A/N: Sooo. This fic is kind of weird… well, very weird. It probably crosses the lines into fantasy, but I thought the supernatural genre suited it better.

Long disclaimer though, sorry, but I won't be repeating it later on so… I don't own Rurouni Kenshin, obviously, plus there are some concepts in here which were inspired by other fanfic authors. For one, the concept of ki manifestation – that's from Justice Stryfe's 'the Sword of Seijuro Hiko'. The connection between Hiko and Kenshin is based off Unseen Watcher's 'Ties of Loyalty'. And there are some general concepts in here which were probably inspired by lolo popoki's 'Only the Beginning', though I wouldn't be able to pick them out specifically. All of them are Hiko stories, so (cough) you can probably guess the main characters in this fic, although everyone else do play a pretty big part. But anyway. Go read them, they're brilliant.

I feel I should apologise to the people who dislike fangirl Japanese, since I use quite a bit of it, but sometimes Japanese suits better than English, ne? So the glossary's at the bottom. If you know the words, that's fine, just skip it.

Also, there's some torture or near-torture scenes later on, just a warning, so…

Um… I think that's about all. (grimace) I'll try to keep my author's notes to a minimum in the future, promise.

(EDITED)


I

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Flames crackled.

Hiko Seijuro stared at the flickering light, cradling a saucer of sake between his thumb and forefinger as he hunched over his seat on the log half-buried in the soil before the open furnace of his kiln. The red glow illuminated the lines of his thin face, shrouding his dark eyes almost ominously beneath his black bangs and making them glitter strangely with amber highlights.

Around him the night was silent aside from the chirp of insects and the slight rustle of leaves in the light wind, chilly because of the altitude and the evening. It was kind of late to be working, but Hiko wanted to get this last piece of pottery fired before he went to bed; he'd be able to paint and glaze it tomorrow with the others, and then it'd be ready to sell the day after.

At the moment, though, he wasn't really thinking about pottery. He rose out of his stupor every now and then to check the piece in question, but mostly his thoughts dwelt on subjects far different.

Like the incident with Shishio a while back. Like how his baka deshi had returned after all that time had passed. Like how he'd asked his help to protect those friends of his.

And how he'd left without saying goodbye.

Not in so many words, at least. Hiko had known that Kenshin was leaving, could sense him, just as he knew that Kenshin was aware of him as well. They needed no words for that.

No, what plagued Hiko's mind was the fact that lately… he'd been feeling almost lonely. In the years since Kenshin had abandoned him he had managed to build a shield around himself, pretending that he didn't care, that he didn't need people. For the most part, it was true; it was how he'd lived before Kenshin had become his apprentice. He had always valued solitude.

But even in the time just after Kenshin first left he had felt his loss keenly. It was easier that he could convince himself there was no chance of Kenshin returning; he knew that he wouldn't, and so he could pretend that his baka deshi was all but dead to him. It made the loneliness easier to bear, especially since, with the rise of Battousai, Hiko considered it truth.

But now that he knew Kenshin was alive and, if not unscarred, then not damned, it made it harder to be alone. There were some things that only another master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu could understand; some things only another soldier could understand. Another killer. Another defender.

Another wanderer.

"Damn it," Hiko muttered to himself in disgust, downing the sake and reaching down to the clay jug near his booted feet for more. "Baka had to burst back into my life without so much as a by-your-leave. As though I would just drop everything to finish his training. As though he could use a matter of national security to convince me to teach him the succession technique."

The words were harsh, but half-hearted; they were things he'd thought in the first instances of hearing Kenshin's request, and now only aired as a matter of course. Hiko liked complaining, and Kenshin was one of his favourite topics only because he knew him so well.

As well as a father could know their own son.

"Of course, all those years of wandering –" he paused as though in thought, but his dark eyes moved sidelong, the saucer hovering halfway up to his lips.

That presence is back.

"After all those years of wandering," he continued as though nothing had happened and he hadn't just sensed a ki appear at the edge of the clearing. "And of course his skills would be atrocious. Half of my lessons must have slipped his mind… or they were just knocked out of it."

It wasn't the first time, either; whoever – whatever – this thing was, it had been visiting him for days now. He wasn't even sure it was human – no human could reach his clearing without him sensing them coming halfway up the mountain, but this presence always slid to life abruptly, like sap seeping from a wounded tree. It was subtle in a way no human could ever be.

"Yare yare, I can't believe how much he was relying on reaction time. The original Hiko Seijuro would be turning in his grave if he could see how badly that baka let himself lapse."

And it didn't feel right. Just like it came to life, that was how it moved: leaching, crawling, almost suffocating.

No, not suffocating, not exactly. More like… shrouding. Clinging. Like a shadow.

And it was getting stronger.

Kusai. This has gone far enough.

Gently he placed the saucer down on the time-smoothed trunk, closing his eyes against the glow of the fire and standing, his sweeping white mantle turned grey in the darkness, his hand gripping the saya at his waist in readiness. "Who are you and what do you want from me?" His voice was low, emotionless, directed towards the presence at his back even though he didn't turn around.

He felt a ripple of the ki which seemed to coincide with faint surprise and, more confusingly, delight; and then it didn't ripple so much as swell, as though the person was being disgorged out of nothingness and into existence. "And here I was thinking you were just another swordsman." A female voice, definitely, and though there was a definite note of amusement there it sounded strangely thin despite its rich, devious tone. "You're one of the first to have noticed my presence."

Flattery. I'd like it if I knew who it was coming from and what they wanted.

"You didn't answer my question." Hiko chided the woman softly, deadly with reproach and warning. He didn't hear so much as sense her approach, and his brow furrowed slightly at the utter noiselessness of her footsteps. There was something almost unnatural about it, something that made the skin on his back crawl.

"I don't have a name." was the quiet answer.

Her words covered the warning he would normally have received; as it was he just caught the tail end of an explosion of ki, just enough to let him know that something was coming and brace himself, even if he couldn't avoid it.

Not that he didn't try. Skin tingling with the impending, violent wash of energy, Hiko was moving before his conscious mind had even registered the danger. One moment he was standing in front of his kiln; the next he was airborne, leaping away in a flash of his cloak and dark hair, but not before the outer fringes of the wave hit.

It struck hard, with a power that he hadn't felt in over twenty-five years – not since before he had gained the strength to hold off his shishou's blows during training. Instantly all the air left his lungs and he felt his body falter with abrupt, searing cold, so sudden and intense that it wrested a gasp from him and probably would have done more if he had any breath left.

The next blow to land was when he hit the ground with such force that it left him dazed, unable to see, not sure which direction was up and distantly thankful he had missed the brunt of the hit. He was surrounded by the strange, inhuman energy, confusing the sensitive ki that all truly great swordsmen possessed.

But though his mind was confused, his body wasn't. Within seconds he was back on his feet in a battoujutsu stance, eyes still shut, every muscle tense and ready for an attack he didn't know the location to, his mind catching up seconds later.

It disturbed him; he hadn't felt so helpless since his own apprenticeship. But he had no time to dwell on his situation, no chance to curse himself for his weakness or speculate as to exactly what the hell this woman was. He was still the best swordsman in Japan, and he'd be damned if he let this… thing… beat him.

The expected attack didn't come. Instead he felt a ripple of shock and then gratification in the ki surrounding him, cold in his flesh and hanging on his limbs like near-corporeal chains. "You are powerful, aren't you?" The voice was all around him and within that gut-wrenching instant he realized that it was coming from the ki itself, vibrating over his skin and making it prickle almost painfully. Its cadences were the same as before, but no longer layered with automatic deception and guardedness like a normal person's would be, as though its intention was translated straight through its energy – helplessly and irrevocably honest. "No one's ever managed to dodge my initial attack before."

She calls that a dodge? "Sorry to disappoint," Hiko managed to growl, extending his ki outward in an attempt to penetrate the shrouding presence. A second later he twitched and gritted his teeth against the responding jolt, spiking into his head behind his closed eyes.

"Oh, you didn't disappoint. It just proves that I made the right choice."

"Oh?" Hiko responded noncommittally, reaching out a little more cautiously this time and again being met with a suffocating blanket of her ki, heavy and unyielding.

"Yes…" the sound hissed all around him, the unseen leaves rustling wildly, his long black hair blown about and his mantle flapping, and he shivered against his will, feeling the persistent numbness seeping into his flesh. "I've never seen such strength in a mortal. You might even be strong enough for my other purposes."

Mortal? Hiko felt a chill, and it had nothing to do with the cold of the aura enveloping him. There was something big, something strange and unnatural, happening here and he knew he was out of his depth.

He didn't know what warned him this time. It couldn't have been his ki, smothered by the insidious presence of the woman, and he had long since stopped putting all his trust in it anyway – as of the beginning of the bizarre encounter. It may have been that strange, almost supernatural instinct that all beasts have, the one which makes no sense but is always right.

And yet, at the same time, he thought he felt something – like a breeze, a movement against his skin.

Whatever it was, it was enough. One moment he was still; the next his nihontou had flashed from its wooden saya with a metallic ring and the god-speed of battoujutsu, deflecting an abrupt burst of the odd ki in an explosion of energy that washed around him, leaving him feeling colder than before, enough to make his breath catch.

Although Hiko couldn't see it, he knew the sharp edge of his blade had shone with sparks of blue, wisping along the metal with his movement. It was the manifestation of his ki – very few swordsmen were ever strong enough to have their energy register as physical light, the practitioners of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu being some of them, and even then Hiko rarely had to extend his energy to that point.

It was probably all that saved him. He knew – could feel – that it wasn't the sword that stopped the attack, it was his own projection of his ki. This wasn't a battle of steel; if it were he would have won already.

He felt it again, that odd draught, as though clouds had shifted, lifting, as though layers upon layers of fabric were being twisted and controlled all around him.

That's –

He moved, too fast to be seen, his sword leaving a blaze of cerulean in the darkness as the bolt exploded upon the energy-coated steel, parried away in streamers of invisible force and an icy wind.

Wakatta! I can't sense her with my own ki – but hers betrays her.

The realization barely had time to register; then he felt a ripple of growing irritation and sensed the pull of her energy. With quick movements he parried one attack and then tried to evade another, only to have the aura undulate and redirect it back towards him where it broke upon the length of his blade.

He didn't have time to do anything but note this fact and compensate his tactics accordingly, restricting him to quick movements to deflect the unending assaults rather than dodge them. It was the strangest, deadliest battle he'd ever fought, one with no physical enemy, where sight and hearing and smell were nothing and his ki was stifled, where his body heat was being leeched with his every movement.

The kiln rose up somewhere beside him, a void of nothingness within the seethe of the woman's presence. Its heat burned against his icy skin, making him realize just how cold he felt, and a tiny shudder ran down his arms, leaving a smudging trail of blue light in the wake of his sword as it vibrated, just barely catching the next bolt of energy.

Shimatta, I can't let this go on.

He could sense building frustration and a faint sense of incredulity in the ki around him, and knew that whatever the woman said about his strength, she had not expected him to last this long. If she had any tricks up her sleeve, she was going to use them soon. I need to find her physical body – if she has one.

With every fabric-like movement in her aura, he strove to follow it back to its point of origin, twisting and turning, a maelstrom of energy swirling around the clearing. He could hear the lash of the foliage at the edges, but the wind that caused it was indistinguishable to the cold energy on his skin. He could feel himself weakening and poured more of his ki into his defence, letting loose some of his iron control and wishing – fleetingly – that he had time to pull off his mantle. This would be easier to end if he could just unleash his true power; as it was, he was wary of releasing too much and burning himself out.

That wouldn't usually be a problem, but this damning, leeching cold… it was doing more than merely sapping his warmth, it was taking his ki as well. He could feel it shatter with every parried bolt from the woman, lost to the whorl of her aura.

An infuriated snarl radiated from all around him, vibrating along his skin, making the hair draping past his face ruffle, and he couldn't restrain a grim, satisfied smile.

Next instant he grunted in mild surprise as he blocked a vicious, frustration-fuelled strike that made phantom ice sweep up his blade, his hands searing numbly. He could feel the chill sweeping up his arms, sapping his strength; startled, he pushed back with his own ki, far harder than he intended or was wise.

It all happened in barely a few seconds. Blue light exploded along the steel of his nihontou and he felt the woman's aura give against the sudden power of the retaliation, felt it draw back from him for an instant with a hollow, resonating gasp of shock.

It was enough. Like clouds parting for moments, less, Hiko felt the glow that was her core, her physical body, and took the opening. With the controlled, rapid movements of a Hiten Mitsurugi master he surged forward, unleashing his ki in an invisible force to stop the break from closing, even as he felt the chill of her presence consume it like fire consumed air. He could feel her alarm in the clash of their wills, his sword sweeping down on her less than a second after he'd moved –

But she wasn't there anymore.

In that same moment that he struck he felt a strange twist of her aura, wrapping up around her and then pulling sharply away in a wash of energy that lashed past him, across the clearing. Hiko was too entrenched in instinct to feel surprised; instead, the instant he felt her spirit reweave itself elsewhere he was already there, overhead, bringing his sword down in a Ryutsuisen.

Although he noted – in a detached part of his mind – that going airborne had apparently lifted him from her suffocating presence, he also recorded her second wrench of shock, surmised that she hadn't seen anyone with speed such as his.

But that surprise turned to triumph, too late, far too late even for him to react any more than to accept that she had finally played her trump card – and he couldn't do anything to stop it.

It was the residual streams of her cold energy that he felt trailing after him, clinging to his limbs like ghostly shadows. One moment they drifted, awash in the tamed, unseen inferno that was his ki; the next they shot around him, whipping around his wrists with a crackle of burning ice that sent streaks of pain up his arms. His concentration shattered, taken off-guard, and he swallowed a scream, but couldn't contain the moan that forced itself through gritted teeth.

He fell like a meteor, his white mantle flapping wildly in the wind, his black hair thrashing around his shoulders, and if anyone with the ability to sense ki had been there they would have felt the violent whirl of charged flames and creeping, insidious shadow, the latter binding the former in cruel lashes of ice and darkness.

For the second time in what couldn't have been more than ten minutes Hiko hit the ground, this time hard enough that he distantly felt ribs break, felt all the air leave his lungs and felt himself gasp instinctively for more; but he was numb, too numb for the pain to properly make itself known. And that worried him.

Kuso –

"I did not expect this," he heard the woman's voice, sounding vaguely troubled and no longer a mere sensation as her ki retreated. He could sense the tremble of her silent footsteps in the grass and soil as she approached and gripped the wooden hilt of his nihontou in readiness, the sword still in his hand.

The instant he thought she was close enough Hiko surged off the ground and into a spinning crouch, his eyes finally snapping open in a flash of wrathful amber. The engraved blade sang with a blaze of blue flames as it cut the air, his mantle sweeping around his legs and hair flying, teeth bared in a silent snarl of fury.

And just as quickly as he moved, that was how quickly the pain hit. He felt – actually felt – the rough metal of manacles around his wrists, slicing cruelly into his flesh in twists of burning steel. His blow was deflected with a wrench, the slender nihontou biting into dirt as his spare hand instinctively went up to the chain he could swear he felt looping around his neck, his shoulders, contracting in an abrupt implosion of agony that brought him back to his knees.

For a moment all he could do was breathe, shuddering with each one he took, struggling to shake off the ache that still laced his muscles through the sharp stabs of his damaged ribs. His fist was still tight around Wintermoon's hilt, trembling with its force, but the chains were heavy on him, burning even through the dark cloth of his gi and his mantle. They weighed him down, smouldering against his flesh, these restraints which he could feel digging through the dark leather of his armguards but which he could not see.

"I did not expect this at all," the woman said again, quietly, contemplatively. "I knew you were strong and that is why I came for you, but this… this power… I did not expect this. No one has ever struggled so, let alone come so close to defeating me."

The pain dulled with his stillness and Hiko judged it safe to look up, cautiously slow against the weight of the links at his neck, his narrow eyes snapping amber fire at his assailant as she came into view and he finally saw her face-to-face.

But he saw almost nothing but shadow, catching only the black drape of her hair, the faint shine of moonlight on smooth, pale skin, the slender curve of her neck and the absolute, sweeping darkness of her kimono. "Who are you?" he demanded in a low, almost guttural voice, reigning in his ki with an effort against the twinges of crackling energy when it hit the chains.

"I told you: I don't have a name." She reached forward with a slim hand, her wrist wrapped in swaths of black velvet, and caressed his cheek with her fingertips. He let her, refusing to acknowledge the burn of cold that felt like it scarred his skin, his gaze dark beneath his ruffled bangs as it bored into her. "But you may call me Okami no Kage."

Mistress of Shadow. Appropriate and yet conceited.

"Why?" he asked next, his tone so cold it could have rivalled the icy burn of his phantom restraints, and both of them knew he wasn't talking about her name.

He saw the tiny curve of her lips as she smiled almost whimsically. "I'm always searching for strong mortals. Usually they go down in the first assault, though. It would have been much easier for you if you had done the same. A bit of cold, a flash of darkness, and that's it. It wouldn't have hurt nearly so much. You'd hardly have felt the chains."

An angry growl rumbled in his chest and throat, but Hiko refused to set it loose, instead glaring at her with such force that she was almost surprised her flesh wasn't flayed from her bones. Unnoticed, his fingers twitched on the hilt of his nihontou and he tamped ruthlessly down on his ki again. Not yet. He wanted to know more before he killed her.

"Perhaps it's just as well, though," she continued almost distantly. "I don't think I'd have found such a powerful mortal in the next hundred years. I needed someone like you… I just didn't believe I'd find you. This makes things so much easier."

"Why don't you just tell me what you want me to do so I can refuse you," Hiko snarled, but Okami no Kage merely smiled maliciously.

"Oh, believe me. You won't have a choice."

Ano, I am not letting that pass! "Nameru…" His voice was low and deadly, falling so deep that it was in the realms of bestial. "Ja nai!" He moved as only a master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu could, his hand twisting in a practised movement, and his blade followed in a gleam of moonlight. Douryusen!

In one sweeping movement the ground exploded in a cloud of soil and debris as a fissure streaked towards Okami, and Hiko's legs pumped before the dust had started to fall, surging forward in a rush and billow of his mantle.

The chains pulled tight and made his chest sear with ignored pain, the links drawing back on his wrists with a jerk that made his shoulders wrench – but not before his shining blade lifted in a graceful arc of silver-toned steel, flashing as it soared upwards.

He felt the tip cut into flesh, heard Okami's agonised shriek as it raked across her shadowed face, slashing her from cheek to forehead in a spray of black blood.

Then he toppled, the chains bearing him down into the ground with such strength that he couldn't breathe and knew that, if they were real, he would have been cut to ribbons and saved him the pain of the actual process he was now feeling. He gritted his teeth, refusing to make a sound against it as darkness swirled around his vision. Damn it, I don't even know what's going on. I can't believe this… I can't go out like this…

"You will never be freed," the woman hissed wrathfully from somewhere above him, not making a move to ease the chains' pressure. He caught a hazy glimpse of her pale hand pressed to her ruined eye and felt a brief pang of satisfaction. "That is why I came for you! You have no blood-kin, no relatives, no family, and without them you will never be escape. There is no one to bind you to this world, no one who would even care that you're gone!"

They say that certain death can bring some sharp insights. If Hiko had had the chance, he would have agreed with whoever 'they' were. Instead he was hit by a keen sense of understanding, as much as he could understand when he didn't even know what this woman was.

What he did understand was that she was a predator.

What he did understand was that she went after loners. Those who had no one to call them from the brink of death, no one to worry and search them out if they went missing. As a hermit, he probably seemed perfect for her.

Too bad she was wrong.

"I will drain you like all the others. You are chained. Your power can do nothing for you now."

Deshi.

"It will be mine, because you're nothing."

Deshi!

"Nothing but food. Nothing but prey. Mine."

DESHI!

And in a city many miles away, a man with fiery red hair and a cross-shaped scar on his cheek jolted awake with a pain-filled cry on his lips.


A/N: Okay, this glossary doesn't count terms from canon which I'm assuming you'll know, such as the definition of battoujutsu and whatever. Most of you probably know half of these anyway, but I know I was pretty ignorant when I started reading and these little glossaries really helped me out.

Glossary:

Ano – I've been told it means 'that', as opposed to being an 'um' or 'uh' most people seem to use it as (for which I hear the correct term is 'anou'). In this context it's something like a curse (so if the context is out, let me know)

Baka – 'stupid', 'idiot', all of those tamer insults

Deshi – 'apprentice'

Gi – a type of loose shirt

Ki – a person's life-energy or aura. I usually distinguish between 'kenki' and 'ki' by applying 'kenki' specifically to a swordsman's fighting spirit, while 'ki' is a more generalized term. Dunno if that's right or not, but whatever.

Kusai – means 'suspicious', pretty much the equivalent to the English phrase 'something smells funny about this'.

Kuso – an all-purpose swearword like 'shit'

Namera ja nai – pretty much means 'don't mess with me' or 'don't underestimate me', usually said aggressively. (grins) I thought it was a pretty good phrase for Hiko

Nihontou – from what I've been able to find out, a nihontou isn't a sword type like a katana or wakizashi, but is a term for a particularly beautiful or respected blade, often one that's been passed down generations as an heirloom. Only a blade made in Japan can be called a nihontou. I've seen Hiko's sword referred to by this classification, and once I found out the definition I just had to use it too, since I'm one of those who likes to think that the sword from 'Crescent Moon of the Warring States' is the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu heirloom.

Saya – the scabbard

Shimatta – 'damn it'

Shishou – 'master', as in master and apprentice

Wakatta – 'I know' or 'I understand'

Yare yare – all-purpose exclamation; 'oh brother', 'good grief', that kinda stuff