Author's Note: Well another chapter and here I am. As you guys have
probably guessed, the guys who've taken Kaoru are pretty much assholes.
Kenshin has a long way to go before the day is done, the battle is won, and
his Kaoru is back in his arms, so enjoy.
Sano had become more than just a little worried after witnessing the cut on Kenshin's arm. He could see blood pulsating through the wound, but why on earth did it carry an orange color? Looks like some sort of poison, but who, where? Hold on, that's the spot where that girl fell and cut him. What is going on?
Kenshin hobbled forward a few steps and declared he needed somewhere to rest. He was now sweating heavily, his skin had taken on a brightened color, and he looked like he had a fever. Sano's suspicions about the girl would have to wait; he needed an inn and now. Looking around for an inn and only seeing a crowd of people, Sano's mind started to race. When his brain finally started running at full speed, he noticed a police officer roughly 50yds away, and tried desperately to call out.
The officer turned, but the crowd made it impossible to see him, and the noise was such that hearing him was impossible as well. After several minutes of Sano calling and the police officer unable to find him, he turned away and continued to make his way forward. In desperation, Sano grabbed Kenshin scooping him into his arms and running after the policeman. Though such heroic efforts should have been rewarded, the man Sano sought disappeared into the crowd before Sano could catch him.
"Agh, Damn! How the hell am I supposed to find an inn in this stupid town? Shit! We have a ferry to catch; we don't have time for this."
Sano was full well prepared to launch himself into a tirade declaring to the world precisely how he felt about the situation when an elderly couple walking by interrupted.
"Excuse me young man, we hope we're not interrupting, but you seemed very distraught that you could not find an inn for your sick friend."
This comment, though soft spoken, had the force to make it clear through to Sano's consciousness, and he stopped to look at the couple that had interrupted him.
"Yeah, you know a place where we can spend the night old timers?"
"Absolutely, see that booth with the jugglers hanging off of the stage next to it? You go right by it and you'll eventually see an inn on the right side, don't recall what the name of it is though."
"Thank you for your help, but I really have to get going."
Sano started to run off with a now unconscious Kenshin towards the inn.
"Good luck to your friend." With that, the couple walked off again. 'Everything was going so well, what happened? Who are these guys Kenshin's so afraid of, and what happened between them? I could understand maybe a little bit of jealousy over Kenshin's reputation, but why go to such lengths? Questions later, right now I need to get Kenshin to an inn.
Making his way through the thick crowd was not a pleasant task for Sano, and the snickers, angry comments, and the feeling that there was an endless sea of people in front of him did not improve the situation. The crowd grew more and more sparse as Sano made his way down the street, but then so did light. Shadows flickered and jumped taunting him as they would hide and jump out teasing his vision. One light still showed through, and the shadows that taunted him before now fled as if in terror of the light. Sano was able to see once more, and the one stroke of luck it seemed he'd had tonight came to him in that the one light hanging out into the street belonged to the inn the elderly couple had described to him earlier.
As was the mood outside, the inside of the inn carried a festive mood, at least until Sano made his appearance bursting through the door. A quiet stir arose from the moment of silence, and Sano growing more and more angry at the quietly murmuring crowd that had formed in front of him.
"What's a' matter with you people? Haven't you ever seen a sick person before? Old man, you got a place to stay?"
"Lead them to my room Jeno, and please have a bucket of hot water sent up to my room." The voice belonged to a woman, there was no doubt about that, since it carried femininity no man could have ever hoped to imitate. There remained a lingering feeling however, that the voice was familiar.
The voice arose from behind the crowd of onlookers; it was a soft but commanding voice with a regality all its own. As the woman finally pushed her way through to the front of the crowd and the two of them, Sano's eyes grew wide as he finally recognized who had come to their aide. Megumi was wearing a bright blue kimono with contrasting pink flowers cascading all about her kimono. The softness of her voice quickly disappeared when she saw it was Kenshin who needed her attention, not Sano. She rushed to him quickly, instinctively putting her hand on his head.
"Sir Ken! Sano, what has happened to him? We must get him to my room immediately!"
Sano was given no time for response as Megumi grabbed Sano and hauled the two of them up the stairs to her room. The room itself contained the basic furnishings, with the exception of additions so as to create a makeshift hospital.
"Put him on the bed in the middle of the room. Now I need you to tell me very quickly what happened to him, I don't even know what's wrong with him and I can already tell you he's in bad shape."
Sano shifted himself so that he faced Megumi directly. He made but one mistake in the care of his friend, and that was to look into her eyes. The passion held them, if only for a moment, but it was Kenshin's pressing need for help that broke a bond that would yet remain unsaid. The task of informing Megumi of Kenshin's plight should have been an easy enough task, but the power of contained emotion is indeed an awesome power, and Sano had to spend a great deal of effort to gather his courage to finally speak.
"Some little girl came running towards Kenshin on our way to the city. He knelt down so he could talk to her since she was calling to him by name. It puzzles me how she knew his name, and more importantly how to recognize him. Anyway, as she was about to run into him she fell scratching his arm with who knows what. It stayed a scratch until just recently when I noticed it started looking like a bruise. Kenshin had become much weaker by then, he started sweating a lot, couldn't really focus, and eventually he collapsed into unconsciousness. I'm not sure what's happened to him; I thought whatever cut him was tipped with poison. Do you have any idea what could do this to him?"
Megumi's eyes had become distant during Sano's explanation of what happened, and the room sat silent for several moments as Megumi continued with a thoughtful expression. At last she came out of this deep state and commanded Sano to retrieve a book of hers she left downstairs at a corner table. He quickly returned with the book, but Megumi's agitated expression as she thumbed through the pages did not bode well for Kenshin. After finally locating a page of interest, she began reading only to swear profusely at the text.
"What's wrong? Do you not know how to cure Kenshin? Is there something we need?"
"Yes, we do need something. What Kenshin has in him is indeed poison, but we need some cardine to cure him. The problem is that no one around here sells it. Sano, on the south side of the city just past the bridge on the left side there is a grove of bushes, find some silvery leaves and bring them to me, but be careful it is essential that you where gloves when handling these herbs. Oh, don't forget to bring a bag, these leaves react violently to human skin, but it works wonders with antidotes."
Sano was out the door and down the street as soon as Megumi finished her sentence. What was once a never-ending mass of people was now a melding blur of light. People turned and started at Sano as he sprinted for the south side of the city. How it was possible for Sano to be so lazy, and yet in such great shape no one knew, but he was at the bridge in no time. The last thing he needed now was a distraction, so the gang of thieves that decided it was his turn to donate to the cause had particularly bad timing.
The first one of them stepped forward and declared himself the leader, and that taxes on that road had been raised and they would need everything he had on him. Dispatching the ragged group of thieves did not take long, but then Kenshin didn't have long.
When Sano returned, he found Megumi to have her 'hospital' in full service with various instruments lying about accompanied by a series of what appeared to be drugs set about in a similar fashion. She was slightly alarmed to see Sano come in covered in a thin layer of dirt, since the leaves were not hard to find, and definitely not off the path.
"What happened? Did you get the leaves? Are you alright?" Try as she might, she could not hide how deep the thought of Sano hurt bothered her.
"I'm fine, just a few guys lookin' for a fight is all. I got the leaves you asked for by the way."
He drew the bag containing the leaves and handed them to Megumi. She quickly grabbed the bag tossing the contents into a pot of boiling water. She continued to add herbs and strange colored liquids that made it seem more like she was making soup than medicine. The closer Megumi came to completing her concoction, the more a strange scent filled the room. Accompanied by a thin layer of steam, the scent continued to fill the room, but with a strange effect. While Kenshin's breathing became easier, Sano started to become dizzy, and his concentration began to fade. Megumi seeing this, and swearing at herself for not remembering this and warning him, shooed him out of the room until further notice. Sano had no sooner approached the door, before he was stopped and called back. What he did not realize, and what Megumi did, is that this was a two-person procedure.
Thinking quickly for a way for Sano to breathe the fumes years of medical practice allowed Megumi to become accustomed to, she instructed Sano to take a cloth sitting on her bed and to hold it pressed against his mouth and nose until she told him it was okay to breathe. She turned to the medicine and deemed it ready for use; now the tricky part of the procedure.
"[Sigh] Okay, I have the medicine ready, but the danger's not over just yet. Sano, help me lift Kenshin onto the foldable bed, and it needs to be in the middle of the room."
After a minute or so of heavy breathing, Kenshin had finally been moved. She retrieved a scalpel from one of her nearby tool kits and cut the bruise slightly. Both blood and a strange orange liquid seeped out through the incision Megumi made. She poured a small amount of the medicine into a round vile and handed it to Sano as she filled a greater portion into a cup.
"Sano, I need you to watch me very carefully. He's going to need to drink some of this medicine, as well as have a portion of it poured onto the wound. When I tell you, I need you to pour a small amount of the medicine onto his wound. Timing is crucial and the medicine won't work if we don't get the timing for his doses just right. Oh, get a towel. You are to wipe away anything that comes up from the wound as I give him his dose."
The procedure when back and forth for roughly an hour, Megumi issuing commands with Sano desperately praying that his friend would make it. This continued for another half-hour before the two of them heard a bunch of noise coming from downstairs. After several crashes accompanied by an equal number of screams, Megumi started wondering what was going on, but Sano didn't. As Megumi tried to make her way to the door and see what was happening, she was blocked by Sano's arm. She didn't know what was going on, but Sano did. He knew this type of noise all too well; this was no tavern brawl. Someone was coming up. Megumi's eyes widened with fear as she watched the expression on Sano's face harden, and his eyes shift toward the direction of the noise.
"Stay here and don't open the door for anyone but me. Whoever it is has taken a great deal of interest this inn. I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is I'm better suited for handling it, and besides you have to look after Kenshin."
Not turning to look at her, he handed her the empty vile of medicine as he approached the door. Megumi walked with him to the door with the intention of shutting the door behind him, not noticing that Kenshin had risen and was hobbling like a drunk toward the door. Sano was about to close the door when he saw the man who had forced his way up to them.
"Hey, what are you doin' forcing."
Sano never finished his sentence as the blow that struck him threw him back against the door, and Megumi who was pressed against the door back against the wall. The only one unharmed by this incident was the still drugged Kenshin, who through sheer force of will could only slightly focus his eyes. The man who had just struck Sano turned toward Kenshin.
"Poor pathetic fool. Did he really think he could stop me? You've become soft battousi, surrounding yourself with all these weaklings. In our first message we told the battousi to come for his woman, not some weakling so easily deceived by a simple child. Maybe this will inspire the true battousi to come out: did you know that the child we used to give you that scratch is dead? Or even that we slaughtered her family in the process? We have your woman Kenshin, and now we have your friend. You have one week to make it to our old meeting place. By the way, it will take you three days to heal from the poison, so I suggest you hurry seeing as how you won't have much time after you've healed. Just in case you decide to get a little lost or late, we will gut your woman and your friend alive and then crucify them outside our old inn."
With that he turned, picked up the unconscious Sanosuke, and walked out. Kenshin desperately tried to run after the man, but got three steps before he fainted just shy of the doorway.
Author's Note: I'm really getting excited about this story. I was wondering for a long time what to do with my story, and then my muse (I can never get a hold of her when I want to) popped in out of nowhere. From that I present to you this chapter and what will hopefully be a successful end to the story. Until then,
Me
Sano had become more than just a little worried after witnessing the cut on Kenshin's arm. He could see blood pulsating through the wound, but why on earth did it carry an orange color? Looks like some sort of poison, but who, where? Hold on, that's the spot where that girl fell and cut him. What is going on?
Kenshin hobbled forward a few steps and declared he needed somewhere to rest. He was now sweating heavily, his skin had taken on a brightened color, and he looked like he had a fever. Sano's suspicions about the girl would have to wait; he needed an inn and now. Looking around for an inn and only seeing a crowd of people, Sano's mind started to race. When his brain finally started running at full speed, he noticed a police officer roughly 50yds away, and tried desperately to call out.
The officer turned, but the crowd made it impossible to see him, and the noise was such that hearing him was impossible as well. After several minutes of Sano calling and the police officer unable to find him, he turned away and continued to make his way forward. In desperation, Sano grabbed Kenshin scooping him into his arms and running after the policeman. Though such heroic efforts should have been rewarded, the man Sano sought disappeared into the crowd before Sano could catch him.
"Agh, Damn! How the hell am I supposed to find an inn in this stupid town? Shit! We have a ferry to catch; we don't have time for this."
Sano was full well prepared to launch himself into a tirade declaring to the world precisely how he felt about the situation when an elderly couple walking by interrupted.
"Excuse me young man, we hope we're not interrupting, but you seemed very distraught that you could not find an inn for your sick friend."
This comment, though soft spoken, had the force to make it clear through to Sano's consciousness, and he stopped to look at the couple that had interrupted him.
"Yeah, you know a place where we can spend the night old timers?"
"Absolutely, see that booth with the jugglers hanging off of the stage next to it? You go right by it and you'll eventually see an inn on the right side, don't recall what the name of it is though."
"Thank you for your help, but I really have to get going."
Sano started to run off with a now unconscious Kenshin towards the inn.
"Good luck to your friend." With that, the couple walked off again. 'Everything was going so well, what happened? Who are these guys Kenshin's so afraid of, and what happened between them? I could understand maybe a little bit of jealousy over Kenshin's reputation, but why go to such lengths? Questions later, right now I need to get Kenshin to an inn.
Making his way through the thick crowd was not a pleasant task for Sano, and the snickers, angry comments, and the feeling that there was an endless sea of people in front of him did not improve the situation. The crowd grew more and more sparse as Sano made his way down the street, but then so did light. Shadows flickered and jumped taunting him as they would hide and jump out teasing his vision. One light still showed through, and the shadows that taunted him before now fled as if in terror of the light. Sano was able to see once more, and the one stroke of luck it seemed he'd had tonight came to him in that the one light hanging out into the street belonged to the inn the elderly couple had described to him earlier.
As was the mood outside, the inside of the inn carried a festive mood, at least until Sano made his appearance bursting through the door. A quiet stir arose from the moment of silence, and Sano growing more and more angry at the quietly murmuring crowd that had formed in front of him.
"What's a' matter with you people? Haven't you ever seen a sick person before? Old man, you got a place to stay?"
"Lead them to my room Jeno, and please have a bucket of hot water sent up to my room." The voice belonged to a woman, there was no doubt about that, since it carried femininity no man could have ever hoped to imitate. There remained a lingering feeling however, that the voice was familiar.
The voice arose from behind the crowd of onlookers; it was a soft but commanding voice with a regality all its own. As the woman finally pushed her way through to the front of the crowd and the two of them, Sano's eyes grew wide as he finally recognized who had come to their aide. Megumi was wearing a bright blue kimono with contrasting pink flowers cascading all about her kimono. The softness of her voice quickly disappeared when she saw it was Kenshin who needed her attention, not Sano. She rushed to him quickly, instinctively putting her hand on his head.
"Sir Ken! Sano, what has happened to him? We must get him to my room immediately!"
Sano was given no time for response as Megumi grabbed Sano and hauled the two of them up the stairs to her room. The room itself contained the basic furnishings, with the exception of additions so as to create a makeshift hospital.
"Put him on the bed in the middle of the room. Now I need you to tell me very quickly what happened to him, I don't even know what's wrong with him and I can already tell you he's in bad shape."
Sano shifted himself so that he faced Megumi directly. He made but one mistake in the care of his friend, and that was to look into her eyes. The passion held them, if only for a moment, but it was Kenshin's pressing need for help that broke a bond that would yet remain unsaid. The task of informing Megumi of Kenshin's plight should have been an easy enough task, but the power of contained emotion is indeed an awesome power, and Sano had to spend a great deal of effort to gather his courage to finally speak.
"Some little girl came running towards Kenshin on our way to the city. He knelt down so he could talk to her since she was calling to him by name. It puzzles me how she knew his name, and more importantly how to recognize him. Anyway, as she was about to run into him she fell scratching his arm with who knows what. It stayed a scratch until just recently when I noticed it started looking like a bruise. Kenshin had become much weaker by then, he started sweating a lot, couldn't really focus, and eventually he collapsed into unconsciousness. I'm not sure what's happened to him; I thought whatever cut him was tipped with poison. Do you have any idea what could do this to him?"
Megumi's eyes had become distant during Sano's explanation of what happened, and the room sat silent for several moments as Megumi continued with a thoughtful expression. At last she came out of this deep state and commanded Sano to retrieve a book of hers she left downstairs at a corner table. He quickly returned with the book, but Megumi's agitated expression as she thumbed through the pages did not bode well for Kenshin. After finally locating a page of interest, she began reading only to swear profusely at the text.
"What's wrong? Do you not know how to cure Kenshin? Is there something we need?"
"Yes, we do need something. What Kenshin has in him is indeed poison, but we need some cardine to cure him. The problem is that no one around here sells it. Sano, on the south side of the city just past the bridge on the left side there is a grove of bushes, find some silvery leaves and bring them to me, but be careful it is essential that you where gloves when handling these herbs. Oh, don't forget to bring a bag, these leaves react violently to human skin, but it works wonders with antidotes."
Sano was out the door and down the street as soon as Megumi finished her sentence. What was once a never-ending mass of people was now a melding blur of light. People turned and started at Sano as he sprinted for the south side of the city. How it was possible for Sano to be so lazy, and yet in such great shape no one knew, but he was at the bridge in no time. The last thing he needed now was a distraction, so the gang of thieves that decided it was his turn to donate to the cause had particularly bad timing.
The first one of them stepped forward and declared himself the leader, and that taxes on that road had been raised and they would need everything he had on him. Dispatching the ragged group of thieves did not take long, but then Kenshin didn't have long.
When Sano returned, he found Megumi to have her 'hospital' in full service with various instruments lying about accompanied by a series of what appeared to be drugs set about in a similar fashion. She was slightly alarmed to see Sano come in covered in a thin layer of dirt, since the leaves were not hard to find, and definitely not off the path.
"What happened? Did you get the leaves? Are you alright?" Try as she might, she could not hide how deep the thought of Sano hurt bothered her.
"I'm fine, just a few guys lookin' for a fight is all. I got the leaves you asked for by the way."
He drew the bag containing the leaves and handed them to Megumi. She quickly grabbed the bag tossing the contents into a pot of boiling water. She continued to add herbs and strange colored liquids that made it seem more like she was making soup than medicine. The closer Megumi came to completing her concoction, the more a strange scent filled the room. Accompanied by a thin layer of steam, the scent continued to fill the room, but with a strange effect. While Kenshin's breathing became easier, Sano started to become dizzy, and his concentration began to fade. Megumi seeing this, and swearing at herself for not remembering this and warning him, shooed him out of the room until further notice. Sano had no sooner approached the door, before he was stopped and called back. What he did not realize, and what Megumi did, is that this was a two-person procedure.
Thinking quickly for a way for Sano to breathe the fumes years of medical practice allowed Megumi to become accustomed to, she instructed Sano to take a cloth sitting on her bed and to hold it pressed against his mouth and nose until she told him it was okay to breathe. She turned to the medicine and deemed it ready for use; now the tricky part of the procedure.
"[Sigh] Okay, I have the medicine ready, but the danger's not over just yet. Sano, help me lift Kenshin onto the foldable bed, and it needs to be in the middle of the room."
After a minute or so of heavy breathing, Kenshin had finally been moved. She retrieved a scalpel from one of her nearby tool kits and cut the bruise slightly. Both blood and a strange orange liquid seeped out through the incision Megumi made. She poured a small amount of the medicine into a round vile and handed it to Sano as she filled a greater portion into a cup.
"Sano, I need you to watch me very carefully. He's going to need to drink some of this medicine, as well as have a portion of it poured onto the wound. When I tell you, I need you to pour a small amount of the medicine onto his wound. Timing is crucial and the medicine won't work if we don't get the timing for his doses just right. Oh, get a towel. You are to wipe away anything that comes up from the wound as I give him his dose."
The procedure when back and forth for roughly an hour, Megumi issuing commands with Sano desperately praying that his friend would make it. This continued for another half-hour before the two of them heard a bunch of noise coming from downstairs. After several crashes accompanied by an equal number of screams, Megumi started wondering what was going on, but Sano didn't. As Megumi tried to make her way to the door and see what was happening, she was blocked by Sano's arm. She didn't know what was going on, but Sano did. He knew this type of noise all too well; this was no tavern brawl. Someone was coming up. Megumi's eyes widened with fear as she watched the expression on Sano's face harden, and his eyes shift toward the direction of the noise.
"Stay here and don't open the door for anyone but me. Whoever it is has taken a great deal of interest this inn. I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is I'm better suited for handling it, and besides you have to look after Kenshin."
Not turning to look at her, he handed her the empty vile of medicine as he approached the door. Megumi walked with him to the door with the intention of shutting the door behind him, not noticing that Kenshin had risen and was hobbling like a drunk toward the door. Sano was about to close the door when he saw the man who had forced his way up to them.
"Hey, what are you doin' forcing."
Sano never finished his sentence as the blow that struck him threw him back against the door, and Megumi who was pressed against the door back against the wall. The only one unharmed by this incident was the still drugged Kenshin, who through sheer force of will could only slightly focus his eyes. The man who had just struck Sano turned toward Kenshin.
"Poor pathetic fool. Did he really think he could stop me? You've become soft battousi, surrounding yourself with all these weaklings. In our first message we told the battousi to come for his woman, not some weakling so easily deceived by a simple child. Maybe this will inspire the true battousi to come out: did you know that the child we used to give you that scratch is dead? Or even that we slaughtered her family in the process? We have your woman Kenshin, and now we have your friend. You have one week to make it to our old meeting place. By the way, it will take you three days to heal from the poison, so I suggest you hurry seeing as how you won't have much time after you've healed. Just in case you decide to get a little lost or late, we will gut your woman and your friend alive and then crucify them outside our old inn."
With that he turned, picked up the unconscious Sanosuke, and walked out. Kenshin desperately tried to run after the man, but got three steps before he fainted just shy of the doorway.
Author's Note: I'm really getting excited about this story. I was wondering for a long time what to do with my story, and then my muse (I can never get a hold of her when I want to) popped in out of nowhere. From that I present to you this chapter and what will hopefully be a successful end to the story. Until then,
Me