Guy's Night Out
Chapter 18?
(AN: I think I lost track of my chapter count. I'll be damned if I'm going to go to all the trouble of editing just for that. Who cares anyway? It's all in order, courtesy of the uploading format on ff. Math was always my worse subject anyway. Deal with it, gentle readers.)
To the men's surprise, there was a carriage pulling up to the gate of the Kamiya dojo.
"Are you going to get in, or stand there looking idiotic as usual" said an ironic voice from inside. "Saitou!" said Sanosuke, jumping in first. Kenshin next, and Yahiko climbed up next to the driver.
"We're heading directly for the docks," Kenshin informed him, handing him the note that Dr. Gensai had brought them minutes before.
"As am I, Himura. I suspect that our man Kageboushi is making a potentially fatal error in his haste for vengeance, and I intend to make sure it is indeed, fatal." The police inspector's voice grew more silken as he contemplated that.
"He is holding Megumi-dono hostage, Saitou," said Kenshin levelly. "She must not be risked any more than she already is."
Sano said nothing, but gave the police inspector a smolderingly angry look and clenched his jaw. His lips were whitened with unconcealed rage.
"I know," murmured Saitou, "Dr. Gensai sent his housekeeper to the local police station to report the incident this morning. I was there and overheard."
"We'll be there soon, Sano." Kenshin knew that his friend was a man of great passions, but he'd never seen him so outwardly enraged. He was practically shaking with righteous anger. It came pouring out of his ki in huge violent waves that Kenshin could have detected a mile away.
"That piece of dog shit is going to wish he'd never took his first breath," Sano hissed through clenched teeth.
"Control yourself, Sagara," said Saitou. "You're wasting your fighting spirit on us. Save it for Kageboushi and his men." Sanosuke ground his teeth in frustration, realizing that Saitou was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He tried to rein in his all-consuming rage, and it took all his self-control.
His mind was reeling with horrific images of some faceless fiend hurting his Megumi. Again. He made a low anguished noise in his throat. He had promised her she'd never have reason to fear again, and he'd failed her. He ground one fist into the other, using the slight pain to distract him from those thoughts. He had to get hold of his fears or he would be useless to the others.
Kenshin glanced over at Saitou, who wore his usual pose of deceptive casualness. They could have been riding to a picnic for all his demeanor suggested. Only his eyes marred the impression, they were narrowed and gleaming like his nickname, the wolf. A hungry predator who was eagerly anticipating a kill.
"We're almost there, sirs!" shouted down the driver. "Stop here, driver," ordered Saitou, "and wait for us. I promise you'll be compensated fairly."
"Yessir!" the man replied. Yahiko jumped down from his seat atop, hand already holding his shinai, his young face set in grimly determined lines.
They were at the waterfront, dock number seven, as specified it the note. Looking around carefully, they saw no one.
"Looks as though we wait," said Saitou, lighting a cigarette he'd taken from a slim silver box in his jacket and inhaling deeply, then letting the smoke out slowly.
Kenshin felt the muscles in his body go tense with effort as he stretched out his senses. He would not be caught off guard by Kageboushi's waiting game.
Sano felt he would explode with rage and anxiety. He could take waiting no longer. Raising his fists and shaking them at their unseen enemies, he roared, "Come out, you stinking cowards! I'm tired of this game! Let's get it over with, assholes!"
"Very effective, Sagara, I'm sure they're quaking with fear," drawled Saitou around his cigarette.
"Shut the hell up!" Sano was fighting the urge to knock the cigarette out of the man's mouth, along with a few teeth.
"Look!" Yahiko yelled, pointing. "A ship!"
A sampan style ship was indeed coming their way. It would soon reach Dock number 7,where they were gathered.
"That's why the docks," muttered Kenshin. "He's coming to meet with us by ship. He probably is holding Megumi-dono hostage on board, too."
"He no doubt hires many smuggler's vessels for the opium trade." This from Saitou.
They saw a large dinghy being lowered over the sampan's side, seemingly with people aboard. It settled into the harbor waters and after a few minutes that seemed an eternity to Sano, he could see that there were 5 men aboard and one female figure held between two of the men, bound and and foot, gagged and blindfolded.
Sanosuke didn't know whether to feel relieved she was still alive, or to scream in outrage at her treatment at their hands.
"Easy, Sano, don't loose your head now," warned Kenshin, stilling his friend with a hand. "This will be over soon."
Saitou was gauging Sanosuke's reactions and he ground out his cigarette with his toe, thinking, "So, it's like that with the female sensai and this gangster. She's his lover. Not very subtle about it, is he?"
Sano took a deep breath and finished Kenshin's words in his head. "Yes, one way or another, this will be over soon."
The boat was rowed up to the dock, and with weapons drawn, it's occupants came ashore.
Megumi was handed up like a sack of rice, unable to move much against her bonds. Still, she was obviously resisting as much as possible, twisting her head around and attempting to wriggle out of the grasp of the two men on either side of her.
Kenshin pushed down his anger to observe the men. They were the same four officers they had observed at The White Tiger, it took him a second to recognize them out of their uniforms.
Megumi was being held by the large man Sano had injured, Tanaka, and the moustached man called Hanahige. Hanahige had unsheathed his tanto and was holding it near Megumi's throat to ensure her cooperation.
Furukizo and Saiyou stood on either side of a fifth man none of them had seen before. He was almost suprisingly pretty for a man, tall, slender and sleek looking in an expensively tailored black silk Western style suit.
"Kageboushi." Saitou said the word quietly, but loud enough to be heard.
"So, it seems introductions are unnecessary," purred the sleek man. "Good, that will save us from wasting more of my time."
Sano's head jerked towards the Yakuza boss at those words.
"Why Takani Megumi? Why did you do this to her?" he ground out.
"Why not?" the gangster said dismissing Sano's question with a wave.
"She was a perfect choice in many respects. She can identify me, for one thing, which is quite unhandy, now that I realize it. Also, she has her uses in my line of business. And, how better to remind you gentlemen that interfering in Yakuza business will not be tolerated. That pathetic display of skills the other night in attempting to follow my contact has strangely succeeded, ne? You get to meet me after all, but on my terms."
During this speech, the man's cold silky tone never changed. He almost sounded bored. Sano remembered what Megumi had said about Kageboushi's aura of cold menace. She was right. This was a man who could order the torture and executions of a woman or child as one would order miso soup at a restaurant.
"What are your terms to secure the release of Takani-sensai?" asked Saitou, suddenly, getting to the heart of the matter.
"Another person who hates wasting time, I like that, Inspector Fujita," said Kagebouchi. "Or should I say, Saitou Hajime, the Wolf of Mibu, former assassin for the Shinshin-gumi.
"Shall we get down to business, then?" said Saitou, matching his bored tone, "I have important work to finish in Kyoto, and this affair has already consumed much more of my time than I had anticipated."
"Very well, then, enough chatting," Kageboushi said, a mild trace of irritation seeping into his silky tones.
"My terms are this: I require a total withdrawal of the police investigation into Yakuza affairs in the Yokohama district, especially smuggling activities. Also, my contacts within the various city's police forces will not be interfered with in any way."
"Unacceptable," murmured Saitou.
"Take the woman and slit her throat, Hanahige, then throw her body into the harbor."
Said as one would request a bowl of soup, just as Sanosuke had guessed.
"No!" he roared, and leapt to intercept the hand of the man ordered to kill his beloved.
Kenshin's hand and body reacted before his brain did, drawing his reverse blade sword in a heartbeat, and screaming out a low battle cry. He rushed at the large man with incredible speed. Tanaka, who was holding a now desperately squirming and moaning Megumi. He turned her head to the side so that Hanahige could dispatch her with one swift cut to the carotid artery.
Saitou had also drawn his katana and taken the deceptively casual stance of his Gatotsu sword style. With a cunning smile on his lips, he silently beckoned the man with the scar to engage him in a fight. Furukizo grinned and pulled out his wakatashi first, and also a vicious looking katana.
I was left to Yahiko to engage the wiry man armed with whirling nunchako.
Kageboushi folded his arms and smiled a cold pleased smile. One would have thought from his expression that he was watching a kabuki performance.
Kenshin's speed was more than a match for the big man holding Megumi. He came up under the man's jaw with the hilt of his sword before he could react, knocking him backwards with enough force to lift his feet off the ground for a second. Taking Megumi with him to the ground, he lay there stunned and unable to move. Megumi wiggled free of him and sat up, still struggling against her bonds.
Sano likewise had made short work of Hanahige's knife attack, after a few near feints, Sano grabbed him smoothly with one hand by the elbow and forced the man's knife into his own neck. Sano held the point against the man's carotid as he had just seconds ago positioned Megumi to slaughter her. His other hand had an iron grip on the man's hair, bending back his head.
"How does it feel to be on the other end of a tanto, asshole?" he sneered at the man.
Hanahige failed to live up to his bosses' expectations as he whimpered like a pup in Sano's hard grasp. "I'll tell the inspector everything he wants to know, just don't kill me!" he shrieked.
The knife feel from the man's now nerveless hand, and he continued to plead in a pathetic fashion.
"Why don't you hang around while we finish playing?" snarled Sano, holding his foot on the man and suddenly plunging the knife through his hand and into the heavy wooden planks of the dock. The man screamed like a child and writhed against the pain.
Sano ran over where Megumi was still struggling, and with fumbling hands untied her gag, and blindfold.
"Megumi-itoshii, are you all right?" he asked anxiously. She nodded with teary eyes, unable to speak yet, indicating that he should remove the rest of the ties around her wrists and ankles.
Sano looked around, and Kenshin was next to them in a heartbeat, and used the tip of the sakabattou to quickly severe the bonds. Sano grabbed her wrists and rubbed them gently them to get the circulation back. She attempted to get to her feet, but her blood deprived feet made her falter halfway up. Sano quickly steadied her and held her up against him.
Kenshin looked around him, ever alert, standing guard over his friends.
Saitou was playing with Furukizo the way a large tomcat plays with a mouse. Furukizo had several shallow cuts on his arms and a bleeding thigh, but he was still on his feet and fighting fiercely, although breathing heavily. Saitou, on the other hand, seemed to be barely exerting himself, even enjoying the diverting contest. He lunged repeatedly, scoring again and again upon the scarred man. Very few swordsmen in Japan could stand for long against the former Shinshin- gumi assassin, and Furukizo was outmatched from the first. Finally, with one final attack, the scarred man was impaled upon Saitou's katana, through the heart, fatally wounded. Saitou flicked his sword to remove it, and flicked it again to release the blood. The scarred man groaned out his last breath upon the planks of the dock, blood pouring out swiftly from the wound in his chest.
"Pathetic," was Saitou's only comment as he reached in his jacket pocket for another cigarette. He lit up, sucking in smoke. "To think that we hire such incompetents."
Yahiko was working hard to disarm the slender man attacking him with the set of nunchako, seeking to discover the man's timing so that he might insert his shinai at the right time and point to break the man's rhythmic attack.
Finally, after many feints and dodges, he saw his opening. He thrust his shinai forward and the man's grasp on the spinning weapon was broken, and the nunchako went flying wildly across the planks of the dock.
From there, it was quick work for Yahiko to pursue the now weaponless fighter and dispatch him into unconsciousness with a swift blow to base of the neck.
That left Kageboushi, but he was nowhere to be seen. During the distraction of the fighting, he had ran to the dinghy and lowered himself into it, and was rowing back to the sampan.
"He's getting away!" yelled Sano, ready to jump in after the man.
"Not exactly," said Saitou, pointing to the deck of the sampan. There on the deck, just discernible, were about a dozen blue uniforms of the Oniwaban-shu ninjas, waiting for the fleeing gangster.
The tall lean form with an arm raised in acknowledgement was none other than Shinomura Aoshi.
"I believe that Kageboushi-san is going to be having a long and painful discussion with the Oniwaban-shu," smirked Saitou, grinding out his cigarette and reaching for another.
Chapter 18?
(AN: I think I lost track of my chapter count. I'll be damned if I'm going to go to all the trouble of editing just for that. Who cares anyway? It's all in order, courtesy of the uploading format on ff. Math was always my worse subject anyway. Deal with it, gentle readers.)
To the men's surprise, there was a carriage pulling up to the gate of the Kamiya dojo.
"Are you going to get in, or stand there looking idiotic as usual" said an ironic voice from inside. "Saitou!" said Sanosuke, jumping in first. Kenshin next, and Yahiko climbed up next to the driver.
"We're heading directly for the docks," Kenshin informed him, handing him the note that Dr. Gensai had brought them minutes before.
"As am I, Himura. I suspect that our man Kageboushi is making a potentially fatal error in his haste for vengeance, and I intend to make sure it is indeed, fatal." The police inspector's voice grew more silken as he contemplated that.
"He is holding Megumi-dono hostage, Saitou," said Kenshin levelly. "She must not be risked any more than she already is."
Sano said nothing, but gave the police inspector a smolderingly angry look and clenched his jaw. His lips were whitened with unconcealed rage.
"I know," murmured Saitou, "Dr. Gensai sent his housekeeper to the local police station to report the incident this morning. I was there and overheard."
"We'll be there soon, Sano." Kenshin knew that his friend was a man of great passions, but he'd never seen him so outwardly enraged. He was practically shaking with righteous anger. It came pouring out of his ki in huge violent waves that Kenshin could have detected a mile away.
"That piece of dog shit is going to wish he'd never took his first breath," Sano hissed through clenched teeth.
"Control yourself, Sagara," said Saitou. "You're wasting your fighting spirit on us. Save it for Kageboushi and his men." Sanosuke ground his teeth in frustration, realizing that Saitou was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He tried to rein in his all-consuming rage, and it took all his self-control.
His mind was reeling with horrific images of some faceless fiend hurting his Megumi. Again. He made a low anguished noise in his throat. He had promised her she'd never have reason to fear again, and he'd failed her. He ground one fist into the other, using the slight pain to distract him from those thoughts. He had to get hold of his fears or he would be useless to the others.
Kenshin glanced over at Saitou, who wore his usual pose of deceptive casualness. They could have been riding to a picnic for all his demeanor suggested. Only his eyes marred the impression, they were narrowed and gleaming like his nickname, the wolf. A hungry predator who was eagerly anticipating a kill.
"We're almost there, sirs!" shouted down the driver. "Stop here, driver," ordered Saitou, "and wait for us. I promise you'll be compensated fairly."
"Yessir!" the man replied. Yahiko jumped down from his seat atop, hand already holding his shinai, his young face set in grimly determined lines.
They were at the waterfront, dock number seven, as specified it the note. Looking around carefully, they saw no one.
"Looks as though we wait," said Saitou, lighting a cigarette he'd taken from a slim silver box in his jacket and inhaling deeply, then letting the smoke out slowly.
Kenshin felt the muscles in his body go tense with effort as he stretched out his senses. He would not be caught off guard by Kageboushi's waiting game.
Sano felt he would explode with rage and anxiety. He could take waiting no longer. Raising his fists and shaking them at their unseen enemies, he roared, "Come out, you stinking cowards! I'm tired of this game! Let's get it over with, assholes!"
"Very effective, Sagara, I'm sure they're quaking with fear," drawled Saitou around his cigarette.
"Shut the hell up!" Sano was fighting the urge to knock the cigarette out of the man's mouth, along with a few teeth.
"Look!" Yahiko yelled, pointing. "A ship!"
A sampan style ship was indeed coming their way. It would soon reach Dock number 7,where they were gathered.
"That's why the docks," muttered Kenshin. "He's coming to meet with us by ship. He probably is holding Megumi-dono hostage on board, too."
"He no doubt hires many smuggler's vessels for the opium trade." This from Saitou.
They saw a large dinghy being lowered over the sampan's side, seemingly with people aboard. It settled into the harbor waters and after a few minutes that seemed an eternity to Sano, he could see that there were 5 men aboard and one female figure held between two of the men, bound and and foot, gagged and blindfolded.
Sanosuke didn't know whether to feel relieved she was still alive, or to scream in outrage at her treatment at their hands.
"Easy, Sano, don't loose your head now," warned Kenshin, stilling his friend with a hand. "This will be over soon."
Saitou was gauging Sanosuke's reactions and he ground out his cigarette with his toe, thinking, "So, it's like that with the female sensai and this gangster. She's his lover. Not very subtle about it, is he?"
Sano took a deep breath and finished Kenshin's words in his head. "Yes, one way or another, this will be over soon."
The boat was rowed up to the dock, and with weapons drawn, it's occupants came ashore.
Megumi was handed up like a sack of rice, unable to move much against her bonds. Still, she was obviously resisting as much as possible, twisting her head around and attempting to wriggle out of the grasp of the two men on either side of her.
Kenshin pushed down his anger to observe the men. They were the same four officers they had observed at The White Tiger, it took him a second to recognize them out of their uniforms.
Megumi was being held by the large man Sano had injured, Tanaka, and the moustached man called Hanahige. Hanahige had unsheathed his tanto and was holding it near Megumi's throat to ensure her cooperation.
Furukizo and Saiyou stood on either side of a fifth man none of them had seen before. He was almost suprisingly pretty for a man, tall, slender and sleek looking in an expensively tailored black silk Western style suit.
"Kageboushi." Saitou said the word quietly, but loud enough to be heard.
"So, it seems introductions are unnecessary," purred the sleek man. "Good, that will save us from wasting more of my time."
Sano's head jerked towards the Yakuza boss at those words.
"Why Takani Megumi? Why did you do this to her?" he ground out.
"Why not?" the gangster said dismissing Sano's question with a wave.
"She was a perfect choice in many respects. She can identify me, for one thing, which is quite unhandy, now that I realize it. Also, she has her uses in my line of business. And, how better to remind you gentlemen that interfering in Yakuza business will not be tolerated. That pathetic display of skills the other night in attempting to follow my contact has strangely succeeded, ne? You get to meet me after all, but on my terms."
During this speech, the man's cold silky tone never changed. He almost sounded bored. Sano remembered what Megumi had said about Kageboushi's aura of cold menace. She was right. This was a man who could order the torture and executions of a woman or child as one would order miso soup at a restaurant.
"What are your terms to secure the release of Takani-sensai?" asked Saitou, suddenly, getting to the heart of the matter.
"Another person who hates wasting time, I like that, Inspector Fujita," said Kagebouchi. "Or should I say, Saitou Hajime, the Wolf of Mibu, former assassin for the Shinshin-gumi.
"Shall we get down to business, then?" said Saitou, matching his bored tone, "I have important work to finish in Kyoto, and this affair has already consumed much more of my time than I had anticipated."
"Very well, then, enough chatting," Kageboushi said, a mild trace of irritation seeping into his silky tones.
"My terms are this: I require a total withdrawal of the police investigation into Yakuza affairs in the Yokohama district, especially smuggling activities. Also, my contacts within the various city's police forces will not be interfered with in any way."
"Unacceptable," murmured Saitou.
"Take the woman and slit her throat, Hanahige, then throw her body into the harbor."
Said as one would request a bowl of soup, just as Sanosuke had guessed.
"No!" he roared, and leapt to intercept the hand of the man ordered to kill his beloved.
Kenshin's hand and body reacted before his brain did, drawing his reverse blade sword in a heartbeat, and screaming out a low battle cry. He rushed at the large man with incredible speed. Tanaka, who was holding a now desperately squirming and moaning Megumi. He turned her head to the side so that Hanahige could dispatch her with one swift cut to the carotid artery.
Saitou had also drawn his katana and taken the deceptively casual stance of his Gatotsu sword style. With a cunning smile on his lips, he silently beckoned the man with the scar to engage him in a fight. Furukizo grinned and pulled out his wakatashi first, and also a vicious looking katana.
I was left to Yahiko to engage the wiry man armed with whirling nunchako.
Kageboushi folded his arms and smiled a cold pleased smile. One would have thought from his expression that he was watching a kabuki performance.
Kenshin's speed was more than a match for the big man holding Megumi. He came up under the man's jaw with the hilt of his sword before he could react, knocking him backwards with enough force to lift his feet off the ground for a second. Taking Megumi with him to the ground, he lay there stunned and unable to move. Megumi wiggled free of him and sat up, still struggling against her bonds.
Sano likewise had made short work of Hanahige's knife attack, after a few near feints, Sano grabbed him smoothly with one hand by the elbow and forced the man's knife into his own neck. Sano held the point against the man's carotid as he had just seconds ago positioned Megumi to slaughter her. His other hand had an iron grip on the man's hair, bending back his head.
"How does it feel to be on the other end of a tanto, asshole?" he sneered at the man.
Hanahige failed to live up to his bosses' expectations as he whimpered like a pup in Sano's hard grasp. "I'll tell the inspector everything he wants to know, just don't kill me!" he shrieked.
The knife feel from the man's now nerveless hand, and he continued to plead in a pathetic fashion.
"Why don't you hang around while we finish playing?" snarled Sano, holding his foot on the man and suddenly plunging the knife through his hand and into the heavy wooden planks of the dock. The man screamed like a child and writhed against the pain.
Sano ran over where Megumi was still struggling, and with fumbling hands untied her gag, and blindfold.
"Megumi-itoshii, are you all right?" he asked anxiously. She nodded with teary eyes, unable to speak yet, indicating that he should remove the rest of the ties around her wrists and ankles.
Sano looked around, and Kenshin was next to them in a heartbeat, and used the tip of the sakabattou to quickly severe the bonds. Sano grabbed her wrists and rubbed them gently them to get the circulation back. She attempted to get to her feet, but her blood deprived feet made her falter halfway up. Sano quickly steadied her and held her up against him.
Kenshin looked around him, ever alert, standing guard over his friends.
Saitou was playing with Furukizo the way a large tomcat plays with a mouse. Furukizo had several shallow cuts on his arms and a bleeding thigh, but he was still on his feet and fighting fiercely, although breathing heavily. Saitou, on the other hand, seemed to be barely exerting himself, even enjoying the diverting contest. He lunged repeatedly, scoring again and again upon the scarred man. Very few swordsmen in Japan could stand for long against the former Shinshin- gumi assassin, and Furukizo was outmatched from the first. Finally, with one final attack, the scarred man was impaled upon Saitou's katana, through the heart, fatally wounded. Saitou flicked his sword to remove it, and flicked it again to release the blood. The scarred man groaned out his last breath upon the planks of the dock, blood pouring out swiftly from the wound in his chest.
"Pathetic," was Saitou's only comment as he reached in his jacket pocket for another cigarette. He lit up, sucking in smoke. "To think that we hire such incompetents."
Yahiko was working hard to disarm the slender man attacking him with the set of nunchako, seeking to discover the man's timing so that he might insert his shinai at the right time and point to break the man's rhythmic attack.
Finally, after many feints and dodges, he saw his opening. He thrust his shinai forward and the man's grasp on the spinning weapon was broken, and the nunchako went flying wildly across the planks of the dock.
From there, it was quick work for Yahiko to pursue the now weaponless fighter and dispatch him into unconsciousness with a swift blow to base of the neck.
That left Kageboushi, but he was nowhere to be seen. During the distraction of the fighting, he had ran to the dinghy and lowered himself into it, and was rowing back to the sampan.
"He's getting away!" yelled Sano, ready to jump in after the man.
"Not exactly," said Saitou, pointing to the deck of the sampan. There on the deck, just discernible, were about a dozen blue uniforms of the Oniwaban-shu ninjas, waiting for the fleeing gangster.
The tall lean form with an arm raised in acknowledgement was none other than Shinomura Aoshi.
"I believe that Kageboushi-san is going to be having a long and painful discussion with the Oniwaban-shu," smirked Saitou, grinding out his cigarette and reaching for another.
