"Sano...?" Kenshin still wasn't able to register the sight presented before him. How could...? How was it even possible...?

The cocky grin wavered suddenly. A shudder rippled through Sanosuke's entire body and he clutched at his side. With a jolt of horror Kenshin saw a steadily growing dark red stain blooming on Sano's white shirt, leaking down onto his pant leg. Kenshin's shock and bewilderment transformed into fear and worry. "Sano! You're..." He stopped himself from stating the obvious.

"How'd you like my dramatic entrance?" Sano asked, flashing another smile - although this one was more of a grimace. "I don't think the cops outside liked it too much, though." Another shudder gripped him and he staggered forward slightly, dropping the bag of explosives in the shattered doorway of the cell.

Kenshin steadied his wounded friend, all the while listening intently for the thundering footsteps of enraged guards. "Sano, you... you... idiot! What in the world were you thinking?!" If he were the swearing type, Kenshin would have been cussing up a storm right then.

"Oh, is this the thanks I get? I go through all this trouble for you just to get insulted? C'mon, how about a kiss already?"

Despite the danger of the situation, Kenshin couldn't help but roll his eyes. This guy was incorrigible! "I can't believe you," he said, and their lips met. When they parted, he said, "You are such a moron." They kissed again, this time more passionately. Kenshin's bruises screamed in protest as they held each other close in a desperate embrace, but it was Sanosuke who cried out softly in pain and pulled away.

"Oh," Sano groaned, holding his bleeding side, "oh shit. Shit, that hurts. Damn, they got me pretty good." He leaned against the cold stone of the wall and slumped down. "Hold on a second. Lemme rest for a little bit. Then I'll finish rescuing you."

"Sano, you can't!" Kenshin protested. "The guards will be here any minute, that they will!"

Sanosuke rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. "No no, it's good. I rigged almost every door between the front gate and here. They won't be coming any time soon." Kenshin still stood nervously, peering out into the hall every couple of seconds, his hands itching for his sakabatou.

Sano opened his eyes and looked up at Kenshin. "Dammit Kenshin, will you sit down? God, you're making me even more stressed out than I already am. Trust me, we'll be able to hear them before they even get near."

Reluctantly, Kenshin stepped away from the door and turned his attention towards Sano's wound. He kneeled beside his friend and examined the dark, shiny stain running down his side in a deathly stream. The sight filled Kenshin with dread. Not only was Sano in danger from the bullet wound itself, but the dumbass hadn't even tried to staunch the bleeding and now was just as likely to die from blood loss.

Muttering mild oaths under his breath, Kenshin applied pressure to the wound in order to stop the bleeding. Sano gasped in pain at the touch and pushed his hand away. "Damn, that hurts! What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm stopping the bleeding, that I am," Kenshin replied. Giving Sano a sidelong glance, he added, "Moron."

"Oh god, don't you start too," Sano groaned. "The world doesn't need two Saitos running around. It probably could do without the one we've got already." He pulled Kenshin close until, in order to keep from loosing his balance, Kenshin was forced to straddle Sano's legs. "I haven't seen you for god-knows how long, Kenshin. Can't I get some?"

"You're delirious, that you are," Kenshin stated matter-of-factly. It wasn't just a rebuttal of Sano's advances; the loss of blood probably had affected his judgment.

"So I have my excuse. What's yours?"

Kenshin looked up at Sanosuke's pale, drawn face with more apprehension than amusement. "Sano, not now. We must get out of here immediately, that we must." He removed his hand from Sano's wound, since it seemed to have stopped bleeding. By now his hands were positively covered in the blood of the person he loved most.

Suddenly, a thunderous boom reverberated throughout the building, causing the very foundations to tremble. Kenshin raised his hands protectively over his head as dust and small chinks of rock rained down from the ceiling. "Yeah," Sano remarked casually, "that'd be one of the bombs I rigged up. I think they figured out I went this way."

For the second time in five minutes, Kenshin would have sworn if he were so behaviorally inclined. Instead he ripped a few strips of cloth from the hem of his hakama, which had been already torn by some unknown force, and fashioned a bandage for Sano. "I think it's time to go, that I do," he said. "Can you stand?"

"'Course." With great difficulty and some help from Kenshin, Sano rose unsteadily to his feet and the two hobbled out into the hallway.

There was only one door that opened into Kenshin's bloc - the one that Sano had come through - and they headed towards that door now. They had only just begun the arduous journey when a voice, formerly gruff and condescending, called out plaintively, "Oi, where are you guys going? You're not going to leave me here, are you?" Kenshin turned to see a pair of dark, haunted eyes staring at him between the bars of a cell near the end of the bloc. "C'mon," the man wheedled, "You've gotta help me! Please man, get me outta here!" There was a pause, then the man continued, "Look, I'm sorry I called you guys faggots. I didn't mean it. Please don't hold it against me! You guys hafta help me! I need to get out! Please!"

Kenshin hesitated. It made him feel guilty to walk away from those who had it even worse off than he did, but there simply wasn't enough time with Sano's wound. He cast an apologetic look back at the prisoner. "I'm truly sorry, that I am," he said, and began to help Sanosuke towards the door once more.

There was a long silence as the prisoner digested Kenshin's words. Suddenly, he exploded. "YOU ASSHOLE!!! YOU SON OF A BITCH!! YOU FAGGOT!!" he roared. "HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU LEAVE ME LIKE THIS?!! FUCK YOU!!"

"Let them go," the one other remaining prisoner, the quiet one, said bitterly. "It's suicide to try and escape from here with so many guards looking for them. We're dead already, anyways."

"You think I give a fuck?!" the enraged captive snarled. "I'd rather die trying to escape than rotting in this cell until they finally remember I exist and finish me off!"

"What does it matter how we die?" the quiet one asked, his voice low and calm but no less passionate. "We all end up in the same place."

"Well fuck you! You may be happy just sitting there but I'm not!"

By now Kenshin and Sano had reached the door to the bloc. "Careful," Sano warned, "I set up a trip wire here, just in case." As if on cue, another explosion ripped through the building, triggering another explosion of dust and rock and surprising the two arguing prisoners into a stunned silence. Sano looked in the general direction of the explosion with mild, detached surprise. "Damn. I didn't think they'd fall for that twice. They must be dumber than I thought."

Kenshin wasn't listening. He carefully removed the trip wire from where it had been strung across the doorway, making it impossible to open the door without triggering the bomb. Coiling the thin wire back up, Kenshin dropped the bomb back in the cloth bag that he'd remembered to grab at the last second. Those little metal cylinders were their only form of defense and offence, so it was in their best interest to use them frugally.

He opened the door, wincing as it screeched terrible on its hinges, and peered cautiously into the hallway. It stretched away on either side, ending at a brick wall at one end and opening into another passage running perpendicular to it at the other. Doors were set occasionally along either side of the hallway, hiding other rooms or passages. Five or six uniformed guards armed with rifles dashed down the adjoining corridor at the far end, but none of them turned onto the hallway Kenshin was in and he and Sanosuke remained unseen.

Closing the door carefully behind them, Sano and Kenshin hurried down the hallway. When they reached the junction at the end of the passage, Kenshin peered down both directions. It looked clear. "Which way, Sano? Where'd you come from?"

Sano pointed. "Left."

Kenshin started down the left corridor but quickly adjusted his speed to stay with Sano, who was moving at a mere fraction of the speed he normally did. Kenshin gritted his teeth in frustration at his companion's lagging. If he were still the Battousai, Kenshin probably would have abandoned Sano in the interest of self-preservation. The wounded fighter-for-hire just slowed him down and increased his chances of getting caught - and, consequently, killed. Such was the price of friendship.

They had just reached another T-intersection when Kenshin and Sano ran smack-dab into another cluster of soldiers.

Kenshin was the first to recover from the mutual surprise and pulled Sano back down the passage they'd come from, but the group of soldiers they'd run into happened to be very well trained and they recuperated soon after he did. "Freeze or we'll shoot!" one of them, presumably the leader, shouted. They weren't bluffing.

Kenshin obeyed the command, as did Sano. The swordsman's mind raced furiously as he searched for a way to escape. There was a small alcove built for unknown reasons to his right; he could use one of the bombs on the guards and duck into the alcove for shelter... He quickly discarded the idea. Kenshin would not - could not - kill, no matter the situation.

Sanosuke, however, was not bound by that same pledge. Having imagined the same plan that Kenshin had briefly considered, he snatched a bomb, turned, and threw it at the guards while holding on to the end of the trip wire. Immediately he pushed Kenshin into the little recession with him, yanking with all his might on the wire as he did so.

The resulting explosion made it feel like Sanosuke's head was going to burst. Fire, smoke, rock, and bits of seared human flesh blew by in a dark, chaotic cloud of death, but the tiny alcove shielded Sano and Kenshin from the worst of it. Kenshin was further protected by Sano, who stood protectively between the slight swordsman and the blast at the cost of several fragments of debris hitting his back with enough force to open long, shallow gashes across his skin.

As the noise and heat subsided, Kenshin slowly opened his eyes. His back was against a wall and Sano was pressed up against him, breathing heavily as if he'd just run a great distance. Kenshin could feel Sano's heart beating in his broad chest like a terrified rabbit's - much more quickly than the level of exertion dictated.

It was getting harder for Sano's body to keep him alive.

Sano gently kissed the top of Kenshin's head. "Sorry," he murmured. "It was them or us."

Kenshin nodded wordlessly, understanding - if not condoning - his friend's use of lethal force. As Sano pulled away, Kenshin noticed that the wound in his side had started bleeding again. Looking down, he saw that some of the blood had steeped onto his kimono. "Sano... are you going to be okay?" Kenshin asked as he stepped back into the hallway. A pointless question.

Sano smiled down at his friend. "You should be more worried about yourself." Kenshin couldn't help but notice that he didn't actually answer the question. They picked their way around the debris, giving the mangled corpses that used to be their adversaries an extra-wide berth. Before they continued down the passage, Sano picked up a battered-but-usable saber off the body of a soldier and tossed it to Kenshin. "Here," he said. "I think that might come in handy."

Kenshin held the sword as though it were a venomous snake about to bite. How could Sano even think that he would draw a real sword on another human being, after what he had avowed so long ago? It just wasn't possible.

"Okay, so it's not your sakabatou," Sano relented, seeing Kenshin's trepidation, "but you can still use it. Whack people with the scabbard or something, if you have to."

Extremely, extremely reluctantly, Kenshin stuck the saber through the sash of his hakama and continued down the passage. They basically retraced Sano's path as accurately as he could remember, taking detours to avoid groups of soldiers or other potentially fatal hazards.

After their first encounter, Kenshin and Sano were able to avoid any more resistance, and as they were running (sort of) down a long hallway Kenshin felt his spirits raise for the first time in many days. It was possible - just maybe - that they might actually make it, that they might get out alive, that they might be together...

Suddenly, a blue-clad figure with a plain, boring face appeared at the end of the corridor. Namaka raised his pistol. There was no hesitation. No doubt. No remorse. Nothing.

He fired.

--------------------------------------------------

Cliffhanger!! MWAH!! Lucky for you, the story is already finished so you don't have to wait, like, a month for the next chapter like you normally would...