The streets of Tokyo were still and silent as Megumi walked beside her brother. These streets were still and silent, at least--they were good neighborhood streets, with well-mannered bedtimes. Somewhere else, there were dice games and sake-drinking contests going on.
She wondered if Sano was headed to one or the other right now.
Briefly, she considered sneaking out of the clinic when Kei was asleep. She'd been to Sano's apartment once, the morning Kenshin had left for Kyoto. She could probably find it again without much trouble.
But there was no guarantee he'd be there, and if she ventured forth to his favorite gaming or drinking dens, someone might--what might? would--see her, and that was the last thing either of them wanted--
It was, wasn't it?
She was almost sure of that.
It was definitely the last thing Sano wanted. Sometimes it was almost as if he were ashamed of their--she struggled for a word. Relationship implied so much. But liaison sounded so cheap--but wasn't that all it was, in the end? Because it certainly wasn't much of a relationship, all this sneaking around, even if the secrecy had ultimately been as useless as tits on a bull.
That depressed her even more--the fact that she was starting to pick up Sano's speech patterns even in her thoughts. She was quite certain he wasn't picking up anything of hers.
She was being ridiculous . . .
Later on, she would be able to blame her immersion in her own depressing thoughts. If she'd been alert, the mugger never would have taken her by surprise.
But he did, and she suddenly found herself dragged against a flabby, stinking body with an arm across her throat. "Your money," a voice hissed by her ear. "Now. All of it."
They were close to her clinic, at the point where nice neighborhoods started to give way to not-so-nice neighborhoods. The mugger must have been having an unproductive night, to wander so far afield.
Kei was standing frozen, his face a rictus of terror. "I--I don't have any--"
"I'll kill her--I have a knife."
Unlikely--if he did, it would have been already at her throat. Still, Megumi appreciated a good bluff. But she really didn't have the time or the patience for this at the moment. She had bigger problems.
"This is a really bad idea," she said over her shoulder.
"Shut up," was her reply, and "Your money," to her brother.
"Have you ever heard of the Kamiya Dojo?" Megumi asked conversationally.
"Megumi, what are you doing?" Kei hissed.
"Shut up, I told you!" There was no note of panic in his voice--just impatience. How depressing.
"No? Then how about Himura Kenshin?"
The arm remained across her throat. Megumi gave a world-weary sigh. "Well, if you must do it the hard way--"
For the hapless thief, earth and sky inexplicably switched places for a moment. Then he was lying on what was indubitably the ground. He knew this because the sky wouldn't hurt like hell.
He blinked at the sky, trying to work out what had happened. He'd had the elegant woman by the throat--she'd been yapping--and then--
She'd flipped him over her shoulder and laid him out like a rug.
Megumi crouched by the groaning would-be mugger and said, "Maybe you recognize this name. Zanza."
The wounded man made a strangled sound, and Megumi nodded in satisfaction. Just as she'd suspected, Sano's criminal self was still known among the underworld, even if Kaoru's school and Kenshin's other half weren't. She announced, with slightly malicious satisfaction, "He taught me that."
Kei was gaping. "Megumi--you just--you--"
Megumi paused to look at him. "You heard my friends," she said. "I can be very nasty when I want to be."
"Yes, but I thought they were joking!"
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
"You said--you--"
"I never said I couldn't, I said I didn't. There's a difference. Would you carry this man, Kei?"
"To the police station?"
"To the clinic." She looked on her handiwork with a veteran eye. "I do believe I've dislocated his shoulder." ******************
The shoulder had been popped into place and the thief had scurried from the clinic, swearing to take up a less perilous job while in Tokyo, like lion taming. Megumi sat in the front room, moodily rolling bandages. The little episode with the thief had been a mild diversion at best.
There was a rasp of wood on wood as Kei entered the room. He had been putting his things in one of the rooms they kept for overnight patients. "Where did he go?"
Megumi looked up. "I was done with him. He paid and left."
Her brother's mouth was hanging open. "Let me get this straight," he said slowly. "You--incapacitated him, then patched him up, and then charged him for it?"
Megumi considered it. "Sounds about right."
"And then you let him go?"
"Mhm."
Kei looked enraged. "But--the police--"
"What would they have to do with it? Stupidity isn't a punishable offense, and I'm sure he's learned his lesson about robbery. I can afford to be forgiving."
Kei's brows drew together. "I suppose this is another thing your friends have taught you?"
"How to nullify an opponent? Nothing so formal as teaching . . . I just sort of picked that up. It's something that happens with definite regularity around the Kenshin gumi. You can practically set your watch by it. There's always someone after Kenshin, and sometimes Sano--and even once Yahiko . . . and of course there's the occasional attempting mugging just for diversion."
"Who's Zanza?"
Megumi started another roll, carefully keeping her eyes fixed on the linen, making sure all the edges lined up perfectly. "It's a name that Sano used to have," she said, proud of her matter-of-fact tone, "when he was a gangster. Well--really more a fighter-for-hire, from what I hear. He fought with a zanbatou--hence, Zanza."
"He's a criminal?"
"Was," Megumi corrected sharply. "He gave that up when he met Kenshin, so I'm told." She shook her head. "Sometimes I wonder if that's in the rurouni job description . . . it's a little ridiculous sometimes, how Kenshin converts everyone to his way of thinking sooner or later." Even her. Like a Christian priest, the world to Kenshin was just one whole mass of souls to be saved.
Kei was looking at her with concern, however. "I don't think you should be associating with him," he said, meaning Sano. No, meaning Zanza. "I mean--a gangster, really--"
Associating? Megumi almost laughed. How prim. Wouldn't he just have a shit-fit if he ever found out the extent of the association? She almost looked around for Sano, to share the joke. But he wasn't there, and that sobered her faster then a bucket of cold water. "I told you," she said, looking up at Kei instead, "he's not a gangster any longer, any more then Kenshin is still the Hitokiri Battousai--"
"The what?"
"The Hitokiri Battousai," Megumi repeated. "That's what he was. He isn't any longer."
Kei went pale. "That--that redheaded man--"
"Yes, that was him. Boggles the mind, doesn't it?" She smiled at him, gently. It was always a shock. Kenshin radiated such serenity you tended to forget that he could disembowel a man in the pause between heartbeats.
If he wanted to.
Which he didn't.
Which was the point.
"He gave it up," she repeated. "Both of them gave up their pasts. They're different now. Neither Zanza or the Hitokiri Battousai exist anymore. It's just Sano and Kenshin."
But Kei was shaking his head. "A leopard doesn't change his spots, Megumi."
"What's a leopard?"
"I mean--people, especially soulless killers and deadly criminals, don't change that easily."
"I didn't say it was easy. Their pasts trail them like the tails of comets." She thought of Sano's insistence on secrecy, all because of that past, which he thought somehow would dirty her. As if anything could dirty her more then her own past deeds. Her stomach began to hurt.
"Souls aren't washable," Kei insisted.
Megumi knew hers wasn't--but she'd let herself forget that. "Well," she snapped, chunking the bandage roll onto the pile and getting to her feet, "maybe they should be."
