Ch. 10

Hiei reached the stairway and looked at the mess and the two fighters lying unconscious in the middle of it. One was Sanosuke, and the other was an even larger man with shoulder long and messed up hair, and his body covered with scars. He didn't have a shirt on and from what Hiei saw; he was a very strong fist fighter.

Suddenly there was a loud sound from upstairs, like series of gun shots. The noise was loud enough to wake the dead, and that it did. Sanosuke started to stir and a moment later he sat up with a hand on his head.

"What was that…?" he mumbled to himself.

"It sounded like gunshots," Hiei answered, startling the teen.

"Gah! Hiei? When did you get there?" the brunette shouted and whipped around to stare at the ex-demon.

"While you were asleep, obviously," Hiei replied. He felt the recently awoken Han'nya move up behind him, and he could see it Sanosuke's reaction as well.

"Why didn't you kill me as you killed Beshimi?" the shinobi asked. Hiei opened his mouth to answer but closed it again to think about it before finally saying:

"Touya wouldn't have appreciated it. I owe him this much."

"And Beshimi…" Han'nya wondered.

"…Was before I knew about Touya's ties to the oniwabanshû," Hiei ended the sentence. By now the scarred man had woken up and moved to stand next to Han'nya.

"Shikijô and I will go find out what's going on upstairs, you can do as you want," Han'nya said and started walking. Sanosuke and Hiei nodded and followed.

- - -

Kanryû had revealed a fully functional gatling gun, and aimed it at the rurouni and the okashira. The two men ran around the ballroom, trying to avoid getting shot. From where the industrialist had gotten such a weapon remained a mystery. All the industrialist said was: "With money, one can buy power. Money is the source of true power!"

Touya gritted his teeth as he watched Kanryû miss on purpose. He was playing with the fighters, forcing them to run and dodge and eventually tire themselves. Suddenly the industrialist changed his aim and a chain of bullets embedded themselves in Aoshi's right leg.

"You two fought over the title of "most powerful"…" Kanryû said. "Well, in the end, the "most powerful" is me!" He barely had time to finish his small speech before the fighters from downstairs reached the double doors left open by Kenshin. Within seconds the warriors had analyzed what they saw and realized what was going on. At the sight of the wounded okashira, Shikijô swore and stupidly ran into the ballroom. Without even thinking about it, the rurouni saw an opportunity and dashed for safety. He had long since dropped his sakabatô, and therefore he was of no further use in the battle.

Kanryû looked at the two running fighters in stunned surprise before deciding to first kill the wounded Aoshi. He let out the rain of bullets a moment too late. Shikijô jumped in front of the okashira, serving as a human wall of protection. His strong muscles stopped the shots effectively, and his body stayed kneeling in front of Aoshi. Pain of the loss of not only an ally, but a friend, was showing in Shinomori Aoshi's face. Kanryû was taken aback by the change of events, but he quickly recovered.

"This gun shoots 200 bullets a minute," he said. "So I can chop them both into mince meat!"

Yet again, perhaps a bit too dramatically, another pair of double doors opened, this time revealing Hyottoko. The bloated and still not quite recovered man charged forward.

"Better not shoot!" he shouted and pointed at his stomach as he ran. "Unless you want this oil bag to go up in flames!" It was a bluff. All but Kanryû knew that Sanosuke had removed the bag. Kanryû called the bluff by aiming the gun at Hyottoko's head and firing. Aoshi's shout echoed in the ballroom:

"Hyottoko!"

From his position, Touya could see tears forming in the okashira's eyes. The blue-haired demon fought the urge to run out from his hide and attack the industrialist. He knew it would do no good as long as Kanryû had the gatling gun. Touya looked around himself, trying to figure out what to do. There was only a fake Ming vase, a European harness with a spear and a shield as tall as a man and some other useless junk. The ex-demon turned back to look at the situation in the ballroom once more and gasped as he saw the body of Shikijô starting to fall from its protecting position, revealing Aoshi to the gatling gun. The others saw this as well.

Three things happened at the same time. Han'nya ran forward with the intention to retrieve the okashira, Kenshin made off towards his sakabatô and Touya grabbed the metal shield from the harness and burst into the room, stopping in front of Aoshi to shield him from the shots. With a shout, Kanryû shot down Han'nya first. Kenshin slid down to grab his sakabatô, landing in a slightly awkward position. Just as his hand closed around the hilt of the sword, Kanryû turned the gun to point at the swordsman. Kenshin's eyes traveled to the side of the gun, and as time seemed to slow down, he saw the two last bullets enter the gun. The rurouni knew he could stop one of the bullets with his sword, but the other…

However, the bullets never reached him.

Two shots left the gun. There was an almost unnoticeable sound of one bullet hitting metal. The other ripped trough soft flesh, splattering blood over the marble floor.

In less than a second Kenshin's shock turned into blind rage and a red haze covered his sight.

TBC…

Gating gun -the original model for the machine gun. A big thing that stood directly on the ground and was quite difficult to move around.