The streets of Kyoto were cold and dark, the chill night air bracing senses already alert to the ever-present threat of violence. A single man walked quickly through the narrow, winding streets, eyes locked dead ahead, mind focused on only one thing. He needed to get home. He needed to get home fast.
He wasn't cold – his servants had dressed him in layer upon layer of thick gi beneath his kimono that morning, to survive the chill of winter in Kyoto – but he was shaking nonetheless, painfully aware of the danger he was in; a famed advisor to the highest-ranking members of the bakufu walking the back alleys of the city alone, so late at night. In the light of day, it had seemed folly to feel such crippling fear of these sinister hitokiri that his colleagues kept warning him of, but now that he was alone in the darkness, his mind couldn't help painting imaginary spectres in the shadows of every doorway. A shop sign swaying in the wind had been a cloaked assassin, a flickering candle in a window had been the flash of a killing blade and a whining dog limping around the corner behind him had almost made him cry out in fear.
It was foolish, he knew that. Only the very highest and most trusted of the Shogun's officials knew about his recent role as advisor to the Shogunate on the situation in Shimonoseki, and no-one could possibly have known that his carriage would be waylaid at the end of tonight's meeting, forcing him to take the short journey on foot. He'd politely refused Hiwagata's offer of a place to stay the night and by now he was glad – it wouldn't be long until he was home with his children safe next door and Kinuko sleeping close beside him. He was hardly a threat to the Ishin Shishi. No, it would be sheer paranoia to believe any man as frightening as this so-called Battousai would want to come after him.
Turning out of another dark alleyway into a wider street, lit dimly by only the light of the moon overhead, the man came to a sharp halt, his breath catching in his throat as his heart thudded in his ears. A dark figure – a real one – sat huddled in a doorway on the road ahead of him, knees drawn up to its chest as it shivered in the icy cold of night. He wasn't surprised – the small, slender figure was clad only in a loose black kimono and hakama, hands buried in its lap to try to preserve some warmth. The man blinked down at the figure, debating whether to simply continue on his way and get back to the safety of his own home. The figure was so small and thin; it could only be a child… a child left shivering on the streets, their only refuge a narrow doorway on the side of the road. It wasn't that late… it would be immoral of him simply to walk past, as a citizen of this city with the power to help save a life.
"You shouldn't be out on the streets so late, young one," he said aloud, stepping softly towards the child, who hadn't startled at all when his voice broke the deathly silence.
The young boy – for upon closer inspection, the man was sure that the child was male – didn't reply, nor even look up to see who was addressing him. His shivering had stopped, though. The man frowned.
"It's dangerous after dark in Kyoto these days, child," he tried again, lowering his voice to a gentler tone. "Where are your parents? Why aren't you at home?"
"My parents are dead. I don't have a home."
He received a reply this time, but the bland, emotionless tenor wasn't quite what he'd been expecting. He'd been certain the boy was only a young child, his slender shoulders, short body and delicate features that of a boy of twelve at the very oldest, and yet the voice that had emerged was that of a young man, hardened and world-weary. What was this war doing to the children of Kyoto, forcing them to grow up so fast? No wonder the Shogun was so determined to stop the fighting and restore the people's faith in their government.
"I'm so sorry to hear that," he replied gently, a sympathetic smile slipping onto his face. For the first time, he saw the glint of the boy's eyes flitting up to see his expression, and he was sure that the boy's face shifted in startled response, even obscured by shadow as it was. His smile widened, and he hoped a little show of kindness might be able to reassure a child who'd clearly seen so much pain in his short life. "Tell me, child… is there any way I can help you?"
For a long moment, they simply stared at each other, nobleman lit by the moonlight, cowering boy engulfed by the darkness. The silence stretched between them as emotion lay bare on the invisible face in the shadows, a start of surprise, a grimace of guilt, a twist of anguish, all hidden by the gloom of the night before decision came to a heart of tempered steel, just as cold and just as fatal.
Suddenly, the boy straightened, the hands the man had assumed to be hidden in his lap for warmth suddenly appearing by his sides, and in one of them…
"Could you die, Tanaka-dono?" the child said softly, deep lavender blue gaze staring up at him with an intensity that no child's eyes should ever have. The sheathed katana previously hidden in the folds of his hakama was now held loosely, casually, in his left hand as he rose smoothly to his feet with a tiger's grace, moving forward into the moonlight as the man stood frozen with realisation – and the heady sensation of mind-numbing horror. "I have come to bring Heaven's justice to you myself, but if you were to die…" The child's head lowered, eyes hidden behind glinting blood-red locks as his body twisted into a painfully familiar stance. "… That would help me, Tanaka-dono."
Lord Tanaka Ryouzen, daimyo of a thousand households, master of a hundred samurais, let out a cry of terror as the small boy across the street turned slightly to the left, his right foot extended, his body leaning slightly forward and his hand hovering, claw-like, over the worn hilt of his sword. The stance for battou-jutsu. The stance that was said to be the last thing his victims ever saw. The favoured stance of…
"B-Battousai!" he gasped out, turning to flee from the vengeful figure of death before him. It was useless, a last move of desperation, the panicked flight of a creature relying on its most primal instincts, but it was his only hope. He ran like it was his last act in the world. Kinuko…!
A ring of shrieking steel as it was ripped free of its sheath faster than a man's eye could follow. The sound of light sandals hitting dark stone, fleet and faint as a child's dancing footsteps. A gurgling cry, the bubbling of gushing fluid, the coughs of a man choking on his own lifeblood.
A thud. Loud. Heavy. Conclusive.
The shivering child stared down at the new corpse for a long moment before he returned the sword to its sheath, ignoring the unusual tremor in his hand as it impeded the practised movement for just a fraction of a second. The blood would rust on the blade if he didn't wipe it, but he would wait until he returned to the Kohagiya tonight to find a cloth. It wasn't his normal routine, but Tanaka-dono's clothes were stained enough. He deserved better than that.
He deserved better.
Hitokiri Battousai turned away and disappeared into the shadows of Kyoto, leaving the stench of death behind him – carrying the sight burned into his soul. Iizuka would deal with the body.
He always did.