Dedicating this fic as of yet to Kylandra, who has been the source of all information and inspiration in this quest to do what I have always wanted to do, ever since I saw Rurouni Kenshin in all its long-arc glory. Continue to read and please, please, continue to review!
Holy Dark
2.
An unpleasant night, a truly unpleasant night. Rain could wet you to the bone on a night like this, chill you down to your blood. Flesh clung to muscle in pale desperation, the same way fabric clung to flesh, soaked through in the chill of the dark night. Lights flickered on in windows, or flickered out. The moon did not struggle against the clouds that obscured it in the darkness, but resigned, accepting the simplicity of its stormy fate. For one night, the moon acquiesced to the rain and the stormclouds, for the moon knew that it would soon return, though this storm would blow over as quickly as it had come. The moon did not worry itself, impassive as ever, always a part of the night, over such fleeting things.
Saitou Hajime, Captain of the Shin Sen Gumi's Third Troop, smiled a certain smile to himself and resigned himself, too, like the moon, to the wetness. The moon and he knew that the weather did not attack them personally; rather, it was simply nature, and if one spent one's entire life howling at nature's quirks or patterns, then one would never be satisfied with the road they traveled.
"Excuse me." The voice was a lilt of smooth calm and pleasant civility, of real smiles, good humor even in the black of shivering night. "Was a joke told? I did not hear the punchline." Saitou's gold eyes never saw such smiles as graced Okita Souji's. The Captain of the Shin Sen Gumi's First Troop smiled in a way far more pleasant to the average man - or woman, certainly - as if he were listening to the punchlines the world had to offer, as if he were enjoying them tremendously. Saitou Hajime was different: he was making the jokes, or he was a part of them, and the quirk to his lips, minimal, barely there, registered a half-scorn, a half-stubbornness, and an ultimate bemusement.
"You know there ain't no two ways about it." Harada Sanosuke had this gruff gravel to his voice that challenged without waiting to be challenged, a lack of seriousness as he ruffled at the assault offered by the rainy night. "He's smilin' an' we're not gonna know why. Does it even matter?" The Captain of the Tenth Troop toned himself down when he was around Okita - Okita demanded a certain amount of respect, or decorum, or gentleness, that Harada only gave to him and to women - though he didn't do it when he was just around Saitou. Then, the man was a plethora of curses and coarse euphemisms and, just as Saitou was amused by the rainy night, Saitou was amused by him. Harada's saving grace, so to speak, was that he was a good fighter, a damnably good fighter, though he had the tendency to be a real asshole if he didn't put his mind to acting otherwise. "Just wanna get inside, shit, get warmed up, if y'know what I mean." They knew what he meant. Everyone and their uncle and their uncle's old cat would have known what he meant, just by looking at that I'm-gonna-get-laid sparkle to his eyes. Even in the wet and the darkness, you couldn't keep Harada Sanosuke down; not for long enough to shut him up, in any case.
"Hn," Saitou said, arms folded over his chest. The three of them made a steady, pleasant rhythm against the city street when they walked together, Okita with the grace of a young boy and Harada with the speed of an alley cat and Saitou with the steady prowl of a practiced wolf. The Shin Sen Gumi was, in Saitou's opinion, a sort of spider's web, which had perhaps caught a grasshopper, a fly and a butterfly. They were all of them men, but the differences between them were unmapped and innumerable.
"You gonna take your time, or what?" Harada muttered, indignant. He was always rushing into things, hurrying towards or maybe for something, as if he thought time were a phenomenon that could be conquered, overcome by a faster step. It was in its own way endearing - Okita found it to be so - while women thought his blustering and bravado were something to blush at, be impressed by. Saitou did not find it endearing, nor was he easily overcome by all Harada's protestations of a stronger constitution. The man was pleasant to look at but when you came down to it, he was soft; whether improper upbringing or a certain, basic quirk of his nature was to blame, it unquestionably didn't matter. Okita coughed - had a habit of breaking Saitou out of his thoughts or out of a sudden battle haze, even with the slightest of sounds or movements - and Saitou looked over to the smaller man, wondering at the purposefulness of it.
"Excuse me," he said. Okita began most sentences that way. Excuse me for disturbing your rest. Excuse me for being the bearer of such bad news. Excuse me for killing you. Excuse me for putting my lips on yours. Here: excuse me for coughing. The curve of his cheek was pale like the curve of the moon, and it caught the light that flickered on in a nearby window. It was wet, with the rain.
"Iie," Saitou replied, ducking his head in formality they indulged in only because neither of them broke the simple structure for any reason, no matter how familiar they had become. Harada was cut from different cloth; his rudeness could be considered their form of courtesy, only spun about one hundred eighty degrees on whatever axis of chivalry they had established. "Do not mention it." And Saitou moved just a little faster, enough for Harada to be satisfied, enough for the warmth and comfort of hot tea and a soft bed to be in sight for all of them. Let Harada think what he wanted to think. Saitou Hajime could smell some ill portent on the wind, like the coming of a great illness. It was with the same sense that he could smell a battle the night before it began, instincts honed and sharpened, much the same way swordsmiths honed and sharpened their finest blades.
"Now that's more like it," Harada said, grinning fox-like, disrupting the stillness. It was necessary always to have Harada's loud voice sounding out like a trumpet of goodwill in the darkness; shadows did not come so easily, then, to the color of Okita's warm eyes.
~*~
Megumi may have had a healer's touch but half the time she did not have a gentle touch. Well, not when she'd pulled Sagara Sanosuke's bandana off with one slim, graceful hand, white as the day she'd been born, and, with that same delicate hand, grabbed the back of Sano's head, shoving him face first into a bucket of freezing cold water which, adding insult to more insult, smelled distinctly of old laundry and soap.
Spluttering, near choking, Sano struggled against the hold and finally, when he thought he'd drown this way - what an undignified end it was - she let him go. Wet, angry, shaking his head and hair like a dog shook water from its fur, Sano fell backwards without any grace at all to the landing, onto the still-wet grass beneath him.
"What the fuck," he managed, when all the water had come out of his nose and his mouth, "was that for, you goddamn bitch?" Megumi smiled a little to herself, rolling down her sleeves demurely. As if, Sano mused to himself, she wasn't one crazy, homicidal woman who'd just shoved his head in a bucket when he'd come to her and asked her - as polite as he ever got, too! - for a cup of tea.
"It's good for hangovers," she said easily, the corners of her eyes and mouth smiling. Of course, she would take some sadistic pleasure out of the decided inelegance of the way Sano was sprawled, hair falling, sopping, over into his eyes. She was just that kind of a crazy bitch, too. But in front of Saitou Hajime? That sort of abuse wasn't to be taken, not without a string of curses a mile long and a look in Sano's eyes that might have stunned your average plow horse by sheer force of its fury.
"And so does a goddamn cup of tea!" Sano protested, scowling, though he failed to look intimidating enough for either Takani Megumi or Saitou Hajime to take much actual notice. Megumi knew enough to keep her back to Sano - the least threatening of the two men.
"Ignoring the ahou," Saitou said easily, on some countless cigarette; he didn't look at ease unless he was smoking one, the very movements smoking entailed engrained, like his gatotsu, into the line of his back. "I can assume Battousai-san is not at home?"
"Ken-san went out this morning," Megumi answered thoughtfully, tucking hair behind her ear. "He did not say he would be gone for long. No doubt he tired of the poor quality of cooking he can get here at the dojo and allowed himself to be dragged to the Akabeko?" She made a whistling sound of condescension between pursed lips, and shrugged. "If you wish to wait for him, neither I nor this idiot can stop you." Saitou looked at the woman for a long moment, taking in her motives with his head just slightly inclined to the left. At last, he smiled; not Fujita Gorou's cheerful expression, not Mibu's Wolf's narrow-eyed triumph, but a satisfied look, the sort he wore when he had gotten what he wanted from someone with nominal efforts. "I take it you're going to wait?" Megumi pressed, standing. She had learned long ago not to watch these men too closely; their eyes held a snake-like hypnosis that made it hard to judge the correct heat in the air, the proper tone of one's voice, the actual meaning of their words.
"Aa." Saitou bobbed his head, once, that unaffected smile held to his lips in much the same way the cigarette was held between them; as if it were an outside force, something foreign to, and yet an intrinsic, important part of, that narrow face. Megumi watched those slitted eyes, wondering at them, for a fraction of a second, before she, too, smiled, a placating expression, pleasant enough unless you knew Takani Megumi, and then you realized how damn near the point of raging, crazy bitch she was about to get. Even from the ground, even with water in his eyes, Sano could tell she didn't like Saitou for a second and it gave him some scornful pleasure, even though he knew Saitou wouldn't give so much as a second thought to some pretty doctor's aversion to him. "Thank you, sensei, for all your help." Simply, Saitou dropped the butt of his cigarette - ash in the air, the smell of ash in the air suddenly poignant and sharp - and he turned on his heel with clipped motions. "I think I shall wait inside the dojo. Be careful with the mutt. Perhaps he shall catch cold, mm?" Of all things, Sano realized as Saitou moved towards the entrance of the dojo, to sit inside, to wait like some dangerous wildcat perched above its prey at a mountain pass, Saitou Hajime was real damn good at walking away and leaving people behind him.
"Ch'," Sano snapped at Megumi, because he couldn't do anything else, needed a handy way to let out his anger and embarrassment, also, "the hell'd you do that for?"
"Stick your head in Ken-san's laundry bucket, or let him go inside and wait for Ken-san's return?" Megumi lifted one slim, challenging brow. Sano caught himself before he started to growl at her. Even if she was a bitch, there were some things you couldn't do, and one of those things was growl at a lady.
"Both," Sano snapped back at her, picking the red strip of fabric up from the ground and tying his hair back out of his face with it. It took two tries - his hands were shaking just enough with indignant anger to make the task more difficult than perhaps it should have been.
"You know as well as I do," Megumi replied easily, "neither of us could have stopped him. He wanted to wait. He is waiting." Megumi turned, looking down at, on, Sanosuke, as the tall man brushed dirt and grass stains off the backs of his thighs. "As for the former," she answered, the sober tone of her voice gone, replaced with superiority and some amount of good cheer, "I did that because I could." A little laugh followed the statement, and Sano snorted. Hell, he told himself, at least he knew one thing better than she did, not as well as: neither of them could have stopped Saitou Hajime, and that was the damn truth. At least, Sano thought to himself, not smug but close to it, he'd gotten that one from experience, whereas Megumi was simply drawing upon the experiences of others.
"Good day." The sound of a box placed on the ground, the simple movement of loose-fitting fabric against skin, touched by the wind. It was a tall man, with a narrow face, a lanky build, lines in his expression that suggested he was not old but had lived to see many harsh times. His cheekbones were prominent in his unusual face, and his eyes were curved up into pleasant crescents, but he smelled - and Sanosuke had his best sense of smell when his stomach was most empty - like metal and cigarette smoke and places Sano had never seen, only heard about from Kenshin's eyes. Immediately Sano didn't like the man, though he was dressed like a doctor, and the black hair that fell forward into his eyes belied his nature, softening the yet softened expression on his face.
"Who are you?" Sure, Sano didn't say it with any grace or with any courteousness but why the hell should he? He smelled like maybe Kenshin would have, if Kenshin hadn't really softened the lines of his face into something admittedly young, childish, gentle because he wanted so badly to have that sort of nature, or because he wanted so badly to deny his own through the employment of such a radically different one. No; the softened lines of this man's harshly angled face were softened because he wanted a mask to obscure his true intent, the true reason for why he was here. Nothing about this face said it was the sort of face that would ever deny its own nature: the one given to it by birth.
"Fujita Gorou," the man was saying, "to moushimasu." He had a low voice, smooth and easy, and though he smelled of smoke there was no roughness to his tone as most smokers had. Sano frowned. The guy was a liar, plain and simple. Even that name didn't taste right. "Hajimemashite."
"Sanosuke." Megumi's voice was steely, like the blade of a knife. Sano turned, blinked over at her. The sun was beginning to dip in the sky, heralding midafternoon; the clouds had long since cleared away, and its bright heat had already begun to dry Sano's hair and shoulders. "Are you thinking about him?" With another, clipped snort Sano found he'd shrugged, looking away as he sipped his cup of tea. Hell, he thought to himself, at least he'd got it in the end. But Megumi's question warranted no answers, no answers at all. When Kenshin returned, the tension in the air would break. Saitou was a polite man, and there was no desire in his body language, or in his eyes. Saitou Hajime had not come to the dojo to fight.
There were worse things than fighting, though.
The thing you noticed first about this so-called 'Fujita Gorou' was his eyes. They were narrow things, like little slants of gold in his long face, and his brows slashed down over them, as if his every feature had been carved by quick, skilled thrusts of a master's blade. Sano looked to one side, smirking a little. The guy was like some exaggeration of himself, as if he'd lived so long knowing who he was that there was no changing his set facial expressions now. (Later, Sano would learn enough about the guy to know this first impression had been the only one he'd gotten that was wrong.) At least he was good at lying, an expert, you could call him, but he seemed like the sort of guy who knew he was an expert at most things. It looked as if he was going to go on about his medicine bullshit forever and Sano was hungry, didn't have the time or the patience for it. Impulsively, he opened his mouth, said the first incendiary thing that he could think of.
"You have real small eyes," he muttered, smirking a little, his whole body relaxing. It surprised him, then, when the taller man in front of him laughed, a low, amused chuckle that made the hairs on the back of Sano's neck prickle and a small tickle of wonder race down his spine. The hell was up with this Fujita Gorou, anyway, and why the fuck was he here?
"I have been this way since birth," the dark-haired man returned simply, as if Sano couldn't break his 'good cheer' even if he went at it with a rock in each hand. Well, that was where this sonovabitch was wrong, Sanosuke told himself. You didn't underestimate Sagara Sanosuke and get away with it. Impulse took over - because impulse always took over - and Sano reached out, grabbing the 'doctor's' right wrist and twisting it so that his hand was facing palm up. Surprise did not register in the Fujita's eyes, nor did annoyance, but Sano felt confident he'd got the man where he wanted him, didn't give a damn what Fujita's eyes did or didn't express.
"Sou kai? Ja, I don't think these calluses from practicin' Kendo are from birth, though." The guy had long, slim hands, but there was power in his fingers and the calluses gave them a dangerous look, as if they knew damn well how to kill. Well, Sagara Sanosuke wasn't intimidated, not by the calluses on some guy's hands, not by some guy's eyes that looked more like metal than anything else. Then, the man, with maddening calm and disinterested amusement, began to smile.
"You are perceptive, Sagara Sanosuke," he said, pulling his hand free. "So Battousai-san is out. Ah well. In that case, I shall have to leave him a surprise."
Brown eyes met a glint of gold; the first time Fujita Gorou had opened his eyes all the way. Dark brows did not knit down over those slits-for-eyes, but the tension in the air changed. Sano felt something knot within his stomach and the only way to combat it was with anger; but there it was, a lingering tension, unnamed and unnatural, like anticipation for the fight he knew was to come or hunger because he hadn't eaten since the day before at breakfast. No; but it wasn't just his body and it wasn't just his chest. There was something else, like some teeth had just been sunk into the flesh of his belly, like something was trying to eat his stomach from the inside. Sagara Sanosuke tensed, the muscles in all of him tensed, and he saw the corner of Fujita Gorou's mouth twitch up - like he knew the ending to some joke Sano hadn't even been told the beginning of, yet.
"You intended to fight from the beginnin'," Sano snapped, because something had to be said, and Fujita looked as if he might actually laugh.
Oh, the man's eyes said, swift and fleeting even in their intensity of spirit, Sagara Sanosuke, you have no idea.