Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin.


Otousan's Lies

Chapter Eight: Baka Deshi's Brat

"Kenji?"

Kenji jerked in uncomfortable recognition, clenching his already closed eyes shut so tightly he wondered if they might burst under the intense pressure.

Go away.

"Kenji," the voice repeated calmly, almost pityingly, how he hated that tone, but despite his desperate efforts he couldn't keep his father's face from forcing its way in . . .

"Kenji . . . what are you doing?" Kenshin asked quietly with a pensive half-smile, outstretching a hand as if in invitation.

Go away!

"Okaasan and I love you very much, Kenji, and we'd never want anything bad to happen to you . . . please always remember that."

GO A—

"Please come home."

. . . way, he finished weakly with a choked gasp, his eyes still burning, though for a different reason.

"He'll come back, won't he?" he heard his mother ask fearfully, fearfully . . . he'd never heard her speak that way, ever.

"Kenji?"

No, Okaasan. I won't.

The voices started fading as if in disappointment; their rueful calls were replaced by the nearby cry of a crow and what fear had told Kenji were fingers on his face he realized to be no more than wet blades of grass.

. . .grass?

When Kenji's eyes finally slid slowly open he was surprised to see Shinya there, hovering over him with a curious stare, and framed by trees, no less.

"Were you just . . . were you just having a nightmare?" the boy asked, and although he was trying to sound teasing Kenji recognized genuine alarm behind the question. He dismissed the concern perhaps prematurely by rolling his eyes and bumping Shinya to the side with his leg, giving himself a view of the overgrown mountain path he was sprawled next to. That's right . . . he'd forgotten they were on the little quest ookami-musume had so graciously left them—and he hadn't expected to fall asleep on their short break. These first few days in Kyoto had taken more of a toll on him than he'd thought.

"Let's get going, Shinya."

He irritably pushed the grass sticking to his left cheek out of the way before rising to his feet and handing Shinya their crude map.

"Finally, I was getting bored!" the boy said before jogging ahead with the directions. Kenji followed lazily, he couldn't say he shared his young partner's enthusiasm.

Everyone he'd met since getting here had lied to him, he was probably a fool for even wishing that this might lead to something. But despite that, here he was, hunting down some hermit potter, just because rumors said he may have been an elite swordsman in the revolution. Frankly, if he wasn't Battousai, Kenji wasn't interested.

"Hey Kenji?"

"Yeah, Shinya?"

"What are we doing here, anyway?"

"Asuka said this guy might know something about Battousai."

"So that was Asuka? Are you working with her now?"

"No, I just figured we might as well check it out. Besides, we're not exactly safe in the city anymore, with Misao after us. But don't worry, I won't let anything happen to—"

Shinya shoved the hand Kenji had been rubbing his head with away. "I'm not four, you know."

"Maa, maa, sorry Shinya-chan, I forgot you're sooo grown—OW! Why did you stop?"

"We're here," Shinya said simply, though there was a satisfied smile on his face.

Reluctantly deciding not to retaliate, Kenji turned his eyes up in slow expectation and saw the hut they'd just come to . . . an old hut, nothing more. He felt the hope he'd been trying to bury anyway rapidly deflate. Shouldn't a swordsman as famous as this guy supposedly was live somewhere a little more, oh . . . imposing?

Kenji was about to abandon the mission at that moment, until the creaky door swung open and a grumbling man stepped out. Kenji's first impression was that he was huge, he noticed Shinya gulp next to him, and his second was that the man was old, too old to be threatening . . . although that should have been expected, if the rumors were true. Gray streaked his long dark hair and his shoulders were covered with a ridiculous looking white mantle of some kind which only partially concealed the bottle of sake in his hand.

"Um, hello," Shinya started when Kenji just stared in disappointment, "are you Niitsu-san?"

"You don't need to be so polite, Shinya," Kenji whispered bitterly, "it's just an old drunk guy."

But the old drunk's hearing was better than Kenji had anticipated.

"And you, you annoying miscreant, just what do you want?" His eyes swivelled to Kenji's head and an expression somewhere between a smirk and a grimace crossed his face. Hiko swore quietly under his breath. "Oh, baka deshi, not your brat too."

Kenji glanced at Shinya, who was staring back up at him in confusion and shrugged. "Maybe he's crazy . . ."

Both jumped as the man spoke again in a scolding voice. "You're the crazy ones here, if you actually thought you were going to get away with this."

Kenji quirked an eyebrow.

"You're here to learn the Hiten Mitsurugi, right?" he explained with exasperation.

"The what?" Kenji taunted with an arrogant smile, as if the thought of learning anything from the alcoholic was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard. "Actually, we're looking for Battousai."

Hiko lowered the cup from his lips. "Battousai?" he asked slowly. "What's wrong with you boy, don't you realize—"

And like Saitou he paused in sickened surprise. So that cowardly and foolish pupil of his had hidden the truth, had he? Did he really think his son would never figure it out?

"Realize what?" Kenji asked as the potter's question faded into contemplative silence. "You know something about him, don't you!"

"Niitsu-san?"

"Answer me!"

"Kenji, I don't think he's—"

"TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!"

"You pathetic little ingrate!"

Kenji blinked stiffly at Hiko's outburst. "Wh—What?"

"You ran away from home, didn't you? Your father never would have brought you all the way here if—"

"Hey!" Kenji cried, feeling his face heat with uneasy shame. "That's none of your business, now do you know what happened to Battousai or not?"

"Yes, I do."

"What, then?"

Hiko took a long swig of sake before looking up at Kenji with an almost melancholy gaze. Kenji thought he could nearly see the truth in that look, until he calmly and evasively said, "tell me, did your parents ever let you use a sword?"

A vein in Kenji's head was beginning to throb.

"A bokken," he spat through gritted teeth, "but what does that have to do with—hey, get back here!"

The potter was retreating back into his hut, but before Kenji could follow and angrily kick his door down he had returned, a sheathed sword in each hand. "Show me," he murmured, and tossed one to the redhead.

The first thing Kenji noted as he caught the sword was that it was heavy. Okaasan's bokkens certainly didn't feel like this. Shinya backed up instinctively as he grasped the hilt and pulled, and Kenji smiled hungrily as the emerging blade caught the sunlight. Bokkens didn't do that, either. This thing was realsharp, deadly, and real. So the old man wanted a fight, did he? Well he'd give him one; he'd show him what happened when you messed with Himura Kenji.

"Ready, old man?"

Hiko just stood there, unsmiling.

"Aren't you going to draw your sword?"

"I don't need to."

"Fine," Kenji muttered, faking calm acceptance of the other man's confidence while internally boiling (it reminded him of Fujita), "your loss." And he attacked.

Hiko held back as Kenji began the battle, settling for blocking attack after attack to ascertain the boy's skill.

Kamiya Kasshin, eh?

"Draw your sword!" Kenji yelled after being repelled by just a sheath for about the tenth time.

Hiko yawned.

Kenji skidded to a halt a few feet away and hesitated, his chest already heaving. The old man was better than he'd thought, he was just toying with him—but that was to be expected when he was facing just 'the sword to protect.' It was time to unveil his true potential, it was time for that. He'd never actually tried it in battle, but an opportunity like this might not come again . . .

As he made his decision Kenji crouched and smiled fiendishly, slipping his katana back into its sheath; his opponent's eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

Battou Jutsu?

"Fine," said Kenji, "we'll do it the hard way."

And suddenly Hiko moved; Kenji had finally driven him to attack. Kenji's eyes tried to follow him and succeeded for the first few seconds, until he was . . . gone?

Move!

"KENJI!"

Before Kenji's sword was an inch out of its sheath he was face down on the ground, choking on dirt as his lungs gasped desperately for a decent breath. He hadn't even seen him . . . how had he struck with that much speed and precision without being seen? Kenji's entire body was trembling feebly in defeat, a searing pain exploded within him, unmatched by anything he'd ever felt before . . . his head, arms, shoulders, waist, chest—he'd hit all of them simultaneously, effortlessly, and driven Kenji to the ground without even drawing his katana. It was almost inhuman.

A bright blue eye lurched upward to absorb the image of the intimidating man now hovering over it, the man who could have murdered him just seconds before had he actually tried.

"Where did you learn that technique?" his deep voice demanded.

But Kenji was still gagging on dusty air. Hiko squatted in front of him and pulled him into a sitting position by his shoulders, letting Kenji's head loll weakly forward.

"It wasn't the same as the style you started with—where did you learn it!"

"I've heard the stories," Kenji responded quietly, hoarsely, staring with half-open eyes at the ground, "of . . . of Battousai."

Heard them? But that stance was perfect.

"There, I played your little game," Kenji continued faintly, pushing Hiko's hands away. "Now where's Battousai."

Hiko chuckled to himself, standing and backing off. "You're really that determined to find him? Why?"

"To gain his strength," Kenji said as he denied Shinya's help and pushed himself to his feet, finally glaring at the man in front of him.

"But I taught him everything he knows."

"Yeah . . . yeah right. You're just a crazy old man."

"I beat you."

"You were lucky."

The old swordsman smiled, a similar scene three decades old replaying itself in his head. Such pride . . .

"Very well then. Ask your father."

"My father?" Shinya couldn't tell if Kenji's tone was disgusted or disbelieving.

"About Battousai. He can give you the answers you seek."

Kenji's voice had regained and surpassed its normal volume when he replied.

"What's wrong with you, you old lunatic! You don't know my father!"

"Your father is Himura Kenshin, your mother, I suspect, Kamiya Kaoru." Kenji's stunned silence affirmed his suspicion. "And I never even got a wedding invitation."

The pain in Kenji's head was intensifying, though not because of the attack. How . . . how could an isolated hermit potter hiding in the mountains of Kyoto possibly know his parents?"

"But . . . but what would my father know about Battousai? He doesn't even fight—"

"Baka, they really have fooled you, haven't they?"

Kenji groaned. "What are you talking about?"

"Just ask your father . . . though I'd prepare to be disappointed."

"Why?"

"The Hitokiri Battousai you seek is long gone, Himura."

Kenji scowled and took a deep breath which was supposed to be calming, but failed. "You crazy old man!" he blurted. "How could you know anything, you're not a real swordsman, you've just been hiding away in your pathetic little hut for years and pretending you—AREN'T YOU LISTENING!"

Hiko was taking a quiet sip of sake, and at the end of Kenji's furious tirade calmly turned to Shinya with a smile. "Is he always this difficult to deal with?"

Kenji's resultant scream reminded his two companions of a violently dying animal.

"We're leaving," Kenji fumed, grabbing Shinya's wrist and dragging him in the opposite direction.

"If your father won't answer," the potter called after them, "tell him Hiko sent you."

Kenji halted, his head twisting jerkily back around.

"Hiko? You're Hiko?"

But the self-proclaimed 13th master of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu was wandering back inside, and only answered with a casual wave.

"Good luck boys."

And the door slammed shut.


A few hundred miles east a young woman was climbing tiredly off a train onto a crowded platform, smiling to herself as she adjusted her gi and smoothed her dark hair. This was it, the day she'd been awaiting for eight years.

"Welcome to Tokyo, Asuka."


Next Chapter: Hunting the Hitokiri