Rurouni Kenshin doesn't belong to me.

Thanks for reading my other story. Here's another one-shot based on the live action movie. Enjoy.

The Right Person

The Battousai looked in surprise as the young woman Megumi was taken to the balcony to be shown to Himura and his companion who were fighting the large, hungry army that Kagawa kept around him for protection.

He doubted that that army, though quite large, could keep Himura occupied for long. It was only a matter of time before he entered the house. Kagawa's actions also showed that he had the same thought for he asked that one of his men keep watch over Megumi while he went to the study where he was keeping his new toy.

The big gun which was a coward's way of fighting.

The men scattered, no doubt realizing the very real danger that they were in now, and the Battousai had a brilliant idea, one that he should have thought of before. Quickly he grabbed Megumi out of the arms of the man holding her and took her to another room. She wasn't the right woman but she would do until he got the other one.

If Kenshin Himura had been willing to risk being killed for Megumi, an opium dealer, how much more would he be willing to do to save the other one…Kaoru Kamiya?

The Battousai remembered the last he'd seen Kaoru. She had tried to fight him armed only with a wooden sword. One had to admire her audacity. She was determined to restore the good name of her family dojo and she had faced him, a trained and ruthless killer who could have slain her with just one look, with a pathetic stick.

He had been about to finish her off and it wouldn't have taken anything from him, her blood barely enough to satisfy him, when something interesting had happened.

His would-be kill had been interrupted by Kenshin Himura. At that point the Battousai had obviously had no clue who the young man who'd come out of nowhere really was; but he'd quickly noticed that there was something special about him.

Kenshin Himura, the original hitokiro Battousai, now turned wanderer, the one man the Battousai wanted to fight.

The Battousai smiled to himself. He was glad he hadn't killed Kaoru that day, for now she would bring the wanderer to him. He tied Megumi up and gave her a message for the wanderer.

….

….

The Battousai wasn't disappointed to see Kenshin arrive to rescue the young woman. He was pleased to see that his assessment of whatever it was between them hadn't been wrong. The young woman Kaoru Kamiya certainly meant a lot to the wanderer. He was going to have so much fun seeing Kenshin Himura turn from the useless wanderer into the manslayer that he really was.

…

…

He had done it, the Battousai thought to himself, at last they were going to have a perfect fight, two Battousai pitted against each other. He almost wished that he hadn't had to kill the young woman to get to this, that she had been alive to see the man in whom she had such high hopes reveal his true nature… that she would realize that he was nothing more than a coldblooded killer.

"Kenshin…no…," he heard her say in disbelief. It couldn't be. She surely hadn't managed to break his hold on her. And yet somehow …beyond all explanation and reason…she had. Kaoru Kamiya was still alive and she was begging with gasping breath. Begging Kenshin not to become the monster again, to stop and remain the man he was now.

The Battousai thought of killing Kenshin at that point, surely he would be able to get a fatal blow in, but it wouldn't be the honourable thing to do and besides he did really want to live knowing that his life had been saved because of some inconsequential young woman?

As he plunged the sword into his body he saw the way the wanderer was looking at the young woman, the woman who had somehow saved both their lives.

Maybe he'd been wrong after all, but then again he was only human, he had to be wrong some time.

Maybe Kenshin Himura had really changed. Maybe he really had given up the sword after all.

It really was ridiculous and he couldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes but somehow Kaoru Kamiya had saved Kenshin Himura's life.

000

What do you think?