Disclaimer: I totally and completely do not own this stuff. This time, I don't even really own the idea, because SiriusFan13 and Shirou Shinjin‏ were the inspiration for that. Go check them out.

Note: Okay, so this is another departure from Revolution. I hang my head in shame. But I got prodded, and I was intrigued again, and I had the outline, and I couldn't sleep anyway, and, and, and… Well. Maybe I'll be a better juggler this time around. Somehow, this took something like a fifth of the time to write than the last chapter of Revolution. Don't know what's up with that.

Chapter One

While not necessarily young, the night was nevertheless not old enough to warrant quite the level of drunkenness that could be found in the lower rooms of the novice barracks in the Shinsengumi headquarters. With strict orders not to leave the premises, the newest batch of Shinsengumi rookies had turned to the storeroom for their supply, and the kitchen maids still awake at that hour hadn't seen fit to refuse their requests.

Kuroda Hiro, the unofficial leader of the group, choked back a hiccup and waved his cup for a refill, sloshing the contents over the sides before he realized he didn't need a refill. "To Hijikata-san!" he bellowed, "may he kill a thousand Shishi scum!"

The others raised their own cups, slightly less enthusiastic at this, Kuroda's third such outburst in an hour. They turned back to the dice game after pouring more sake around the circle. Though no one could actually count the pips anymore—and one of the dice had run off at some point prior in the evening—there was a great deal at stake in this game.

"Evens, two fours," Murata Junpei called, watching the die spin in the air before thudding softly onto the tatami.

His cousin patted his shoulder in consolation. "Tough breaks, Jun-kun." He shook his head morosely. "Odds, two threes."

"Two threes is evens." Murata made an attempt to stand as he delivered his argument, but settled for lurching to one side.

"There's not two of them!"

Nakata Seijun, on the opposite side of the circle, pointed at the die, and the others followed his finger. "Sure there are. See, lined up side by side."

Kuroda scoffed. "That's a six."

"What's that?" Murata shook his head. "Then we're short one. Where'd it go?"

"Doesn't matter," Kuroda said. "You lost. Tale or trial."

Murata sighed, and downed the contents of his cup. "My sister once had a lover," he started, having decided to tell a tale rather than undergo a trial. "They were seeing each other every night at a shrine, and he said he'd marry her." Someone poured more sake into his cup, and he took a gulp before going on. "So he ran off, yeah?"

"And didn't marry her?"

He shook his head. "Bastard didn't even say goodbye. So my sister, she had some of his hair in a little locket. She put a curse on him, made him disappear for good."

There was silence in the room for the first time since sundown. Finally, a lonely hiccup broke the tension, and the men burst out into laughter, pounding each other's backs and thumping their hands on the tatami.

"Did it work?" Kuroda asked.

Murata shrugged. "He was already gone. How should I know?"

From his place at Kuroda's left, Sakamoto Taku reached out to pick up the die and cup for his turn. "Maybe we should curse Battousai," he said, shaking the die around in the cup. "There's only one of these, right?"

Murata nodded.

"Odds, one six," Sakamoto called.

"That's even."

"What?"

Kuroda rolled his eyes and pointed at the die, showing a single pip. "Doesn't matter. Tale or trial?"

Sakamoto thought about it for a minute, and then shrugged. "Trial."

A second silence stretched out across the room. No one had chosen a trial since the game had started, and by now most of the men had realized they were too drunk to really pass a trial anyway. Everyone looked around the circle at the others, until finally all the eyes settled on Murata. As the previous roller, he got to choose a trial or reject a tale that wasn't juicy enough.

"… Let's curse the Battousai." Murata looked into his cup and found it empty, but didn't reach out to refill it. "I still know the words."

Nakata picked at the tatami nervously. "You want Sakamoto-kun to cut the Battousai's hair?" They might have the bravado necessary to join the Shinsengumi, but none of them were capable of that feat sober, and it didn't seem like a very fair trial when drunk.

Kuroda stroked his chin, as he thought. "Okita-san has that souvenir from the time he almost had the Battousai's head. He keeps it on display." He looked around the room at his fellow swordsmen's blank stares. "He braided it. It's the little red thing on his wall. Looks like a string."

"That's it, then," Murata decided. "Sakamoto-kun will get that souvenir for his trial, and bring it here."

Himura Kenshin sometimes regretted his decision to step out of the shadows. Not that he wished he was assassinating people again. Nothing like that. But when no one really knew about him, his assignments were over quicker and involved less running up and down alleys with pursuing Shinsengumi squads calling for his head. He hadn't gotten a good look at this squad before taking off, but from the ki, he guessed it was Okita's squad tonight. That was good. Okita ran out of breath sooner than Saitou did.

He rounded another corner and saw the tail end of the squad chasing him stop in confusion. It gave him the time he needed to cut through them and keep going. Sometimes tracking back was beneficial. He took the opportunity to leap to the rooftops unobserved. The longer he could keep that little secret from his enemies, the less likely those enemies were to start looking up when hunting him.

Himura stepped back from the edge as the closer pursuers in the squad ran up to the intersection. He'd need to stay put for a few minutes, then make his way back to that shrine to be sure his replacement had gotten his chance at Dainichi Keisuke. Himura was fairly certain he'd caused enough of a distraction to allow "the other one" to do the job unseen, but Katsura-san had asked him to double check.

"Well, damn," Okita panted. He kicked at a crate irritably, his usually smiling face holding a grimace instead. "And you've checked all the other alleys?" he asked. At his subordinate's nod, Okita sighed, putting a hand over his mouth when the sigh turned into a cough. "Fine. We'll split up. You four, fan out west of here. The rest will join me searching east. We give it an hour, and then go back."

Once his breath was caught, Okita looked at the two who were staying with him, and then chuckled. "I hope Saitou's having more luck tonight. Let's go."

When they'd been gone for five minutes, Himura rolled his shoulders back and planned his route to the shrine. He'd stay mostly above street level to avoid both this squad and Saitou's, but there was a large portion of his path that was more or less without cover or buildings, and he debated between the small handful of alleys that would be useful for transitioning back to the ground.

Almost before he'd chosen, he started moving in that direction, smiling grimly when he overheard Okita's west team grumbling about demons who disappeared between the cracks of the cobblestone street. If it were as simple as that, far fewer people would have had to die on his sword. Fewer people he'd have to find some way to atone for when this was over. Would that he could vanish so easily.

Satisfied he'd cleared the patrols and that the alley below was suitably empty, Himura carefully eliminated every shred of his ki, tucking it all in as tightly as he could as he surveyed the street one last time. Having dropped his pursuit, it wouldn't do to attract a replacement squad, and Saitou he knew had an uncanny ability to detect him from a distance. He offered up a brief thanks to whatever kami would still listen to him that Okita had alerted him to Saitou's presence on the streets tonight, and leapt down.

His sudden presence wouldn't have been noticeable to even a swordsman on alert, and he'd spent enough time checking the alley to be sure it was vacant, so when a cat hissed and ran out from a nook between two buildings and darted across the cobblestone with a clatter of claws, Himura tensed, spun, and drew his sword in the closest he'd come to panic since Otsu.

Saitou Hajime scowled at the moon and ducked back into the darkness of the alley he was currently sheltering in. His contact was now three hours late, and there were no signs of a struggle or a messenger bearing an apology. He fingered the hilt of his katana in irritation, and debated the possibility of calling it a night. No. He'd drawn the least enviable assignment for the night while Okita had drawn the most, but that was no excuse for failing to wait until dawn if he had to.

And there was a positive side to the whole affair, after all. Dressed in this dark green gi and brown hakama, and without a squad of noisy, ki-challenged distractions, he was free to enjoy the quiet of the night. And though his contact and shown no signs of arriving in this alley or anywhere near it, the assignment as such didn't prevent him from searching the area. For his contact, of course. He might not care about the recent increase in shrine vandalism that had sparked this assignment, but he wasn't about to let himself get distracted by the much more appealing prospect of hunting down the Battousai. Though, naturally, if he happened to stumble upon the hitokiri in his search for Dainichi Keisuke… Well.

He took in a deep breath and smothered his ki. If he stumbled near the Battousai on this perfectly legitimate search of the area, he wanted a chance to actually engage the slippery little killer. The Battousai had an unfortunate tendency to vanish as soon as he was spotted, and any edge Saitou could gain in keeping the hitokiri in one place long enough to cross swords was an edge Saitou welcomed. Though, he reminded himself, this was actually more a general scouting in search of an expected contact.

A brief consideration Dainichi's likely route to their meeting place sent Saitou off into the alleys toward the nearest shrine. It was a good start, anyway. He ghosted across the street, keeping his ki carefully reined to avoid detection as he slipped from shadow to shadow. It was a deserted part of town at that time of night, and the silence was oppressive. He was just passing the mouth of a particularly dark and derelict alley when what sounded like a cat hissing startled him and he spun around, drawing his sword.

And found himself face to face with an equally startled Battousai.

Saitou grinned. "Tonight isn't turning out so badly after all," he said, preparing a gatotsu. That fool Dainichi could wait.

The distance between them vanished in an instant as both combatants darted forward, the cat forgotten in the resulting clash of blades. Sensing that his opponent was searching for an opening to escape, Saitou revised his attacks to require more parrying than dodging. From the few fights with this man that he'd managed to drag out, he knew that if he could keep the Battousai engaged past five or so minutes, the hitokiri would cease to look for an out and devote his whole attention to ending the fight with a fatality instead of a draw.

By the time they'd both started to breathe hard, their fight had migrated several streets over and done considerable damage to the surrounding properties. They crouched across from each other with no more than five feet between them while each struggled to be the first to catch his breath. As though anticipating each other's next move, each leapt forward, Saitou with another gatotsu and Himura with his signature stance.

Mid-strike, there was a loud *pop* and the alley was, for a few seconds, empty.