Rurouni Kenshin and Buffy are not mine. Watsuki Nobuhiro and Joss Whedon would
probably have a cow or four if they knew what I was doing with their respective
intellectual properties.
Edodale (or, like, whatever)
By wombat
Chapter 5.1 (revised and expanded; see endnote if you wanna)
Kaoru bolted out of bed to shut off her alarm clock. She had set it much earlier than
usual, and daylight was still only a greyish sort of hope on the horizon. Forcing her
sleepy legs step by step, she got herself to the shower and just stood under the hot water
for a few minutes, waiting to really wake up. Her father's death. The sakabatou.
Battousai's sword. Kenshin. They were all connected, but how?
She shook her head sharply, sending water flying against the wall tiles. Why couldn't this
be a bad dream, something her parents could soothe away with hot cocoa or tea and a
childhood lullaby? Those carefree days were gone forever, sinking under the weight of
black and silver swords. As the heir to the Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu school, she had a duty
now to protect her family. She had to be strong for their sake, or she might lose her
mother and Yahiko as well.
Exhaling a shaky sigh, she gathered her wet hair and reached for the shampoo. At least
here in the shower, there was no one else to see the tears washing away from her face,
lost in the foamy water and disappearing forever.
Afterward, she left a note on the kitchen counter about going to school early. It wasn't
really that far a walk, despite the schoolbus zoning, and the easy, repetitive motion made
her feel better. When she stepped through the grassy medians, her footprints left tracks in
the dew. Birds were starting to stir and flutter, chirping in the neighborhood trees, and the
eastern sky was now an indeterminate color between rose and violet that seemed familiar
somehow. After a moment, she grinned in recollection-- Kenshin's socks!-- and then
immediately slumped her shoulders beneath her backpack straps. She wondered how
badly he'd been hurt the night before. She wondered if she'd have to kill him.
---
The hallway door to Hiko's workshop was locked and the lights were dim, so Kaoru went
around to the main library entrance. Hiko was at his desk, tending his katana with oil and
a soft cloth. He looked tired. Unwound silver wire lay crumpled in a crinkly heap like
instant ramen. Wiping the blade to a final satiny sheen, he slid it back into its saya and
reached back to store it behind a bookcase.
"Hey there. The convenience store down the street was open, so I got some hot tea for
everyone. Take one, I already drank mine." She set down the little cardboard box with a
cup anchored by a slot at each corner. "There's a bag of green tea mochi balls in the
middle, too. They're almost as much fun as chocolate-covered coffee beans, but not as
crunchy. Thought they'd make you feel a little perkier, anyway. Were there any problems
with...?" She jerked her chin at the workshop door, not wanting to attach a definite name
to him, whether Kenshin or Battousai.
Hiko sipped his tea gratefully, shaking his head in response to her question. "By the time
we arrived here, he was slightly conscious enough that I could half-drag him on his feet
instead of carrying him. However, he's been asleep on my worktable since then, or was
when I last checked. None of his wounds seems truly serious. Scalp cuts always bleed
enough to look worse than they really are. The rest are just surface lacerations and
bruising; no broken bones or anything of that sort."
"After all those zombies were moshing with him?" Kaoru fidgeted. "Do you think this
could be a setup so we'd bring him in here?"
"I don't know what to think just yet. But I've put ofuda on both sides of the doors, just in
case."
"You didn't leave anything dangerous in there with him, did you?"
He flexed his leg to make a clattering cardboardy thunk as his foot struck under his desk.
"Sano's box is down here. And then there's this." He stood, stretched up to the very top of
the bookcase, and brought down the black sword.
In full light, its dark blade was so reflective that it had a strange illusion of translucence,
like obsidian. The kashira was set with a large ruby, as Hiko had noted last night, and
more jewels were set in the round hand-guard, the tsuba. Kaoru touched them, one by
one: sapphire, emerald, amethyst, and topaz, all four gems' facets winking against the
iron arabesques that surrounded them. Hiko had already taped several ofuda along the
sword's length. "I suppose it has its own saya somewhere," he said, "but for now, this will
have to do." On the other side of the door, the worktable creaked. Hiko quickly replaced
the sword to its former place, well out of Kaoru's normal reach, or Kenshin's.
They heard the scuff of feet landing on the floor, then the soft sounds of a halting limp.
Next came the sound of water in the workshop sink, run from the tap and sloshed about
for some minutes. Finally Kenshin came to the door, tapped lightly, and opened it. The
ofuda fastened across the jamb fluttered to the carpet.
After washing himself, he had put on one of Hiko's cleaner smocks, only lightly smeared
with clay, and rolled the sleeves well up into wide cuffs. He had also evidently tied a
string around his waist to keep the hem from trailing, as the top bloused down in a long
overlap like a girl's kimono. Below that, his memorable socks were slightly spattered
with blood. The rest of his customary wardrobe was bundled in an elbow, tightly wrung
together but still soaked through. "I beg your pardon if I'm interrupting anything, but I
can't seem to find a good spot to hang up my clothes."
"They'll dry quickly enough in the kiln room. No, stay here with Kaoru and I'll take them
there."
Kenshin's face had only the ghost of its usual courteous smile. His eyes were downcast
and dark with fatigue, and a bruise was starting to bloom high on his forehead around a
short, jagged wound. Almost shyly, he ducked his head to peer into the smock pockets
until he pulled out one of Sano's wooden fishbones to comb out his damp hair. Wincing
from tangles and half-healed injuries, he said, "Miss Kamiya-Summers, I'm very grateful
that all of you helped me last night. If there's some way I can repay your kindness--"
"Stop calling me that."
"I regret if I have given any offense." He returned the fishbone to the pocket for a bit of
string to tie his hair back. "Miss Kaoru, then?"
"What were you doing out there last night? Why were those things trying to kill you, and
where did you get that sword?" With an effort, she kept her voice as low and steady as
his.
He still wouldn't meet her eyes. Some of his bangs were already slipping loose over his
face in much the same way as his blood the night before: dark red trickles meeting and
parting, clinging to his skin. "I should prefer not to tell the story twice," he said, "so I
hope you will wait until Mr. Hiko has returned. I am sorry to disappoint you for now."
The library door opened again, but it wasn't Hiko. As he came in, Sano ineffectually ran a
hand up through his hair, which immediately flopped back down over his forehead. "Free
breakfast! Yes!" he crowed at Kaoru's tea tray on the desk before he noticed Kenshin's
presence. He bristled. "Back from the dead already? Or should I say undead?"
Kaoru handed Sano a cup of tea and a mochi, which occupied him enough not to say
anything else for a while. Kenshin also took a cup, sipping it half-heartedly until Hiko
returned with his clothing, nearly dry and steaming gently, and then he retreated back into
the workshop to change into them.
"Has he provided any explanations yet?" Hiko asked, returning to his desk.
"He wanted to wait until you got back. Evidently Kenshin Storytime doesn't repeat in
syndication."
"I see." He sampled a mochi and coughed. "My word. These must have been made with
nearly as much green tea powder as rice flour."
"Yeah, it's like Jolt in chewy dumpling form. Have another, you look like you need it."
Kenshin returned, evidently having given up his shoes as hopeless-- they'd been soaked
with various loathsome fluids last night, and he hadn't even bothered to wash them-- but
otherwise dressed as usual. "Is there anyone else for whom we're waiting?"
"Megumi has shrine duty before school. We'll fill her in later," Kaoru said.
Hiko leaned back in his chair. "Well, Kenshin, the address and phone number in your
student file appear to be false. I'd venture that your family name isn't really 'Wyndham-
Pryce', either."
"No, I'm afraid it isn't," Kenshin said. "I've been taking my meals and showers here at
school and sleeping wherever seemed safe. The park down the street has nice soft lawns,
for example. Last night I chose the cemetery, which is how I was taken by surprise last
night. I was foolish enough to think it would take them longer to find me."
"So why was the zombie hoedown trying to recruit you?"
"Oro?" Kenshin blinked until Sano's phrase made sense to him. "Oh, I see. I don't believe
they were sent to kill me. If I guess correctly, then Enishi's pawns were meant to capture
me alive and bring me back with the sword, which I hope is in safe-keeping."
"Who's Enishi?" Kaoru asked. "And how did you get Battousai's sword, anyway? Did
you steal it from him and this Enishi person, or what?"
Kenshin set down his half-finished cup of tea and leaned against the wall, more for
support than from nonchalance. "Enishi, you might say, is an old acquaintance who
wishes to become reacquainted. He was raised at a shrine and received further religious
training in China. But as you saw, he has turned his knowledge to other ends. As for the
sword..." He took a long breath, and finally looked Kaoru full in the face. "The sword
belongs to me."
Deliberately, Kaoru walked around Hiko's desk to Kenshin and struck him hard in the
face. In the reddening imprint from her hand, a pale mark became visible on his cheek, a
scar shaped like a cross. "So you are Battousai after all, and my father's murderer."
He hadn't even flinched. His blue-violet eyes were weary, as dark as a bruise. "No. Once
I was Battousai, but no longer. And you have no reason to believe me, but I had nothing
to do with your father's death. I know who did kill him, and it's my duty to help you find
them. But in exchange, there's something I must ask you to do for me."
She folded her arms. "Oh really? And just what is that?" Behind her, Sano growled
something to Hiko, whose response was equally unintelligible.
Kenshin's cracked lips quirked as he glanced at the other two for a second. "It's a simple
enough task, unlikely to offend anyone here. But I'm afraid it will require a certain
amount of explanation first." Having returned to Kaoru, those bruise-dark eyes remained
fixed on her the entire time he spoke.
---
"When I was your age," he said without apparent irony, "travellers were being killed in
the mountains between this city and my home. There were always battles and raids
between the nobles' factions, of course, but this was just random murder. No one was
safe, from rich merchant caravans to beggars, even a few samurai with armed retinues.
Often the victims weren't even robbed, just left dead on the road, mutilated and half-
burned.
"No one knew whether there was a group of bandits, a pack of wolves possessed by fire
kami, or even one single killer, though the last choice seemed impossible. After a while,
no one wanted to travel those roads. We couldn't send out carts of vegetables or hides to
sell in the city, or send for a doctor when someone was ill. When winter came, our
village's store of rice began to run low.
"No one would go to the city to buy more. Not even my master at the dojo, though every
day he consulted our chief priestess for oracles about who might be responsible and what
should be done. I didn't want to wait until they were certain, because the longer they
waited, the more of us were starving. One day, I talked with a miko at the shrine, one of
the chief priestess's daughters, and she told me enough to make a guess. She gave me a
blessing, and one of her hair ornaments for luck..." Kaoru felt oddly vexed by his faint
blush of memory. "So the next morning, before anyone else was awake, I left the dojo
with my swords and went into the hills in the direction she'd told me.
"It didn't take very long to find him. He must have come down to meet me, too. It would
have been easy for him to look down and see me against the snow, but I couldn't see
anyone hiding uphill in the pines. And no one else had been on those roads for months, so
he would have been waiting all this time for fresh prey.
"I could hear him before I saw him. He had heavy footsteps that sank through the snow
and clanked against the rock, and instead of cords or straps, all of his armor was fastened
with thin metal chains that jingled like suzu bells. It was all solid black iron instead of
leather or thin strips of lacquered steel, and I remember thinking that this would be easy,
he'd be weighted down by it, and I was fast enough to run through his guard and slash
into a gap at the waist.
"I know I hit him as I went past. There was even less resistance than when we'd practiced
at the dojo by slashing dead pigs hung from a tree, although it'd been months since
anyone had the meat to spare for that. I skidded around in the snow to see how well I'd
done, but instead of falling over, or even looking hurt, he was already coming after me
with his own sword drawn.
"There was enough space between us that I had time to resheath for battou-jutsu. But my
katana wouldn't go back into its saya. The spot on the blade where I'd hit him had
flattened out like warm wax.
"I think there's a special kind of shame that overwhelms people when they realize that not
only have they been wrong about something, but that by insisting on the wrong answer,
they were hurting others they cared about. And in the few seconds left until he reached
me, the only reason I could feel anything else was the equally strong feeling that I was
about to die. I was never going to see my master again and tell him he'd been right to
wait. I'd never be able to return the miko's hairpin and tell her it had given me as much
heart as her blessing.
"At least my sword could still block his, it was good enough for that. But it couldn't
pierce his armor, and it only melted a little more every time I struck into one of the gaps.
After perhaps half an hour of this, it just looked like a piece of driftwood, twisted up onto
itself with no real edge or point left, but he still hadn't hit me. Maybe my Hiten Mitsurugi
Ryuu skills weren't wasted after all, or maybe he was just playing with me, but at least I
hadn't been wounded. Exhausted, freezing, and terrified, but not wounded.
"By then, I was backed up against a cliff face. When he charged at me, I dodged his stab
and scrambled up to a ledge while he was working his blade back out of the stone. It
wasn't a very big ledge, but at least it was out of his katana's reach, and he couldn't
possibly climb up to it in all that armor. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and after a
while I started to wonder how long it would take him to give up and go away. He wasn't
moving at all, just standing there beneath me. I relaxed, and started to think about how to
get home and what to say when I got there, and then he whipped out his wakizashi from
his belt and hurled it straight up at my face." With a deft flick of his hand, Kenshin traced
the vertical line of his scar.
"It was a very strange sensation, not like a normal cut. It was--" He paused, groping for
words. "If you take an icicle and run the point across your arm, you feel it in two
different ways: first there's the sharp, cold pressure, and then there's a trickling sensation
as the meltwater flows across your skin. It didn't hurt exactly, but the second part wasn't
so much the blood running down my face as something inside of me, as if my heart were
being pulled up through my throat. I blacked out.
"I don't know how long I was unconscious. Not long enough for me to freeze to death,
but long enough for him to find or cut a sturdy log and drag it back to tilt against the
ledge. When I woke up, it was partly from the noise he'd made from walking up it, and
partly because he kicked me. His other foot was planted on what was left of my katana,
and when I turned my head up to see him, his katana was poised straight over my face.
"I rolled aside, but not fast enough." Another flick, at the horizontal line. "There was the
same feeling all over again, but this time I wasn't as surprised, and was able to keep
fighting. He'd already picked his wakizashi back up, but I thought I might as well try the
same thing as he had before. I drew mine and threw it at his head. I wasn't thinking
properly by then or I wouldn't have even tried, because if my katana couldn't hurt him,
why would my wakizashi? But my fingers were going numb, too, not just my brain, and I
grabbed the wrong thing from my belt and didn't know until I saw it flying toward him.
"Perhaps you've never seen the hair ornaments from that era, but the one the miko had
given me for luck wasn't just a little spangle. When her hair was down, it fell to her waist,
and the pin she'd given me was strong enough to keep all of it piled on her head. It was a
piece of carved rosewood about as long as my hand and as thick as my smallest finger,
with little inlaid mother-of-pearl flowers and silver-capped tips.
"I'd thrown it as hard as if it really were my wakizashi, though, and the tip went straight
through his eye as the wooden shaft burst into flame. It must have been years since
anyone had been able to injure him, and he fell to his knees, clutching at his face and
howling. He dropped his katana, of course. So I stumbled back up, lifted it, and even
though the hilt was already burning my hands, I drove the blade straight through his
armor into his chest.
"He collapsed with the blade still through his body, and my grip on the hilt dragged me
down with him, kneeling over him in the melting snow. I hadn't had a clear view of his
face until then, since it had been in the shadow of his helmet. But now that he was dying,
he looked like any ordinary man, except that instead of blood, his body was oozing a little
thick black smoke that stayed close to the ground. When he coughed, there was more
smoke there too. He looked straight into my eyes and said 'Thank you', and then he died.
"His sword felt different now. It didn't burn me any more. In fact, it made me feel warm
and strong, as if the light of a summer afternoon were pouring up through my hands into
my entire body. Smoke was still oozing from him when I took his wakizashi, and his
armor felt hot. I didn't want to drag his entire body back with me, but I knew I could find
the place again to show my master, so I climbed down the log and started on the path for
home. When I looked back, there was an orange glow on the ledge, but I thought it was
just sunset reflecting from the rock.
"A few days later, when I'd fully recovered and brought my master back there, nothing
was left of the body but a melted lump of black iron, the same color as his swords. After
that..." Kenshin shrugged unhappily.
"We were able to send a caravan to the city and trade for food before many more of us
starved. The caravan told everyone that the roads were safe now, though my master
refused to let them spread my name or the story of our duel. I didn't like that. I was proud
of what I'd done; why wouldn't I be? I wore the black swords whenever I could, I picked
quarrels for the sheer pride of being able to make others back down, and after I nearly
killed another student with my bokken, my master told me he would have the chief
priestess exorcise me and destroy the swords, in case any lingering influence of evil
remained in them.
"So I ran away with them. As I was crossing through the mountains, an ordinary bandit
attacked me. The black swords were the only weapons I had with me, so I killed him with
those. It felt good. It felt even better than when I'd killed the swords' former master."
There was no remembered pleasure in his face, only distant self-loathing. "I had given the
swords fresh blood to drink, and they made me Battousai.
"After that, I couldn't be stopped. Perhaps if I'd taken the armor, my body would have
burned or melted ordinary weapons as well, but it didn't have to. I've had arrows shot
through my throat, and all I did was pull them out and wait a few seconds to recover my
voice so I could tell the archers how they'd die. I've had my ankles chopped out from
under me, killed my enemy while running on the raw stumps, and then simply brushed
the dirt and leaves from my feet to press them back against my legs for a minute or two
until they reattached. I lost track of how many bodies I left behind me, especially once I
reached the city."
His gaze finally released Kaoru's. Involuntarily, she stepped back. "As you can see," he
said, glancing up toward the wound on his forehead, "I can be hurt now by ordinary
means, though I still heal more quickly than ordinary humans. I stole enough life from
the people I killed to have lived nearly one hundred fifty years so far, and perhaps several
centuries more. But I'm not immortal. I can be killed. And Miss Kaoru," he said to her, "I
want you to do it."
---
A razor-sharp fishbone whipped straight past Kaoru's neck, brushing her ponytail, and
buried itself in Kenshin's shoulder. "You're awfully picky," Sano snarled. "I'd be happy to
do it for her."
"Sano!" Kaoru said, shocked.
"Now see here!" Hiko protested, standing to reach across his desk to grab and twist
Sano's shirt at the neck. "That was completely uncalled for."
Grimacing with pain, Kenshin made a strained copy of the "everything's fine" wave until
Hiko put Sano back down. Then, cutting his fingers too where they gripped the sharp
edges of the tail, Kenshin pulled the fish back out. He placed it on Hiko's desk, with one
of the teatray's paper napkins under it to catch the blood, then pressed another napkin
hard against his wound. "Mr. Harris," he said patiently, "I'm afraid you weren't listening.
I can be hurt by flesh, wood, and steel now. In fact, this hurts rather a lot, and now I'll
have to wash my shirt again. But if you took that and cut my throat, I might appear to
collapse and die, but over time my body would heal itself again and bring me back to life.
"Some methods take more time than most. Drowning is fastest. I just wash back up again.
Getting hit by a train is extremely untidy and upsets the engineer, and afterward, once my
body knits itself back together, I've had to pick gravel and splinters out of my flesh for a
year. Burning is almost as fast as drowning, because the smoke and ashes just condense
back together.
"I believe the only thing that can truly kill me is the silver sakabatou. It killed Enishi and
the others, and they would have remained dust if the holy seal on our weapons hadn't
broken. Now that they've returned, they want my sword so they can be restored to their
full powers. This is why they've taken the sakabatou, and why they marked the face of
your father and the others as a challenge to me.
"When they were killed, their own weapons lost the ability to drain life, and their jewels
came to my sword. They want to recover it and regain them. So we must reclaim your
sakabatou from them first so you can kill me with it. Once I die, the master katana will
die with me, and likely Enishi and the others as well. You will have your vengeance, and
the curse will end at last." The napkin at his shoulder was soaked now, and he quietly slid
down the wall to the floor.
--
Kenshin was obviously in no condition to attend classes. Hiko helped him back into the
workshop to bandage his shoulder while Sano remained in the main library and fumed at
Kaoru. "He's seriously psycho. Even if we believe all of that, he didn't explain how he
stopped being Battousai, or who this Enishi person is, much less all those 'others' he
keeps lumping in with them."
"He said their weapons used to be able to drain life, but they can't any more. So maybe
they used to be, I dunno, mini-Battousai? The Battousai Scouts?" Kaoru mused, then
picked up the fish in its bloody napkin and tossed it to him. "Anyway, what business do
you have calling people psycho when you just threw that thing practically at his neck? If
he is crazy and none of what he said is true, then you really could have killed him. And I
bet you'd get major detention for that."
"He's bad news, Kaoru. We should've left him in the cemetery with his zombie friends to
take him back to the Enishi family reunion."
Hiko returned to his desk and creditably forged the voice of a worried parent to call the
school office and tell them Kenshin would be out sick, then gave Sano a very grave look.
"That was a remarkably imprudent act. Did you consider the consequences at all?"
"Sure. Either he's lying and we need to get rid of him, or he's telling the truth and we
need to get rid of him."
"Yes, but on which level? Suppose he were only telling partial truths while concealing
the bloodlust and the soul-destroying powers of Battousai? That might have enraged him
enough to kill us all, you know."
Sano paled a little, but shrugged "Well, he didn't. So I guess I proved something after
all."
"Perhaps you only proved that he needs his sword to do it," Hiko said, folding his arms.
"But I must say that for my part, I believe him. It matches up reasonably well with the
account that his old master, my great-grandfather, wrote down, and which I told to you
earlier. Kenshin has done nothing to harm us, and so I must insist that you refrain from
further unprovoked attacks on him. And no, I will not accept a claim that his mere
existence provokes you. But Kaoru, what do you make of this?"
She twisted her face unhappily. "Does not compute. Need more data. At the very least,
we need to know more about the Enishigumi or whatever so we'll know how dangerous
they are. I mean, are they going to come here and attack us, or him? Will we even be able
to take them on and get my father's sword back? I don't even want to think about what to
do after that yet."
Helpfully, Sano pointed at the workshop door and made a throat-cutting gesture which
Hiko missed by yawning mightily, despite the green tea mochi. "Megumi's ofuda stopped
those creatures well enough," Hiko said, "but they have no effect on him. So either he's
powerful enough that only the ofuda of a fully-trained priestess can stop him, or he's not
any danger of that sort after all. If the former, then we have little hope against him with
our present resources. If the latter, which is my opinion, I believe the school is adequately
warded to prevent further attacks, so he'll be safe here."
"It has to beat sleeping in the cemetery." Kaoru shivered, then sniffed the air. "Hey, do
you smell something burning? Not like the kiln room, more like paper?"
They craned around until Sano spotted the curl of smoke near the ceiling. "Up there," he
said, and pointed to the top of the bookcase behind Hiko's desk.
Hiko jerked his hand back from initial contact, then clenched his jaw and brought the
black sword back down again, limiting his grip to the hilt's braided wrapping instead of
touching any of the metal. The ofuda he had wrapped around the blade were beginning to
smolder, their dark, curling edges fluttering apart into bright orange crumbs. He held the
sword straight above Kenshin's unfinished tea to catch the falling sparks, and plunged the
tip into it with the sound of a serpent's breath.
---
"Enishi, I can't see him any more. He's gone, gone into a place with pretty little butterflies
on fire, too bright to look at. Make it dark again."
"Hush, love, I'll make things right. Everything will be the way it was, even if Battousai
isn't our leader anymore. Jineh can do the job just as well, better even." Nestled in their
dim crypt haven, Enishi tenderly reassured his sister. The silver spikes of his hair were
even paler than the frail silk of her kimono, whose wide obi wrapped high around her
waist. By contrast, his long leather coat was not quite as dark as her hair, a long, heavy
mass bound up by a silver-capped rosewood pin with little mother-of-pearl flowers.
By contrast, the other woman with them was dressed provocatively, her neckline pitched
far down enough to loosely expose both shoulders. Her full lips were heavily painted,
though there was not enough light to show their color was dark green, not red. "Jineh's
such a loser. If we could get Battousai back with us again instead, that'd be wicked cool."
Enishi shrugged. "Battousai, Jineh, it's all the same to me, as long as my sweetheart here
is well again. And then we'll have some fine times in the city again, won't we, my pet?"
Tomoe smiled wanly. "Oh yes. I remember the dinners we had there, with pomegranates
and camellias all covered in blood. It was lovely. We turned everything to the color of his
hair, but now I can't see where he is."
"Shut up, you two, Jineh's coming back."
Their so-called leader returned with a few more corpses. He was disgruntled and muddy.
"We've tunneled under most of this cemetery, and we still haven't caught him with all of
your puppets. This plan of yours had better work soon, Enishi."
"Or what? You're going to stab me with a katana just like you did Battousai? Oh, I forgot,
that won't work now, because when you did that, it bloody sucked the power out of all of
our weapons, and we got dusted the same night. What good's the sakabatou going to do
us anyway without him?"
"Hear me and obey!" Jineh thundered, and stormed away.
Yumi watched him leave. "Five by five," she said sarcastically.
-----
(Another talky chapter. Unfortunately, I don't think I have a good notion of Jineh yet,
other than Generic Big Bad; neither he nor the Master had particularly distinctive speech
patterns as far as I can remember. Oh well, maybe I should actually have one pseudo-
original character in this. Other than that, can't think of anything useful to say this time
except that this chapter didn't take as long to write as I'd thought. Woohoo.)
(Version 5.1 notes: Once my initial round of sleep deprivation wore off, I realized that
the original version of this chapter sucked rocks. No wonder it was suspiciously easy to
write. Now about twice as long and extra-crispy with added calcium. Poor Kenshin is
getting beat up an awful lot. I really ought to let him break loose and get jiggy on some
enemy he won't fret about, thus demonstrating that he too can still kick ass when
necessary.)
probably have a cow or four if they knew what I was doing with their respective
intellectual properties.
Edodale (or, like, whatever)
By wombat
Chapter 5.1 (revised and expanded; see endnote if you wanna)
Kaoru bolted out of bed to shut off her alarm clock. She had set it much earlier than
usual, and daylight was still only a greyish sort of hope on the horizon. Forcing her
sleepy legs step by step, she got herself to the shower and just stood under the hot water
for a few minutes, waiting to really wake up. Her father's death. The sakabatou.
Battousai's sword. Kenshin. They were all connected, but how?
She shook her head sharply, sending water flying against the wall tiles. Why couldn't this
be a bad dream, something her parents could soothe away with hot cocoa or tea and a
childhood lullaby? Those carefree days were gone forever, sinking under the weight of
black and silver swords. As the heir to the Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu school, she had a duty
now to protect her family. She had to be strong for their sake, or she might lose her
mother and Yahiko as well.
Exhaling a shaky sigh, she gathered her wet hair and reached for the shampoo. At least
here in the shower, there was no one else to see the tears washing away from her face,
lost in the foamy water and disappearing forever.
Afterward, she left a note on the kitchen counter about going to school early. It wasn't
really that far a walk, despite the schoolbus zoning, and the easy, repetitive motion made
her feel better. When she stepped through the grassy medians, her footprints left tracks in
the dew. Birds were starting to stir and flutter, chirping in the neighborhood trees, and the
eastern sky was now an indeterminate color between rose and violet that seemed familiar
somehow. After a moment, she grinned in recollection-- Kenshin's socks!-- and then
immediately slumped her shoulders beneath her backpack straps. She wondered how
badly he'd been hurt the night before. She wondered if she'd have to kill him.
---
The hallway door to Hiko's workshop was locked and the lights were dim, so Kaoru went
around to the main library entrance. Hiko was at his desk, tending his katana with oil and
a soft cloth. He looked tired. Unwound silver wire lay crumpled in a crinkly heap like
instant ramen. Wiping the blade to a final satiny sheen, he slid it back into its saya and
reached back to store it behind a bookcase.
"Hey there. The convenience store down the street was open, so I got some hot tea for
everyone. Take one, I already drank mine." She set down the little cardboard box with a
cup anchored by a slot at each corner. "There's a bag of green tea mochi balls in the
middle, too. They're almost as much fun as chocolate-covered coffee beans, but not as
crunchy. Thought they'd make you feel a little perkier, anyway. Were there any problems
with...?" She jerked her chin at the workshop door, not wanting to attach a definite name
to him, whether Kenshin or Battousai.
Hiko sipped his tea gratefully, shaking his head in response to her question. "By the time
we arrived here, he was slightly conscious enough that I could half-drag him on his feet
instead of carrying him. However, he's been asleep on my worktable since then, or was
when I last checked. None of his wounds seems truly serious. Scalp cuts always bleed
enough to look worse than they really are. The rest are just surface lacerations and
bruising; no broken bones or anything of that sort."
"After all those zombies were moshing with him?" Kaoru fidgeted. "Do you think this
could be a setup so we'd bring him in here?"
"I don't know what to think just yet. But I've put ofuda on both sides of the doors, just in
case."
"You didn't leave anything dangerous in there with him, did you?"
He flexed his leg to make a clattering cardboardy thunk as his foot struck under his desk.
"Sano's box is down here. And then there's this." He stood, stretched up to the very top of
the bookcase, and brought down the black sword.
In full light, its dark blade was so reflective that it had a strange illusion of translucence,
like obsidian. The kashira was set with a large ruby, as Hiko had noted last night, and
more jewels were set in the round hand-guard, the tsuba. Kaoru touched them, one by
one: sapphire, emerald, amethyst, and topaz, all four gems' facets winking against the
iron arabesques that surrounded them. Hiko had already taped several ofuda along the
sword's length. "I suppose it has its own saya somewhere," he said, "but for now, this will
have to do." On the other side of the door, the worktable creaked. Hiko quickly replaced
the sword to its former place, well out of Kaoru's normal reach, or Kenshin's.
They heard the scuff of feet landing on the floor, then the soft sounds of a halting limp.
Next came the sound of water in the workshop sink, run from the tap and sloshed about
for some minutes. Finally Kenshin came to the door, tapped lightly, and opened it. The
ofuda fastened across the jamb fluttered to the carpet.
After washing himself, he had put on one of Hiko's cleaner smocks, only lightly smeared
with clay, and rolled the sleeves well up into wide cuffs. He had also evidently tied a
string around his waist to keep the hem from trailing, as the top bloused down in a long
overlap like a girl's kimono. Below that, his memorable socks were slightly spattered
with blood. The rest of his customary wardrobe was bundled in an elbow, tightly wrung
together but still soaked through. "I beg your pardon if I'm interrupting anything, but I
can't seem to find a good spot to hang up my clothes."
"They'll dry quickly enough in the kiln room. No, stay here with Kaoru and I'll take them
there."
Kenshin's face had only the ghost of its usual courteous smile. His eyes were downcast
and dark with fatigue, and a bruise was starting to bloom high on his forehead around a
short, jagged wound. Almost shyly, he ducked his head to peer into the smock pockets
until he pulled out one of Sano's wooden fishbones to comb out his damp hair. Wincing
from tangles and half-healed injuries, he said, "Miss Kamiya-Summers, I'm very grateful
that all of you helped me last night. If there's some way I can repay your kindness--"
"Stop calling me that."
"I regret if I have given any offense." He returned the fishbone to the pocket for a bit of
string to tie his hair back. "Miss Kaoru, then?"
"What were you doing out there last night? Why were those things trying to kill you, and
where did you get that sword?" With an effort, she kept her voice as low and steady as
his.
He still wouldn't meet her eyes. Some of his bangs were already slipping loose over his
face in much the same way as his blood the night before: dark red trickles meeting and
parting, clinging to his skin. "I should prefer not to tell the story twice," he said, "so I
hope you will wait until Mr. Hiko has returned. I am sorry to disappoint you for now."
The library door opened again, but it wasn't Hiko. As he came in, Sano ineffectually ran a
hand up through his hair, which immediately flopped back down over his forehead. "Free
breakfast! Yes!" he crowed at Kaoru's tea tray on the desk before he noticed Kenshin's
presence. He bristled. "Back from the dead already? Or should I say undead?"
Kaoru handed Sano a cup of tea and a mochi, which occupied him enough not to say
anything else for a while. Kenshin also took a cup, sipping it half-heartedly until Hiko
returned with his clothing, nearly dry and steaming gently, and then he retreated back into
the workshop to change into them.
"Has he provided any explanations yet?" Hiko asked, returning to his desk.
"He wanted to wait until you got back. Evidently Kenshin Storytime doesn't repeat in
syndication."
"I see." He sampled a mochi and coughed. "My word. These must have been made with
nearly as much green tea powder as rice flour."
"Yeah, it's like Jolt in chewy dumpling form. Have another, you look like you need it."
Kenshin returned, evidently having given up his shoes as hopeless-- they'd been soaked
with various loathsome fluids last night, and he hadn't even bothered to wash them-- but
otherwise dressed as usual. "Is there anyone else for whom we're waiting?"
"Megumi has shrine duty before school. We'll fill her in later," Kaoru said.
Hiko leaned back in his chair. "Well, Kenshin, the address and phone number in your
student file appear to be false. I'd venture that your family name isn't really 'Wyndham-
Pryce', either."
"No, I'm afraid it isn't," Kenshin said. "I've been taking my meals and showers here at
school and sleeping wherever seemed safe. The park down the street has nice soft lawns,
for example. Last night I chose the cemetery, which is how I was taken by surprise last
night. I was foolish enough to think it would take them longer to find me."
"So why was the zombie hoedown trying to recruit you?"
"Oro?" Kenshin blinked until Sano's phrase made sense to him. "Oh, I see. I don't believe
they were sent to kill me. If I guess correctly, then Enishi's pawns were meant to capture
me alive and bring me back with the sword, which I hope is in safe-keeping."
"Who's Enishi?" Kaoru asked. "And how did you get Battousai's sword, anyway? Did
you steal it from him and this Enishi person, or what?"
Kenshin set down his half-finished cup of tea and leaned against the wall, more for
support than from nonchalance. "Enishi, you might say, is an old acquaintance who
wishes to become reacquainted. He was raised at a shrine and received further religious
training in China. But as you saw, he has turned his knowledge to other ends. As for the
sword..." He took a long breath, and finally looked Kaoru full in the face. "The sword
belongs to me."
Deliberately, Kaoru walked around Hiko's desk to Kenshin and struck him hard in the
face. In the reddening imprint from her hand, a pale mark became visible on his cheek, a
scar shaped like a cross. "So you are Battousai after all, and my father's murderer."
He hadn't even flinched. His blue-violet eyes were weary, as dark as a bruise. "No. Once
I was Battousai, but no longer. And you have no reason to believe me, but I had nothing
to do with your father's death. I know who did kill him, and it's my duty to help you find
them. But in exchange, there's something I must ask you to do for me."
She folded her arms. "Oh really? And just what is that?" Behind her, Sano growled
something to Hiko, whose response was equally unintelligible.
Kenshin's cracked lips quirked as he glanced at the other two for a second. "It's a simple
enough task, unlikely to offend anyone here. But I'm afraid it will require a certain
amount of explanation first." Having returned to Kaoru, those bruise-dark eyes remained
fixed on her the entire time he spoke.
---
"When I was your age," he said without apparent irony, "travellers were being killed in
the mountains between this city and my home. There were always battles and raids
between the nobles' factions, of course, but this was just random murder. No one was
safe, from rich merchant caravans to beggars, even a few samurai with armed retinues.
Often the victims weren't even robbed, just left dead on the road, mutilated and half-
burned.
"No one knew whether there was a group of bandits, a pack of wolves possessed by fire
kami, or even one single killer, though the last choice seemed impossible. After a while,
no one wanted to travel those roads. We couldn't send out carts of vegetables or hides to
sell in the city, or send for a doctor when someone was ill. When winter came, our
village's store of rice began to run low.
"No one would go to the city to buy more. Not even my master at the dojo, though every
day he consulted our chief priestess for oracles about who might be responsible and what
should be done. I didn't want to wait until they were certain, because the longer they
waited, the more of us were starving. One day, I talked with a miko at the shrine, one of
the chief priestess's daughters, and she told me enough to make a guess. She gave me a
blessing, and one of her hair ornaments for luck..." Kaoru felt oddly vexed by his faint
blush of memory. "So the next morning, before anyone else was awake, I left the dojo
with my swords and went into the hills in the direction she'd told me.
"It didn't take very long to find him. He must have come down to meet me, too. It would
have been easy for him to look down and see me against the snow, but I couldn't see
anyone hiding uphill in the pines. And no one else had been on those roads for months, so
he would have been waiting all this time for fresh prey.
"I could hear him before I saw him. He had heavy footsteps that sank through the snow
and clanked against the rock, and instead of cords or straps, all of his armor was fastened
with thin metal chains that jingled like suzu bells. It was all solid black iron instead of
leather or thin strips of lacquered steel, and I remember thinking that this would be easy,
he'd be weighted down by it, and I was fast enough to run through his guard and slash
into a gap at the waist.
"I know I hit him as I went past. There was even less resistance than when we'd practiced
at the dojo by slashing dead pigs hung from a tree, although it'd been months since
anyone had the meat to spare for that. I skidded around in the snow to see how well I'd
done, but instead of falling over, or even looking hurt, he was already coming after me
with his own sword drawn.
"There was enough space between us that I had time to resheath for battou-jutsu. But my
katana wouldn't go back into its saya. The spot on the blade where I'd hit him had
flattened out like warm wax.
"I think there's a special kind of shame that overwhelms people when they realize that not
only have they been wrong about something, but that by insisting on the wrong answer,
they were hurting others they cared about. And in the few seconds left until he reached
me, the only reason I could feel anything else was the equally strong feeling that I was
about to die. I was never going to see my master again and tell him he'd been right to
wait. I'd never be able to return the miko's hairpin and tell her it had given me as much
heart as her blessing.
"At least my sword could still block his, it was good enough for that. But it couldn't
pierce his armor, and it only melted a little more every time I struck into one of the gaps.
After perhaps half an hour of this, it just looked like a piece of driftwood, twisted up onto
itself with no real edge or point left, but he still hadn't hit me. Maybe my Hiten Mitsurugi
Ryuu skills weren't wasted after all, or maybe he was just playing with me, but at least I
hadn't been wounded. Exhausted, freezing, and terrified, but not wounded.
"By then, I was backed up against a cliff face. When he charged at me, I dodged his stab
and scrambled up to a ledge while he was working his blade back out of the stone. It
wasn't a very big ledge, but at least it was out of his katana's reach, and he couldn't
possibly climb up to it in all that armor. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and after a
while I started to wonder how long it would take him to give up and go away. He wasn't
moving at all, just standing there beneath me. I relaxed, and started to think about how to
get home and what to say when I got there, and then he whipped out his wakizashi from
his belt and hurled it straight up at my face." With a deft flick of his hand, Kenshin traced
the vertical line of his scar.
"It was a very strange sensation, not like a normal cut. It was--" He paused, groping for
words. "If you take an icicle and run the point across your arm, you feel it in two
different ways: first there's the sharp, cold pressure, and then there's a trickling sensation
as the meltwater flows across your skin. It didn't hurt exactly, but the second part wasn't
so much the blood running down my face as something inside of me, as if my heart were
being pulled up through my throat. I blacked out.
"I don't know how long I was unconscious. Not long enough for me to freeze to death,
but long enough for him to find or cut a sturdy log and drag it back to tilt against the
ledge. When I woke up, it was partly from the noise he'd made from walking up it, and
partly because he kicked me. His other foot was planted on what was left of my katana,
and when I turned my head up to see him, his katana was poised straight over my face.
"I rolled aside, but not fast enough." Another flick, at the horizontal line. "There was the
same feeling all over again, but this time I wasn't as surprised, and was able to keep
fighting. He'd already picked his wakizashi back up, but I thought I might as well try the
same thing as he had before. I drew mine and threw it at his head. I wasn't thinking
properly by then or I wouldn't have even tried, because if my katana couldn't hurt him,
why would my wakizashi? But my fingers were going numb, too, not just my brain, and I
grabbed the wrong thing from my belt and didn't know until I saw it flying toward him.
"Perhaps you've never seen the hair ornaments from that era, but the one the miko had
given me for luck wasn't just a little spangle. When her hair was down, it fell to her waist,
and the pin she'd given me was strong enough to keep all of it piled on her head. It was a
piece of carved rosewood about as long as my hand and as thick as my smallest finger,
with little inlaid mother-of-pearl flowers and silver-capped tips.
"I'd thrown it as hard as if it really were my wakizashi, though, and the tip went straight
through his eye as the wooden shaft burst into flame. It must have been years since
anyone had been able to injure him, and he fell to his knees, clutching at his face and
howling. He dropped his katana, of course. So I stumbled back up, lifted it, and even
though the hilt was already burning my hands, I drove the blade straight through his
armor into his chest.
"He collapsed with the blade still through his body, and my grip on the hilt dragged me
down with him, kneeling over him in the melting snow. I hadn't had a clear view of his
face until then, since it had been in the shadow of his helmet. But now that he was dying,
he looked like any ordinary man, except that instead of blood, his body was oozing a little
thick black smoke that stayed close to the ground. When he coughed, there was more
smoke there too. He looked straight into my eyes and said 'Thank you', and then he died.
"His sword felt different now. It didn't burn me any more. In fact, it made me feel warm
and strong, as if the light of a summer afternoon were pouring up through my hands into
my entire body. Smoke was still oozing from him when I took his wakizashi, and his
armor felt hot. I didn't want to drag his entire body back with me, but I knew I could find
the place again to show my master, so I climbed down the log and started on the path for
home. When I looked back, there was an orange glow on the ledge, but I thought it was
just sunset reflecting from the rock.
"A few days later, when I'd fully recovered and brought my master back there, nothing
was left of the body but a melted lump of black iron, the same color as his swords. After
that..." Kenshin shrugged unhappily.
"We were able to send a caravan to the city and trade for food before many more of us
starved. The caravan told everyone that the roads were safe now, though my master
refused to let them spread my name or the story of our duel. I didn't like that. I was proud
of what I'd done; why wouldn't I be? I wore the black swords whenever I could, I picked
quarrels for the sheer pride of being able to make others back down, and after I nearly
killed another student with my bokken, my master told me he would have the chief
priestess exorcise me and destroy the swords, in case any lingering influence of evil
remained in them.
"So I ran away with them. As I was crossing through the mountains, an ordinary bandit
attacked me. The black swords were the only weapons I had with me, so I killed him with
those. It felt good. It felt even better than when I'd killed the swords' former master."
There was no remembered pleasure in his face, only distant self-loathing. "I had given the
swords fresh blood to drink, and they made me Battousai.
"After that, I couldn't be stopped. Perhaps if I'd taken the armor, my body would have
burned or melted ordinary weapons as well, but it didn't have to. I've had arrows shot
through my throat, and all I did was pull them out and wait a few seconds to recover my
voice so I could tell the archers how they'd die. I've had my ankles chopped out from
under me, killed my enemy while running on the raw stumps, and then simply brushed
the dirt and leaves from my feet to press them back against my legs for a minute or two
until they reattached. I lost track of how many bodies I left behind me, especially once I
reached the city."
His gaze finally released Kaoru's. Involuntarily, she stepped back. "As you can see," he
said, glancing up toward the wound on his forehead, "I can be hurt now by ordinary
means, though I still heal more quickly than ordinary humans. I stole enough life from
the people I killed to have lived nearly one hundred fifty years so far, and perhaps several
centuries more. But I'm not immortal. I can be killed. And Miss Kaoru," he said to her, "I
want you to do it."
---
A razor-sharp fishbone whipped straight past Kaoru's neck, brushing her ponytail, and
buried itself in Kenshin's shoulder. "You're awfully picky," Sano snarled. "I'd be happy to
do it for her."
"Sano!" Kaoru said, shocked.
"Now see here!" Hiko protested, standing to reach across his desk to grab and twist
Sano's shirt at the neck. "That was completely uncalled for."
Grimacing with pain, Kenshin made a strained copy of the "everything's fine" wave until
Hiko put Sano back down. Then, cutting his fingers too where they gripped the sharp
edges of the tail, Kenshin pulled the fish back out. He placed it on Hiko's desk, with one
of the teatray's paper napkins under it to catch the blood, then pressed another napkin
hard against his wound. "Mr. Harris," he said patiently, "I'm afraid you weren't listening.
I can be hurt by flesh, wood, and steel now. In fact, this hurts rather a lot, and now I'll
have to wash my shirt again. But if you took that and cut my throat, I might appear to
collapse and die, but over time my body would heal itself again and bring me back to life.
"Some methods take more time than most. Drowning is fastest. I just wash back up again.
Getting hit by a train is extremely untidy and upsets the engineer, and afterward, once my
body knits itself back together, I've had to pick gravel and splinters out of my flesh for a
year. Burning is almost as fast as drowning, because the smoke and ashes just condense
back together.
"I believe the only thing that can truly kill me is the silver sakabatou. It killed Enishi and
the others, and they would have remained dust if the holy seal on our weapons hadn't
broken. Now that they've returned, they want my sword so they can be restored to their
full powers. This is why they've taken the sakabatou, and why they marked the face of
your father and the others as a challenge to me.
"When they were killed, their own weapons lost the ability to drain life, and their jewels
came to my sword. They want to recover it and regain them. So we must reclaim your
sakabatou from them first so you can kill me with it. Once I die, the master katana will
die with me, and likely Enishi and the others as well. You will have your vengeance, and
the curse will end at last." The napkin at his shoulder was soaked now, and he quietly slid
down the wall to the floor.
--
Kenshin was obviously in no condition to attend classes. Hiko helped him back into the
workshop to bandage his shoulder while Sano remained in the main library and fumed at
Kaoru. "He's seriously psycho. Even if we believe all of that, he didn't explain how he
stopped being Battousai, or who this Enishi person is, much less all those 'others' he
keeps lumping in with them."
"He said their weapons used to be able to drain life, but they can't any more. So maybe
they used to be, I dunno, mini-Battousai? The Battousai Scouts?" Kaoru mused, then
picked up the fish in its bloody napkin and tossed it to him. "Anyway, what business do
you have calling people psycho when you just threw that thing practically at his neck? If
he is crazy and none of what he said is true, then you really could have killed him. And I
bet you'd get major detention for that."
"He's bad news, Kaoru. We should've left him in the cemetery with his zombie friends to
take him back to the Enishi family reunion."
Hiko returned to his desk and creditably forged the voice of a worried parent to call the
school office and tell them Kenshin would be out sick, then gave Sano a very grave look.
"That was a remarkably imprudent act. Did you consider the consequences at all?"
"Sure. Either he's lying and we need to get rid of him, or he's telling the truth and we
need to get rid of him."
"Yes, but on which level? Suppose he were only telling partial truths while concealing
the bloodlust and the soul-destroying powers of Battousai? That might have enraged him
enough to kill us all, you know."
Sano paled a little, but shrugged "Well, he didn't. So I guess I proved something after
all."
"Perhaps you only proved that he needs his sword to do it," Hiko said, folding his arms.
"But I must say that for my part, I believe him. It matches up reasonably well with the
account that his old master, my great-grandfather, wrote down, and which I told to you
earlier. Kenshin has done nothing to harm us, and so I must insist that you refrain from
further unprovoked attacks on him. And no, I will not accept a claim that his mere
existence provokes you. But Kaoru, what do you make of this?"
She twisted her face unhappily. "Does not compute. Need more data. At the very least,
we need to know more about the Enishigumi or whatever so we'll know how dangerous
they are. I mean, are they going to come here and attack us, or him? Will we even be able
to take them on and get my father's sword back? I don't even want to think about what to
do after that yet."
Helpfully, Sano pointed at the workshop door and made a throat-cutting gesture which
Hiko missed by yawning mightily, despite the green tea mochi. "Megumi's ofuda stopped
those creatures well enough," Hiko said, "but they have no effect on him. So either he's
powerful enough that only the ofuda of a fully-trained priestess can stop him, or he's not
any danger of that sort after all. If the former, then we have little hope against him with
our present resources. If the latter, which is my opinion, I believe the school is adequately
warded to prevent further attacks, so he'll be safe here."
"It has to beat sleeping in the cemetery." Kaoru shivered, then sniffed the air. "Hey, do
you smell something burning? Not like the kiln room, more like paper?"
They craned around until Sano spotted the curl of smoke near the ceiling. "Up there," he
said, and pointed to the top of the bookcase behind Hiko's desk.
Hiko jerked his hand back from initial contact, then clenched his jaw and brought the
black sword back down again, limiting his grip to the hilt's braided wrapping instead of
touching any of the metal. The ofuda he had wrapped around the blade were beginning to
smolder, their dark, curling edges fluttering apart into bright orange crumbs. He held the
sword straight above Kenshin's unfinished tea to catch the falling sparks, and plunged the
tip into it with the sound of a serpent's breath.
---
"Enishi, I can't see him any more. He's gone, gone into a place with pretty little butterflies
on fire, too bright to look at. Make it dark again."
"Hush, love, I'll make things right. Everything will be the way it was, even if Battousai
isn't our leader anymore. Jineh can do the job just as well, better even." Nestled in their
dim crypt haven, Enishi tenderly reassured his sister. The silver spikes of his hair were
even paler than the frail silk of her kimono, whose wide obi wrapped high around her
waist. By contrast, his long leather coat was not quite as dark as her hair, a long, heavy
mass bound up by a silver-capped rosewood pin with little mother-of-pearl flowers.
By contrast, the other woman with them was dressed provocatively, her neckline pitched
far down enough to loosely expose both shoulders. Her full lips were heavily painted,
though there was not enough light to show their color was dark green, not red. "Jineh's
such a loser. If we could get Battousai back with us again instead, that'd be wicked cool."
Enishi shrugged. "Battousai, Jineh, it's all the same to me, as long as my sweetheart here
is well again. And then we'll have some fine times in the city again, won't we, my pet?"
Tomoe smiled wanly. "Oh yes. I remember the dinners we had there, with pomegranates
and camellias all covered in blood. It was lovely. We turned everything to the color of his
hair, but now I can't see where he is."
"Shut up, you two, Jineh's coming back."
Their so-called leader returned with a few more corpses. He was disgruntled and muddy.
"We've tunneled under most of this cemetery, and we still haven't caught him with all of
your puppets. This plan of yours had better work soon, Enishi."
"Or what? You're going to stab me with a katana just like you did Battousai? Oh, I forgot,
that won't work now, because when you did that, it bloody sucked the power out of all of
our weapons, and we got dusted the same night. What good's the sakabatou going to do
us anyway without him?"
"Hear me and obey!" Jineh thundered, and stormed away.
Yumi watched him leave. "Five by five," she said sarcastically.
-----
(Another talky chapter. Unfortunately, I don't think I have a good notion of Jineh yet,
other than Generic Big Bad; neither he nor the Master had particularly distinctive speech
patterns as far as I can remember. Oh well, maybe I should actually have one pseudo-
original character in this. Other than that, can't think of anything useful to say this time
except that this chapter didn't take as long to write as I'd thought. Woohoo.)
(Version 5.1 notes: Once my initial round of sleep deprivation wore off, I realized that
the original version of this chapter sucked rocks. No wonder it was suspiciously easy to
write. Now about twice as long and extra-crispy with added calcium. Poor Kenshin is
getting beat up an awful lot. I really ought to let him break loose and get jiggy on some
enemy he won't fret about, thus demonstrating that he too can still kick ass when
necessary.)