All standard disclaimers apply. Despite my attempts to convince myself otherwise, I still don't own Rurouni Kenshin.

*Lines with-in the stars (*) are thoughts.*

Chapter 10: Full force

"I still don't understand why they aren't attacking." Sanosuke grumbled to Kenshin. "Not that I want them to, really, but they attacked and destroyed the clinic during broad daylight. Why not try the dojo, too?"

"Shirimasen, Sanosuke-san." Kenshin answers. "I felt a strange energy as we entered, though."

"Aa." Sano agrees. He felt it, too. *Kami,* he thinks, *I hate magic.* Aloud, he says, "Yoku, we might as well rest while we can."

"Aa."

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Megumi knelt over Taiyoryu, changing his bandages, while Ayame knelt across from her trying to help. The young girl had been trying to help Megumi, but she was over-anxious and was starting to get in the way. So, Megumi had done the only thing she could think of. She asked Ayame to keep an eye on Tai for her. It wasn't really needed, he would recover, but it made her feel important. And it kept her from being tripped on.

Megumi watched, somewhat amused, as the girl placed the back of her hand on the Akumu's forehead. *She probably saw Genzai-sensei and I do that often enough. I wonder if she knows what she's looking for.* The thought amused her more than it probably should, and she felt ashamed of herself instantly for thinking it.

She can't help but wonder at the massive scar the crosses the right side of his face, starting just below his hair and ending near his bottom jaw, disappearing only briefly under the metal eye patch that is bolted directly to his skull. Megumi knows how he came to have it, but she wonders why he never had it healed. *After all, they do have magical healing where he comes from.*

"Yoake?" the voice was soft and weak, but it was enough to make Ayame let out a short shriek and jump back. The girl looked to Megumi.

"Iie, Taiyoryu-san." she says softly to the wounded creature, who still hadn't opened his eyes. Looking at Ayame, she explains, "Yoake was his daughter's name."

"Oh." was all the girl would say.

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He drifts in nothingness, gray clouds floating gently through a colourless backdrop that stretches an eternity in every direction. The pain that had been in his side had bleed way, leaving his entire body numb.

*So,* he thinks, disappointed, *This is death. I had hoped to be reunited with Yoake, perhaps even my long dead wife, Jo'hi. Of course, that can't happen. My people are banned from heaven.*

A light touch on his forehead brings his attention back from his thoughts. "Yoake?" he asks, his voice suddenly sounding weak.

"Iie." The answer drifts to him from everywhere and nowhere at once. There is more, but it is lost to the void around him.

With sudden realization, he is laying on the floor, a form above him. Instincts born of years of persecution take over. Reaching out, he grabs the extended arm of the form by the wrist with his right hand, his left moves up the arm to a point just below the shoulder. With the lightest touch, he disables the flow through the meridian. With the same motion, he pushes the form to the side, rolling to his feet, even as his vision returns.

As his vision clears, he looks around, finding himself surrounded by sick humans. Just before him, sits Megumi, who was frantically trying to get her right arm to work once more. A small girl sits beside him, her eyes wide in fear. He recognizes her as the one he had carried a short distance from the clinic, before giving her to Megumi and returning to get Kenshin and Sanosuke.

His left hand brushes his side, finding it freshly bandaged. "Ano..." he mutters, ashamed of himself. His reaction, though instinctive, should not have happened. "Gomen nasai." He begins to kneel next to Megumi, to return function to her arm, when a powerful hand grabs him from behind.

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"Baka-yarou!" Sano grabs Tai from behind and hurls him into a nearby wall. "She saves your life and you thank her by attacking her?"

Seeing that the demon, and he still believes Tai to be a demon, is stunned, Sano moves in. A dark grin crosses his lips and a fire glows with-in his good eye and seems to lick out from under the metal eye-patch that is bolted directly to his skull, covering what used to be his right eye.

A quick movement of the hand, and Sano feels a soft touch, almost a caress, on his chest. A sneer crosses Sano's face, as he steps closer to throw the demon again, when his legs give out from underneath him.

"Nani?" he yells as he falls to his knees. "Oi! What did you do to me? No fair! Time-out?"

The dark creature smiled coldly at him. "I closed off your legs, just as I closed of Megumi's arm. What I did to Megumi was an accident, an instinctive reaction, and I apologize for it."

He walks over to the woman doctor. She shrinks back slightly as he reaches for her arm. "If you don't let me return the flow to your arm, you will lose it."

With a quick movement, he grabs her by the wrist, leaving her no more room for argument. Placing two fingers on her arm, just under the shoulder, he presses lightly, in a small circular motion. With-in seconds, the feeling returns to her arm and she can move it again.

"Gomen nasai." he says softly to her, "Arigatou gozaimasu."

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"What about Sanosuke?" Megumi asks as Taiyoryu starts walking away.

"What about him?" The Akumu looks at the woman doctor, then to the little girl. Her eyes were big with fear, reminding him so much of Yoake the day he found her. Sighing, he moves slowly, now feeling his wounds, to stand before Sano. A swift kick strikes Sano in the stomach, strong enough to double the large man over.

Grumbling in pain, he stands quickly advancing on the wounded Akumu Minzoku. He nearly reaches Taiyoryu when he hears Kenshin say his name. Turning to the battousai, he sees the man standing a few feet away, holding a now sleeping Suzume in one hand, and pointing to Sanosuke's feet with the other. Looking down, he finds that he's able to stand again. That's when he realizes something.

"Oi!" he yells. "Why did you have to hit me to undue mine when Megumi-san's only took a light touch?"

"I didn't." Taiyoryu answers. "You earned the hit." He turns and starts to walk off when he finds the little girl from earlier standing before him.

"You're hurt." she says softly. "You need to be resting." She points her finger up at the dark ebony face of the Nightmare tribesman.

"Is that so?" he says, more than asks. He watches the girl stand before him, shaking in fear, but refusing to move.

"H-h-hai." she finally manages to stammer. He raises an eyebrow at the little human girl who refuses to be cowed by the aura of fear that always seems to radiate from him. him.

In that moment, he found that he couldn't refuse her. *So much like Yoake.* he thinks. Nodding, he moves towards a corner to sit and rest.

"Over there," she says, pointing to a different corner, "With your friend."

He looks down at her as he walks past. "Girl," he says softly, "I have no friends. Remember that."

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As soon as Taiyoryu walks past the trembling Ayame, Yahiko reaches out, catching her arm and pulling her back away from the Akumu.

"What do you think you were doing?" he hisses at her. "He'll kill you with no mercy."

"I was okay." the girl insisted. "He wouldn't hurt me. I saw it in his eye."

"Feh. In his eye?" Yahiko asks, dismissing it as a fantasy of youth. "That was.." he starts, but is cut off by Megumi.

"A very brave thing to do, Ayame-chan."

Yahiko looks to the woman doctor, who obviously approved of the young girls actions, and shakes his head. "I'll never understand women." he mumbles as he walks off. "That wasn't brave, that was stupid."

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Walking to the corner, Taiyoryu finds the last person in this, or any other world, that he ever expected to see again.