A/N – Only a short chapter this time, but then the previous three were longer than my norm. You could call this a small interlude, after the huge cliffhanger last chapter.

Disclaimer – I don't own Ruroken. Don't sue.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was safe, here, in the warm darkness. Kenshin strained weakly, reaching out –

Live, Shinta.

"Katsura-san."

Katsura turned to Katagai, one eyebrow raised.

"Wakamura called, from Kyoto. Himura has disappeared." Katagai's voice was cool and neutral, as always, no sign of his thoughts showing.

"Why?" Himura usually had excellent reasons for his actions; disappearance did not automatically equate to treachery. After Tokugawa Iemon's death – after the ill-fated birthday party – he had disappeared for nearly two weeks.

"Wakamura doesn't know. He completed the job – killed six policemen besides – but he didn't come back to the compound. Our informers in the police say that he was shot."

Katsura's heart skipped a beat. For fifteen years, Himura had stayed, calm and steady, at his back – the success of his long-term plans relied on it.

"Not seriously, I should hope."

"No, I don't think so. The police would have been shouting it to the skies."

"Hmmm…" He breathed out slowly, composing himself. "Six policemen."

"Yes. But he let Saito live."

Katsura huffed a small, rueful laugh.

Shattered glass.

Splatters and pools of blood.

Harsh, flashing red and blue lights –

Everywhere she looked, the memory of last night's terrible violence remained. Kaoru's hands shook. She could still hear the thundering roar, feel the brutal recoil as she'd pulled the trigger –

"Kamiya." Saito, a bandage tied rakishly around his head, put a hand on her shoulder. "No one expected you to kill him."

"H-he looked right at me," she said, her voice quavering. "His eyes were so cold…"

The wolf's eyes were flat and cynical. "So. Now you know."

Sano got off the train in Kyoto, hitching his duffel bag higher up on his back. He was almost a day behind Kenshin; he had no idea where he was, but Sano was streetwise enough to know how to find him. When Katsura said that he'd sent him to Kyoto on 'business', it could mean only one thing – an assassination.

And the aftermath and fallout of Battousai's assassinations reverberated through the underworld for days.

Cocky, confident in his own strength, Sano swaggered into a bar frequented by rough, tough bikers. The conversation level dropped as he entered, and the patrons looked up to see who had come in – dismissing him, they turned back to their drinks and their conversations. Once, he had craved the kind of paralysing silence Kenshin caused every time he entered a room, but over the years, he'd found it was much better this way.

The bartender, a hard-faced, greying old man dressed in battered leather and old, unwashed jeans gave him a hard look as he approached, his hand dipping below the bar. "If you've come to bust up my place again, Sagara," he growled, his accent thick and rough, "just remember that times are changing in Kyoto."

Yes, this was only one of the many indications that something very big was in the wind.

"I don't need anyone to fight my battles for me, asshole," he said, slapping his hands on the bar and leaning over it. "Don't pull that baseball bat out, or I'll fucking make you eat it. I just want some info."

The old man sneered, lifting his hand slowly and ostentatiously to shoulder height – but without the aluminium baseball bat he kept below the bar. "What do you want?"

Sano sank down onto a stool. "Where is he?"

The bartender hawked and spat contemptuously on the floor. "Your assassin friend? Haven't you seen the papers today?"

"What the hell does that mean?" Sano demanded hotly, a sick feeling in his stomach.

The old man grinned, displaying rotten, jagged teeth. "The silent, discreet assassin, the faceless, anonymous killer hitokiri Battousai – do you know what he did? Last night, he attacked the Kyoto Central police station."

"What?"

Clenching his fists, Sano ground his teeth together and fought down the urge to smash the old bastard's head into the wall.

"He slaughtered six policemen to silence one petty informer. One of them managed to shoot him. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone set him up –"

"Bullshit. The old man himself sent him."

The bartender only shrugged. "There you go."

Sano reached over and grabbed the man by the collar, twisting it tightly, half-dragging him over the bar. "Shut your mouth! Katsura would never –"

A hard, heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder. He turned to find a huge, muscular man glaring down at him, flexing his muscles threateningly. Sano let the bartender drop, grinned rakishly, and swung –

Two fun-filled minutes later, Sano stood alone with seven or eight groaning, swearing tough men on the floor at his feet. Cracking his knuckles and stretching a few sore muscles, he turned back to the bar.

"Now," he said pleasantly. "What were you saying?"

It was ten in the morning, when persistent, thunderous hammering on the shutters woke him from his drunken stupor. Hiko Seijiuro, 13th Master of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu – for what it was worth – forced himself to his feet, rising to his full six feet before stumbling to the door and jerking it open.

"Who the hell are you?" he growled, attempting his most terrifying glare.

The stranger at his door took a step back. "K'so! You're Kenshin's teacher?"

Hiko slammed the door in his face.

"Oi!" The pounding resumed, along with some very creative swearing and abuse. Incensed with this early morning irritation, Hiko once more stumped to the door and jerked it open.

"What!"

"Where is he?" The stranger looked tired, stressed, and irritated. "I want to talk to Kenshin. Tell him it's Sano."

Hiko glared at him. "I don't know anyone with that name. And even if I did, he ought to know better than to show his face here again." He made to slam the door, but the stranger shoved his foot in the way.

"He killed six cops last night."

"The more fool he, then. Now, be gone –" He hooked his foot around the stranger's ankle, tugged –

The stranger slammed his palm against the door. "They say he's been shot. No one can find him."

There was a long moment of silence. Hiko stared at the young, stubborn stranger, who glared back at him with reckless, hotheaded determination.

"Tell me."

They went inside, the stranger staring in unabashed curiosity at the scarred, battered walls, the old, grey tatami, and the profusion of empty sake bottles and pottery vessels arranged haphazardly on the shelves. As they sat down, the stranger talked, beginning with the story of a massacre at a nightclub, and ending with his rough and ready interrogation of a man who could tell him nothing.

"He did say, however, that Kenshin's master lived in this dojo. So I thought…" the young stranger trailed off, shrugging.

Hiko scowled, remembering the last time his baka deshi had returned to him, and how he'd turned him away, threatening to kill him if he ever came back. The sight of his mutilated finger had shaken him, that unmistakable sign of allegiance and absolute loyalty…

"You said something about his being shot."

The stranger's mouth tightened. "The newspapers are saying that some of the police officers got a shot off at him, that he was limping heavily and leaving a trail of blood behind him as he escaped. But when they followed it, it stopped in the middle of nowhere."

"Hnn." Not even Kenshin would be fool enough to leave a recognisable blood trail behind him. But it sounded as if the idiot had injured himself, and had gone to ground – in the one place where no one who did not know him would ever think to look.

"Gion," he said finally.

"Gion?"

Hiko snorted. "What? Is it so unbelievable?"

The proprietoress of the Plum Blossom teahouse greeted the huge old man warmly. "Hiko-san!" she breathed, almost relieved. "We thought you would not come."

Sano snorted. The old bastard wouldn't have known about Kenshin if he hadn't told him.

"We found him, collapsed by the back door at about four o'clock this morning. He's been badly injured, but we daren't call the doctor…"

She turned and led the way into the elegant, traditionally furnished building. "They say he's been shot," Hiko said.

"He has. It went through his upper chest; we took it out and bandaged it."

They followed her through the corridor towards the back of the house, where she slid aside a shoji screen to reveal a dark, quiet room, where a small, pale form sprawled bonelessly on the futon.

"Kenshin!" Sano exclaimed, rushing forward into the room. But the redhead did not wake.

Once, he had been a ragged, dirty street rat, homeless and starving, running errands, peddling secrets and intrigues, begging in the back streets of Gion. The bright ladies, gorgeous and exotic butterflies, had fluttered over him indulgently, petting and spoiling him when it suited them; three girls, in particular, had looked out for him –

Kasumi-neechan, Akane-neechan, Sakura-neechan. I'm so sorry. I tried to protect you; I just wasn't strong enough…

Once, he had crouched at the feet of a master swordsman. Everyone knew old Hiko-san, who had once been the master of one of the oldest, most dangerous techniques in Japan. But he'd given up on changing the world, and had settled in Gion, taking small commissions and drinking himself to death.

With a name like Shinta, it's no wonder the older boys gang up on you. You're too small, too gentle, and too pretty – you need to learn how to protect yourself, before you can protect others.

Once, he had dreamed of order, and discipline; of a Kyoto governed by one strong, just organisation, and not weak, competing, splintered ones, driven to ever-increasing cruelty to maintain their power. He had fought, and killed, to ensure that the Ishin Shishi succeeded against all the others who had risen against the Tokugawa –

Will you kill for me, Himura? Will you kill for order, and justice, and the memory of your three geisha friends?

Time and experience had taught him that the world could never be so beautifully simple. But it was still a worthy dream, still worth fighting for –

Still worth killing for.

"Kenshin!"

Someone was shaking him back and forth.

"Kenshin! Wake up!"

The shaking became more insistent, jarring his wounded arm, sending streaks of pain through his body.

"Baka deshi. Open your eyes."

Shishou?

The habit of obedience pounded into him over years of training, Kenshin opened his eyes.

"Ne, Shishio-san, our spies in Kyoto tell us that Battousai has been shot. Iizuka thought that the police would hide him, but Battousai followed him into the central police station itself…"

The dark, handsome, charismatic man chuckled evilly to himself, savouring the pleasure of the moment. Battousai's zeal and loyalty had trapped him, in the end – now every policeman in the country would be on his trail, and his usefulness to Katsura had just come to an abrupt end. He had not thought the old man such a fool –

"Soujiro," he said, smiling, "it is time to put our plans into motion."

Without his demon hitokiri at his back, Katsura was nothing more than a weak, powerless old man.

"You know what to do."

The young boy, superhumanly swift and superbly skilled, with no conscience and no morals to get in the way of his loyalty, smiled emptily and bowed his head. Shishio felt a thrill of power run through him as he watched the traditional obeisance – it was exactly as Battousai bowed to Katsura, when accepting an order of assassination. He imagined himself in the old man's position, dispensing mercy and terror with both, impartial hands, his human sword always available, always willing to kill at his command.

"Soon," he said, reassuring himself, telling himself to wait, only wait, until the time was right. "Soon, it will all fall into place, and the Ishin Shishi will be mine for the taking."