Rurouni Kenshin © Nobuhiro Watsuki
It's on nights like this, with no one else around, lightning licking the sky and thunder crashing and the rain pouring red that Saitou carefully locks his sword away and takes out his sake. Nights like this when he's not sure who he really is any more, Shinsengumi or policeman or patriot or wolf or just downright bastard. Nights like this when he dreams of blue and white stained with red.
Sometimes he sits outside on the roof and lets the bloody rain drip down his face, soaking his unlit cigarette. At least, he imagines it's bloody, imagines that it rains as it rained during the Bakumatsu, when wolves roamed the streets and you didn't need a pissing permit to carry a sword (soul).
He wants to scream on these nights, wet and cold and half-crazy with the memories and the sake. He's drunk and he doesn't really care, doesn't mind that the sky spins and the ground dances beneath his feet. When he's drunk, it's the revolution again, and he is a wolf once more, and everything is all right with the world.
When he's really, really drunk sometimes, Saitou unlocks his sword and stumbles to the Kamiya dojo and yells out a challenge. Sometimes the Battousai laughs and gently turns him away, evading his sword with a few leaps or a quick duck because he's far, far too drunk to even dream of killing the other man.
But sometimes, and these are the best times, sometimes the raccoon girl and the rooster head and the little boy are gone, and Battousai is really, really drunk too, and they spar out in the bloody rain. Both too hazed to muster any killing intent, and too drugged to really care, and they fight until neither can stand and then stagger, not indoors, because neither wants to leave the bloody rain where they are immortal and the revolution never ended and little things like Meiji governments don't matter, but to the wettest, bloodiest corner of the roof. There, they drink until they pass out, and in the morning, they are mortal men living in this mad new world, but they remember, and just for a little while, everything is all right with the world.
"The sword is the soul of the samurai."