Defeated. Trounced. Well and truly thumped. Hell, his zanbatou had been shaved clean through, nothing more than two useless hunks of metal and a stick now. He was covered in bandages and bruises. Thinking back on the fight though, once he forgot about his own anger and focused just on how Himura had fought... Sano chuckled to himself as he walked down the street, hands in his pockets and one finger teasing the edge of his fundoshi through the fabric.
Right now he was heading back to the site of the minor battle that had taken place between himself and the apparently retired battosai. It wouldn't do to leave that much metal just lying around, it would make the place look untidy.
Oh... Damn...
The little redhead was there before him. Just sitting in the middle of the space where they had clashed, the broken lance laid out before him as though he were paying respects to the weapon.
"You are feeling better I see," said the child-like man-slayer, turning slightly to look over his shoulder and smile, so impossibly innocently, at Sanoske. "I am glad for your recovery, that I am. Being bedridden is not a pleasant thing for such active people as us, that it is not."
Sano blinked in shock, and the digit within his pocket that had been gently stroking the edge of his fundoshi scraped a nail as harshly as he could against fabric and skin, seeking control in the pain.
"No," he agreed, moving slowly to sit beside the smaller, but older, man. "Forced idleness is definitely unpleasant."
The two warriors sat in silence for a while, lost in their own thoughts, gazes drifting from the broken zanbatou to the river to the trees and the sky.
"I am sorry about your weapon, that I am," Kenshin said at last, a genuine sorrow in his eyes as he looked at the pieces laid out before him. "It was very well made, that it was. And you were very good with it, you were. Despite its limitations."
"Thank you," Sano answered, unsure what else to say to the Battosai.
"What will you do with it now?"
Sanoske sighed and scratched the back of his head for a moment as he sifted through his thoughts. He'd known on his way here that something would have to be done with all that metal, particularly since it was too precious a commodity to waste.
"Do you know where I can find a good metal worker? There's enough metal here to keep a smith busy for a long time, and there are more useful things all this metal can be used for than hurting people," he said at last.
Kenshin smiled.
"Maybe some knives to repay the lady at the Akabeko for all the trouble, and perhaps even something for those kids you're keeping an eye on at that dojo," Sano continued, thinking out loud. "Don't like leaving too many debts lying around, never know when they're going to catch up with you," he added by way of explanation.
"Some very good advice, that it is. It also raises an issue with me that needs to be addressed, as I am a wanderer, yet for now seem to have stopped wandering," Himura murmured, caught up in his own mind far more than the conversation.
"Oh yeah? Well, if you ever feel the urge to wander again, let me know will ya? Think I might like to come along. Unless you would rather not have company," said the one-time freedom-fighter.
"Thank you Sano, I think I would very much like to travel with you, that I would."