Hn. Wonderful. Now the Battousai (no, he was Himura Kenshin now, wasn't he?) probably thought he was secretly friends with the ahou. Or in love with him. He didn't even pause before rejecting that out of hand. Battousai was definitely not innocent to things between men, not being a soldier himself (a soldier with no regiment, and no general but the heads of the revolution, true, but still a soldier) but … no.
Some things were too horrible to contemplate, even for him. Too horrible or too ridiculous.
The ahou couldn't even walk properly without help – all he had done was made sure that the only help the unlikely pair (for who had ever heard of a rooster befriending the barnyard cat?) wouldn't need any help. He hadn't even done anything. Either tonight was an exceptionally quiet night, or the rooster had built up such a reputation that it held firm even when he was obviously drunk off his ass. Or his friends had.
Probably the later, mused Saitou as he lit another cigarette.
He really should quit that, someday. Terrible things could come from it, he'd heard. One day, he would.
Just not today.
He'd just gotten a new pack today.
He wondered if either the ahou or his long-haired kitten-friend had even known they were being followed. Surely not – well, he corrected as he remembered the incongruous steadiness of the artist's steps when compared to the amount of sake he had supposedly consumed, probably, most likely not. The ahou, certainly, had barely been aware of his own shadow following him.
What about Shinomiri, then? Likely, if Himura had noticed – a hitokiri had no reason to be anything beyond exceptionally good at reading the shadows, but a ninja, especially the Okashira of the Oniwabanshuu, had to be the shadows. No, Shinomiri had seen him. There was no way he would have stayed alive as long as he had if he hadn't been able to see Saitou Hajime when he wasn't even making more than a token (for him) attempt to remain hidden. He had drawn no notice to his knowledge, but, then again, Shinomiri was not a man to draw notice to anything if there was no need to.
A good kind of man.
Saitou took another draw from his cigarette, completely aware and yet uncaring of the city around him, as he ambled slowly down the abandoned street. It was a quiet time in Kyoto – the inhabitants of the day had just gone to sleep, the inhabitants of the night were not yet awake. Probably another factor in why neither the ahou nor his friend had been ambushed.
For no reason at all, Saitou suddenly imagined what the look on the ahou's face would be if he was informed that someone had been trailing hi when he was dead drunk in near-equal parts sake and nostalgia. Then, later, when told exactly who had been trailing him.
In the shadows, he smirked, and kept walking.
***************
Here it is.
…
Oh dear God, you have no idea how much fun I'm going to be having with the next few chapters or so.
*snicker*
