Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin or any of its characters.
Kenshin's POV
Kaoru and I knelt silently for a moment at the table, sipping some tea she had made. Did this taste salty? I was imagining things. Who ever heard of salty tea? I took another sip. No, I was right the first time.
"Kenshin," she said finally. "I think I've made a mistake in asking you to leave these people to the police." She said it quickly as though she just wanted to spit it out.
"Oro?" I said with quiet surprise. I had come to the same conclusion, but that was because I had talked to the police. And I certainly was not planning on telling Miss Kaoru that. What had made her realize this?
"Well," she said awkwardly. "It's just that…um…maybe this group is more dangerous than I initially thought…"
"What happened?" I interrupted suddenly. I stood quickly, knocking over my cup of tea in the process. Yahiko and Sano! Where were they? Once again I had been away while they had been attacked!
"Kenshin, calm down!" she cried grabbing my hakama. I looked down at her questioningly. "Nothing happened, everyone is fine!"
"Oh," I said, flustered. I quickly grabbed a rag and began mopping up my spilt tea and muttering apologizes. Miss Kaoru leaned over and helped me clean up.
I went back to my seat with noticeably redder cheeks. Miss Kaoru gave me a small smile. "That's what I'm talking about, Kenshin," she said. "Your first thought is always protecting the people around you and it was stupid of me to ask you to not do that."
"What are you saying?" I asked feeling a little confused.
Miss Kaoru looked down at her lap and chew on her bottom lip a second. "You ought to handle this however you feel best."
I felt a wave of relief and an incredibly stupid grin spreading on my face. I stood slowly and so did Miss Kaoru.
"What are you going to do?" she ask hesitantly.
"I am going to bed," I said stifling a yawn. I felt like I had done nothing today, but I was completely exhausted.
Miss Kaoru smiled. "Good night, Kenshin."
Sanosuke's POV
Earlier…
"What's that you've got?" I asked Yahiko, only half interested in his answer. I had promised to stay until Kenshin came back, but I had not expected him to be out so long. He had left about an hour or so after sunup and it was now at least two hours past lunch. I was bored out of my mind.
Yahiko ignored my question and continued walking past me. I would have let him go, too, except I caught a glimpse of a metal blade through my half-closed eyes.
My hand shot out and grabbed it by the hilt. It was a balanced throwing dagger. "Where did you get this?" I asked, surprised. The brat certainly didn't have the money to buy it and there was no way Kaoru gave it to him.
"None of you business, idiot!" Yahiko yelled and made a swipe to grab the dagger back. I held it up, easily out of the twerp's reach. "Give it back," he demanded.
I rolled my eyes. "Where did you get this?" I repeated, this time slower so I could be sure the brat understood.
He stopped trying to grab the dagger and contented himself with glaring. "Kenshin gave it to me."
"No he didn't!" I said with a laugh. "The day Kenshin starts handing blades out to kids is the day Kaoru learns to cook!"
"I'm not a kid! And he did," Yahiko said with a small whine. "Sort of…" he mumbled.
"Sort of?" I asked.
"Yesterday, when we came home, Kenshin dumped everything we had bought in town in my arms. I guess I just forgot to give him the daggers back."
I rolled my eyes again. "Why would Kenshin buy daggers?"
"He didn't buy them. He picked them up after that guy attacked us on the road," Yahiko replied.
Ah, that made much more sense. "Go get the others."
Yahiko's face fell. "But Sano…"
"If you think Kenshin wanted you to have those, you're a stupider than even I thought. Now go get them, before I tell Kaoru you've got real blades." The threat did the trick and Yahiko stormed off to retrieve the other daggers.
I had never known Kenshin to be absentminded. The fact that he had forgotten about the daggers just proved he had not recovered fully from his first encounter with these guys.
Yahiko pouted for most of the rest of the day, although he certainly could not say anything to Kaoru without risking severe concussion.
I heard the front gate open about an hour after the sun went down. Kenshin was finally home which meant I could finally get out of here!
I slipped into Kenshin's room quietly first though, to leave three daggers on the floor next to his futon. The last I kept. I had a good idea whose work the daggers were and I planned to find out about the man who had bought them. Kenshin may have let Kaoru put a leash around his neck, but I was still free to try to figure out who these loonies were.
I left the dojo without saying goodbye to anyone. Kaoru would undoubtedly try to keep me here and I did not really feel like arguing with her. I was in a fairly good mood by the time I arrived at the weapon smith's place. Being cooped up at the dojo all day had been beyond boring.
I was thrilled to see the guy was still working at his forge. I stood at the door, waiting for him to finish pounding a katana blade into the correct shape. Finally he picked up the blade with a pair of tongs and lowered the hot blade into a bucket of water. There was a hiss of steam and he put the blade away.
"Zanza?" the soot faced man said with a look of surprise. "I had heard you no longer used weapons of any sort, that you prefer to just beat men with your bare fists. So how can this old weapon smith help you out?"
"Hey Kiyoshi," I said cheerfully. "It's been a long time, ne?"
Kiyoshi gave me a crooked smile as he wiped some of the soot off of his face. "What makes me think you aren't here to reminisce?"
I pulled out the dagger I had gotten from Yahiko and handed to the old man. "This is your work."
He took the dagger and balanced it on his finger. "Yeah," he said, looking up at me. "You have a good eye. Who'd it kill?" He handed the dagger back to me.
"No one," I answered. "The guy that bought it, bought three others exactly like it. I want to know everything you know about him."
Kiyoshi sighed and sat down on a three-legged stool behind him. He rested his hands on his knees and said, "I take it from your interest, that you're not an Asp?"
"Asp?"
"That's a no," Kiyoshi said with a smile. "The Black Asps is an anarchist group which has recently moved from Kyoto to Tokyo. My guess is the police forces in Kyoto were a lot tougher on them than the Tokyo police can afford to be. For all that they're pretty small scale, they do seem to have a lot of money. They are hiring every assassin and mercenary in town."
Kiyoshi paused. "I'm surprised they didn't snatch you up."
"They tried," I said. "Anyway…"
"Well, anyway," he continued. "This is big. I'm not sure what they are planning; they just buy my stuff, not let me in on all their plans. But I'm sure this is big."
"Do you know where they are staying?"
"All I know is it's somewhere near the docks."
Not real helpful, I thought. "Thanks, Kiyoshi." I turned and left. I smiled to myself. The hunt was on.
A/N: Well, I don't know if anyone else has been having problems but I haven't been able to get onto fanfiction.net so sorry it took me so long to update. One the plus side, I am practically done with the next chapter. Oh, one other thing. I was not real sure what the name for the type of pants Kenshin wears was but I think it is hakama. And since I had no idea where to look to figure it out, that could either be completely false or spelled wrong. If anyone knows what those funky pants are called, let me know before too many people think I'm an idiot.
A bit of randomness: I am an awful typer so I really try to proofread carefully. But imagine my mirth when I read that Sano liked to beat people with his bare fish. Hm, an interesting visual. That big oaf swinging two dead fish like they were nun-chucks.
