Chapter 9
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin, but Midori was my idea.
Zetsumei Kurohyou is baffled.
Silently she watches as the little inn girl exits the room, leaving the plate of…whatever it is sitting close to the killer. She stares for a long moment at the shoji after the girl closes it, and then turns her curious gaze to the dish before her. A frown is pulling at the corners of her mouth.
She has no idea what kind of food she has just been offered.
Curiosity piqued, Zetsumei Kurohyou loops a finger through the handle on the jug of sake next to her elbow, carefully scoops up dish of mystery food, and leaves the room as silently as she had entered it an hour earlier.
The headquarters is crowded, members of other factions of the Ishin Shishi gathering for some important meeting between the clan leaders. They stop whatever they are doing and stare at the female assassin as she passes, still carrying the dish of food and the sake with her katana strapped across her back. She ignores them, and none of them are brave enough to question her as to what she is doing.
She finds her former partner sitting in the courtyard, alone as he always seems to be. Even now that he is no longer a hitokiri, Himura remains isolated from the other men. Zetsumei Kurohyou thinks that they are afraid of him, as they are afraid of her, and curses them all as cowards.
Himura eyes her quizzically as she sits beside him on the edge of the porch, taking the dish of food she holds out as an offering.
"What is this?" She asks the question even as she makes herself comfortable and sets the sake jug between them, so that Himura may drink of it if he wishes.
Himura is still looking at her as though expecting her to tell him that her question was merely a joke. When she says nothing more, he probes one of the lumps in the dish with a finger.
"It is ohagi," he tells her, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. It explains nothing to her.
"What is ohagi?" The word sticks in her mouth, sounding as awkward as she feels saying it. Himura stares.
"Kabu," he exclaims, setting the dish beside the sake and shifting so that his upper body is fully facing her. "Surely you have eaten ohagi before?"
She thinks for a moment, examining the odd-looking food between them and trying to recall if her Myoushou had ever prepared such a dish. Remembering just how horrible a cook Myoushou had been – including all the flash fires he had started in the kitchens before she was able to learn to use the stove and took over the preparation of meals – she shakes her head in the negative, faintly bemused at the surprise on Himura's face. Is it really so strange that she has never sampled this dish?
"But surely your parents –" he stops suddenly, blanching at the fierce look that steals over Zetsumei Kurohyou's face. She has told him little of her parents, but she had informed him of the beatings and the starvation and the little fact that they had sold her into slavery for so trivial a detail as the color of her eyes. Her parents are two of the only things about which she is exceptionally close-mouthed, even to Himura.
To attempt to cover his slip, Himura picks up one of the lumps from the dish and takes a bite, obviously hoping that she will do the same so that she can take her mind off the thing that distresses her. Hesitantly, Zetsumei Kurohyou takes one of the lumps into her hand. The stuff is sticky against her fingers, the anko covering it messy in her palm. Slowly, unsure of what she is doing, she takes a bite of the ball.
To her surprise, it is sweet; the rice of the lump soaking in the flavor of the anko to create a pleasing taste. It is, however, extremely sticky, and the assassin realizes quickly that she needs to drink something or she will choke on this treat. Several swallows of sake ease the concoction down her throat, adding to the nice flavor in her mouth.
"Well? What do you think?" Himura has already finished the whole of his rice lump, and takes the sake out of her hand to take a swig of the liquor himself. Zetsumei Kurohyou eyes the stuff in her hand for a tense moment before popping the whole thing in her mouth, making Himura laugh as she immediately reaches for another.
"Good," she mutters, ignoring his laughter as she reclaims her sake. The two killers sit together in silence for a while after that, finishing the remaining ohagi and polishing off a good deal of sake in the process. When the last sweet has been split between them, Himura leans his head onto Zetsumei Kurohyou's shoulder with a somewhat melancholy sigh.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles, for some inane reason sounding as though he is on the verge of tears. His pillow glances at the top of his head out of the corner of one eye, baffled once again.
"For what?"
"It's just – you had such a horrible life –"
"So have you, ninjin."
"You've never even had ohagi before, Shishou used to make it on New Years –"
"Haven't I told you what a disastrous cook Myoushou was? If he had tried to cook this stuff he most likely would have killed us in the resulting fire."
Zetsumei Kurohyou brings up her hand to run soothingly over her friend's head, trying hard not to let him know how off kilter she feels. Yes, she has suffered much in her childhood. It embarrasses her that she had never heard of this sweet food that even Himura knows about. But she doesn't want to talk about that. She doesn't want to unlock memories of her pain.
If she does, she is terrified that she might drown in them.
Midori was beginning to grow seriously annoyed with Megumi.
"I'm fine," she snapped for the third time, none-too-gently shoving the doctor's hands away from her body. The woman was determined to give Midori a thorough medical examination right there in the middle of Kaoru's destroyed courtyard, ignoring the fact that Enishi Yukishiro's balloon had begun its descent or the fact that Yahiko was bleeding from wounds much worse than Midori's. Even if a certain prick of a police officer wasn't standing ten feet away, Midori would still have rebuffed the doctors' pleas for her to strip. Now was not the time.
"No, Megumi-san!" Midori frowned at the woman as she held the manicured hands away from her, irritated by Megumi's persistance. This was getting old fast.
"You can poke at me to your heart's content later," she snapped letting go of Megumi and quickly dodging behind the nearby Sanosuke. "Leave me alone for now. Tend to Yahiko; he is worse off than I am."
"But –"
"No."
"But I –"
"No!"
"Megumi-san." Kenshin inserted himself between the two women, so that he and Sanosuke now separated the doctor from her unwilling patient. "Please see to Yahiko-chan. And also…"
He turned slightly to gesture to the crumpled wreck that was Yatsume, still out cold where Saito had left him. "Please try to tend Yatsume's wounds."
Megumi was not pleased; storm clouds were gathering behind her annoyed brown eyes as she glared at Kenshin. "Ken-san, I must insist that you force – her – to let me give her an examination! She just had a heart attack! She shouldn't even be moving around, she should be resting –"
"I trust kabu to know her own limitations," Kenshin interrupted, his voice making it clear that there would be no room for objections. "She is skilled at taking care of herself. If she feels that it is unnecessary for you to examine her at this time, I will trust her judgment. Please take care of Yahiko-chan and Yatsume."
Megumi looked as though she would continue to argue for a moment; she shot an angry, worried look at Midori – who was still hiding behind Sanosuke, who was trembling with suppressed laughter at the whole situation – before visibly deflating, her shoulders drooping in defeat as she turned away.
"Fine," she snapped, stomping gracefully over to Yahiko's prone figure. "But if she collapses, I will be telling you that I told you so. Moving around like this in her condition – it's absurd."
She dropped down to kneel elegantly beside Yahiko, pausing long enough to glance once more at Kenshin with a softened look about her face.
"Good luck, Ken-san. Don't worry; I will be prepared to patch you up when you win."
Midori was no longer paying attention as Kenshin made some soothing reply; her eyes and ears were focused in the opposite direction, towards the far end of the courtyard where Enishi Yukishiro had just landed his balloon. The wind had picked up while they had stood waiting for him; dust from the cratered courtyard billowed through the air, obscuring her view of the man as he exited his aircraft. A hazy figure was all she could make out as it steadily approached them, strolling casually towards the upcoming confrontation.
It was clear even now that Enishi was as relaxed as a man on an afternoon picnic, and his calm annoyed the hell out of Midori.
She saw his shape come to a stop beside the ruined mess that was the Iwanbou, laying where it fell after Midori had blown it to pieces. Midori's brow furrowed in question. What was he doing? Why had he stopped?
"…usable…"
Words floated on the strong breeze, teasing Midori with fragmented sentences that made little sense.
"…raid not…however…making the adjustments…plenty of time."
What did that mean? What was usable? What adjustments had to be made? Midori recognized the second voice as belonging to the puppet-master, Gein. She had assumed that the triple explosions that had wounded him had also knocked him unconscious, as she had not seen him exit the tattered remains of his monstrous doll. Had she been wrong? What was he doing in there?
Midori was snapped out of her thoughts by a calloused hand gently squeezing her shoulder, drawing her gaze to the hand's owner. Kenshin stood beside her, all traces of kind look he had given Megumi to placate her gone from his face. His visage was hard, as though carved from stone; his eyes were the indigo that she was so fond of, minus the normal warmth and shot generously with amber sparks.
"I must fight him, kabu," he whispered, his voice as hard and cool as his face. "Only me. You must not interfere."
Midori's eyes narrowed. "I will not allow him to kill you."
"This is my battle, kabu. This dispute must be settled between me and Enishi. No one else must get involved."
Midori was inclined to agree with him, but that did not change her reply. "I will not allow him to kill you."
The ghost of a smile lightened the shadows on Kenshin's face for a short moment. "Old age or your katana's edge, correct, kabu?"
An answering smirk stole across Midori's lips. "Exactly. I will intervene only if he has beaten you to the point of near-death. Otherwise you will be on your own, Himura."
His hand still present on her shoulder, squeezed again. "I would like for you to say my name again, kabu. I miss that name in your voice."
She ducked away, grinning mischievously at him as she backed up out of his reach. "I'll speak your name again, Himura, after this is over and I've beaten you to a pulp for all the stress you've caused me. Until then you will have to make do with nin-jin."
She drew the syllables in his nickname out until they were almost separated words, the tone of her voice causing Sanosuke to howl with laughter and Kenshin to flame the color of his hair as he glanced in Saito's general direction. The former Shinsengumi captain looked utterly bored with the whole conversation, staring off into space as he smoked yet another of his seemingly endless supply of cigarettes. Kenshin glared briefly at Midori before sighing in defeat, pinching the bridge of his nose as he turned to walk away.
"Why, kami?" she heard him mutter somewhat darkly. "Why must you torture me so?"
Sanosuke was laughing so hard tears were forming in the corner of his eyes, while Saito took a deep draw from his fresh cigarette and let out his breath in a huff of smoke.
"Bakas," he muttered, glaring from Kenshin's retreating back to Sanosuke to Midori. "Complete bakas, the lot of you."
Sanosuke merely continued to laugh until a distraught and nervous Kaoru whopped him smartly on the side of the head with her bokken, her large blue eyes glittering somewhat madly in the dim light of the stars.
Enishi hears laughter coming from in front of him, even as the Battousai strides towards him out of the swirling dust. It is a man's laughter, out of place in this somber atmosphere in this decimated courtyard. It cuts off rather quickly, Enishi notices, with an undignified squawk as though the laugher has been silenced forcibly.
Distraction ended, Enishi focuses all of his attention on the approaching figure. This is it. This is the true beginning of his Jinchu, the final step in his revenge for the murder of his beloved onee-sama. He watches coldly as his hated brother-in-law draws near; soon that monster will know the pain that his actions fostered in Enishi. He will pay for his crimes tonight.
"Enishi."
It galls him to hear his name, the name his onee-sama spoke with love, coming out of that man's mouth. The Battousai dirties Enishi's name just by speaking it. He dirties Enishi with his crimes just by standing in front of him.
Enishi smirks. Soon he will be cleansed.
"I don't suppose there's any need to ask you if you still have a problem with fighting me," he jeers, sneering at this most hated man with supreme confidence. He will win. He must win. The gods will give him this victory; they will ensure the completion of his Jinchu. Enishi will win.
"No."
The Battousai actually sounds weary, as though he had been in any of the earlier fights and is tired from the strain. Enishi wonders just what exactly the bastard did while his friends were beaten half to death that was so very tiring to him. He has done nothing but allow his pathetic little friends to suffer for him.
"I'll fight you with all of my power, Enishi. I will find the answer of how to atone…both for the sins of being a hitokiri, and for the crime of killing Tomoe."
Enishi snarls at this last, infuriated beyond anything he has felt all week. How dare this animal speak his onee-sama's name? How dare he dirty his onee-sama by speaking of her at all?
"Atone?" Enishi spits, hands fisting tighter and tighter by the second. "You want to find atonement? If that's what you seek, Battousai, then I have an answer for your quest."
He smirks once again at the confusion on the bastard's face. Atonement, he wants atonement for killing Enishi's onee-sama?
"I have…chosen…the cruelest form of revenge for you."
He is chuckling now, his sentence interrupted by the sounds of his twisted mirth.
"But first, I'm going to make you suffer. I'm going to make you feel the pain you forced upon my onee-sama, when you sliced her up like a slab of meat. I'm going to make you feel that pain, Battousai!"
He undoes the clasp to his short cloak, flinging the garment aside and letting the wind carry it away as he quickly strips the wrappings from his weapon. He hefts his precious blade, running his left hand down the outside of the sheath in a loving manner. Yes, this will work, he will destroy the Battousai with this very blade…
With one swift movement, Enishi removed the tachi from the sheath and tosses the covering aside. Several deft flicks of his wrist bring the tachi to his shoulder, even as Enishi takes the stance required for his long-since-mastered watoujustu. He waits, grinning cruelly at the Battousai, waiting for the other man to make the first move.
Battousai, however, has other ideas.
"Those dark glasses you're wearing –" – and his voice is changing, just like the reports have said, his voice is changing growing deeper more feral more dangerous – "– you should remove them first. You could hurt your eyes if you fight with those on."
Enishi's grin falters briefly, unsure as to the Battousai's intent. What does the monster care whether Enishi damages his eyesight? Shouldn't he want Enishi at a disadvantage?
It must be a trick. That's it; he is trying to trick Enishi into believe that a heartless murderer can actually care for Enishi's well-being. Devious bastard.
"You don't need to worry about that," he assures Battousai, grin firmly back in place and larger than ever. "You won't even be able to get a hit in."
And with that Enishi is moving, his surroundings a blur as he pelts towards the Battousai. The Battousai stands stock-still, not moving, not taking those damnable eyes off of Enishi, watching with the same eyes that watched his onee-sama die. Enishi swings, ready, knowing that any moment the Battousai will dodge –
And he does. Disappearing as Enishi's blade should have cut him in half, the Battousai takes to the air, one hand grasping the hilt of his sakabatou and pulling it from its sheath with amazing speed. Enishi brings up his tachi, bracing himself for the blow. The two blades seem to scream as their surfaces collide, sending out a small shower of sparks as the attack is deflected and the blades separate. Again Enishi raises his blade as the Battousai raises his own; both men letting out a brief shout as the adrenaline hits them –
And Enishi is pushing the Battousai back, not giving him time to attack as he swings and swings. Small pieces of cloth fly as Enishi nicks the tie of the Battousai's hakama, as he nicks the pathetic magenta gi. Easy, easy, this is much too easy.
Ah. So the Battousai does have reservations about this duel of theirs.
"Were you planning to test me first?" he sneers at his foe, grinning madly as he pushes forward again. "Why not show me this amazing Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu I've heard so much about? Or shall I show you some of my techniques? Which one, Battousai? Who goes first?"
"Enishi –"
"Too late!"
Enishi shot forward, one leg propelling his body as the other came up to kick his tachi into connection with the Battousai's sakabatou, which the monster had brought up across his chest in a defensive move. And it works, it works as it should, and Enishi cannot help the smirk of triumph as the Battousai is thrown backwards, thrown away like the piece of trash that he is. Enishi cannot help but laugh in victory as he shows his superiority over the Battousai.
"How do you like that, Battousai?" he taunts, grinning in cruel satisfaction as the Battousai struggles to extract himself from the chunk of rock wall he was just thrown into, his body jammed into the crater that fits his shape perfectly.
"All thanks to you, Battousai!" he laughs, enjoying himself immensely as his most hated enemy struggles to righten himself. "That strength is what I've developed during the last decade in Shanghai; the strength of watoujustu, which I have perfected along with my use of this tachi."
He taps the flat of his weapon against his shoulder.
"Don't you find it funny, Battousai? That I, a Japanese man who rules the mafia of China with an iron fist, should use a Japanese blade with a Chinese kenjutsu style? For that bit of misfortune, you have no one to blame but yourself!"
The Battousai says nothing. He stands before Enishi as silent as a statue, those damned indigo eyes staring hard as though to discern all of Enishi's secrets. He should be using the opportunity to attack, or at least preparing a defense; instead he stands there with one hand on the hilt of his pathetic sakabatou, the other hanging uselessly at his side.
"Satisfied that I can take care of myself?" Enishi spits, looking down his nose at the shorter man. His insides are rolling with the inaction of the moment; Battousai is right there, his onee-sama's killer is right in front of him he needs to kill the bastard gut him slice him spray his blood around this courtyard –
"We can begin when you remove those glasses." The calm, controlled rumble of his voice tears Enishi out of his increasingly bloodthirsty thoughts. "It is dangerous to fight with such apparel. One wrong move will leave you blinded for life."
Enishi gives an involuntary bark of laughter, amazed at how far that monster is willing to go to sound like he actually possesses a heart.
"Are you that confident, Battousai?" he sneers, deliberately pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose even as his right hand tightens on the hilt of his tachi. "You think that I will allow you to strike me? You will be the injured party when the dust settles, Battousai. Jinchu is for you."
"All the same, I am only doing what I must to stop you." The butcher actually raises his hands slightly at his waist, as though to assure Enishi that he means no harm. "I do not wish to cripple you."
Damn it; why will he not become angry? Enishi wants him furious, wants him fighting like the animal that he is, wants all of that godsdamned restraint gone. He wants to destroy the Battousai. The man in front of his is not his opponent in the truest sense of the word.
Enishi wants to make the bastard angry.
"Well, brother-in-law," he sneers, the words leaving a horrid taste in his mouth, "it's been over a decade, why don't we catch up? Let me tell you a story."
And he moves again, even as the Battousai moves, blade slicing through air and connecting only to retract and repeat the process. Sparks fly, the Battousai is pushed back, and Enishi strengthens his attacks as the Battousai retreats in search of better footing. Enishi will not give the bastard a chance to attack yet. First, it is time for a story.
"A long long time ago in a land far away…"
His voice is gentle, almost crooning, like a mother telling a beloved child an old bedtime story.
"There was a young man whose onee-sama was slain by a hitokiri."
The Battousai deflects another attack, the look upon his face changing subtly. The color of his eye has started to darken. Enishi grins.
"The sad young man, all alone, hated Japan and crossed over to Shanghai on the continent. But Shanghai is a demon city of the East, and for one so young and weak, living was very hard."
The countermoves are growing sloppy, the Battousai completely focused on the words Enishi is speaking.
"He starved nearly to the point of death. In less than a month, the poor lonely little boy was reduced to just skin and bones."
"Stop it." The words are growled, the voice harsh and bordering on cruel, the eyes peering at him across the blade flecked heavily with amber. "Stop it, Enishi. I don't want to hear this anymore."
Enishi smirks widely, shoving the other man away and launching into a slow version of one of the attacks of watoujutsu. "Oh, but you seem to still not be ready to fight, Battousai! Aren't we still warming up? Don't you want to hear my story while we stretch?"
It is clear by the look upon the Battousai's face that he does not wish for this particular story to continue. Enishi ignores this, speaking again with that same crooning tone that he remembers from growing up with his beautiful onee-sama. This is one story he will force his audience to hear.
"Bogged down by starvation, illness, wounds, and exhaustion, the young man fell at last and was unable to move. Thinking that now he would die, he was pleasantly surprised to be saved by a wealthy couple passing in their fancy carriage. The couple was Japanese, rich, the upper crust of the filth of Shanghai. They took the young man into their home; fed him and clothed him and gave him medicine until he was well. He slept alongside their children; he ate from the same table."
He sees the confusion on the Battousai's face, hears the distant voices of the Battousai's friends as they make the usual assumptions. Surely this means that Enishi was safe and happy? Surely this kind Japanese family took care of him and treated him as their own?
His next words kill those assumptions and puts horror on the Battousai's face.
"And all that time, the young man thanked all the gods and Buddha that he had been given such wonderfully gullible prey."
He remembers what it felt like, that first time he took a life. He remembers watching the light go out behind the rich man's eyes and wondering if that was how it looked when onee-sama died. He remembers relishing the death of the rich woman, who had been alive when onee-sama was not, and who was nothing but shit under onee-sama's feet. He had been glad to kill them.
"He took all of the family's riches, pleased that money would no longer be a problem. And among the rich man's books, the young man found the book that would teach him the kenjutsu of the continent, watoujutsu, that he would spend the next decade perfecting."
He laughs again, a thought crossing into his mind that piques his humor. He eyes the Battousai, standing shocked in front of him with the faintest traces of anger and horror in his expression.
Let's see what you make of this, bastard.
And he proceeds to happily inform the Battousai that he butchered that whole family because he was jealous, because the Battousai had ripped his family away and Enishi had refused to see such happiness when he had lost everything. He tells the Battousai, in not so many words, that the deaths of that family are on the Battousai's head as much as they are on Enishi.
And it is obvious by his reaction that it bothers the Battousai much, much more than it will ever bother Enishi.
Kenshin was getting his ass kicked.
Midori crouched in front of the others, eyes glued to the forms of Kenshin and Yukishiro as they fought back and forth. Her hands, resting atop her thighs, bunched into the cloth of her hakama in annoyance and worry. She hated not being able to help. She felt worthless.
Stupid Himura and his stupid promise.
Midori had nearly bolted forwards when Kenshin was thrown into the stone wall, the instinct to protect what she cared about momentarily overriding everything else. Sanosuke had managed to grab her by the collar of her gi, jerking her to a halt before she had taken more than a few steps. He was standing close behind her now, his warm brown eyes constantly flickering between her and the combatants ahead of them. Midori wondered if he was as anxious to barge into the fight as she was.
"What is that fool doing, youma?" Saito's voice cut through the silence of the little group, accompanied by the heavy reek of cigarette smoke.
Midori said nothing; frankly she would like to know just what the hell Kenshin thought he was doing, too. He had yet to even attempt to really attack Enishi Yukishiro; he was moving much more slowly than usual, as though afraid to hurt his opponent. Did he not realize that Enishi would gladly use his unnecessary kindness to get under Kenshin's guard and kill him? Was he trying to get himself killed?
Stupid jackass. If he got himself killed going easy on Enishi, Midori would resurrect him so that she could kill him herself. Very, very slowly.
She watched through narrowed eyes as Kenshin struggled to extract himself from the crater his body had made in the stone wall. She could tell even from her position that Enishi would be wearing that infuriating smirk as he waited for Kenshin to free himself. One attack had done that; one. What would the next attack do? Take off a limb?
"…glasses you wear. Take them off."
The wind had shifted, blowing faint words back to Midori's ears. What she heard was enough to make her want to bang her head against something hard and solid. Baka; who gives a damn about Enishi's glasses? If he wanted to blind himself through stupidity, let him for kami's sake! That would be another advantage to use against the white haired young man.
Midori was going to kill Kenshin when this was all over with.
"…think I will allow you to strike me?...injured party…jinchu is for you."
Enishi sounded amused that Kenshin actually though he would get a hit in. His half-laughing voice brushed against Midori's skin like worms crawling in her veins.
The wind was blowing more strongly now, kicking up dust in the ruined courtyard and carrying Saito's cigarette smoke away even as it carried the clash of steal closer. And under that clash of weapons was another sound, softer, quieter. Midori strained her hearing, trying to make out the words now being spoken.
"A long long time ago in a land far away…"
Enishi was crooning at Kenshin, like a lover speaking gently to his beloved even as he tried to hack Kenshin to pieces. Midori listened in silence to Enishi's tale of his early days in the demon city of Shanghai, of his brush with death and subsequent rescue. Behind her, she faintly registered Megumi speaking.
"So that explains it all. There is no way any child could survive alone in Shanghai."
Midori was inclined to agree.
Face void of all expression, Midori listened as Enishi told of slaughtering his adoptive family once he had regained his strength. His voice was disturbingly familiar to her, mostly from the tone he used. The young man sounded just like the late Makoto Shishio when talking about this innocent family he had slaughtered for no apparent reason; there was the same hint of barely restrained bloodlust in his words as Midori had once heard every night in the voice of her former partner.
"So why, you may ask, did the young man murder the entire family? After all, he could have simply stolen what he wanted and left the family alive. Why do you think he had to butcher them all, Battousai?" Enishi was definitely grinning now, probably gloating over the horrified and guilt-ridden look currently featuring on Kenshin's face.
"…stop it…"
Midori lurched to a standing position at the weak plea; Sanosuke was forced to grab the back of her gi once more as she took an automatic step forward. She had rarely ever heard Kenshin sound so defeated; the experience infuriated her. She wanted Yukishiro's blood on her blade; she wanted to make him hurt. Now.
"Option one: because the family resisted." Enishi was speaking again, his profile turned to Midori so that she could see the fierce smile that raised his lips and lit up his handsome face.
"Option two: because the young man was just a homicidal maniac."
Midori was going to have to go with option two on that one.
"Or perhaps it was option three: the young man, after having his onee-sama ripped away from him so cruelly, couldn't bear to see such happiness as was evident in that other family."
"Shut up!" Kenshin was shouting now, his voice ringing through the night air to make itself easily heard. "Shut up now, Enishi!"
"Does that mean you've already figured it out, Battousai?" Enishi taunted, shifting slightly as though to prepare for an attack. "If not, then the correct answer would be option three."
Kenshin howled. In an instant he was in the air, spinning head over heels and falling fast towards the smirking Enishi. Something had snapped, and now he was angry.
Enishi looked as though he couldn't be more pleased.
With a quick move that was painfully simple, Enishi blocked Kenshin's attack and proceeded to stab his tachi through Kenshin's arm. Midori watched it all, feeling as though everything was happening in slow motion. Vaguely she registered the sound of tearing fabric and realized that she had pulled away from Sanosuke, taking long strides in Kenshin's direction without conscious thought. With a supreme force of will, Midori stopped where she was, merely watching mutely as Enishi jerked his blade free and Kenshin stumbled back two steps.
As though viewing herself from outside of her body, Midori watched her arm disappear as she reached up and pulled her katana out of its sheath, strapped in its customary position across her back. She watched as Enishi froze, his head turning almost mechanically to stare at her as she glared back; she said nothing, using every ounce of her self control not to interfere and gut him right there. She had promised Kenshin; she had promised to let him do whatever he pleased unless he was on the verge of dying.
Damn stupid Himura and that stupid promise.
The look Enishi was giving her was one that she found completely out of place for the current settings and situation. If she were in his position, she would be giving him such a look as to cause him to spontaneously combust on the spot. She would not be gazing at him with fucking compassion or pity in her eyes. She would not have mouthed the word 'soon' to him before turning back to her bleeding opponent. His actions froze her in place, her mind working overtime to figure out just what the hell that little interaction was meant to signify.
"Kabu."
Kenshin's voice pulled her from such ponderings, drawing her gaze to meet his fierce – if worried – look.
"Kabu, please do not get involved."
She gave him a bored look, purposely masking her worry and confusion and the ever-present pain behind her façade. "I am not involved. Remember what I said, Himura; stop pussy-footing around or I will butt in."
He nodded once; Midori took one step back to show that she would not interfere. She kept her katana out, held loosely at her side. Kenshin focused once more on Enishi, who had watched the proceedings with a smirk plastered on his face.
"Are we done chatting and stretching now?" he taunted, twirling his deadly blade around with simply movements of his fingers and wrists. "Is it finally time for the real battle?"
"Hey."
The word was barked lowly from behind her as the two men before her squared off; Midori tilted her head to the side ever-so-slightly to let the police officer know that she was listening.
"What was that, youma? What did Yukishiro say to you?" Midori could practically feel Saito boring a hole in the back of her head with his glare; a brief smirk flittered across her face and was gone in an instant.
"He mouthed the word 'soon'."
"…In that case, I suggest that you leave. Now."
Midori began to back away as Enishi and Kenshin clashed, snorting once to let the wolf shadowing her retreat know what she thought of his idea. He ignored her.
"I'd rather not have a bigger mess to contend with, youma. Get out of here now, before 'soon' arrives and Yukishiro turns his attention back to you."
Feeling the presence of the others at her back, Midori halted her retreat and turned so that she was standing profile to the little group, glancing at Saito from the corner of one eye. "You want me to flee?"
"Obviously."
Midori refused to bristle from his condescending tone; she was too tired, too sore, and too preoccupied to let his rudeness piss her off right now. "Not a chance in Hell, Saito."
"I'm not going to help you if he decides to come over here, youma. Leave or face the consequences of your stupidity on your own."
"Icicles will form on the surface of the sun before I even consider asking for your help, wolf. I'm not going anywhere."
She did not add that she couldn't leave even if she were cowardly enough to want an escape. If she left, and Kenshin was defeated, Sanosuke would be the only person that would for sure try to protect Megumi, Kaoru, and Yahiko. Yahiko was in no condition to protect himself, Megumi was not a fighter, and Kaoru…
She would probably through such a fit over Kenshin's defeat that she would be helpless to defend anything. Stupid girl.
None of the others tried to persuade her to leave, and Saito let the subject drop with a huff of smoke.
"GOOD LUCK, KENSHIN!"
The shout from so close behind her startled Midori, who glared momentarily at Kaoru for the noise before turning to put them all at her back once more. Enishi would not get through her while breath remained in her body. She'd kill him if she had to.
And she was fast coming to the conclusion that she would indeed have to. Kenshin had yet to land a single hit on Enishi, all of his moves blocked with frightening ease. She was getting seriously fed up with that annoying little smirk the white-haired man still worn; she itched to wipe the self-satisfied look off of his face. Godsdamnit, why was Kenshin still holding back?
Enishi had apparently picked up on Kenshin's restraint, as well; he began taunting him again, seemingly determined to anger Kenshin however he could.
"Are you becoming rusty in your old age, Battousai?" he jeered, not letting up his onslaught in the slightest. "At this rate, I can kill you without even breaking a sweat! That just won't do at all; I want to defeat you at the pinnacle of your strength and skill!"
He slid back, positioning his blade in a way Midori was unfamiliar with; clearly this was another watoujustu technique.
"If you refuse to show me a move or two of your precious Hiten Mitsirugi-ryu, I supposed I'll simply have to force it out of you!"
And he shot forwards, blade over his head in a position to swing down and cut Kenshin in half from head to groin. At the last second, Kenshin dodged – leaping into the air and getting his body into position for his more favored attack – the Hiten Mitsirugi-ryu Ryu Tsiu Sen. Enishi, incredibly, merely smirked in triumph.
"Oh, yes, I've wanted to break this attack to pieces for some time now." As though announcing his intent to take a nap; the man was crazy.
But crazier still was the fact that he did break the power of the attack. In fluid, precise movements, Enishi jabbed the blade of his tachi into the ground, put his foot onto the hilt to launch himself skywards, and pulled the tachi out of the ground as he shot upwards, using a seemingly useless length of tassel on the end of the hilt to pull it up after him.
Even from where she stood, Midori could practically hear the bones in Kenshin's ribs break as he was struck. Blood spewed from his mouth; Kaoru and Megumi shouted his name in unison. He was thrown even further upward by the blow, seeming to impossibly fall into the night sky –
Until he suddenly flipped and came to a complete stop, his feet planted on the bottom of the basket of an empty hot air balloon.
She watched, silent and unmoving, as Kenshin's Kuzu Ryu Sen, the technique he had learned from his arrogant bastard of a master in preparations for fighting Shishio a year ago, connected with nine solid blows to Enishi's body. She watched as Enishi impacted with the ground, a heavy cloud of dust obscuring him from sight as Kenshin also landed rather heavily on his feet; it was clear to her that he was feeling the burn from that rib-cracking blow of Enishi's from only moments before. How many more such hits could he take? How much longer would he be able to fight?
And how in the seven circles of Hell was Enishi Yukishiro able to get up after being hit like that and still have that fucking smirk on his face?
The man was laughing as though nothing had happened.
What was this man? Did he not feel pain? Did he enjoy physical injury?
Words were spoken from behind her, but they sounded distant and very soft. Her hearing was acting oddly, sharpening to the point of causing her ears to ring before fading out to near-silence. Likewise, her vision had started to fade in and out, constantly blurry around the edges. Midori subtly shifted her weight so that it was evenly distributed to both legs, lessening the chance that she would suddenly lose her balance and fall. The pain in her chest, which had been constant since she had woken up hanging off of the roof, was beginning to build to a crescendo once more. Megumi had been right; Midori was in no condition to be up walking around or experiencing large amounts of stress. Her body was trying to prepare itself for another involuntary shutdown.
Shit. As if she didn't have enough to worry about.
She forced her eyes to focus once more, in time to see Kenshin take a familiar stance that set her instantly on edge. He was going to use that? The ultimate weapon in his arsenal, the secession technique of his chosen style? She had only witnessed this technique a few times; once when Kenshin had used it against Shishio, and several times at a much slower pace as he walked her through it's mechanics by her request. Midori had studied and analyzed every second of this, the Ama Kakeru Ryo no Hirameki, the ougi of Hiten Mitsirugi-ryu; she knew it from every angle, every perspective, every tiny little detail. She knew exactly what kind of devastating power could be unleashed by such an attack.
But…
There was a flaw. One single, seemingly unusable flaw to the awesome attack that Kenshin was preparing to use. And that flaw might just end up getting him killed.
And unless he had picked up on it himself, while performing the move, Kenshin would have no idea because Midori had never told him.
No no no no NO!
Midori sprinted forward as fast as her damn wobbly legs would carry her, eyes fixed on Kenshin, who was possibly about to die because for once Midori hadn't teased him about a weakness. She was not pleased to be tackled to the ground by a heavy weight much too far away from her target, Sanosuke's voice in her ear merely background noise to the roaring in her head.
HimuraninjinKenshinwaitnodon'tdon't-
She rolled under Sanosuke until she was on her back in the dirt, bunching her feet into his stomach and launching him away from her. Instantly she was back on her feet, scrambling to reach Kenshin before it was too late, trying to call out to him when her voice was apparently stuck in her throat. She had to tell him, had to warn him, had to do something –
Everything seemed to go into a kind of slow point of time.
She watched, helpless to stop them, as both men launched into movement. She watched, helpless, as Enishi successfully dodged the first stage of Kenshin's attack, staying low to the ground and getting around the vacuum-like suction that had been what caught Shishio. She watched, too far away and utterly useless, as Enishi surged forwards even as Kenshin carried the succession technique to its end, striking Enishi across the chest with his sakabatou. She watched the two separate again, watched them stagger a few steps away from each other.
She watched, falling to the ground as blackness tinted her vision, as Kenshin's chest was laid open from left shoulder to right hip; his blood sprayed through the air like a crimson waterfall.
Midori found herself flat on her stomach, her arms reaching out in front of her even as her hands curled inward like mishapen claws. She could vaguely hear the sounds of screaming voices behind her; a small chunk of her brain informed her that the white smoke billowing around her was not from dust or from a fire, and should therefore not be present. She tried to call out to Kenshin, tried to tell him to get up off his ass and help her up so that they could help the others; but all that came out when she tried to speak was a wet, gurgling gagging noise as she choked on the warm blood rising in her throat. Her jaws locked themselves together with an audible click, leaving the welling tide of blood to force itself between her teeth.
She needed to move. She must get up and reach Kenshin. Saito was a prick, Sanosuke and Yahiko were both wounded, Megumi and Kaoru would both be worthless in a fight. Midori and Kenshin were the only ones who could protect the others now; she had to get up and get him moving.
But all she could do was lay there as her body convulsed, the seizure throwing her around the ground as the pain exploded into her nerves. Were it not for the locked jaw, Midori would have howled at the agony.
Kenshin was right there, just laying there in a growing pool of his own blood as the fog-like smoke covered him. She must get to Kenshin. She must.
A booted foot, barely discernable through the white smoke all around her, planted itself directly to the left of her head.
Midori was helpless to stop Enishi Yukishiro as he crouched beside her and ran a hand through her hair in a disturbingly gentle manner. She was powerless to resist him as he turned her gently to her side, one of his hands covering her mouth and nose as the other firmly kept her head from moving. Something wet touched her nose, something that burned when she tried to breathe and brought the blackness rushing up to greet her. Panic-stricken emerald orbs met black for a frantic glance before heavy lids began to slide shut against their will.
One last jerk of the pain-stiffened body; one last flash of defiant green before they were hidden from view, safe in the darkness of sleep.
Enishi removes the woman's katana from her hand, takes the sheath from her back. He contemplates getting rid of the objects, as the woman will not need them where he is taking her; prudence stilled his urge to destroy a potential weapon. The woman will probably want the katana back at some point. He will hold on to it for the time being.
That decided, Enishi replaces the katana in its sheath and straps it across his own back. He picks up his temporarily discarded tachi before bending to gently pick up the woman, careful of her left side as he cradles her in his arms. Gein had done some serious damage to the left side, and he did not wish to jostle any broken ribs. The chloroform would keep her asleep for many hours, but the thought of harming this woman puts a bad taste in Enishi's mouth. Aside from which, onee-sama won't smile for him if the woman is hurt, Enishi is sure of that.
He casts a final look over his shoulder through the fog pouring from Gein's decimated Iwanbou. The Battousai lies immoble, his scarlet blood pooling around him in a manner that greatly pleases Enishi. How does he like it? How does he enjoy feeling the same wound that he had inflicted upon onee-sama when he killed her? Oh, it won't kill him, no; death would be to kind for that monster. Enishi doesn't want him dead yet. The Battousai has to suffer more first. He has to suffer like Enishi suffered, having lost something most precious to him. He has to suffer like the woman in Enishi's arms is suffering, feeling the pain that she feels because the Battousai brainwashed her into throwing her life away for him.
Let him live. Death is too kind for him.
Without the slightest hesitation Enishi walks right past the Battousai's still form, not sparing a second glance at the other inhabitants of this dojo or the police officer. None of them matter anymore. Gein will do his final part, leaving behind his little creation as a gift and pushing Enishi's Jinchu even further in the process. And then the real fun will begin, watching the Battousai slowly waste away as the grief and the guilt eat him alive.
He holds the woman closer as he steps out of the dojo gates, stealing silently into the blackness of the Tokyo night.
It's time to take her home.
A/N: Please review and tell me what you think.