimble fingers were working on the zippers and buttons of her suit. Soon her breast were bare, open to his kisses and caresses, his gestures rough, demanding, and filled with incredible need.
Airi was lost. Feelings much stronger and deeper than good sense were taking over. With a choking cry, she gave herself over to the sensation he was causing her body. Never before had a man's hands or lips touched her naked breasts. Her nipples, responding to his bites, were hard as rocks now, sending delicious ripples through her belly and causing the strangest sensation between her legs. She could feel Kenshiro's hardness against her hip as he moved his body over hers, only stopping long enough to peel her out of her jumpsuit and ridding himself of his breeches before he spread her legs by roughly pushing his knee between them, his hand moving down her belly and between her legs, playing with the fine black hair, rubbing along the entrance, playing with her .. none too gently, really, but she was beyond caring. Only when he tried to enter her with his fingers did she pull back and let out a sharp "No! Not this way"
It was then that Kenshiro remembered that the woman he held pinned beneath him had never been with a man before. Not that he knew why, men don’t tend to worry about that sort of thing. But he took her words as an invitation. He was applying little bites to her neck and shoulders now, his chest pressed against her; she could feel the strange power of the seven stars, mingling with the incredible sensation as his fingertips found her secret spot and started to massage and apply little pinches. For the inexperienced girl, this soon proved too much. Her teeth sank into his shoulder and she held on to him for dear life as her very first man-induced orgasm rippled through her body.
Kenshiro could not control his urges any longer, he used the moment, when the girl was still bubbling and oblivious to anything around her, to push her legs further apart with his knees and get on top of her, pushing against her entrance … she offered no resistance and he entered her with one swift, almost cruel stroke.
In the brief moment it took to lose her virginity, the pain brought Airi back to her senses. She began to cry again, softly, quietly, but still her arms where around Kenshiro's neck, her eyes closed, her lips whispering, "no no no no". Then, quite involuntarily, she told him that she loved him. She knew Kenshiro couldn't hear her, she knew that at this very moment, he neither knew nor cared who she was. He was a man possessed, all his pain, his wants and needs and his loneliness, he poured into the girl. In his orgasm, his anguished scream was for Yuria.
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For the rest of her life, Airi would carry with her the painful memory of that horrible day. Moments after Kenshiro had finished with her, he tore himself from her embrace, his eyes black, disgust with himself, with her, written plainly on his face. With out a word, he went to the spring to wash off her blood, washing himself for a long long time, as if to wash away any trace of her and of what he had done. When she tried to speak to him, he shook her hand off his shoulder as if it were a poisonous scorpion. He dressed in silence and without so much as a backward glance, he wandered off into the desert.
She sometimes wondered if he had kept walking if he had known what he was walking away from? Not if he had still been the man she had known before, the man he had been until the moment that Yuria had died.
Of course, she had not known then, either. She would never forget how she had knelt in the sand, motionless, much like Kenshiro had sat on his rock for so long. How she felt defeated, spoilt, broken. Used, now useless, discarded, she might have knelt there forever if Bat and the girl Rin, their sometimes-companions, hadn't found her and brought her back to Rin's village. Where she was welcomed with open arms, for they owed much to Kenshiro and knew her as his friend.
As much as she came to rely upon and appreciated the kindness of the villagers, she knew she could not stay there forever. One day, she would have to set out on a difficult journey: She would have to find Kenshiro. Not for herself, no, she really dreaded having to see him again. But her own feelings no longer mattered. She had to find him for their son, who must be taught by his father, must be given a chance to master the art of Hokuto Shin Kan. So he could fight for his birthright -- to be the next Man with the Seven Stars.
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NOTE 1: The character of Kenshiro, as drawn for the television series, has little in common with the way Kenshiro handles his grief in this story. Sorry, I’m just a sick puppy.
NOTE 2: Kenshiro seems to be drawn to the likeness of Sonny Chiba, a Japanese martial arts action star who was famous for his "Streetfighter" movies in the late 60's, early 70's. To me, he was simply beautiful -- and very, very sexy. Perhaps that's why it's so easy to drool over a cartoon character.