Bright early morning sunshine, streaming through the bare snow covered tree branches, found Saitou Hajime astride his big black horse staring coolly at the ropes that he'd used to tie Myojin Yahiko to the tree the night before. He gave a piercing whistle through his teeth and raised his gauntlet for the eagle to perch upon. The golden eagle swooped through the branches and circled over Saitou's head a few times, as if reluctant to land. Saitou smirked as the bird finally decided to set down.
"He's gone," Saitou said simply as the eagle swept its brown eyes over the tree. It softly cheeped its agreement. "Why am I not surprised?" The bird cocked its head at the question, as if it were contemplating answering. "I don't suppose you know anything about it?" Saitou asked rhetorically. The eagle suddenly seemed to realize that its feathers were in desperate need of preening and began seeing to the job diligently, ignoring Saitou all together. "Hn, just as I thought," Saitou said and chuckled low in his throat. "Well, let's go get him, Feather-head." The bird stopped its preening long enough to deliver what would have been a painful bite on Saitou's thumb if not for the gauntlet. Saitou chuckled again and kicked Horse into motion.
***
'Stupid, stupid, stupid!' Yahiko castigated himself roundly. 'Yes, Saitou has some really stupid ideas about going to Aizu to kill the Daimyo; yes, Saitou has an offended Forest Spirit and its pet demon wolf following him; and yes, Saitou ties a wicked knot. But a least he wasn't going kill you outright. Well, that sword throwing habit not withstanding.' Yahiko struggled vainly against his bonds, drawing the attention of his latest captors.
"Why don't you be a good little boy and tell us where Saitou is," a soft and effeminate voice crooned, as a firm hand ruffled his hair, as if petting a dog. Yahiko glared daggers at his three samurai captors, especially the pretty, scythe-wielding young man wearing the Daimyo's livery, along with cosmetics and a woman's obi tied into an elaborate flower around his waist, who appeared to be their leader. Glaring was all that he could do, however, since he was tied to a pole in the middle of the village.
"Saitou? Hmmm, a tall, yellow-eyed man in a black cloak, riding a big, black horse named Horse? I've no idea who you are talking about," Yahiko said, blinking innocently, "and don't call me little boy, you freak!" The hand petting his head suddenly tightened its grip painfully in his hair, causing Yahiko to squirm.
"I see that you've made the mistake of underestimating me because of the way I dress, little boy," the young man's voice roughened into masculine tones. "Better men than you have done so. They're all dead," the cross-dresser added, giggling like a little girl, and letting Yahiko's hair go. "I am Honjou Kamatari, and I would remind you that Lord Shibumi esteems me so highly that my rank is right below Uonuma Usui's. When I kill Saitou and bring you in, I'll probably get dear Usui's job. So I would suggest that you keep a civil tongue," Kamatari said as he tapped Yahiko on the nose. Yahiko turned his head away. "It really doesn't matter if you don't tell me where he is, you know. If I know anything about our darling Hajime, it's that he can't stand to be outwitted. I'm sure he's on your trail even as we speak. All my men and I have to do is sit right here and wait for him to find you."
It had been a mistake for Yahiko to leave the forest. And stopping at that village pub had to have been among the most idiotic things he had done in his life. Of course some of Shibumi's men had been there; of course the local townspeople had helped the soldiers catch him; before they themselves had been forced to abandon their own village. Yahiko really hoped that this Kamatari creature was wrong about Saitou, but a feeling in his gut told him that Kamatari would be proven right. It's your destiny to help me, you know, Saitou had said, and somehow, Yahiko believed him.
The sun was well past the mid-point of heaven when Saitou finally rode over the hill into the village. Yahiko watched as Saitou slid gracefully from his saddle, his amber eyes narrowed in calculation as his gaze swept across the village square. Kamatari stood beside Yahiko's pole, the fingers of one hand threaded through Yahiko's hair, the blade of his scythe in the other at Yahiko's throat. "Lord Saitou, I'm surprised that it took you this long to get here, we've been waiting for you for hours," the cross-dresser simpered. The other two guards came out of the shadows, one with his sword drawn, the other with his bow nocked. Saitou raised an eyebrow, and set the eagle to flight without appearing to take his eyes off the painted young man.
"That's an interesting uniform accessory, Honjou Kamatari, very pretty. I see that Usui was foolish enough to allow you into the guards...I can't say that I'm surprised," Saitou said with a smirk.
"You really like it?" Kamatari preened. "Usui is a fool; however, unlike you, he recognizes talent," he began swing the scythe and chain around his head. "And by the time the rest of the guards get here, I'll be on my way back to Lord Shibumi with your head." Yahiko flinched into to the pole he was tied to, ducking the wildly spinning blade.
"I never said you didn't have talent, Kamatari; I said that you would have been a disruptive force among the guards," Saitou answered coolly, his thumb on the hilt of his katana, readying it to draw.
"And you don't think that your pretty little pet wasn't a disruption? Everybody, even Lord Shibumi himself, wanted a piece of that…" Saitou's sword was unsheathed quicker than the eye could see, as he rolled and stabbed the sword-bearing guard who was using Kamatari's words as a cover to sneak up on him. He pulled his sword out of his surprised victim, rolling under the arc of Kamatari's swinging scythe a mere fraction too late, the scythe-blade slicing into his right shoulder; his blood splattering on Yahiko's stolen clothes. The bow-wielding guard, moving around the two combatants, stopped in front of Yahiko, pulling the string of his bow taunt, but was unable to shoot without a clear target.
Saitou rolled to a semi-crouched position, appearing to ignore his wound, with his back to the guard, and whistled for the eagle, all without taking his eyes off of Kamatari, who was still carving the air with his scythe. Yahiko kicked the honorless guard in the back of his knee as he released the arrow meant for Saitou's back. The boy thief watched in fascinated horror as the arrow flew over the heads of both Saitou and Kamatari and into the body of the eagle, which screamed and fell into a struggling glide to the earth. At the same moment the eagle screamed its pain, Saitou threw his sword at the painted young man, stabbing him unerringly through his heart, causing him to sag slowly to the ground, his weapon rolling from his suddenly nerveless hands. Saitou turned before his sword had reached its destination, throwing a knife that had been concealed in his sash, catching the treacherous guard in the throat. He then ran over to his bird, stepping on, and breaking, Kamatari's scythe's pole in the process.
"Easy, you'll be all right," Saitou crooned tenderly to the weakly flapping bird as he knelt by its side. Yahiko could only watch them with guilty tears in his eyes. "Don't be afraid, it's all right." Saitou took off his black cloak and covered the bird with it, picking it up as gently as possible. "You'll be fine… you'll live… it would take more than a silly arrow to kill something as stubborn as you," the warrior said, his tone seemed to be more to reassure himself than the bird. He eyed the position of the sun as he passed Kamatari's still twitching body, yanking his sword out and smoothly flicking the blood from the blade. He stalked over to Yahiko's pole; Yahiko flinched involuntarily as the sword cut through his bonds.
"I'm so sorry," Yahiko began only to be cut off by Saitou's narrow glare.
"Apologies won't help now, boy. I was hoping to avoid involving him directly," Saitou murmured, seeming to struggle a bit with his thoughts. The eagle cheeped plaintively, and the warrior shook his head. "I need you to take the eagle, get on Horse and follow this road. There is a ruined Buddhist monastery ahead; a wanderer named Himura Kenshin is there. Give him the eagle; he'll know what to do. I'll stay here and distract whatever guards are coming."
"But Saitou, the eagle is done for." Yahiko didn't see the backhanded slap that knocked him to his knees.
"Don't you dare say that!" Saitou growled. "Don't even think it! You will get on Horse, and you will get the eagle to Himura before sunset. Am I making myself clear?" Yahiko, looking at the warrior with real fear for the first time, could only nod. Saitou helped the boy up, and held the horse's reins while Yahiko mounted; then he gently handed the injured bird to the boy. "Careful. And know this – if you fail, I will follow you for as long as you live. And I will find you." He left the rest of the threat unspoken. He slapped the stallion's rump, sending him into a gallop. Yahiko looked back only once: Saitou knelt on the ground, the point of his sword buried in the earth, his hands on the hilt, watching the sun.
***
The sun was fast sliding down to the earth when Yahiko finally reached the monastery. "There it is," he said to the bird, which was hissing in pain, and had tried to bite him several times during the trip. "Ingrate! If I weren't afraid of Saitou, I'd finish you off and eat you myself." He rode through the ruined gates, screaming at the top his lungs: "Oi, oi, is anyone home? I was told to bring you this injured bird."
"Really? Is it big enough to feed two?" a light, tenor voice came from one of windows above. Yahiko shaded his eyes against the setting sun, trying to see the speaker.
"We can't eat this bird!" he squeaked. "Saitou would kill me!"
"Saitou Hajime?" the voice asked, sounding startled.
"Yes, Saitou Hajime! Tall, scary man, yellow eyes, rides a black horse named Horse."
"Well why didn't you say so in the first place? Hurry, bring him in." Yahiko slid gracelessly from the saddle and ran into the building with the eagle. A breathless, short man with long, unusually red hair and a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek met him near a rickety stairwell. "Give him to me…gently…. My travel bag and a pot of hot water are in the first room to your left. Get them and follow me." Yahiko did as he was told as the redhead ran up the stairs and into another room. He watched from the doorway as the red haired man placed the eagle in the center of what must have been his own bed.
"Saitou was right to send you here, I know what to do, that I do. Shhhhhh," the stranger said to bird, using the same crooning tone that Saitou had. "Don't be frightened, you'll be fine, that you will. We just have to wait a few minutes, is all." Yahiko silently handed the stranger the water pot and bag.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked, caught up in the urgency the redhead exuded.
"Leave us, for now, that you should," was the unexpected answer as the man gently closed the door in his face. Dejected, Yahiko started to walk back down the unstable stairs when a deep groan halted his steps.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Kenshin…" a deep, gravelly voice, obviously not the redhead's, chanted in pain. Yahiko, eyes wide, returned quietly to the door of the bedroom and knelt, placing his eye to a crack. What he saw in the quickly fading light of the already set sun nearly made him shit himself: gone was Saitou's eagle; in it's place, lying beneath Saitou's black cloak, was the familiar form of the brown haired Forest Spirit who had been following them. Yahiko noticed that he had the eagle's red, tasseled jesses woven through his fingers, and that an arrow had entered his body through his right armpit, exiting near his neck.
Off in the distance, a wolf howled.
