Prologue
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, but Midori was my idea. This is a sequel to my story "Panther of Legends". It will not make a whole lot of sense if you haven't read that and the one-shot "Death and the Messenger" first.
The Battousai is happy.
He watches, hidden, as the man who slew his sister goes about his daily business, a katana still strapped to one hip as though the monster still has a right to go about slaughtering innocent people. He watches as the Battousai interacts with the tall young man with the odd hair and the symbol for 'wicked' on the back of his jacket; or with the young girl with the great sapphire eyes that sparkle in the sun; or with the little boy with a big mouth and a wooden stick he carries everywhere. He is baffled - horrified - that the three innocents are not afraid of the monster next to them. Surely they know who the man is? Surely they know what he is capable of doing on the slightest whim? And yet there is no fear in the three, no fear of the monster they allow into their lives. There is only acceptance, and love.
Fools.
The Battousai is a monster, litte more than a rabid animal. He is a cold-blooded killer of the highest class; he is a butcher of men and women alike. He has torn apart the watcher's life, taken away the one person the watcher ever loved with the deadly blade that the monster still wears, the blade that should be buried in the monster's heart. The Battousai does not deserve acceptance or love or happiness. The Battousai deserves only death, and pain, and the agonizing sorrow of knowing that he has lost everything that he holds dear. And the watcher will give him what he deserves.
And she will be the tool by which the Battousai is broken.
The watcher follows the woman with his cold eyes, calculating as the woman smacks the tall man on the back with a fist; calculating as she dodges the retalitory swipe with laughter ringing from her lips. He observes the ease with which she moves, in spite of the katana strapped across her back. His eyes burn with an unholy anger and rage as the Battousai sweeps the woman into his arms and kisses her on the cheek, despite the woman's vocal protests. How dare that monster force himself upon another woman? How dare he find happiness in his life, when the watcher has only found pain and loneliness?
The watcher closes his eyes in anger, sees the beloved face smiling lovingly at him. A smirk twists his face, the anger drains away, and when the watcher opens his eyes he is once again in control of his emotions. He goes back to studying the woman.
She is older than the watcher, older than the tall man and the blue-eyed girl and the little boy. She looks to be of an age with the Battousai. She is of the same height as the murderer; her jet black hair falls in a long tail to her backside, blending in perfectly with her black clothing. It is late spring, the air is hot, and yet the woman wears all black. She wears a gi and hakama, rather than the appropriate female attire of a kimono. The watcher tries to study her face, but her back is turned to his position as she speaks to the murderous bastard who forced her moments earlier to accept his kiss.
His spies have brought him stories of this woman. They say that she is a killer that surpasses even the Battousai in her kill-count. They say that she is thouht to be dead by the Meiji government, assassinated near the end of the Bakumatsu by one of her own companions. They tell the watcher that the woman disappeared for a decade, only to return to the world of the living in the city of Tokyo, reunitied with her old partner Battousai by the tall young man by chance. Her name is unknown, but her alias - Zetsumei Kurohyou - is familiar to the watcher, a remembered name from those days so long ago, when he worked with the Shogunate for the sake of his beloved sister. This woman had been famous, even then, for her ruthlessness and the merciless way in which she killed as one of the hitokiri of the Ishin Shishi.
She had also been famous as the one and only friend of the Battousai.
She is the key. She is the tool by which the watcher will destroy the Battousai. He will take her from that monster, take her far away from him, and then sit back to watch as the grief tears the Battousai appart. He doesn't care what happens to the woman afterwards. Only the Battousai matters.
Only his revenge matters.
Jinchu will be done upon the bastard who killed his sister.
The man closes his eyes again, sees that much loved face.
"Soon sister," he promises. "Soon."
And Enishi Yukishiro walks away.