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Chapter Twenty-Three: And the Wheel Comes 'round Once More
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Don't sacrifice yourself for me. I will not be grateful.
-Mason Cooley (b. 1927), U.S. aphorist. City Aphorisms, Eighth Selection, New York (1991).
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AU- Um, in case you guys haven't figured it out, I decided to use the 'Yutaro' from the anime rather than the Manga mostly because I couldn't resist the by-play with Yutaro's father's nick name 'Raiden' and the name I stuck Kaoru with 'Raiden no Onna'.
Besides, I don't want you guys to get too good at predicting what'll come next do I?
Also, this is the Last Chapter of Ronin Kaoru; Tokyo Arc. Next Stop: Epilogue and then Ronin Kaoru; Kyoto Arc.
*Warning* Tomoe fans should have tissues handy. You're not gonna like this chapter.
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Raijuta watched the raggle-tag group pass under the cliff from where he watched them. A woman walked ahead of the rest with two children of indeterminate age tagging along in her wake. Among the more formidable-looking members of the group numbered a femme fatale playing with a suspiciously heavy looking fan, a tall Caucasian man in olive drab who looked to be no slouch in the bad-ass department, a huge man in a white cloak who oozed competence with the nihonto sheathed at his side, and two other men of similar age (one bearing a bokken and the other a staff) who couldn't seem to let off glaring at one another long enough to walk where they were going, he dismissed them as no threat at all.
So these travelers were friends of the mysterious group of Ninjas who had suddenly taken it upon themselves to reduce his once gloriously budding-kingdom to a few disgruntled ex-samurai.
*Little does her know that's all his 'kingdom' was to begin with.
Well it was time for payback.
Raijuta's hand fell down to the hilt of his katana and caressed the deadly weapon. The men after him were fools to leave their weak out where the wolves could find them; the women and children would go first, followed by the two young men, and then the street fighter and the Swordsman.
Raijuta made a mental evaluation of the two women; the one in the sluttish kimono looked as if she could handle herself in a fight, but the scruffy one in the men's clothing allowed herself to be tugged this way and that by the two brats with her. She carried a bokken, but she didn't carry herself like a kenshi; she probably couldn't stomach the sight of blood and only had the bokken for self-defense.
He sneered, that was the way to do it. He'd work his way up from the weakest to the strongest with the ninjas as the grand finale.
'They'll be headed for the hot springs' he decided as he noted the little wooden tubs they all carried to put their clothes in. 'I'll snatch one or both of the brats then and use them to lure out the dumb bitch in black.'
***
Kaoru shivered as an icy finger trailed down her spine.
Kaori and Yahiko broke off their bickering just in time to notice the uneasy expression that flickered across her face.
"What's the matter, Kaa-chan?" Kaori asked with a gentle tug on her mother's sleeve to attract attention her way.
"Nothing, Musume." Kaoru said reassuringly. "Just felt like someone walked over my grave."
"You sure you're okay?" Yahiko asked.
Kaoru ruffled both of the children's hair and chuckled. "I'm fine! How could I not be with a week's vacation ahead of me?"
Of course she didn't mean it, she'd been a kenshi long enough to sense when someone produced killing-ki and directed it at her. From the corner of her eye she could see Raven perched in the top of a precipice, she was glaring down at someone concealed on a rise below her. Kaoru would have tried to get a better look, but then whoever it was would know she knew where he was. The rise was at such an angle that she could see him if she tried.
Besides, she didn't have to be a genius to guess who in the area might want to kill her.
"Hey Kaa-chan! Look who's on the road ahead!"
Kaori's voice startled Kaoru out of her morbid thoughts and she automatically looked up to see what her daughter was pointing out. A startled smile broke out over her face when she spotted them.
A turn in the road had brought a couple on foot into view; it was Tomoe and Kenshin.
Sanosuke jogged up to Kaoru's side and shot a grin down at Kaoru. "Should I get their attention?"
At her node he took a deep breath and let loose with a bellow that would have deafened lesser beings. As it was, there was a rash of ringing ears present in the assembled company.
"OI! HIMURA-TACHI! WAIT UP!!!"
Up ahead, Tomoe clutched her hands over her ears and Kenshin whipped out his sword, ready to repel an attack. The Kaoru-gumi were somewhat worse shape seeing as they'd been at ground zero.
Hiko sprang up behind Sanosuke and belted him on good upside the head. "What the Hell, Chicken head?!" he shouted. "You nearly burst my eardrums!"
Sanosuke jumped back and rubbed the rising lump on his head. "I was just getting their attention!"
"Well you managed to scare them stupid." Megumi reproved. She tugged on his sleeve. "Bend down to earth and let me see that," she ordered.
Sanosuke meekly obeyed, hoping for sympathy. He yelped when Megumi whapped his skull with her lead-filled fan. "What was that for?!"
"Now you have two lumps to frame the hole in your head." she sniped.
"Maa, maa!" Kaoru interposed herself between Sanosuke and the group in general. "He was just trying to help!"
"Kamiya-tachi!"
Kaoru and co. looked up at Kenshin's call.
"We will wait here for you!"
Kaoru waved to show they'd heard and turned to her companions. "Now let's play nice, ne?" she said sternly to them.
"You're acting as if we're children." Hiko sniffed. "We can behave."
Kaoru snorted. "I wouldn't be treating you as children if you all weren't acting as children. Shall we go now?"
The group shuffled into action and soon they caught up with Tomoe and Kenshin, who'd been awaiting them good to their word.
"Ohayo, Iyuu!" Tomoe hugged Kaoru as soon as she was in reach. "I heard you all are staying a Western mansion! What's it like?"
"Overdone." Kaoru said succinctly. "It's typical of foreigner's tastes."
Tomoe made a face. "Crowded and convoluted." she guessed and Kaoru nodded. "I thought so. I've yet to meet a foreigner with decent taste in architecture." she smiled and linked her arm through Kaoru's.
"Our neighbors in Kyoto, the Scots, seem comfortable with their surroundings." Kenshin said to Tomoe.
"They're from New York." Tomoe sighed. "Mrs. Scott once told me that she's so surprised to see the sun everyday and breathe clean air, she hardly knows what to do with herself. I wonder if the big cities in America are as bad as she says?"
"I wouldn't know" Kaoru demurred. "But every foreigner I've ever met always exclaims over how fresh and clean everything is here."
"I've been to New York before." Hiko said suddenly. "It was a cesspit, poor people live like rats there in tenements that don't even keep out the rain. I like Japan just fine, thank you very much."
"I didn't know you'd traveled out of Japan." Kaoru exclaimed.
"I've done a lot of things you don't know about, Ru-chan." he paused to consider. "But not much."
Kaoru made a face at him. "Don't you start that again."
A great laugh was had at her expense although to their benefit, Tomoe and Kenshin abstained… although that could have been because they didn't get the joke.
***
The Hot Springs were a dream come true for Kaoru, she'd become something of an addict in her years at the Iron Mountain monastery and had been missing it something awful at the Dojo. Hot baths were nice, but they weren't the real thing.
"Don't let me catch you boys peeping!" Megumi called over the modesty hedge separating the men and women's baths.
"There ain't anything worth peeping at over there between you and itachi-chan. 'kept maybe Kaoru but I like my head right where it is, thank you." Sanosuke called back.
Kaoru looked pained as she divested herself of gi, hakama, and under things. "That's a bit extreme," she said lamely. "I wouldn't cut your head off for peeping."
There was a sound of splashing on the other side of the hedge. "Really?!" Sanosuke sounded eager.
"… bruise you up a lot, yes, but I wouldn't kill you." she finished.
"…"
Kaoru bundled up her clothes and ran lightly over the grass to ease herself into the spring. Megumi and Tomoe were a few steps behind her. Megumi had her hair up in a towel and sat herself down on a rock behind Kaoru.
"Hold still, Kao-san, and I'll put your hair up for you," she said.
Kaoru nodded and leaned back as Megumi deftly piled her hair on top of her head and wrapped a strip of towel around it before knotting it securely in front.
Tomoe stepped into the water and sat down beside Kaoru. She sighed blissfully. "This is heaven!"
"Amen to that." Kaoru agreed.
"Banzai!" Kaori cried as she jumped into the spring, managing to splash all the older women in the process.
"… It could be somewhere else." Megumi muttered and stopped abruptly as she glanced down at Kaoru's shoulders. "Stand up please, Kao-san."
"Eh?" Kaoru blinked up at Megumi. "What?"
"I want to see something, just stand up if you will?"
Kaoru shrugged and stood up; gasps escaped all women present except for Kaori.
"Oh! What happened to you, Iyuu?" Tomoe cried.
"Huh?" Kaoru looked down at herself and suddenly remembered what she looked like without her clothes on; they were seeing the scars.
"An ungodly amount of injuries, I wager." Megumi deadpanned. "And I only recognize maybe a fraction of them. You must have had a rough ten years' travel."
Kaoru submerged herself once more with a muted splish. "Well… yes. I did."
"You should see the whip marks on her back." Kaori supplied helpfully.
Kaoru shot a death glare at her daughter but quailed under the thunderous expression on Megumi's face.
***
"KAO-SAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!!!"
The bellow caught the men completely off guard. Kaneda fell off the moss-covered rock from where he'd been baiting Enishi and into the spring. "What was that!" he gasped as his head broke surface.
Hiko tossed back a saucer of saké and chortled. "I'd say she's aroused the wrath of Megitsune again." he shook his jug. "Damn, dry already?"
"Maybe you should hold off, jiya?" Kaneda suggested from his newly reclaimed spot on the mossy rock. Perhaps he should have kept his opinion to himself because Hiko's dou-ryuu-sen knocked him right back off a moment later.
"Ouch." Sanosuke observed. He blinked as Hiko got to his feet and wrapped a towel around his waist. "Where are ya going?"
"Immediately to get away from you all and eventually to get saké." Hiko replied gruffly. "Kill anyone who acts like an idiot in my absence," he commanded Kenshin who merely cocked a flaming eyebrow at him and ignored the order (as he'd been ignoring pretty much everything all night)
"Hiko, could you keep an eye out for Yahiko?" Enishi called after the swordsman. "He left to put his stuff in a cubby and didn't come back."
Hiko grunted and waved to show he'd heard. 'The brat's probably is peeping on the girls.' He swung the saké jug over his shoulder and made for the bushes surrounding the women's baths.
***
Kaoru leapt lightly into a tree to escape the fuming doctor. Luckily she'd managed to grab one of the courtesy yukatas laid out for them and had her gi on over it for warmth. So she was not running around naked. (Although that would have made for an interesting scene.)
Before Megumi could track her to any particular tree, Kaoru leapt to another tree branch, one that was over the men's baths. She could escape through there and… well… find somewhere to hole up until certain tempers cooled.
Instinct stopped Kaoru before the kunai aimed for the tree trunk hit her flush in the face. She scowled at it and jerked the thin note off of the hilt.
"There has got to be a better way to send a challenge," she muttered as she read it. "'Come out to play or the boy dies'?"
Just then Hiko passed underneath her. Kaoru cast her eyes heavenward, said a prayer of thanks to Providence, and dropped down to the ground beside him. He didn't jump or get startled to his credit, but then again he was practically 'King Smack-down' so Kaoru consoled herself with the fact that he probably already knew she was there.
"I thought it was men who peeped on women, Ru-chan.," he observed drolly. "Or are your revolutionized that aspect of Japanese culture too?"
Kaoru stuck her tongue out at him. "You wish. Have you seen Yahiko?"
Hiko frowned. "I was actually just looking for the brat. Was he peeping?"
Kaoru gave him the note.
Hiko read it quickly and snorted. "Let me guess, it was tied to a kunai and thrown at your head?" at Kaoru's nod he sighed. "What an anachronism. Whom have you pissed off now?"
"Dunno for sure. I'll go teach him his place in life, rescue Yahiko, and get back into the baths," she decided.
"Cocky, aren't we?" Hiko observed.
"No." Kaoru shrugged. "More like 'dead-serious' no one gets between Kamiya Kaoru and a long overdue vacation."
"… And what are you going to teach him his place in life with?" he pressed casually.
Kaoru scowled as she remembered that she'd left her bokken behind her when she'd fled Hurricane Megitsune. Hiko handed her his own nihonto, the one he'd disguised as a staff.
"Here, try not to get any blood or bodily fluids on, ne?"
Kaoru nodded. "I'll be back in a bit."
"Have fun." Hiko whistled lazily as he reversed his direction and went to the changing house to replenish his saké.
'There's really no question about whether Kaoru will win or not.' He thought to himself. A stray breeze sprang up and tossed his ponytail around his shoulders as he stopped and looked back to where Kaoru was striding off into the forest surrounding the hot springs.
'So then why do I have such a bad feeling about this fight?' he asked himself. Then he smacked himself for doing something so un-cool as a 'foreboding scene'.
(SD Hiko- How dare you do that to me! Some fan-girl you are! You're supposed to leave all the dorky scenes to White-hair or the Idiot Monk!
DD-Sorry, but you were the only one who wouldn't butt in on the fight.)
***
It wasn't hard to find her opponent, Kaoru had only to follow the murderous ki that had started to overwhelm her senses shortly after she left Hiko at the Hot Springs. Of course, as a true paranoid skeptic, Kaoru was a firm believer in the 'Easy in, hard out' principle of fighting.
"Mou, is this what Kenshin sensed from Raijuta when they fought?" she wondered out loud. "No wonder he looked ready to tear the jerk a new one."
The nihonto at her side was an unfamiliar weight, but Kaoru couldn't risk tipping Megumi off to what she was going to do. She winced 'I'm doing the same thing to the others that Kenshin used to do to me. Leaving them out of the action and putting all the burden on myself is a stupid thing to do. Maybe I should…' she shook head. 'No time now!'
She skidded to a halt in a non-descript clearing. Raijuta had Yahiko's prone body sprawled at his feet. He had an unsheathed katana and was leaning against a tree trunk.
"You're alone." he observed.
She nodded curtly and pointed at him with the nihonto. "This is your first and only warning; let Yahiko go and get lost or prepare for a humiliating defeat."
"Arrogant, aren't we?" Raijuta chuckled and Kaoru felt his killing-ki build. "I hate arrogance in a woman."
And just like that he was on her, Kaoru easily blocked his initial strikes but then he pulled back and was under her guard like it wasn't there. She back flipped to avoid losing her head and used her crouching position to propel herself under Raijuta's defenses. She scored a blow into his gut that should have knocked the air out of him except that the nihonto struck armor and she had to jump back out of his reach when he reversed his grip on his katana and tried to stab directly down at her.
'He's good.' Kaoru drew her tongue over dry lips. 'Really good. I may have to go all out on him… but Yahiko's here and he can't get out of the way. I'm stuck protecting him and fighting Raijuta as well. I could do that if he used regular sword techniques, but he's got that 'izuna' thing. It's an air-borne vacuum attack if I remember correctly.'
"Time to die, little-one." Raijuta sneered.
"Not today." Kaoru growled and leveled her bokken at Raijuta. "Hiraishin!"
Electric blue ki leapt down the length of her bokken and through the air to slam into Raijuta's chest and knock his back several body lengths. Amazingly though, he kept his feet and chuckled as he rubbed the smoking black spot on his chest.
"Cute trick. I wouldn't have pegged you for a user of ken-ki. Try this on for size…" he raised his katana, ready for the matoi inazuma.
Kaoru got ready to start dodging, except just then…
"Kaaooruu!! Iyuu, where are you?" Tomoe's voice floated through the woods. "Megumi's sorry she yelled, please come back!"
"Shimatta!" Kaoru swore. "Tomoe! GET OUT OF HERE! GO BACK!!!"
Raijuta grinned and it was not a pretty sight. "Let her come, you're all going to die anyway." he grunted in surprise as Kaoru delivered a text book snap kick to the underside of his chin.
"Put a cork in it!" she snarled and then gasped as she realized her mistake too late. Raijuta's fist collided with her check at break-neck force and three her across the clearing where her skull whacked against a stone with a sickening crack!
She must have scream or cried out because Tomoe's calls became frantic. "Iyuu!? Where are you? What's happened?"
Kaoru didn't allow herself the luxury of passing out, but she was seeing double when she made it to her feet and black streamers fluttered across her vision.
Raijuta noted her unsteadiness and grinned. "I can take you out at me leisure now. Tobi Izauma!"
Later Kaoru wasn't entirely sure what inspired her. Perhaps in her semi-comatose state she was more in tune with her subconscious mind, god only knew she was operating on instinct alone by then, but as the tobi inazuma reached her, she suddenly called up her aura and deflected it to one side.
Raijuta stopped grinning.
Kaoru brought the nihonto, which she'd had a death grip on, up to a ready stance. At this point she didn't have to go anywhere, if Raijuta wanted her dead he was going to have to come over and do it.
The one thing that never entered her mind was that victims of concussions had severely limited tunnel vision right after their accident, but they never realize it until later. At the time, Kaoru's entire world was centered around the immediate threat of Itsurugi Raijuta; she didn't notice the slender white figure at the edge of the lade that watched the match with a fist pressed against her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
Tomoe had arrived just in time to see Kaoru's head impact with the boulder and she knew that her friend was doing well to be standing up right now. She was also very much aware of the fact that although Kaoru herself was unaware of it, the sheath had come free from the nihonto that Hiko had lent her.
'I've got to stop this.' was the thought that rattled through her shocked mind. 'Either that man will kill her or she'll kill him and I don't know which would be the worst thing to happen to her!'
And so, as she had done on a cold night thirteen years before, Tomoe ran into a fight to save someone who mattered to her, letting her heart do her thinking when her head should have prevailed.
For her part, Kaoru had totally forgotten that Tomoe was anywhere near. He world contracted around the charging twin figures of Raijuta and forced them into one body with a sword raised above its head ready to part her from her life.
Raijuta loosed a battle cry that, coupled with the ringing in her ears, nearly scared Kaoru unconscious but she answered it with one of her own, born of desperation as she poured the last of her strength into one last strike.
As her sword met flesh, Kaoru first thought was that she'd blanked out for the world had turned white. The scarlet blossomed on that pure white field and the mingled cry of a man and woman in mortal pain.
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Seiyuu; Gomen nasai! I'm sorry! I had to kill her off! It was vital to the plot! So now you kind of know how I get K&K together… eventually. And um… yes, Kenshin's gonna be creepy for a while after this. Really, really creepy. So uh, deal with it for the time being I suppose.