A/N – Here it is, everyone, what you've all been waiting for since their explosive first meeting: Kaoru and Ken meet again. Sano plays matchmaker, or at least facilitates the meeting.

The official English-language Kendo magazine is "Kendo World". There are probably others in Japanese, but as I have no personal knowledge and my computer translates kanji and hiragana into strange symbols, I'm twisting "Kendo World" to my own purposes.

Disclaimer – I don't own Ruroken. More's the pity.


Chapter 7


While Saito and Shinomori had their he-man alpha male challenge, thinly disguised as a discussion about the case, Kaoru received a call from Kyoto. It was Masamune, the police artist who had worked with her in creating a picture of the hitokiri's face. They were running the resulting picture through the official police and government database, searching for a match – although Saito had been skeptical of the chances of it producing any real results.

Any assassin who'd remained at large and anonymous for fifteen years, he'd said, was not likely to have his face in any official files. Still, Kaoru thought it was worth a try; perhaps he had a driver's license, or a passport – who knew? It was always the small things that tripped up even the most brilliant criminals.

"Kamiya-san," Masamune said over the phone, his voice excited. "I've found something."


It was late when she arrived in Kyoto. The police station was almost deserted for the night, the corridors long and lonely, her footfalls loud in the eerie silence. She could not help but remember the night of Iizuka's death, the bustling activity of radios and purposeful orders, and the terrible contrast of the hitokiri's silence. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of ragged yellow police tape, left over from the investigation of the assassination – the carnage created by one trained man with a sword and a purpose.

Disturbed, she picked up her pace, hurrying towards Masamune's artistic lab. He was waiting for her at the door, almost bouncing up and down with excitement. "Remember when you asked me to check local dojos and training halls, to see where our hitokiri learned to use his sword?"

"Did you find a dojo, Masamune-san?"

"Even better." The shaggy, uncool artist had been delighted at the chance to handle some investigative work. Bringing a notorious assassin's face to life had been the culmination of long-held desires, but to have a hand in his capture – well, that was the chance of a lifetime. "I found a match." He grinned proudly and handed her their picture of Battousai, and an old, old copy of Kendo World, opened to an article.

It was dated nearly sixteen years ago, the headline in bold kanji proclaiming the Kyoto Metropolitan Kendo Championships. There were thumbnail headshots of all the champions, and just above the caption 'Young Master' was a grainy, black and white picture of a young boy, perhaps 13 years old.

The picture they had created of hitokiri Battousai was of a handsome, deceptively young man, pale-skinned, unmistakably Japanese but with strange, ancient golden-brown eyes. His hair was long and black, and there was an old, faded knife scar on his left cheek. The boy in the newspaper was much younger, his face open and smiling, but it was unmistakably the hitokiri, as he had once been.

"Himura Kenshin," she read slowly from the article. "Of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, trained by Master Hiko Seijuuro. –Did you get an address for this…'Hiten Mitsurugi' dojo?"

"No." Masamune shook his head. "There's no official dojo. I looked into it – old Hiko-san used to be a master swordsman, but he descended into the bottle and walked away from the circuit. No one in the kendo community had heard of him for years, until these Championships, where his student blew them all away – and then afterwards…"

"And then afterwards his student became hitokiri Battousai," Kaoru finished. "The timing is right – but how young he must have been!"

"That's the best age for the yakuza," Masamune said soberly, reminding Kaoru that he was, underneath all the eagerness, a cop. "Young kids like that are eager to believe, but not smart enough to know what they're getting into."


Himura Kenshin wasn't sure that he knew what he was getting into this time, either. At the moment, he was seated in a stolen car outside the police station – a sure sign of madness – because Sano had refused to let him come any closer.

"It's too dangerous," he'd snapped, "and besides, you shouldn't even be out of bed."

Kenshin had seriously contemplated disobedience, but resigned himself to the inevitable when he saw the militant light in Sano's eyes. The rough, foul-tongued gangster had turned into an over-protective mother hen, and Kenshin knew that he was only looking for an excuse to restrain him forcefully to his sickbed.

There were times when Kenshin cursed the mutual cares and obligations of friendship. Only Sano would think he had the right to treat the great hitokiri so casually, bullying him into resting or eating – no one else would dare. But because he knew that no one else would dare, Kenshin put up with it; there were times when he'd been almost pathetically grateful for Sano's rough aid.


Sano had a great many misgivings about this plan, and he'd expressed them to Kenshin, many times over. However, the great hitokiri – Sano's own words, not Kenshin's – had remained adamant, threatening to approach the girl himself if Sano would not go with him. That was the only reason why Sagara Sanosuke, small-time crook, was breaking into the police station; it was madness, but it was what Kenshin wanted, and Kenshin was his friend. The stubborn fool wasn't used to anyone looking after him, rather than the other way around. At least Katsu had reassured him Saito was still in Tokyo.

There was a light on in an office on the third floor, and Sano snuck silently from the stairwell down towards the open door, trying to blend into the shadows as Kenshin did. He could hear, in the silence, keyboards clacking and the hum of two excited voices –

"…distribute this picture to every local station in Kyoto; he can't have gotten far…"

"…canvass the streets; must be someone who remembers him…"

"…find this Hiko Seijuuro. Impossible to hide such a…"

Sano was suddenly glad that he'd come when he did, because it sounded like the net was closing in around them. This Kamiya girl was smart, and she was determined to find Kenshin; Sano hoped it wasn't because Kenshin had frightened the life out of her at their first meeting.

Kenshin took some people that way. His first impressions tended to be final...


Masamune left her alone in the office, and Kaoru allowed herself to slump down, putting her head in her hands and trying to clear her mind. She hadn't slept since the notice of Okubo's death had arrived, had been on her feet and chasing after the elusive Battousai for nearly a full day. She thought she'd put in a further hour or two here, and then find some kind of horizontal surface to collapse onto and catch a few hours sleep.

Then she heard the footstep, and every nerve in her body jerked her awake.

Her mind flashed back to the hitokiri's fluid grace, to his perfect, disciplined control. Her heart thundering desperately, she looked around frantically for a weapon, finding only a long wooden pole with a hook on the end, a relic of the long-gone days of high, glass louvred windows. Kaoru had done a little work with quarterstaffs and naginata; she grabbed the pole, slid her hands along it until she found the balance, and then stood flat against the wall near the open door, her palms sweating, her whole body trembling.


Sano waited until the nerdy cop left, leaving the woman alone in the office. Slowly, he crept up to the doorway, listening; it had suddenly become very, very quiet. She knew he was outside. Well, that made things a little more difficult – but how much trouble could one woman cause him?

Unfortunately, Sano had no notion that the woman he had been sent to fetch had any experience in self-defense, or that she was fully trained in her father's sword style of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. If he had known, he might have handled the abduction better.


The soft footsteps drew closer, and she could hear hoarse breathing and the soft, sibilant sound of rustling clothes. Briefly, it crossed her mind that the hitokiri was a lot louder now, than he had been last time – but perhaps he was less cautious now, in a deserted building, facing only a woman?

She would make him pay for that overconfidence.

It was a waiting game, now, and Kaoru was determined to come out the victor. She breathed in deeply through her mouth, holding the breath for three long heartbeats, and exhaled deeply, forcing her heart to slow, forcing her mind to calm. She clenched her hands on her makeshift weapon, shifting her muscles, and waited for the attacker to come within range.


He charged in through the door, his fists clenched and deliberately scowling, trying to look as fierce as possible. He only just managed to avoid a cracked head, ducking out of the way of the flying window opener. Cursing, he tried to grab it and jerk it out of her hands – she moved it, whirling, and cracked him on the shins, the wrist, and the side of the head in short order.

He growled, low, under his breath. She faced him, the ridiculous pole braced in perfect position, her expression intent and determined. And then, her eyes opened very wide –

"Sagara!" she said in amazement. Then: "You're not Battousai!"

"Well, of course I'm not –" he sputtered, but she recovered before he did, swinging her pole fiercely and whacking him solidly in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.

"Oof!"

Then, the whirling pole flashed back and around, hooking his feet out from under him. He fell to his knees, and this time he knew he was in trouble – she lifted her arms high above her head, like an executioner, and brought the pole down with all her strength on the back of his head.

He went out like a light.


Kenshin swore as he pulled himself painfully up the steps to the station's side door. It had taken him five minutes to get the car door open, until he finally realised that Sano had child-locked the car against unauthorized exits. Cursing all stubborn, overprotective fools, he'd disengaged the locks, slammed the door pettishly behind him and limped across the road to the station. He'd seen fighting in the bright windows above him, and he wasn't quite sure whether he went to rescue Sano or the girl – but he knew that he had to see for himself.

Sano had gone in through the security door, and Kenshin saw no reason not to follow him. He still remembered the layout of the building from Iizuka's assassination, and so slipped silently – if very slowly – towards the main foyer on the ground floor.

The struggle would be over by now, whichever way it had gone, and whoever won would sooner or later come down to the ground floor. He was certainly in no shape to climb the stairs himself, and he refused to take the elevator. Once, he'd almost died in a lift: there was only one way out, and security guards were always, always on the other side of the door. There had been nine of them, on that night. It was not a good memory.

While he lurked in the shadows, reliving blood-soaked memories, the elevator chime sounded. He looked up at the row of lights, saw that it was coming down from the third floor. As he watched, breathing deeply and gathering his strength, the numbers changed: three to two, two to one, and one to G.

There was another chime, and the doors opened.


Kaoru knew she'd made a mistake as soon as the doors opened.

The attacker wasn't alone.

Why hadn't she thought of that? In the rush of furious adrenaline as she brought a grown man down with a wooden pole, in the sense of shock as she realized that he wasn't Battousai, and in the almost hysterical aftermath, when she kicked him vindictively in the ribs before tying him up and handcuffing him, she hadn't stopped to think that there might be two.

She stepped out of the elevator, leaving Sagara tied up and still in the elevator, gripping her stick with much more assurance. It was dark, after the brightly lit lift, and her eyes were night-blinded –

"Who's there?" she called out, challenging whomever it was to come forward. "Come out so I can see you. What do you want?"

There was no answer. She took a further step into the dark, searching desperately –

And then she saw him.

Leaning against the wall, a creature of shadow and darkness, was the hitokiri. His eyes, that curious amber-brown, caught the light and glowed hellishly; she caught her breath on an instinctive thrill of fear. He pushed off the wall, striding towards her, but there was something terribly wrong. The smooth, lethal grace she remembered had been destroyed; now he moved in halting, forced steps, his right arm hanging awkward and immobile beside him.

"What happened to you?" she breathed, shocked.

He stopped – deliberately, she thought – in a pool of moonlight and looked at her with a curious expression on his face. "You shot me."


A/N – Mwahaha, that seemed a good place to end the chapter. Please tell me what you think. Feedback is always warmly appreciated.