Modern AU

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Rurouni Kenshin. All other characters are fictional, and any similarities between them and characters of other works of fiction are entirely coincidental. This is very loosely based upon the movie, The Negotiator. I do not claim that there is any truth in this work of fiction.

Chapter 1

Finally he was here. It had taken him the better part of two years to come up with this plan. Today, he would finally put his plan to the test. There was no turning back after this. He knew he most likely would fail. But he would have to try. For years he had watched the corruption grow and grow. He had hoped that he was wrong again. He hoped that he had made another mistaken assumption. But this time he was right. They weren't changing, not enough of them. Even the ones in America, the land with mountains of gold, were as bad, if not worse. More and more were abusing their power. The righteous ones were too few; they were vastly outnumbered by the dishonest. However, if all went as he hoped, today would change that. An overdue lesson had to be learned. He was going to be the one to teach it. Himura Kenshin, A.K.A. the Battousai, walked into the Internal Affairs Bureau of the NYPD.

Johnathan Simtih sighed. Being a captain almost made him want to be a sergeant again. Almost. It wasn't that he didn't like being in the NYPD; on the contrary, he was honored to be apart of New York's finest. But lately, ever since he got promoted and started mingling with his former superiors, he's discovered how many of said superiors were unprofessional. Now, he had never seen any evidence of corruption; he would be appalled if he ever did, but it was the little things. A sneaked-in doughnut here. An extra extra-long coffee break there. And general laziness all around. Right now, he was trying to explain something to a particularly annoying person in Internal Affairs.

"No, sir. I never threatened to shoot Officer Smith in…that place."

"Captain Simitih, you must be aware that as your position as Captain, you must set an example to your subordinates," the annoying inspector stated robotically.

"Yes, sir, I understand, sir," John said, barely repressing a sigh. He couldn't believe that he had driven nearly halfway across town and walked up 17 flights of stairs to put up with this crap. Why did the elevators choose to break down this day anyway? And all of them at almost the exact same time? The cables couldn't have been under the same amount of stress at the same time. "But with all due respect, Officer Smith was irritated and spiteful. You must understand how the younger officers are reckless and hotheaded at times."

"I can understand that, Captain, but we cannot just let this go uninvestigated. You may have to stay here for evaluation."

John tore his eyes away from the fellow sufferer who had just made the long trip up the stairs. "Please, sir! You must understand. I would never do that; I can swear. If you just contact one of my peers in my building…"

"I'm sorry, Captain, but we cannot pull a competent agent away from their work."

What a load of bull-crap. Agent he says. This guy is way too technical. Before John could open his angry mouth, however, a commotion fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, arose.

"Excuse me," someone said. Strangely, his voice seemed to echo even thought it wasn't very loud.

John and about the other fifty people looked over. John could see that this was the same guy who had made the walk up the stairs just a few seconds ago. He was uncommonly short. His plain gray trench coat would've fit an average twelve-year-old. He was Asian. He had strikingly red hair. And he had the strangest pair of golden eyes. But what stood out the most was not his height, nationality, hair color, or even eye color, but the livid scar on his cheek. It was a big red slash. It looked old, yet freshly healed. It was hard to describe.

"Excuse me," the man said again, politely. "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid that I will have to take everybody here hostage."

John thought he had misheard the guy. Looking around in disbelief, he saw some of the other people looking dumbfounded too. What in the world was this guy talking about. He was small, and he had just walked into one of the most idiotic places for a hostage situation: a big room full of big cops with big guns.

"What the hell did you say?" a guy, a deputy inspector, asked, almost laughing.

"You will all be taken hostage." And then the Asian man did something that made everyone take him much more seriously. From under his coat he drew a long Japanese sword. One look at it told that it was sharp.

Almost immediately, guns were drawn, John's included.

"Just- just calm down there," the same deputy inspector said much more seriously. "Put. The. Sword. Down."

"I am not mentally ill, and I will not put my Katana down," the guy with the sword said again in those calm tones. "Please do not try to resist. It may force me to hurt you."

John was getting mixed messages again. He could understand how the deputy inspector might think the guy was crazy. He had threatened people trained to use the guns that were pointed himself when he only had a sword. Admittedly, it was a rather dangerous-looking sword (meaning very sharp) but still, he could not beat guns.

John joined in with the increasing shouting.

"Put your weapon now!"

They were getting frantic. The subject had the advantage here. With so many people shoved into the same room, there was a very good chance that if someone tried to shoot the guy and missed, one of their own would be hit. Apparently, the swordsmen knew this.

Calmly walking into the center of the room, with his sword hanging loosely at his side, he said, "I must be honest with you. You cannot hope to beat me. If you do not withdraw, I will be forced to disarm you."

This constituted as a very real threat. A real enough threat that one of the officers on the upper level walkway decided to open fire. Suddenly, the guy was gone and there was a hole a few inches behind his disappeared feet.

What the heck was this? What happened? John followed his fellow colleagues' lead and looked around confusedly.

And then came the thud.

A/N: So what do you guys think? I probably got a lot of the facts wrong, I know, but just ignore that part. Should I go on? And sorry if some of you guys were waiting for a new chapter of "The Best Test". I've kinda hit a brainstorming problem. I'll try to come up with a new chapter as soon as I can. In the meantime, please read and review this story.