Otousan's Lies

Chapter Ten: The Real Himura Kenshin

"You've completed your task, I presume."

"Of course I have."

"And?"

"He's definitely Battousai."

"And I'm sure you were the paragon of self-control when you figured it out," he murmured facetiously.

Asuka simply rolled her eyes, unwilling to admit the disturbing accuracy behind his sarcasm.

"And you're absolutely sure about it?"

"I already said I was," she muttered as she collapsed tiredly into a nearby chair, lifting her feet to the table and yawning. "So what are we going to do about his kid?"

"He may be a problem—I hear he's on his way to turn you in."

She flew to her feet. "What!"

Her companion merely answered with an amused smile. "I suggest you hurry."

Kenji's insides churned uncomfortably as he plodded up to the police station with a sickly frown. He really didn't want to do this; the thought of the coming encounter literally made him feel physically ill. He could already see the glowing triumph on Fujita's face as he finally received the information he'd been plotting to gain all this time, which to Kenji seemed no less humiliating than getting on his knees and openly admitting defeat to the cop's superiority. His shoulders drooped as he sighed miserably, and for just a moment he felt like the epitome of pitifulness. Fujita had won after all. But what other choice did he have? He could really use that money . . .

What was he going to tell him he'd been doing all this time?

"Oi, Kenji! You're back!"

And Kenji suddenly found himself wishing seppuku was still as widely practiced and accepted as it had once been.

"Yeah, is . . . is Fujita here?" he mumbled.

Chou's resultant grin was almost more than he could stand. "Nah, he's out right now," he chuckled. "Finally gave up on Battousai, huh?"

Kenji grumbled something unintelligible but probably profane.

"Come on in, he should be back soon."

The cop-filled building felt even more oppressive than when Kenji had last left, and he did his best to ignore the various knowing smirks he received as he slouched into a chair, crossing his arms defiantly and pretending to observe the rather bland room they'd left him to wait in. He'd probably been the laughing stock of the place since his disappearance—a stupid kid that actually thought he could find the infamous Battousai . . .

Kenji slammed his fist into the arm of the chair and cringed at the sharp pain, then decided to push the bitter thoughts from his mind before he lost his nerve or did something more violent. He turned his eyes to his surroundings, but it took only a few seconds before any fascination he could have had with the room ended—it was just full of cabinets with nothing inside, he was sure, but boring files.

Then inspiration suddenly hit him and he gave the nearest one a meaningful look; his lips twisted up in a victorious leer. Criminal files.

Kenji soon found himself on his knees in front of one of them, eagerly yanking the bottom drawer open and poring over name after name, completely disregarding rules of confidentiality he knew must exist. He had one motive which heavily overshadowed the possible consequences—Asuka. He'd been dying to know what exactly it was that Fujita wanted her for ever since he'd suggested that she was "more than just a runaway." Now she obviously had attempted murder and fleeing police custody on her record, but what before that had been vile enough to draw the attention of Fujita?

He didn't have the slightest idea what her family name might be, so he just started at one end and searched drawer after drawer, which became cabinet after cabinet, after cabinet . . . after cabinet . . .

When he'd reached the second to last one he was beginning to realize she wasn't there.

But they were criminal files—he'd thumbed through a few, and there were records detailing everything from petty thievery to serial murder. She had to be here somewhere . . . and there were still a few drawers left. But Kenji's self-assurances were in vain; she wasn't anywhere. There had been a few Asuka's along the way, but pictures and dates had proven to Kenji that none of them matched the one he was looking for.

He leaned back on his heels with a snort after pushing the last drawer shut. Of course she wasn't there. Why would Fujita ever do something that Kenji might actually find useful? Impatiently he stood and began peeking behind the cabinets and around the rest of the room in the desperate hope that maybe he had missed something, maybe something was overlooked. He began opening drawers again and desperately pulled one so far it nearly fell out. But he was glad he did . . . there was something there.

It was shoved so far back and was so filthy that he hadn't even noticed the box before. Carefully he slipped his fingers around it and lifted it from the depths of the dark drawer, sneezing as years' worth of dust billowed up into his face. With a mix of curiosity and impatience Kenji seated himself on the floor and cast the lid carelessly aside, wiping old spider webs off his hands onto his hakama.

The papers in it were much older than any of the others, yellowed and thin and probably forgotten decades ago. Kenji flipped open an envelope on top and let the decaying documents slip into his lap and immediately began looking for dates. He let out a long sigh. These were from the revolution, they wouldn't help him find anything about Asuka, and they didn't even look like criminal files, just a mix of old government documents. He flipped through the rest of the box's contents, just in case, and was angrily reaching for the lid with one hand when his grasp froze on a large envelope at the bottom of the pile, with a single word scrawled messily across it which branded itself into Kenji's suddenly reeling mind.

Battousai.

For a moment he could do nothing but stare. Fujita had this all along—he hadn't said anything, but now the answers Kenji had run away from home to find sat right in his shaking fingers. Knocking himself out of the temporary trance the discovery had put him in he ripped the stack of papers out greedily and with a hungry grin; he was going to get something out of this humiliating visit after all. He pushed the first few papers on top aside, he didn't care about a detailed record of all of Battousai's murders, but paused at the appearance of something that might actually help him: a picture. And Kenji stopped breathing.

So this was why Asuka had attacked him. After several seconds he could no longer tell himself that his eyes were lying; it really was him staring up ferociously from the decaying page, the old sketch of Battousai looked just like him with one key exception . . .

But it couldn't be . . . there was no way this was possible. Still, report after report said the same thing—red hair, cross-shaped scar, red hair, cross-shaped scar, cross-shaped scar . . . and always on the left cheek.

"No . . ." he protested feebly.

. . . gave up sword and disappeared after the revolution . . .

And Kenji found himself running to the open window as Fujita's mockery of his search and Hiko's insistence that he ask his father suddenly made painful sense, and his eyes stung as his entire upper half swung violently out the window and he retched.

He would never forgive him for this.

"Hey Kenji, Fu—" Chou was saying as he wandered in, and Kenji wiped a trail of vomit from his chin.

"Fujita's back?" Kenji asked quietly enough to hide the consuming fury in his voice.

"Yeah, he just . . . what are you doing?"

"Get out of my way!" Kenji ordered madly, and one livid glance had the officer ducking to the side to let him through, scratching his head.

Saitou was sitting casually at his desk as Kenji hurled the door open, and the young redhead's glare of concentrated wrath only inspired him to smile.

"You're back."

Kenji glowered as a spasm shot through each of his already tightly clenched fists. With a lazy, unimpressed gesture Saitou pushed a stack of bills across the desk toward him.

"It's yours, just tell me where she is."

Kenji reached jerkily forward and grabbed the money, his heartbeat quickening as he glared at it and squeezed so hard that his nails pierced a few bills.

Saitou smirked. "Where?"

"You knew all along, didn't you?"

The officer's smile faded by just a fraction, and he leaned forward in slight irritation.

"I don't have time for this, Himura."

"You did," he asserted firmly, fiercely, his head throbbing with rage. "You knew but you never told me, you never told me any truth at all!"

"Don't be a fool, Himura."

"You know who my father is!"

"Yes."

"You knew I was looking for hi—for Battousai, but you didn't—"

"What would it have accomplished? Did you think about that at all? You have no idea what to do now, you know he won't train you, so just tell me where Asuka is and forget about it."

"Don't tell me what to do, I'm done!"

Abruptly he hurled the money back at Saitou's desk, knocking over a lamp and setting the cash aflame. Instead of regret he threw Saitou a hateful sneer.

"You're an idiot," Saitou muttered with a glare. "You would have been better off just doing what I told you."

The reflection of the flames blazed in Kenji's fervid eyes. "Shut up," he hissed, "you mean you would have been better off."

"Fujita-san!" someone was yelling from outside, "there's smoke coming from Fujita-san's room!"

Kenji kept glaring as a few officers burst through the door, one hastily dousing the fire while two others restrained him.

"Did he do this, sir?"

Saitou ignored them, resting his chin on his hands and staring carefully at Kenji. The redhead's steely gaze didn't waver; he was neither afraid nor regretful, and Saitou leaned back with a heavy sigh. He wasn't going to get anything out of the boy now.

"Lock him up for now, and notify Makimachi that I need to speak with her immediately."

"Yes sir, we'll—ah—"

Saitou sighed again at their incompetence, disgusted that his subordinates were so easily overcome, as the three men all collapsed, unconscious. The contempt ceased as their bodies tumbled to the floor, however, and was replaced by an almost imperceptible rise of his eyebrows. He noticed the intruder freeze as her eyes met his.

"Asuka," he murmured quietly, not moving from his seat.

She looked aside with a scowl.

Kenji failed to retain the quiet composure of the other two. Both averted surprised glances to him as a stream of vulgar objections burst out of his mouth. Why was Asuka here—was she helping him escape? Why? They hated each other—and if she and Fujita hated each other too why had they just stared at each other? Even now they just stood there . . . what was going on?

And why did his father have to be Battousai?

But there was no time, there were more officers in the building; Kenji could hear them running for the room. Furiously he grabbed Asuka—he still wanted answers—and headed for the window. "You better have a good explanation for this, ookami-musume," he muttered just before breaking the glass and jumping through the window, not noticing how the utterance of her nickname had made the cigarette fall from Fujita's gaping mouth.

So their was another wolf around, he thought, quickly regaining composure as his office belatedly filled with the idiots he was forced to oversee. He'd never thought he'd be hunting one of his own kind.