Author Notes: A reviewer pointed out that this story is predictable... sigh. That's a bit unfortunate and grueling to hear, but on the other hand I kind of appreciate it. I didn't litter this story with hints so that revelations seem like they come from left field. I hate it when books and movies have this insane plot twist that wasn't substantiated in the rest of the story. So yay to foreshadowing, but boo to predictability. I'll work on that.
Anyways, this chapter is a bit longer than the others so that's my form of apologizing for the severe delay. Tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: The Rurouni Kenshin world and all characters depicted are a creation of mangaka, Watsuki Nobuhiro.
Rescue
By Hoshi-ni-Onegai
The heavy feeling at the pit of her stomach told Misao that this was a bad idea. It wasn't that this was her first kamikaze mission, she just worried it was her last one.
After being called in earlier than what Agency protocol dictated, Misao and Aoshi were filled in by Sano on the situation while Megumi and Tsubame worked on Kenshin's core. The situation was worse than she expected.
Shishio's men were well aware that there was no weak point that could be blasted through to gain entrance to the facility. But Shishio knew that there were strategic points that would be close enough to set off the Agency alarms. The question was as to how he knew where one of these strategic points was located in the subway station between the two track lines. But these were things the Agency had accounted for. So Shishio took advantage of their less secure temporary safe house to abduct Kaoru. In hindsight, Tsubame found out that they escaped her detection because of the new player: Enishi. Or maybe old player was the better description.
The current objective of the droids, without Agency approval, was to retrieve Kaoru in one piece. No one contacted nor was in a rush to contact the human higher ups for orders. As the first droid to reach the safe house, Tsubame was charged with sending hourly progress reports and she blatantly lied in them. Even after finding out what happened to Kaoru, she kept their actual predicament a secret under Kenshin's orders. With the absence of the humans, Kenshin was the highest in command. Regardless of his previous rogue status, the droids fell in line with his plan -despite how crazy it was.
And that was how Misao found herself on her current mission of reconnaissance. She wove through the crowds of people on the busy street and kept a vigilant eye. Her instincts told her she was walking into a trap, but she did her best to ignore it.
Being the stealthiest of the droids, Misao was the obvious choice to scope out where Kaoru may have been spirited away to. This wasn't the first time she was sent on these types of assignments, but their previous bout of trying to recover Kenshin, Kaoru, and her father had made Misao wary.
She understood the reasoning as to why she was being sent to seven strategic locations around the city, but she was convinced that this was a crap shoot. Tsubame, the data analysis extraordinaire, was able to figure out possible areas Enishi disappeared to by not following him by security cameras. Having always had access to every security camera within the country, let alone the city, Tsubame was quick to realize Enishi was smart enough to avoid all surveillance. He made sure that his path couldn't be followed, but he didn't count on someone like Tsubame to be on the job. She was able to deduce from where cameras weren't covered to carve out seven possible paths Enishi could have taken to dodge being caught on camera.
She was sent out while Kenshin was under the knife and had hoped to come back with good news. So far, the last five locations proved to be a bust. Misao could only hope the next two places ended up being what she was on the hunt for.
Dressed in a school girl uniform and a long brunette wig, no one looked at her twice as she made quick work of the city. The communicator in her ear connecting her to Tsubame back at the agency told her that Kenshin's procedure was winding down. She hoped that she could relay back some news soon because she got the feeling Kenshin was going to rush out halfcocked. He was usually the most level-headed out of the droids, maybe only second to Aoshi on some occasions. However, Misao got the feeling that Kenshin was allowing irrational thought to dictate his actions and instincts -a far cry from his usual calculated movements.
Closing onto her sixth location she noticed that the crowds got thinner and she was venturing into the manufacturing district. The fronts of the building facing the street were obviously office spaces, but the lumbering concrete connected in the back with their foreboding smokestacks betrayed the factories lying within the city limits.
Her outfit that had helped her blend in would now call attention to itself. Keeping to the shadows she avoided the eyes of the workers she passed by in this district. And it was in that moment when she evasively turned down into an alley when she recognized a pair of the men walking by. They weren't in factory uniforms like the rest of the workers, instead they looked suspiciously like members of the yakuza. This all together wasn't unusual as some companies were well known fronts for crime syndicates. But Misao never forgot a face and these were a pair she'd seen on one occasion when she followed a loose lead on one of Shishio's hideouts. Unable to connect the place back to Shishio, it had been labeled as a human yakuza location -something proved true when the combat team swept through the location the next day to find the stronghold of a small crime head. But something about the location had nagged at Misao's intuition, and she wasn't about to let it slip by again. There had been a connection and she didn't believe in coincidences when it came to things of this nature.
xXx
The second after Enishi left the room Kaoru didn't waste any time. Although she wished he had left behind the computer, she wasn't about to gripe about that not take advantage of being left alone. There wasn't anything in the way of an escape nor a weapon, but that wasn't going to stop her.
Her eyes made quick assessment of the room and calculated the best possible plan, and immediately scrapped it. Then, she formulated the next two best scenarios and scrapped them as well. Kaoru was well aware that these were plans that she automatically formulated as a droid, which led her to the conclusion that all droids did this. To avoid having her next move from being predicted, she knew going with the fourth option would at least be mildly unexpected.
She proceeded to wedge off the aluminum border of the bulletin board on the wall that housed all the droid profiles. Taking the portion that incased the corkboard, she bent it back and forth repeated lengthwise until the piece broke off and revealed a jagged edge. The aluminum piece was a little longer than a meter and wouldn't withstand against too much force, but it would be better than nothing.
Kaoru moved onto the next step in her plan and readied herself for what was to come.
xXx
"It's an old paper factory in the southern district. It's close enough to a port to have quick access to water and land transport." Misao explained to the room.
After her reconnaissance mission, she returned back to the safe house to find that Kenshin was already done with his procedure and all the droids were gathered in the living room awaiting her return. "Shishio wasn't fooling around when he scouted this place out. Well... I guess it was Enishi too." She chewed on her lip and glanced at Kenshin. "Are you sure about him? How is it even possible?"
Kenshin shook his head. "I don't know and it doesn't matter right now. Our top priority is to extract Kaoru."
Misao shared a glance with Megumi across the room, but didn't voice her comment about Kenshin's concern for Kaoru. Instead, she nodded in understanding and had Tsubame pull up a map of the area in question on her computer. She pointed to the surrounding buildings. "They don't have control of the adjacent buildings, but they do have triggers set on them. So if we try to access their facility from those buildings we'll be announcing our visit."
"Then what's the plan?" Sano questioned.
She pointed to a taller factory with high smoke stacks two buildings away. "That's our best point of entry."
"I think you're confusing point of entry with suicide mission." Sano griped.
Misao rolled her eyes. "I'm the one doing the jump. You, Aoshi, and Kenshin are going to hold the perimeter until I'm able to kill the power once I get in."
"Again, I think you're confusing jump with plummet." He argued while the rest of the team concentrated.
Ignoring Sano's comment, Misao continued with her briefing. "I've looked at the blueprint of the factory where they're holed up and I've figured out that Kaoru isn't held on the surface. All above ground rooms have a window or are open spaces with machinery. Instead, they're going to keep her in one of the basement storage rooms. There's no real exit possibility from there aside from one hallway and two stairways."
Kenshin furrowed his brows. "I'll make the jump."
"Is that such a great idea? I'm actually built for these kinds of things." Misao disagreed. "If you want someone more hand-to-hand capable, Aoshi could do it."
"It's my mission. I'll do it." He reiterated.
Megumi shook her head and pegged him with a stern look. "This isn't just your mission. We all want Kaoru back safe."
Kenshin considered her words but decided to voice his honest opinions. There were more pressing matters to arrange. He gave a nod and turned back to Misao. "What's the plan after the jump and cutting the power?"
Misao shared another glance with Megumi, but returned to the question at hand. "They're in a factory built during the 70s so regulations for employee safety were in place. There are three points of exit that we can't bottleneck. Instead, we're each going to take an entry point and neutralize any threats."
"We'll act as diversion while Kenshin goes in from the roof access steps." Aoshi added in per his usual role as the main strategist. "Study the blueprints so you know what turns to make."
Kenshin nodded and walked over to the escape bags piled in the corner. Finding his own, he pulled out the sword he packed back in the agency before the evacuation. Weapon in hand, he turned back to the rest of the droids. "Pack what we need. We leave in fifteen."
xXx
Gripping the table leg she pilfered, Kaoru wedged the sharp top edge into the bottom door hinge. Hoping to do the first two of the three hinges as quietly as possible, she carefully popped out the pin. She winced a bit at the small screech, and waited between each hinge before moving onto the next.
She swept the room earlier and found that she was not being monitored, but the hallway was another story. When Soujiro had walked her at gunpoint, Kaoru had caught sight of a security camera in the hallway. While she doubted audio was being recorded, she knew that she needed to act fast once she was out the door.
Pins popped out of the hinges, Kaoru prepped herself. Table leg in her left hand and the jagged aluminum frame piece in the other, she swung out the light bulb. Cloaked in darkness, she knew that a droid would have no problem seeing but it would be enough to throw the human henchmen she heard shuffling around the facility.
Taking in a resolved breath, she grabbed the middle hinge and swung the door open with enough force that the edged grated out and she was free. Before anyone could rush over to figure out what the huge rattle was about, she flew out of the room and swung with the table leg at the lights in the hall and the camera. Her actions didn't make the hall pitch black, but it would be enough to confuse her captors. Again, not the droids, but it would slow the humans down.
The reverberations through the concrete walls and iron support beams told her she was one level below the ground and heading to the right would lead to people while the left was quiet. Everything in her instinct told her to turn down to the right, because at least she knew what to expect that way. But going left would at least have less commotion to deal with and hopefully easier to dodge. Gripping the make-shift sword, she could feel the metal bite into the palm of her hands. Making her decision, she turned down to the left.
xXx
"Ready?" Sano questioned over the ear piece.
Kenshin frowned at his friend's question. It wasn't a confirmation that he needed to make, and knew that Sano was only asking to egg him on in his insanity. Honestly, it was a bit insane.
Standing on the top of the smokestack that towered over the adjacent factory and the one next to that one where Kaoru was being held, Kenshin was oddly confident he could do this. Taking the climbing rope, he tied it off securely on the grate in the lip of the smokestack. He immediately thought back on the conversation he had with Kaoru about rope and decided to keep this particular moment quiet when he next saw her. There would be no living with her if she were to find out that rope actually came in handy.
Wrapping the rope around his forearm and his hand, he tilted forward to peer over the edge and focused in on the target building. "Watch for my cue." Kenshin said over the communicator.
As Misao had pointed out, he was not usually involved in the gymnastic entries for missions. If anything, Misao had been built specifically for the purpose and always managed to land on her feet like a limber cat and without detection. Aoshi achieved similar results, but had nothing over Misao's level of stealth and acrobatic skills. However, Kenshin was another matter. He was compact and built for speed, but was a lumbering buffoon in comparison. Regardless, he was determined to see this through. His current launch position was the most dangerous of the team, and he wasn't prepared to relinquish it.
Allowing the rope to lead out from his right hand, Kenshin scaled down the side of the smokestack with his feet firmly planted. Standing upright a third of the way down the chimney, he reached with his left hand to his hip and gripped his katana by the scabbard. It wasn't every mission that he felt the need to carry his sword, but something at the back of his neck told him he would need it along with his usual two handguns.
With a firm hold on the rope, he crouched with his legs and immediately leapt outward and swung his body to the side. The movement caused his entire body to spin along with the rope around the chimney like a maypole. His feet touched the side of the smokestack at every revolution, causing his orbit to oblong. Letting the rope feed out longer at every turn, he kept diligent sight of the rooftop in question. At the ninth spin he timed his moment and released the rope, causing him to launch at the roof two buildings away.
Despite Misao's advice of tucking in to prepare for impact, Kenshin kept his body straight and shot through the night air like a rocket. At the last second he twisted his body to land on his legs and immediately rushed off into a sprint to the electrical box on the roof. A master switch for the whole building within the electrical box would have been convenient, but these things rarely turned out to be convenient. Taking the small electromagnetic pulse bomb out, Kenshin prepared himself. This was the part that made things tricky. An electromagnetic pulse bomb would knock out anything running on electricity within its blast radius.
Factory buildings, no matter their age, were wired so that no small act could short circuit the entire system. There was no way to cut the power directly without tipping off the occupants, but Kenshin was nothing if not fast. With speed on his side he pressed the trigger to the bomb within seven seconds of his feet landing on the rooftop.
A sudden electrical wave shot out from the bomb center and radiated out one hundred feet in every direction. The lights and all electricity cut out in the silent blast without an explosion. In the quiet of the night on the rooftop, Kenshin's world went black and he crumpled to the ground.
xXx
Kaoru cut through the arm of another henchman with her jagged aluminum piece and knocked him out with a blow to the back of his neck. As the only one left standing in the hallway, Kaoru stilled and let her senses reach out around her. Something had just happened. Aside from the building going dark, she could feel something crawl up her spine, but stopped short of something. Unsure of what had happened, she continued on cautiously.
The quieter end of the hallway she had chosen proved to have the occasional guard or lackey, but nothing she couldn't easily handle. Although she had pilfered a gun and ammunition from the first guard she came across, she had decided it was best to tuck it away in the back of her waist band and use her makeshift weapon instead. It was her only safe bet on making a stealthy escape. The last thing she needed was for Soujiro or Enishi to find her. She wasn't quite sure about her supposed brother, but she knew for a fact that Enishi was a stronger and more skilled fighter. Kaoru also had inexperience going against her.
A man rounded the corner loudly and obviously lost without the lights to guide him. Kaoru, able to see perfectly, swept her legs out to trip him and swung her knee into his jaw. The man groaned and fell in a heap. Seeing the hunting knife strapped to his belt, she abandoned her DIY weapons and grabbed it. She wondered about the validity of carrying a hunting knife long as a forearm in the middle of Tokyo, but thanked the impracticality of the man.
Persisting in her previous path, she was relieved to come upon a stairwell leading up. The basement had no direct exit out in the form of a hatch or otherwise, so the only way to escape was going up to ground level. However, her relief was short lived as she made out a figure at the top of the steps.
"Hey sis." Soujiro greeted with his smile. "What are you up to know?"
xXx
Sano wasn't one to complain, but he wondered if there would ever be a mission when he played the main character. Correction, Sano was always one to complain.
Letting his fist crack against an oncoming guard, Sano made a note to bring this up at the next meeting. He'd been at this gig long enough that he really should have gotten the starring role years ago. Swinging his leg out in a round house kick to the next attacker, he sighed. The part of hero came with a burden he wasn't exactly enthusiastic of shouldering and thought better of it. It was a lot easier to act as the distraction -yet again- than it was to deal with tragic pasts and vengeance.
As he heard the commotion from other ends of the building, he knew that Aoshi and Misao were doing their part. Drawing his gun out, Sano rushed in through door to the factory to secure the entrance he had been charged with by the protagonist of this mission.
xXx
Soujiro looked up toward the ceiling as if he were checking for rain. "Looks like your boyfriend is here." Kaoru readied her stance and brought the knife before her in defense. Glancing down at her he let out a sigh. "I just got you back. He can't think I'm going to let you go that easily. Also, an EMP? It's smart, but desperate don't you think? Too bad he doesn't seem to know that you and I have a failsafe built in."
"He?" She questioned confused.
"Alpha. You know, the fool determined to poison you with lies." He replied as if she were being facetious for asking. "Do you actually think he cares? That he has feelings for you?"
She narrowed her eyes at him "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course I do." He said while taking a step down toward her. "I'm your brother, I love you. I just want to protect you."
Kaoru swiped the knife forward and glared until he stopped in his step. "You're insane. And you're trying to trick me."
"Really? Then why are they the ones lying to you? You think your father was captured by my side? What do I get from that? An old man begging for his life." He expounded. "But them? They kill the man that might figure out the truth. They're cutting all your attached strings."
Kaoru's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, but quickly steeled her gaze. "You think I'm actually going to believe you?"
Soujiro laughed sardonically. "You found out on your first mission that we had him? Isn't that too much of a coincidence and convenience? I didn't expect you to be fooled so easily."
She kept up with her glare, but internally she faltered a bit. This was something she had wondered about, but her faith in Kenshin had kept her strong. He had been with her when they broke into the building containing her father who had been captured. She even had doubted the other droids in a conspiracy, but Kenshin assured that they wouldn't betray her.
"Why else do you think they're tying you to Kenshin?" He pointed out, his smile turning faintly smug.
She trusted Kenshin -more than she probably should have, but she did. Even though he had turned cold when he first found out she was droid, there was something about him that told her he had still worried about her. If she were conspiracy theorist, she could have convinced herself that Kenshin burning her tracking chip and helping get to her father was all an elaborate ruse. However, there was no end game to such a theory. Kenshin had nothing to gain from that, and neither did the Agency. If anything, it turned her off from the Agency.
"Did you see me at this hideout with your father? Who was actually there?" He pushed on, not realizing that Kaoru's resolve was hardening with each question. "You only saw droids from MIRU, right? Think about it sis."
Suddenly a shot rang through the air and the next sound was Soujiro's uncharacteristic guttural scream. Smoking gun still aimed on him, Kaoru watched him carefully. She felt no sympathy for the man. He had baited her into her reaction of quickly drawing out the gun she had hidden at her back and shooting him in the right shoulder. His smile disappeared as he used his left hand to press against the wound that now leaked a blood-like liquid. The look on his face was disbelieving and he gaped out her.
She remained immune to his look of betrayal. "Don't call me that."
Kaoru slowly climbed the steps and watched him vigilantly with her gun poised unflinchingly on him. Once on the same step as him, she side-stepped around from him with her gun still aimed.
"Don't do this Kaoru. Don't go." He gritted out through his teeth. "I looked for you for three years."
"Then stop looking for me." She threatened and started backing away. "Don't come after me."
But Soujiro didn't listen and moved toward her while still applying pressure to his shoulder. "Kaoru."
"Stay back." She changed her stance to take the oncoming backlash of the gun.
"You don't understand Kaoru." With his next step forward, Kaoru took aim and shot out his right eye. As he collapsed backward from the blow, he kept eye contact with her. As his reality darkened, he could hear her shuffling away. "Ka-kao... Sanako."
Kaoru froze in her retreat when he heard his voice choke on her name and give a completely different one. The name sounded unfamiliar and completely foreign. She only stared at the still body of Soujiro for a moment longer before continuing on her escape.
Reaching a pair of metal doors to exit onto the ground floor, Kaoru stopped shy of opening the doors. The sound of gun fire suddenly started, and for a split second she thought Soujiro had woken up and was shooting at her. However, a quick mental check had her concluding that the sounds were coming from beyond the door and a shootout was happening. Kaoru considered her options. She could go through the doors and duck out into the foray or head up. She contemplated trekking upward and using a roof exit. She wasn't exactly savvy on all the politics involved with Enishi and Shishio, but she imagined it was the Agency droids who were breaching their compound.
Even with Kenshin's assurance, she still wasn't quite sure how much to trust the other droids. Kaoru seriously contemplated leaving them to their fight and escaping with her own skin, but her conscience had her readying her gun and verifying her knife was securely at her side. Using the metal door to cover her, she opened it quickly and surveyed the situation.
The open expanse of the ground floor betrayed the signs of an old factory. The lights were also out in this part of the building, but the large windows on one wall allowed enough moonlight and streetlight to spill in to maintain some visibility. The machinery that was once housed in the large room were gone, yet the skeletal remains of lone pillars, wires, and vents remained. Judging by the space, she could tell that this wasn't the organization's main stronghold but more of a base. Tables, couches, chairs, and crates of supplies littered the room that looked well-used, but nothing that showed a permanent settling.
However, the important points of the room were the main entrance and the two side exits. There were guards taking cover among the crates and tables, shooting blindly and clumsily toward whoever hid behind the frame of the door. Kaoru wished she could still feel droids, because she imagined she could have figured out who were behind each entrance and exit. Even without the detection, she deducted that Aoshi, Misao, and Sano were the culprits. Kenshin was severely out of commission and the other two droids were not meant for battle.
Precise shots were fired from beyond each door and took down the guards. Although the invaders were severely outnumbered, Kaoru had no doubt that they would secure the facility within the hour. Their only main obstacles were two men who seemed cool, calm, and enjoying the shootout. One had messy blonde hair and had two assault rifles strapped to his back. The other looked feminine, but something about him told her he was male. He seemed to be taking pleasure in the situation a little too much as he reloaded his gun with a new magazine with more flair than a jazz-singing drag queen.
Despite her programming tell her to, Kaoru wasn't quite ready to kill. Although she participated in injuries that led to life-long disabilities for her victims since discovering she was a droid, she had yet to kill anyone. So with the goal to severely maim, she took aim at the flamboyant one of the principal threats. Shooting someone with their back turned was not something she wanted to do, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
She let out a shot toward the man's arm, but was stunned to see him suddenly turn and avoid the bullet and shoot one toward her. Kaoru was miraculously able to duck and felt the impact of the bullet against the metal door that served as her cover. In the face of nearly getting shot, Kaoru was surprised to find her nerves calm. Crouching down, she allowed herself a split second to peer past the door. Another bullet barely missed her, yet it was enough for her to see that the man approached closer and was now taking cover behind a crate two car lengths away from her.
Kaoru grumbled at inadvertently drawing attention to herself. She had hoped to injure the guards and make the other droids' lives easier. Being on the receiving end of the best gunman's shots was not part of her plans.
xXx
Consciousness seeped back into Kenshin slower than he would have liked. He could feel his core getting stronger with each passing second. He had taken the risk that the EMP would shut down all of his systems, but his new core -Kaoru's core- had kept beat. A faint and slow, but steady beat. He hadn't expected to die, but to be out of commission for longer. His arm felt heavy as he brought his watch to his line of vision and saw that only seven minutes had passed since he had set off the pulse.
His veins felt like they were brimmed with lead as he sat up. His core pumped a little faster to compensate for his forced movement. His body screamed for him to lie back down and rest, yet he also felt strength returning back to him. The more he pushed his muscles and joints, the more he could feel himself getting back to normal. Pushing himself to kneeling position, he slowly made his way to his feet.
The rooftop was empty and he was grateful for that small miracle. Any droids within the building would have been just as affected by the pulse, but a human could have easily done him in. His team had stayed just outside of the radius of the blast and he could hear their boisterous entry downstairs. He only hoped that Kaoru was away from the shots and he would get to her in time.
Kenshin expected to be booted up in a little under twenty minutes -not seven. His main concern had been running into Enishi or even Shishio before getting to Kaoru. Now that he was up before the typical time frame, he hoped he could keep a leg up and get to her. He was thankful for whatever improvements Yahiko had designed into the fourth generation heart core, because there was no doubt in his mind that the new core was what allowed him to wake up faster than planned. By the time he took ten steps toward the roof access door, Kenshin could feel the majority of his strength return to him.
xXx
Three new dents imbedded into the metal door that Kaoru used as her shield. Any slight movement past the shadow of the door had her showered with bullets. The shots against the door were made by the other guards who proved to be awful shots. The bullets hitting the wall past the door where she had peeked out was where the feminine man had aimed. She had to give it to the man that he was a lot better shot than she had previously thought. Even one of his shots had grazed her upper right arm.
"I can do this all day girly!" The man yelled from his place with humor in his voice.
She frowned at his patronizing tone. He had to have been aware she was a droid and he was human. Even on a bad day, her aim should be more precise than his. The only problem was that he was relentless and seemed to have a limitless supply of ammunition. Kaoru, on the other hand, only had three bullets left in her current clip and only one spare magazine she grabbed from one of the guards. She wished action movie rules applied and she had infinite ammo.
"I don't have all day." She called back and scoured her brain for a plan. "I have a dental appointment at three o'clock that I really need to make."
She earned a barking laugh at her sarcastic comment. "Then get out from your little hiding place."
"Says the person who is ducked behind a crate." She accused back.
"Kaoru?" A loud questioning yell came from the side exit closest to her.
She furrowed her brows and answered back. "Yeah?" Kaoru felt a bit like an idiot answering back casually. There was absolutely nothing casual about this situation.
"It's Sano!" He identified himself overjoyed.
"Okay..." She angled the door a bit to get a view of the exit in question without being in the line of sight with the shooter. "I'm a little busy right now."
Sano, who had warded off the flamboyant man's shooting, had managed to get into the main room and was hidden carefully behind a pillar. Within sight of each other, Sano waved like a kid on stage at a recital with a grin on his face.
"Happy to see you're alive." He called out friendlily. Kaoru waved back dumbly, not sure how to react to his welcoming smile. The last time she had seen him had been in the training room when she had delivered a beating for shooting her in the eye. She made a mental note to thank him at a later date for showing her the trick to knock out a droid. Granted, there wouldn't be much appreciation since he had showed her first hand, but it was handy in the face of Soujiro.
"Is this a rescue?" She questioned as she watched him shoot off a round of bullets at some of the braver men who tried to encroach into his blind spot.
"You betcha." His hokey word-choice had her raising a brow, but she nodded in understanding. "Leave Kamatari to me. Go find Kenshin."
"Do I get a say in this?" The man, now identified as Kamatari, called out.
Kaoru ignored him and shot Sano a confused look. "Is he at the high-rise apartment?"
"No, he's here. On the roof." He revealed while taking two shots, and quickly reloading his gun. "Probably still knocked out, so he could probably use the company."
Her eyes widened and she glanced back at the stairwell behind her, as if expecting to find the red head there. Whipping her eyes back to Sano she gasped out, "You brought an invalid to a place like this?"
"He's not how you left him." He said knowingly and shooed her away with her hands. "Go after him. We can handle things here."
She considered his words a few seconds, and then nodded. She pivoted on her foot to leave, but glanced back at Sano before shutting the door behind her. "I expect to see all of you alive later."
"Ditto." He responded and focused his attention on the enemy shooters.
Kaoru disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell. Her mind raced with questions of Kenshin and how he was able to be here in his condition. However a small voiced nagged at the back of her thoughts with the name Sanako echoing.