She watched the last of the sand filter through the narrow waist of the hourglass and then immediately flipped it over. 

There were several of them on her table now, a concession from her guard.  She had argued that she could not know how long was long enough for her precious experiments to run without any means of assessing time.  

In the end, he gave in and allowed her that one small victory.   She did in truth need them for her work, but it also allowed her to have a firmer grasp on time.   Time no longer was a meaningless concept to her with work before her, and like the opium she was making, the hourglasses served a dual purpose.

Food was another concession.  Her guard began to provide out of the earnings from her rather questionable merchandise, despite his lack of willingness earlier to improve her diet.    Both she and the guard knew that he did not have to provide it to her; but he did anyways, she supposed, out of some sense of duty or respect. . . or perhaps even kindness.

The smell of food wafted in, telling her that she was about to have company. She began to clear her workspace, making sure to carefully close the book she had been looking at before her guard opened the door.  She reached instead for a basket, one that contained packets of high-grade opium.

"Your dinner."  He set down a tray on one of the tables to the side.

"It looks very good," she stood up from her bench and regarded it.   "Much better than what I've been eating so far."  As she regarded the expensive food before her, she tried to maintain her sense of composure.   "I suppose this meal means you'll want me to make more?"

He shook his head.

"You don't want more?"  Megumi blinked.

"I've been thinking—" She noticed him squirming slightly.   "And well, all the last stuff you made was great.  The person I went to wanted more, but he gave me just enough to pay off my debts and well—"

"And what?" Megumi's voice tightened slightly. Without that opium out there – who would heed her coded plea for help?  

"I don't think this is a good idea." He answered softly.  "After I left the middleman, I followed him for a while to see what he did with the stuff.   The kind of people he approached really were way out of my league.   Tokyo's not some backwater place you know.  I know that sounds stupid—to you I might seem like just another bad guy, but I do what I must to stay alive.   And that also means that I know to stay away from the bigger fish out there who would think nothing about eating us alive.   And those people – the customers you're attracting – are not the kind of people we can deal with and be left alone.  I think it's better if we kept our noses out of those kind of affairs, sensei."

"I see."  She was immediately aware that without those drugs, that things did not fare well for her.  But she had also heard the sudden slip of the guard.  She was in Tokyo.

She grasped at that knowledge; it was the first she heard of exactly where she was. 

"Takani-sensei?" The man frowned, waiting for her to say something. 

 "Those people, they didn't follow you back here did they?"

"No—" he shook his head.  "There is no way.  I'm certain of it. I made sure to not be followed, and plus this place --"

He trailed off, suddenly reconsidering what he was saying.

Megumi sighed. "It doesn't matter what you say.  I'm tethered to that post over there.  I can't go far."

"I've already talked too much," he shook his head.  "With the boss coming, we better be careful."

"We?" Megumi crossed her arms, feigning apathy in order to see what sort of response she could provoke out of the guard.

"Look," the guard was already being evasive.   "Just forget about it.  He won't be happy if you don't put your energies into giving him what he wants.  And when you disappoint him, he makes sure to punish you."

A look of worry flickered over his face.   It suddenly occurred to her that he was worried for the both of them.   It occurred to her that she had been so focused on his role as guard that she had dehumanized him in her mind.  Oddly enough, he seemed more afraid of her captor than her.  "Do you fear him that much?"

His look told her everything she needed to know.    

She picked up the basket of paper baskets and sighed.   "You do not need to worry for yourself.   Making opium isn't exactly a time-intensive duty for one who has years of experience.   I have, in fact, been working on the books he had you bring in for me.   I can have the first products ready for his review the day after tomorrow."  

"Is it more opium?"  She saw the curiosity on his face, and a slight frown. 

"Nothing that harmful," she shook her head.  "My brother wouldn't make something like that so easy to figure out.  There wouldn't be anything illegal about these sorts of things – although perhaps some may wish it was after it's all said and done."  Megumi, under other circumstances, would have laughed, but rather delicately coughed.  There were some things that she would rather not get into a discussion about with just anyone, and this was one of those discussions.  "-- But what to do with all this opium? It can't just stay here."

She looked at her guard discreetly out of the corner of her eye.

"I'll get rid of it." He took the basket.

"You mean you'll sell it." She was not completely fooled.  She held her hand up,  "No matter. It makes no difference to me. I'll start working on the other drugs then."    With that, she turned away dismissively, ignoring him as he awkwardly retreated out of her room.   She did not want him to know that what happened to those drugs did matter to her – that their eventual fate was a source of constant worry to her.   They were her ticket to being found and traced, but they were also the very things that condemned her if she was found.  

Coldly, clinically she told herself again that it was only a means to an end.   At least she would not be forced to unearth the darker secrets of her family.     She would have to carry the things of killing and torture that Kenichi's wild poetry alluded to all the way to her grave.   But that would mean nothing to the people who had trusted her.   They would never understand what lay in these pages, and she would never breathe a word of it to anyone, even if it meant their forgiveness.

And she knew she would need it -- she who had broken a promise to good people, and to someone who claimed to love her.

I'm sorry, Sanosuke . . .

With each packet she finished, she recalled his look of anger and contempt on his face when he had first confronted her with the packets of opium in the dojo.  

With each packet, I am killing your friend over and over again.

She covered her face with her hand for a moment.   For the ten thousandth time since she had woken up here in this prison, she cursed.

Damn you.

"Damn you, Kenichi."   She picked up the book again from its place on the table in order to throw it at the wall, but it would do her no good.   The guard was right – she had to offer something to her captor, anything – and this book was the most innocuous of all the texts she had tried to go through.  

Of all the books – this one had been almost immediately clear to her.   The text was double coded as far as she could tell.   Kenichi had written in a play language with an alphabet that he and his brother had devised to keep their parents and their little sister from understanding their little notes.  But to some degree, they had failed.  She had unlocked some of the words when she was nearly out of childhood.

But the second layer of code was the poetry, sometimes nonsensical and sometimes deeply confusing.   Kenichi could be literal at times, and figurative at other times.  

And other times – well, she wasn't quite sure what he meant.

The first of the drugs that she had deciphered was nothing too odd or harmful.  To the guard she had said nothing of its purpose, but in reality, she could see no reason to avoid making it.  It was embarrassing in its nature, but an aphrodisiac was far better than   the opium that guard was going to be dispersing this evening to the rich and seedy of Tokyo.

At least the customers who would demand this drug would be in no danger of chemical addiction.  Somehow, the thought that poor doctors would be running haggard from house to house delivering babies amused her, enough to at least shake off the dark mood which had settled over her mind. 

And that, of all places, it would be the city of Tokyo seemed ironic indeed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tokyo.

At the onset of his journey, he had not exactly been looking forward to this trip.    After all, he had been coming here to root out yakuza and take back what had been stolen from the Aoiya.

Books. Toys. Objects. Possessions.

In the end, they were as meaningless as the packets of paper that despite their lightness, were like weights in his pockets.  

Meaningless now as a woman's fate hung in the balance  -- a woman locked somewhere waiting for her second chance to start over.

Aoshi was grateful for the cover of darkness.   The streets were much quieter at dusk and he could avoid crowds.  He had no desire to attempt to mold his face into a neutral, impassive look as he had for the entirety of the train ride.      Darkness would hide his anger from the casual passerby.  However, darkness could not mask his ki -- particularly to those who had sensed it before.

As he neared the dojo, he found Kenshin Himura waiting outside.

"Shinomori-san,"  Kenshin's look was casual, but Aoshi noted that the sword was at his side – even though Kenshin was no longer the man he had fought five years ago and was fully aware that Aoshi knew of the man's deterioration.*

"I do not come here to fight with you. I come for Sagara."

Himura relaxed slightly.  Only slightly.    "And I am glad you are not here to fight me, that I am. But I will not allow you to enter the dojo as you are now with those kodachi hidden away like that."

"I am not here to fight him. "

"You are radiating much anger, Aoshi-san."   Himura's good nature allowed him to trust his words.   Himura already had his hand on the latch, ready to let the man in.  "Sanosuke isn't a good mood either --."

"I do not come to fight him.  But there is something I need from him." 

"--Right behind you, Shinomori."  Sanosuke literally appeared out of thin air.

Aoshi tensed slightly as he realized that he had failed to detect the man.  Was it that Sagara had really become much better of a fighter or was he so blinded by his emotion that he had failed to sense the other man's presence?   "We have to talk.  But not out here."

"Night air is good for ya.  What's so important that we can't talk out here?  I don't want to wake up the little missy and Kenji."

Aoshi frowned.  There was too much history between all of them to be squabbling out in the streets like a bunch of schoolboys.  "I want to talk about opium, Sagara."

"Opium?"  Both Kenshin and Sanosuke gave him wide-eyed looks.

An odd statement, perhaps, but it served its purpose.  Caught off guard, the two men allowed him to pass through the gates.

"You are a strange one." Sanosuke muttered to himself.  "I hate the stuff with a passion, and the very thought of it makes me remember the reason why I met you in the first place.   This had better not be your idea of a joke, because if it is, I'm going to take that damned coat off your back and –"

"Sano," Kenshin's face became stern. 

"It is no joke."  Aoshi leveled a look at Sanosuke that stopped the man's cursing.  He had no desire to involve Himura in this, but no it could not be helped. He thrust the packets of opium into the younger man's face.  "I have reason to believe that Megumi Takani is alive."


*This was revealed by Megumi Takani to the readers and to Kenshin's various archrivals at the end of the manga. 

a/n: I have another muse which competes for my time, the little that I have.  And it's the muse who loves to draw.  However, as I have now apparently tired out my hands in this spate of cartooning, I have returned back to this fic.   My apologies for the delay.  I admit had some problems getting this part out.   The Megumi scene was difficult as I was trying to find the right balance with the guard who was serving very nicely as a plot device, and with whom we are not yet done with. (Poor guard.)