Chapter 9:

"Resisting Indignation"

She didn't care anymore, she just didn't. Suzuki was safe now and that's all that mattered, for as long as she was alive, she wasn't going to let anything happen to him. Tetsu could take her very life if he so pleased and she would die happy as long as she knew Suzuki was out of harm's way. Everyone at the dojo: Kenshin, Kaoru, Yahiko, Sanosuke; they would protect him, probably even do a better job of it than she had. It was her own foolishness that Suzuki came so close to being killed. She had already let Tetsu get away with hurting him once, she wouldn't let it happen again. But how could she defend her son, when she barely had enough strength to keep herself breathing...?

For now it was over, Megumi figured Kurotara had gotten tired of abusing her mangled body as she felt through the dull numbness that was her arms, him picking her up. His hands were rough and callused, most likely from the high endurance they took from smacking her around all afternoon. Tetsu dragged her non-too-kindly back into the clinic, her limp legs trailing behind her like excess baggage, only one arm raised up as a handle for Tetsu to grip on. She couldn't fight him anymore, she couldn't even feel her body. Megumi felt as if she were torn between both worlds of heaven and earth, unsure if she was dead or alive, if she was really there at all.

Tetsu's hands somehow still encased enough energy to bring her all the way inside, just enough to throw her half-conscious form into her desk chair, and he left her there for a moment, leaving the room to retrieve something from somewhere else in the clinic. Megumi could only hope it was something sharp and pointy, anything that would end her life quickly, but, being that Tetsu wasn't one to let her die kindly, it was probably not anything less of a torture weapon.

Her eyes were drooping, along with the rest of her as she lay pitifully in the chair he had tossed her in, her arms hanging down the sides of the chair's legs, her stiff fingers barely reaching down to the tatami mat below.

She was so tired, so dreadfully tired. Nothing in the world could have given her the energy to get up and run out the front door; it was useless. Suzuki was gone, most likely being comforted by one of their friends at the dojo, probably too scared and confused to ask for help.

No one was coming back for her...

Tetsu came back, his heavy footsteps startling Megumi out of her train of thought with each loud thud it brought upon the ground; she was too numb to be scared. Just opening her eyes wasted away the last bit of her energy and she gazed up at her fiancé, but his face remained unreadable to her as it was blank and expressionless. She watched as he bent over to the chair she sat in and she heard a loud snipping sound of something hard. Turning her head to the side, her breathing coming in short gasps through her open mouth, she tried to speak. But nothing came out but a soft gurgle from her throat. Tetsu didn't even look up, he seemed too preoccupied with what he was doing.

That's when she felt it, the coarse material wrapping about her wrists like a snake and she felt Tetsu straining to tie the rope tighter above her hands, almost cutting off the blood flow from her arms. She wanted to wriggle free, to kick him with her free legs, but he knew and she knew, she couldn't do it. She had lost all feeling of her body long ago, after the unaccountable blows to her stomach, her arms, her legs, everywhere; Megumi had no chance of escaping on her own and there was obviously no way that Tetsu was going to set her free willingly.

"What are you going to do with me?" Megumi was able to murmur through chapped lips and a hoarse throat, her breathing becoming more labored from the amount she used to employ her voice, and she wheezed out more pathetic breaths.

"What am I going to do to you, Sweetheart?" Kurotara repeated, taunting her with the use of the loving nickname he had given her and he squeezed the ropes tighter around her wrists, to the point that her skin had been scratched raw and small specks of blood appeared leaking from the rope's strings. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am going to leave you here to die. I am going to make you feel what I felt that night when I found Satomi dead on the floor of her jail cell. Then you will know what it feels like to be helpless and pathetic..."

"Do what you want with me, I don't care anymore," Megumi whispered, hardly audible to Tetsu's ears, and she drowsily lifted her head up to meet his one black eye and one white with her caramel ones. She may not have any strength in her body, but she had strength in her mind and she was going to make sure he knew that. "Kill me if that's what you want, whatever makes you feel better about your old wife-to-be's death. But, no matter how brutally you murder me, Tetsu, it will not bring Satomi back to life."

His hand flew backwards, high above his head before coming down once again on her flaming cheek. Her head spun to the left, her eyes closed tightly shut to keep out the images of blood she could practically see stained on Tetsu's hands. She could feel it, the blood from his palms that was now slowly dripping down the sides of her face. It was the blood from the victims he had killed, his father, the many other people that had ever gotten in the way of his plans, and now... her blood would be joining it.

She was going to die, she could practically sense Death lurking in the corners of the room, grasping the staff that would point her in the direction of Heaven or Hell. She could feel his breath on her face and on the back of her neck for Death had taken over the body of Kurotara Kajima, her husband-to-be, Tetsu.

"How dare you speak her name!" Kurotara screeched at her, his hand still raised in the air, ready to bring it down upon her face again if she so much as moved, but seeing that she held no reaction only made him angrier and he slapped her again. He wanted to see her in pain.

"Cry, goddamn it!" he shouted into her face through gritted teeth and he yanked down on her hair, bringing Megumi down to where he bent low into her face, beckoning her to sob out, to whimper and satisfy his sadist motives, "I said cry!" Megumi shook her head in answer. "Why won't you fucking cry already?!" he shouted again, his voice agitated and low and he pulled harder on the strands of hair he held in his hand, "You think this is a game, do you? Huh?! Do you think this'll all be over just like that? I've got news for you, Megumi, it's not. This will be the longest day you have ever lived and it will also be your last."

"You don't scare me, Kurotara," Megumi shot back. Instantly, he let go of her hair, his eyes growing hard and dark with anger and he stepped backwards toward the window, his footsteps exaggerated with his frustration, his arm leaning against the window frame. "What are you doing, Kuro...?" she questioned, but broke off into a fit of coughing before she could finish, her throat suddenly filmed with something slick and warm and she spit it out onto the floor.

It was ... blood...

"I don't scare you anymore, huh?" he practically seethed at her, "Does death not scare you anymore, Sweetheart?"

"No. The only thing that scares me is the fact that men like you actually exist," she retorted, her eyes losing their drowsy impression for a few brief seconds so she could flash him an icy glare through her disheveled hair. He whirled back around to face her, his hand flying to it's back side to strike her again, and Megumi shut her eyes, waiting for the hard slam of his hand to her swollen cheek. But it never came.

"I will very much enjoy watching you die, Megumi," Kurotara stated coldly, his different colored eyes gazing out into the yard for something Megumi was unsure of, looking over the grass as if daring it to run away and tell someone what was going on inside the clinic. He turned back to her. "But not as much as I'm going to enjoy this..."

"What do you mean by that?" Megumi choked out, but she couldn't end her thought. Her throat had become too filled and again, she spat out more blood from her mouth and onto the tatami mat below her, watching it as it seeped deeper into the reed material and make it's mark among the shadows that danced along the floor.

"You remember how I said I was going to drown your son in the nearby river?" he asked her, a sly grin appearing over his darkened features and Megumi's breath caught in her throat, "Well, I decided to hire someone to do it instead."

Suzuki was exhausted, his legs were now running on automatic, barely able to keep up with Sanosuke's fast sprints back towards the clinic that his mother was being held captive in. Slowly his eyes weighed down, slipping lower to the floor beneath his feet that whizzed by like a bird in the sky and he felt himself falling, falling down to the ground, but he was too tired to catch himself.

Suddenly a pair of strong arms found their way around him and he was hefted up into their capacity. Suzuki knew it was Sanosuke carrying him even if he didn't open his eyes and he felt his father gaining back the speed he had lost when he paused to catch him before he hit the ground.

He knew he shouldn't be falling asleep, not when his mother needed him to be there for her. He had failed her once when he wasn't able to defend her against Tetsu in the kitchen earlier that afternoon and prove to her just how strong all his training with Kaoru and Yahiko had made him, and God had given him a second chance at proving himself a man, but now, as his body slowly fell into fatigue, he was failing her again.

"Please save Mommy, Mr. Sagara..." Suzuki whispered, already half-asleep in his father's arms and Sanosuke looked down into his dirtied face, the one that reminded him all too much of himself as Suzuki softly spoke again, "Please save Mommy... for me..."

Sanosuke gulped back the lump in his throat that had been building up since the day he arrived back in Tokyo, now practically the size of a tennis ball as he cradled his son closer to his body, unsure if he had ever known a braver kid. It chilled him to the bone to think that he had actually created such a person and yet filled him with pride all in the same moment. He wished he could've been there to see his first steps, to hear him say his first words, to feel the soft kicking he had done when he was still in Megumi's womb. He had missed out on so much in the years he was away and now, he was here at last. He had a family, a home, a life, but all that could be taken away from him in an instant if he wasn't careful. But Sanosuke was going to make sure that didn't happen.

"Hey you!" Sanosuke's thoughts came to a screeching halt at the sound and he turned in the direction of the voice, looking up from his son's slumbering face to the smirking one of a large and burly man in front of him. His eyes narrowed and the man punched his fist into his palm, a sure sign that this guy was looking for a fight. "I take it you're that Sagara guy that my boss's been talkin' 'bout."

'I don't have time for this,' Sanosuke thought, anxiously looking about for some other way around the hulky man before him, but he blocked the trail to the clinic with his body and the huge menacing grin he wore on his face, 'Dammit... I need to get to Megumi!' Unfortunately, this guy blocking his way had other ideas.

"And I take it you're not here for a nice chat over tea and crumpets," Sanosuke rallied back, making the other man's grin grow wider across his face, stretching so far he was sure it would break off his jaw. "Look, I don't have time to kick your ass right now, asshole, so if you're not gonna get the hell outta my way, I'll just move through you."

"You think it's gonna be that easy, eh?" the man said with a laugh and he dropped down low to the ground. His legs stood shoulder-width apart as he got himself into fighting stance, every intention set on keeping Sanosuke exactly where he was. "Mr. Kajima didn't order no bum off the streets to take care of business, Sagara, he hired me, Kyo, fighter for hire. I'll tell you one thing, the only reason I even took up this job was the chance to fight you. Your reputation as Zanza back in the day was the one aspect of this job and I'd be able to die a happy man knowing I beat you. But being that you don't seem to want to hang out for little bit, I'll make ya a fair deal. Hand over the kid and I'll think about letting you live. But, if you wanna make things harder for yourself, keep the kid, but you gotta get through me first if you wanna get any farther than where you're standing right now."

Kyo's words were strong, but Sanosuke didn't exactly have the time or the patience to find out if he really was as good a fighter as he said he was. He had heard about Kyo years ago, long before he had left Tokyo, no, this was way back when he was still known through the city as Zanza, but he had never crossed paths with the man. It was said by the other people that occupied the bars and alleyways at the time, that he and Kyo were both the best at what they did, fighting for money or sometimes, just for fun. In a way, Kyo was known as the "only match for Zanza" and Sano had to admit, it intrigued him then to meet the man and test just how well Kyo went along with all the rumors that were spread throughout the dark alleyways at night.

But Sanosuke cared nothing for titles or reputations, neither on the streets or now, yet somehow Kyo was set on fighting him and there was absolutely no way he was going to get to Megumi without getting through Kyo first. If it was a fight he wanted, it was a fight he was gonna get because there was no way in hell Sanosuke was gonna lose what he had just now gotten back after all his long years away from Tokyo.

"You wanna fight me? Fine," Sanosuke said, his eyes downcast to his little boy's sleeping face as he slowly set him down on the steps of a closed hotel, carefully placing Suzuki's head against the wall for support before he turned back to his opponent with coal black eyes, "Let's get this over with. Just don't get my shirt dirty with your blood."

'I'm sorry, Megumi...' he thought silently to himself as he readied himself into his fighting stance, his left leg trailing behind him to give him more speed in his charge and his right leg set in front as a balance, 'Just hold on a little longer... I'm coming...' Lowering his head, he flicked the few strands of his bangs that fell into his eyes to the side as he prepared himself for the fight that would from now on determine the fate of just how happily ever after this story was going to end.

A/N: I know, I know. Another cliffhanger. I hate them too, but hey, you know, it keeps the readers interested! Leave a review please! Thanx to those of you who have in previous chapters! It's great encouragement!