Sano and Saitou's Bad Times

by bringonthespam

Oops...sorry...I left out Saitou's Us in his name. I'll change that in the second part. Sano needs money to pay back Tae for his tab, so he takes a job with Saitou to make some. Some very...interesting things happen I'll just say.

RUROUNI KENSHIN: SANO AND SAITO'S BAD TIMES

Sanosuke Sagara was on his way to the Akabeko after not paying his tab for the 30th time since he started eating there. He was really nervous because once again, he didn't have the money for it. He was mulling over in his head a bunch of excuses to tell her, even though none of them were even remotely feasible. Sano was shaking rapidly and knew that Tae's entire family would probably put a hit out on him when they heard that he was short on dough.

"Okay," Sano thought to himself, "it's only a lousy sum of money. I've gotta stop shaking or else Tae's gonna get suspicious."

Sano trudged up to the sliding door of the diner. He gave the door a quick shove and stepped on in. The waitresses greeted him charmingly, but when they recognized who it was they stopped suddenly. They turned to Tae who was none too happy with the fact that Sano had the guts to show his face around there without having paid for the last thousand times he hadn't paid her.

"So Sano," Tae said sweetly, but with a hint of murder, "how are you today?"

"Uh……pretty good," Sano said meekly.

"Good…do you have money with you today, Sano?"

"Uh…no…but,"

"IF YOU DON'T HAVE MONEY, THEN HOW CAN YOU EXPECT ME TO GIVE YOU SERVICE!"

Tae was giving Sano the creeps now. She had never given Sano any guff over this before. She usually just let him pile up on his tab, but he couldn't blame her because she was being more than generous to him all of the time as it was.

"Well Tae…I'm sorry, but I guess…"

"You guess nothing, Sano! If you can't pay this time, then I'm forced to ask that you leave, unless you have something else to say!"

"Uh…no…I don't have anything else to say…"

"THEN GO!"

Sano ran out as fast as he could. He had never seen Tae as angry with him as she was today. Once again, he couldn't blame her. Her business had been slipping lately, and it made Sano feel guilty about hitting her up for food when they could hardly afford to feed themselves. He knew that someday he would repay all of that money with a little extra for her trouble.

"How can I do that though?" Sano thought gloomily to himself. His head was bowed in shame and regret that he hadn't had a real job in a long time. The whole business with fighting and beating up people was good, but it didn't bring in nearly enough to pay off his tab. He'd be sore and tired of fighting (oh my god, he would?) if he even attempted to gain back the money that way. It looked like this day couldn't get much worse from here.

At that moment, the policeman Saito Hajime came by. He seemed as surly as always and gave Sano his coldest stare. He could tell however, that Sano was bummed out about his money situation. It was the only time where that "idiot" would be seen sulking in a corner by himself.

"Hey you, moron," Saito called to the former fighter-for-hire.

"What the hell do you want, Saito!" Sano bit back in a sour mood now that his arch-nemesis was in his sights.

"If you're tired of being a bum, why don't you do something about it? I'll give you this one chance to help me on an assignment. It pays decently, a lot better than fighting ever would. So speak up, are you in or out?"

Sano was pretty surprised at this turn of events. Saito never asked him to do anything with him before. Every time something came up, Saito would only ask Kenshin for his talents. Sano was ignored by Saito the entire time that he volunteered to help them. The prospect of doing anything with Saito made Sano really queasy and gave him a degree of indigestion. However, with his current money situation, this might be the best bet he would ever have for achieving his goal. He got up on his feet and told Saito how he felt.

"All right, I'll do it. What is it that we're gonna do then?"

"The police chief has informed me of a robbery in the area. It all happened at the hotel a few blocks south of here."

Sano fell on his face and came back up rather dazed.

"YOU DON'T MEAN THE BROTHEL, DO YOU!"

"Shut up, moron; listen to the rest of it! The culprit is a painter who is said to have some mysterious powers. They say that when he gets caught in the act of painting…(ahem)…nude models, he jumps into a dark hole where they claim he disappears into. The time he is usually seen is at night, and his favorite target area is the…(ahem)…baths."

"Whoa…that's some freaky stuff! Are you sure that we're equipped to do this, Saito?"

Saito smiled creepily at Sano and proceeded to taunt him.

"What's wrong, Sagara, too much for you to handle? I didn't think that the great Zanza, fighter-for-hire, would cringe in fear of some sneaky pervert in a bath house."

"Hey, I'm not scared! This is just something that doesn't happen every day, and I just thought that it might be good to take a few precautions!"

Saito looked at Sano again and smirked even more cruelly in satisfaction. Making Sano flustered was such a simple feat to him that anybody could have done it as far as he was concerned.

"Hmph…precautions will not be necessary in this case. This seems like some kind of spy mission that isn't even worth my time."

"Then why ARE you on this case, Saito!"

"Because the higher-ups want me to take care of problems that they feel are out of their range. This very suspicious case is one of them, but I would deem it nothing more than some illusionist who misuses his powers to do indecent things."

Saito started walking away from Sanosuke. He seemed to be in a bit of a hurry.

"Hey, wait up! Where are you off to, Saito!" Sano asked curiously.

Saito stopped, turned around, and flicked the still-lit cigarette that was in his mouth at Sano.

"OUCH! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!"

"Well, moron, are you going to just sit there and scratch yourself, or are you going to come with me? We need to get the preparations ready for the ambush tonight. We're going to the police station to figure out our plan of attack."

"Oh…okay…whatever," Sano sat there not knowing exactly what Saito was implying by "plan".

That night, Sano and Saito were gathered in Saito's office. They had a floor plan of the brothel on the table. The floor plan had writing all over it from where Saito had marked. Sano stared at it as if Saito was drunk when he scribbled all over it.

"Uh…Saito, how is this plan going to work again?"

"Fool…we'll set up stations where we guard the baths at 5 minute intervals. We rotate our posts so that the entire circular area around them is scouted. We must leave no cracks in guarding the entire circular area. If the painter appears tonight, we should apprehend him together and make this capture as inconspicuous as humanly possible. If he turns violent, we'll take him out. Are you grasping all of this?"

Sano just stared at Saito like he was crazy. This plan wasn't that well thought out, and Sano was prepared to tell him just that.

"Saito, this is a really dumb plan, how are we going to spot him if he keeps moving in and out!"

"I didn't say that this plan was perfect. It doesn't need to be perfect anyways, at least for this kind of situation."

"Ugh…fine…I've got it," Sano sighed dramatically.

"Let's get moving then. He's probably already out there this instant."

Saito took off out of the room like a jet. Sano was left in his dust, and got really frustrated that Saito just left him there again.

"HEY, YOU CREEP; I'M NOT LETTING YOU GET AWAY WITH THAT SO EASILY!"

Sano ran all the way to the brothel only to see Saito already examining their positions. Sano was a little peeved that Saito had left without him, but this job was more important at the moment. They slipped into the bathhouse area, eliciting shrill screams from the women taking their baths.

"Calm down, I am a policeman here to check up on the unusual goings on around this area," Saito told them as coolly and calmly as he could muster. Sano, on the other hand, was sputtering and blushing at the sight of so many naked women. He covered his eyes with his hands and turned to Saito.

"G…Gee Saito, why did you have to barge right in!"

"I did because this is serious police business! You act like you've never seen a naked woman before in your life, Sagara!"

"Excuse me? I'm not the one who just decided to run right in!"

"In any case, we need to set ourselves up. Go on the other side and wait for anything suspicious."

"Oh…fine."

The owner came up to Saito and bowed to him.

"Hello officer, I'm glad you're here. There has been a pervert stalking the bathhouse and painting pictures of the young ladies who bathe here. Please, help us get rid of him. I assure you that we would be most grateful."

"You needn't worry about the situation, madam. This should only take a few hours. We are sorry for the inconveniences that might cause you to lose business in that time."

"Oh not at all sir, we welcome you to do what you must!"

Sano was thinking, at the time they were talking, that Saito could be really smooth when he wanted to be. Saito had hardly even batted an eyelash at the screams, and he calmed the owner down tactfully while being fairly blunt at the same time. He couldn't dally around too much though. He went over on the other side of the circular bath house. He was under the impression that Saito would be on the opposite side of the place from him.

"What are you waiting for, idiot? Keep on your feet and peel your eyes! We might not get another chance to snatch him if he slips by!" Saito was being a hard-ass in Sano's opinion. He didn't particularly care for Saito's abusive words that seemed to come out every few minutes at him. Sano was tired enough as it was since he ran around all day looking for spare change to pay Tae back with. This was just another bad job for Sano, and he'd be glad when it was finally over with.

Saito and Sano switched stations every once in a while. To Sano, it felt like quite a few times. He was growing impatient with Saito because it had already been 3 hours and nothing had come up yet. He finally just went right up to Saito and began to complain to him.

"DAMN IT, SAITO, THIS REALLY SUCKS!"

"Sagara, get back over there now! That criminal will slip right by you if you don't watch out!"

"He hasn't even shown up tonight yet! How the hell do we know that he's even coming?"

"You fool, get back there!"

As Sano and Saito had another one of their fierce fights, one of the women screamed on the side where Sanosuke was supposed to be looking out. A creepy, dark shadow was coming ever closer to her, and it looked like it had a paintbrush and canvas under its big arm. The shade smiled creepily through a devil mask, scaring the populace of the baths out of its wits.

The place went into a panic, and the two fighters ended their quarrel momentarily to see what was going down. Saito drew his sword while Sano readied his fists to pound the hell out of whoever had made such a ruckus. The shade man was startled by Sano and Saito when they charged at him, and he decided in that instant to try and run. This prompted a quick grab of the perpetrator's cloak by Sanosuke.

"Oh no you don't, you pervert!" Sano tore off the cloak without thinking to latch onto the big man's shoulder so he couldn't run away. However, tearing off his cloak must have done the trick because once the cloak fell the peeper didn't run. Instead he froze there as if staying still would make Sano and Saito leave him alone.

There Sano was, face-to-face with the culprit of the "Bath House Break In" as he viewed the case. The suspect looked strangely familiar. In fact, he was certain that he'd seen this swordsman before. He had a long, brown goatee. Sano felt as if it was a deadly weapon because of its sharp point. The face was wrinkled and looked fairly old. His deadly, beady eyes made Sano think twice about jumping him, and he never thought twice about jumping a lecher before. Sano's mouth was hanging open in shock, and he gave Saito a weird grimace.

"I know who this is…it's…GOHEI HIRUMA!"

(dun dun duuuuuuuuuun)

"Very perceptive, Zanza, I am Gohei Hiruma, and I'm back to take my revenge on you and the rest of Kamiya's daughter's little friends!" Gohei was pretty pissed up to this point. Kenshin, Kaworu, and even little Yahiko had foiled his revenge plans before, and Gohei certainly wasn't one to take that kind of crap.

"Really," Sano started, "then why are you here painting pictures of naked women? Pfft…and you call yourself a swordsman?"

"Shut up, I'll tell you what I was going to do if you want to know so much! (Clearing his throat)…Ever since that last day I attempted to gain my revenge, I became bitter and resentful. I had realized that I couldn't pay my way to revenge because no one I hired could defeat the Battousai. I wandered around Japan and was lost on most of my journeys to find an answer to my problem.

Out in the forests of Japan, I found a small hut where a retired swordsman was living a peaceful life of family and farming. I greeted him as warmly as a bitter revenge seeker could, but I was more mystified by his extraordinary paintings that seemed to jump out at me. He told me that he had created them in the hopes of finding the very core of his soul. He also mentioned that with his "painting swordsman" style, he felt that he could open up new dimensions deep inside of himself that he never could as an ordinary swordsman.

I didn't buy all of this. I thought it nothing more than silly superstition. However, I found out for myself that this gentleman wasn't as full of it as I thought he was. He had been using a special, magical black ink to outline the pictures in those paintings. I knew that those paintings were too lifelike to have been the work of a mere swordsman.

I stole every last drop of that black paint that I could, leaving the man without any and none the wiser. I ran back to Tokyo after having to stop and ask directions every hour. It was a long trek, but it was worth it to find this stuff. Once I painted my first picture with this ink, a dimensional rift was opened and I stepped inside. I saw many disturbing images of death and suffering. It almost made me tingle with delight to see so much malice in this alternate dimension. I also saw many creatures within this space of nothingness, and they fused together as if bonded by fate. This was an eerie thing, and I wouldn't want to get too close to those creatures.

In any case, I found the dimensional rift back to this world, and nearly squealed like a piglet when I came up with my new plan. My new idea was to frame Kenshin Himura by posing as a bath house pervert. I'd make it look as if the godlike speed of my exiting to the other dimension was Kenshin's own godlike speed. The people would become suspicious of this speed and rumors of Kenshin's involvement would leak out (through me of course). Everyone would take this as fact, sooner or later, and Kenshin would be apprehended for questioning. Meanwhile, I'd make a "surprise visit" to the Kamiya Dojo and burn the place to the ground in the night. That would show them for crossing Gohei Hiruma!"

"So…let me get this straight," Sano began after the long, boring speech, "you took advantage of a poor, retired samurai, you abused and manipulated his pure ideals for your revenge, and now you intend to frame Kenshin because you know that you can't defeat him in a fair fight? That's really pathetic man! What is this your third…fourth…fifth time trying to kill everyone at the dojo? Will you ever go away? Don't you ever give up?"

Gohei turned to Sano, furious at his calling him pathetic, but also grinning maliciously at Sano's frustration.

"Zanza…I'll never rest until I've stolen the souls of everyone at that damnable place! You were the most unlucky to be here tonight because I'm gonna kill you first!"

Gohei took his long, sharp brush handle tip into his first and middle fingers (since Kenshin broke both of his thumbs). He lunged at Sano with a speed that surprised even him. He dodged the brush head just in time so that Gohei couldn't stab him in the heart. Sanosuke then took his right fist and attempted the Futae no Kiwami, destroying a lot of fencing around the bath house but not connecting with the obviously fast Gohei. Gohei then elbowed him in the kidney, making Sano grunt in pain while being tossed a few feet away by the force of it.

Saito still wasn't impressed with this Gohei Hiruma. He'd heard his name around because he was involved in a lot of illegal activities, but Saito had never seen him before now. Even after Gohei threw Sagara maybe four or five feet, Saito still wasn't impressed, but it looked like he'd need to finish this job quickly in order to keep the monetary cost of the destruction to a minimum.

"All right, Mr. Hiruma, are you ready to come quietly, or am I going to have to detain you by force?"

"Ah…Saito Hajime…your name is well known in the underworld. I've heard of the Wolves of Mibu, and they're nothing but a pack of dogs that couldn't even save the Tokugawa Era from downfall!"

"The Wolves of Mibu did what they could to keep true to their lord and their ideals…unlike a wandering sea urchin like you!"

"Big words Saito, but can you back them up!"

"I will also do my duty to follow my ideals of "Aku Soku San" – "Slay Evil Immediately"! I will incapacitate you with my own hands!"

"GATOTSU ZERO STYLE!"

Saito thrust his sword at a speed that was incomprehensive to both Gohei and Sano watching the whole thing. Saito couldn't just outright kill him though. After all, he was not only a police officer, but this peaceful era made using a sword to kill looked down upon by much of the new society. Instead of the sword tip, Saito used the next best thing he could, the hilt. This Zero Style attack with the hilt had a dramatic decrease in speed, but it was just effective enough to thwart any counterattack that Gohei might throw at him. He crushed the hilt against Gohei's neck, nearly sending him into a panicked convulsion. Gohei did spit up some blood, but the attack didn't even nearly kill him.

Nevertheless, Saito proved to be a cold, calculating man to the end by having severed a few nerves in Gohei's body to keep him from trying to get at anyone else. It wasn't as if Saito could just let him get away, even if he wasn't able to take him down more thoroughly than he could have.

At this point, Gohei is now helpless on his back, only able to move his right arm. He tried to speak, tried to spit curses at Saito and Sano, but he was nearly mute from the shock of that mighty blow. Luckily for him, he had forgotten about the wooden container of the mysterious black paint at his feet. It was now in his right arm's reach, and for now he was willing to try anything to keep himself from getting captured before his big revenge plan was realized.

"T…take this…you…bastards!"

Gohei slapped the container over as hard as he possibly could at the two before passing out himself. The nasty, slimy paint was splattered all over Saito and Sano who still didn't realize why Gohei had done it. In the heat of battle, they hadn't remembered to get the paint as far away from Gohei's reach as possible. Now they were in for it big time. Sano realized it a little sooner than Saito did.

"Uh…Saito…I feel really weird!" Sano gasped while being engulfed by the dimensional rift being created around his body.

"Damn…I forgot the paint!" Saito also added when he figured out that this was the paint Gohei stole from the retired samurai.

Their next journeys through the sludgy dimensional rift were…to put it simply…interesting. Both of them had appeared in the same dimension and just floated around as if the laws of physics didn't apply. The images conjured by the rift were horrible to behold. They almost made Sano throw up, and that was a feat in itself. Saito only stared partially wide-eyed while sinking in the fact that this was the disgusting place that the old, perverted Gohei described in his ramblings.

Suddenly and without warning, both Sano and Saito felt an indescribable, agonizing pain in their backs. It was as if someone was pulling them apart like a chicken in a butcher's kitchen. The last thing both of them remembered when they finally slipped into unconsciousness out of sheer pain was seeing the other person's hand in their sights. They both knew that whatever would come now wouldn't be pretty.

Well everyone, this is the first half of "Sano and Saito's Bad Times". Please review, it will have more humor and wackiness in the second part (if enough people review it to make the second part). Thanks for reading part 1.