Note: Sorry. When I made that remark in the last chapter, it was meant as a joke. I wouldn´t complain seriously about lack of reviews. Oh, well…maybe it was my subsconcious speaking in jokes, I won´t deny you that. But it was not meant a s such. ;)

So now..sound of drums rolls here I proudly present the famous chapter that took me two weeks!

Quiet Life I: Winter Storm

Chapter Three: To Live In Peace.

"Miyoko-chan!"

The child's eyebrows twitched inquisitively, and so did those of the man who was throwing the ball to her. Tomoe stopped in her tracks, suppressing a sigh.

"You shouldn't bother Matsuo-san that much. Where are your manners?"

Miyoko turned back and looked right and left, her hands behind her back. As she faced her mother again, Tomoe could spot in her features a solemn expression that could not hide the mischievous uncertainty she felt whenever she knew she was pushing the limits.

"Don't know."

Matsuo laughed loud.

"Oh, Kami-sama, this girl cracks me!" he exclaimed between guffaws, ruffling her dark hair. "Don't worry, Tomoe-san, she's not being a nuisance at all. I like playing with her. But well, speaking about plays… I have to leave now or my wife will get jealous!"

Those words made Tomoe shake inside, though she hid her emotions well behind a smile as she knelt to slide the shoji open for him. She supposed that he hadn't meant it, but there were many things about these people that would always be a mystery for her. That openness, that loudness bothered her. It made her feel uneasy and lost, as if nothing in the world was in its place anymore, and when Kenshin wasn't there she didn't have anyone to turn to in order to regain a feeling of normalcy. She felt scared of being swept away by their unrestrained actions and their unrestrained words, and she hated not to know what to expect. Whenever she had to fulfil her duties towards the people Kenshin had asked to watch over Miyoko and herself in his absence, she felt absurdly wary.

"Play?" a tiny voice asked, tugging at her left arm. Little by little, she regained her composure, and turned to see Miyoko at her side. In a quick motion, she closed the shoji, and the cold wind ceased blowing inside the house.

"Play? How cheeky you are! "she grumbled, getting up in mild irritation. "You behave like a brat in front of strangers, and now you act as if nothing was the matter?"

The girl lowered her head, and sniffed.

"No stranger," she argued weakly. "Matsuo-san."

Tomoe opened her mouth at once, but closed it in surprise before she was able to say anything. Suddenly feeling stupid for standing in front of her daughter without knowing what to say, she turned back, and headed towards the kitchen fire.

"Okay," she sighed. "If you stay quiet for a while, I will play with you once I've made lunch."

"I got him, I got him! Quick!"

Kenshin smiled in resignation, and closed his eyes to brace himself for the weight of four village boys falling on top of him as if he was a horse. The snow was cold under his knees, but he didn't feel it too much. He didn't feel much at the moment, in fact, except the little arms of the first boy pressed against his neck and his legs kicking at his back.

"Help!" he cried, eliciting a renewed fit of laughs from the lad. Three others who had arrived running jumped on top of him, laughing too, and now it was his chin what was dipped to the mouth in white ice. His next pleas came as unidentified grunts, what augmented the glee of the little imps even more.

"Listen! It snarls!" one of them observed.

"We hunted the wolf!" a second cried. "Now, let's bring him back to the village!"

"To the village? To the village it's where you're going to return now, you shameless brats!" a sharp female voice cried somewhere behind them. The children froze immediately, and Kenshin felt his body being pulled free from their weight. Spitting snow and brushing his hair, he set an elbow on the ground and sat on it, to meet the figure of Asami-san looming over him.

Well…or rather over the children, he corrected himself, trying as he could to regain at least some of his dignity.

"What do you think you're doing? Do you think you can treat an elder like that?" she thundered. The children gladly changed one game for another, and dodged and ran away from her reach among laughs and cries.

"Are you alright, Himura-san?" she asked once they were gone, politely kneeling in front of him to help him get up. "I'm sorry, they're such a pest…"

"Oh, don't worry, Asami-san;" he answered with a conciliating smile, while he struggled to get to his feet by himself. "We were just playing, and I was having fun with them. They're adorable boys… But, did you want to tell me something?"

"Uh…Yes." The woman hesitated, surprised at his answer. " I… my father wants you to come back to the village. He says that they're just about to arrive."

"Arrive..? Oh... I understand." Just in a moment, the serious expression returned to Kenshin's features. "It's the time."

Asami nodded.

"They will arrive at one moment or another," she explained. "We should be... up there, with the other people. They have already gathered to meet them."

"I see." Finishing his attempts at looking presentable with adequate success, Kenshin flashed an encouraging smile. "Let's go, then."

The woman lowered her head, and followed him in silence towards the village.

As Kenshin rejoined the rest of the people, after taking good care of bandaging again the scar that the children had uncovered in one of their struggles, he couldn't help but be impressed at such a silent and solemn concentration of villagers. Everybody was out on the street, men, women and children, none with weapons - since Eguchi-san had absolutely forbidden to -, but threatening nevertheless, and proud. None of those people would shrink from a fight, the red-haired man mused while he took his place at Eguchi-san's side, at the front of the concentration though in a discreet second row.

And that is the problem, indeed, he added to himself in silence.

Of course, it was perfectly justified that they would fight if the necessity arose; he of all people was not going to question that. But he had made a vow, too; the vow that he wasn't going to let anyone die in front of his eyes, and this meant that it was up to him to prevent that situation from taking place. He did not know yet if he was able to do such a thing, and felt in a horrible state of powerlessness without his sword, but he had to. If there was something he could know in truth, it was that.

For all those people.

"So here you are. I thought you had got lost." Eguchi-san's voice greeted him good-naturedly. The old man was obviously trying to break the tension, Kenshin thought. He was familiar with those tactics, if not for any other reason than because, back in the Bakumatsu, most people had used to use them whenever he hadgot close to them.

"Your daughter arrived just in time," he answered. "The children in your village are scary."

"Really?" The man frowned. "Were they disrespecting you?"

Kenshin gave him a brief smile, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Rather riding me… But do not worry, I was the one who wanted to play with them. I like children…" His voice was lowered to a hushed whisper that even made Eguchi-san lean forwards to hear it. "And, to be frank, after following the path of the sword for so many years, sometimes it seems to me as if nothing could hurt my body anymore."

"Oh." For once, the usually talkative man was at loss as to what to say. The cold wind was pushing mountains of grey clouds towards them, obscuring the sun and fuelling the threat of a new snowstorm. "I... well, that seems quite the thing if you have a bunch of boys at home yourself, ain't it?"

"Indeed." Kenshin stared in deep fixation at some chosen point in front of him, and then sighed. "Indeed."

This definitely killed the conversation between the two for a very long while. The red-haired man fell into one of his characteristic periods of silence out of which no one was able to snap him with mere words, and Eguchi-san, after staring at him wistfully for some time, got back into motion and went to tell something to a man that was metres away from them. In many points of the street, hushed talks were born and died only to be born again minutes after, mingled with the growing howl of the morning wind, and rising in intensity as the time that had been fixed passed and no one had seen any officer come.

"Maybe they've thought better about it?" Kenshin heard a woman suggest in a hopeful voice. "They could have found it was an error and so they won't come anymore."

"They're most probably going to screw negotiations and come here with an army," another voice, this time of a young man, snorted. "I've heard they've done plenty of things like that."

Kenshin winced, feeling as if salt had been rubbed into his wounds. He needed to concentrate in order to cease listening to these people, or he would go insane. Closing his eyes, he tried to think of Tomoe instead, and how she patiently waited for him while playing with a giggling, little Miyoko who soothed her mother's worried heart with her carefree smile. Thoughts of his wife had never failed to strengthen his resolutions in front of an impending threat in the past, not to speak about distracting him from the anxiousness of waiting…

And now there's Miyoko too, the man mused to himself, suppressing a soft chuckle at the remembrance of the two women he loved. Even if it was true - and sometimes evident - that he could not help feeling nostalgia when he saw boys, he still had it in himself to be very proud of his girl. She had an ability of making everyone happy that no one else in his household did possess, and had her mother so wrapped around her finger that she even could make her laugh. If only he could return peacefully and have enough resources as to get her something as a present …

Not likely, though, he sighed. Supposing that he could clear this mess – which was still a thing to see -, there was no way he would have money or goods to be spent in anything else than food or clothing. Toys, moreover, weren't among the usual presents that healed people gave him as payment, for they were very rare and precious things that children inherited from their parents since he didn't know what year of the Edo era. If there were some new ones coming in it was because a wandering seller brought them, but with all the snow there was none travelling at the moment.

"Himura-san! Cease staring into nowhere like that, you're scaring me!" Eguchi-san's voice snapped him away from his thoughts. "Listen, what if we plan a bit what we're going to say and do?"

"Uh? Oh… of course." Swallowing deeply, Kenshin chased definitely all warm family scenes from his mind. "What we should strive for is to make them believe in the document. Another problem we could have right now would be the possibility that the people who come don't have enough authority, or say they don't have it, and insist on taking the document with the seal away with them. This, of course, if they don't come in good faith…"

Eguchi-san waved his hand in dismissal.

"Don't worry about that." For a moment, his lips were curved in a sly grin. "I already considered that particular eventuality."

"You…you have more copies, right?" Kenshin's eyes widened in sudden realisation. "That's why you wanted another…"

"That's right," Eguchi-san nodded. "Anyone needs to have three pairs of eyes and a cunning mind not to be tricked today. I have one, in Atasuke's hands in that moment, and Hata had another. So he didn't tell you anything, huh? Very typical of him, indeed…"

Underestimated them again…a voice in the ex-hitokiri's mind scolded him. Another part of him, though, couldn't help admiring Eguchi-san's purveying capacity. Whoever thought he could outwit those villagers would have another thing coming!

"So, let me see…We will speak with them, and if things g…oh, no."

"Uh?" The old man stared at the suddenly frowning redhead, in confusion. "What's the matter with you?"

Kenshin let go of a deep breath.

"They're coming," he stated, softly.

Five minutes later, effectively, the whole group was greeted by the sight of about twenty persons slowly but firmly treading on the snow towards them. Kenshin could notice Eguchi-san's surprised glance fixed on him for a moment, but, fortunately enough, there were more pressing matters to tend to at the moment.

"Atasuke-san, get close to me," the old man hissed to his right hand man, a lean, middle-aged farmer said to be descendant of the head of the biggest clan that had settled in those lands. Instinctively, everybody tensed up and got closer to each other among whispers, and the women began to get behind. Kenshin had wondered why they were going to be there in the first place, but Eguchi-san had reasoned that they would ensure a more relaxing and safe atmosphere. Without them, it would be rebellion and nothing more.

With them, as he had thought then, it could be rebellion and nothing more also, depending on these people's intentions. But he had to concede that the old chief could have a point.

"Greetings, noble representants of the Meiji. I hope you have had a good and safe journey" Eguchi-san began, walking some steps towards them. The one who seemed to be the leader, a short, dark-haired man whose Western clothes had been rather ill-treated by their short voyage through the snow from the closest post, nodded in return, and made a sign for the others to stop. At least fifteen of them were armed and in military garb, Kenshin calculated with some dismay.

"Greetings, and thank you," the man said, in a curt and raspy voice. " I'm Araki Yugoro, aide of the most honourable prefect of this province, and these are all loyal and trusted members of his staff who have endured days of hard travel under the unrelenting wind and snow. But it was an urgent matter that made us attempt this journey, so here we are. "

"It's an error!" someone cried among the waiting people. The newcomers lifted their heads up in alert, and many shifted uncomfortably. By now, Kenshin's uneasiness at being without a sword was starting to turn into an overbearing anguish that didn't allow him to form words. If someone was harmed…

No, stay in your place. You are not here to fight. You're here to see that this is solved peacefully!, he chided himself, though almost at the same moment he was already wincing at the bitter irony. Keep the peace, him? How could he have thought he would be able to do anything of the sort?

"Oh, nothing. I think I heard a noise,"Araki Yugoro shrugged his nose in a somewhat arrogant gesture. To Kenshin's approval, Eguchi-san did not even blink.

"He was speaking untimely, but what he said was true." he said. "It's an error and we can prove it."

Araki's frown increased.

"Are you implying that the orders the Prefect got and that he gave us were wrong, - and that he didn't check them?"

Eguchi nodded to Atasuke, who made a couple of steps forward and produced the old and rugged paper from the sleeve of his own haori. The old man took it himself, and handed it to the prefect's envoy in silence. Now, the rumours and murmurations were increasing to a point that they almost became a noise; as Kenshin thought then, the tension could almost be cut with a knife. He had been in countless tense encounters like those, as Katsura's bodyguard, but somehow none of them had mattered to him nearly as much. Since he had come to live here everything had been so different…

"What is…?" Araki read the document with a sombre face, then turned slowly towards one of the other men who were dressed Western style, to show it to him.

"This seal is of the Imperial Army. We were allied with them since the first moment they occupied those territories," Eguchi explained. "This village was very worried and hurt that this alliance had been forgotten."

Kenshin could have sworn that hours passed without anybody of them saying anything. Even the murmurs had ceased, and all that could be heard was the rustle of the paper as the delegates passed it from one to another with an excruciating formality. Could they…?

..have come in good faith?

In this case, he concluded, itwas most likely their superior who was the corrupt one. He did not need much effort to draw a portrait of the possible man in his mind, the kind of man who got into every kind of intrigues to get a prefecture and then abuse the villages he had under his care, and cheat them of their ways of subsistence in order to get richer. They were the kind of people he had vowed once to make disappear… and, in the end…

Araki and another man were whispering something to each other, and, snapping out of his musings, Kenshin sharpened his hearing to get what they were saying at unawares.

"We can't allow this," was what Araki was muttering at that moment. The other, apparently, had still some misgivings about the matter, and was complaining in a rather unsure tone.

"But there's a seal, we can't deny them that! He told us that they had no evidence left…"

"Then say it's false and invent whatever reason you want! Do you think they will be able to argue a thirty-word sentence full of technicisms?"

The red-haired man felt his blood boil with renewed ire. In good faith… In perfect credulity that they would be able to deal with it easily, rather. He had never felt so tempted to return to his old ways ever before.

"Please, tell me, old man.," With an ostensible shrug of his nose, the man who had talked with Araki gave the document back to Eguchi-san. "Where did you find that piece of paper?"

Eguchi-san and Atasuke paled. The rest of the people were like suddenly struck by a commotion, and like one person they moved towards them, murmuring and shouting injuries.

"Don't you dare come next to me!" Araki threatened, making a sign to the armed effectives that had come with him. To Kenshin it looked more like a show of effect than anything else, since the soldiers were already more than prepared to kill whoever got near. Definitely time to intervene, he thought, if he wanted to prevent a massacre.

But, just as he was going to lift his voice, swallowing strongly, another unexpected shout made him shut his mouth in surprise.

"Quiet, everybody!"

Kenshin turned his head back, and his eyes widened at what he saw. It was Eguchi-san who had talked, the man who had looked to him so shaken by the events that he had doubted he could take care of the situation anymore. He was standing in the middle of his frantic people, his hands firmly draped around his walking staff, and in his pose, with his jaw set in determination, the red haired man couldn't see anything else than sheer authority. Even the envoys were obviously surprised at his demeanour, though Kenshin had little confidence that it would last too much.

"This is not the place to discuss things, but to greet each other and give good wishes," the old man continued. "If you have something to discuss with me, you're invited to do it in my house."

This time, the newcomers needed few glances to come to a decision about the offer. If there had been a battle they would have won, or so they probably thought with good reason, but even they were subtler than that, Kenshin thought.

"All right," Araki said, with a tone that implied no less that he was doing the village a great favour. "We will."

The turbine of displacements and arrangements that took place after this consent pushed Kenshin forwards and backwards, but he didn't put much effort to avoid being swayed. At one moment of the confusion, though, he was able to catch Eguchi-san's glance, and the cold desperation and the plea of help that it emanated shook him to the core.

All your strength…

Before he was even able to have a conscience of his own reactions, Kenshin reached instinctively for his sword, and shivered at the remembrance that it wasn't there anymore. Breathing heavily, he turned back, and after he had disentangled himself from the last group of agitated people he walked away from the turmoil, away from everybody.

When they had arrived to that place, three years and a half ago, it had been springtime. He could remember very well Tomoe's exhaustion as they sat under the oak tree next to the first houses, and the girl who had smiled shyly at them and then ran to tell the others that "there had arrived a couple to sell something." She had been the first person in the village he had seen, and even when years passed and he already knew everybody, met her parents, knew her name was Mayo and healed at least three fevers of hers, she still held some kind of special aura for him. Somehow, when he had seen her smile he had shivered, and decided to stay there forever. Maybe he was mad, but… she had brought him remembrances of his sister, the one that had died in a similar place so many years ago at that same age.

What he never doubted, though, was that his decision had been an impulse of the heart. And the most lucky one of his life yet.

To lead a simple life, a normal life, had always been his wish and Tomoe's, though none of them dared to pretend they deserved that much. If Kenshin had been alone, without ties, he would have continued wandering through Japan until he had atoned for all. Or at least he preferred to think that he would have done so…for, the circumstances being very different, he couldn't help feeling some guilty relief that mingled with the suffocation. He gave in to the belief in the new opportunity he had been offered, in a place that was so similar to the one where he had been born, and living a life like the life he would have led. With him, he had a woman who had been offered a second chance, too, after her old life had been quenched, and in her womb, she bore the child of both, conceived on the eve of the dawn of the new era. What could have ever been more appropriate?

Those years had been quiet, calm and with plenty of moments to think for the first time in years. The remembrances of his crimes and the horrid turmoil of blood of which he had been the vortex tortured him, and the feeling of being alone among a sea of unsuspecting innocents, lying to them and making them trust him without knowing who he really was had returned to him in a rush. He had tried to rid himself from the need of the sword without success, and was pestered by constant fears of Tomoe being unable to part with her past in a similar way, of his little girl discovering him while he freed his ki, and of what both of them could be able to hide from him behind glassy eyes. It had been hard, so hard… but also, as he knew now, good for him. By putting a great effort on it he had gradually learned to face some of those fears, and to drive others away. He had taught himself to smother, in the end, those who couldn't be dealt with otherwise, in order to be able to help people who needed it and not give Tomoe or Miyoko any opportunity of being unhappy. When the Bakumatsu had ended he was nothing more than a hitokiri, and now that killing monster was just a part of him, important but a part nevertheless. And he could have achieved so much more still….

Kenshin breathed deeply, and brushed some snow off his haori in a distracted gesture. To think of what he could have achieved while several villages were at the brink of disaster was nothing but selfishness. He felt terribly selfish, sitting there while Eguchi-san was in his house with those men. Hadn't he been the one who had almost had a fit of rage moments before, when those soldiers had been threatening the weaponless people and his sword wasn't there? The one who had vowed to himself to do whatever he could for the sad wife and the sick child of that man?

But, why? Why must things be like that? he could not help rebelling once again. Just because he had tried to escape? Because he had fled while being responsible for the victory of those people who oppressed others just as the ones he had killed had done before? Because he did not want to face the results of what he had done and even ponder the idea that the deaths of the people he had killed could have been in vain?

But, what about Tomoe and Miyoko, whose peace and safety he would have jeopardized otherwise? He had thought of them, and only of them, when he had made that decision. And now, if he did what he had to do… wouldn't he jeopardize it completely? Could he do that, to them?

"Himura-san. Himura-san…!"

"Uh?" Feeling his heart give a jump, Kenshin opened his eyes at once, and saw a young girl tugging insistently at his right arm. He hadn't ever seen her before, but it puzzled him that even deep in his thoughts he had allowed her to surprise him in that way. "What do you want?"

"Everybody is crowding gathering at Eguchi'san's door," she said, retreating one step and playfully shifting her weight from one leg to the other. "Why are you here?"

The red-haired man blinked, surprised at her bluntness. He was only used to that behaviour in boys, not in adorable-looking five year old creatures.

"I'm thinking here for a while. Making decisions," he tried to explain with some attempt of a smile. The girl furrowed her brow.

"You said you would help them."

Now, Kenshin's surprise increased even more. What the…?

"And what do you know about that?"

"I was sent to bring you back there," she announced with a petulant gesture. "They need you."

"I was going myself," he protested, slightly ashamed. "But it's not wise to rush into a situation while you're still carrying all your weaknesses with you."

"They will be threatened nonetheless, Himura-san."

Kenshin momentarily forgot his efforts to struggle to his feet, and stared at the girl.

"What?"

"Your wife and your little daughter," she explained. "If there's a revolt, they will suffer too, and war will reach the child of the new era. Don't feel guilty, you're so good at that! You're doing it for them, too, okay?"

The red haired man opened his mouth several times, but couldn't bring himself to utter any sound. As much as he tried to rub his eyes, the girl was still there, her hands behind her back and an enervating smile on her lips.

"Have you gone dumb? Come on, Himura-san!" she urged him, irritated at his lack of response. "You never thought so much before making decisions!"

Unable now to suppress a shiver that shook his whole body, Kenshin continued fighting with his own unruly tongue. He had to speak, to ask her, before he went completely insane…

Who are you?

"Okay. I can't waste my time anymore, so see you there!" she suddenly cried in an exasperated sigh. Skilfully dodging Kenshin's weak attempt to hold her back , she gave him a quick bow, and ran away.

As the red-haired man lay there in total distress, a strong breeze began to tear apart the cloud masses above his head, allowing the first shreds of light to pass through. Under the bright sunrays that wrung terribly brilliant reflections on the white snow plain, Kenshin turned his eyes again at the running little figure, and for a moment he could see a shimmering red spark dancing in the locks of her hair.

An ominous silence reigned outside the house where the important men of the village were talking with the envoys of the prefect. Everyone, men and women, were quietly crowding the space in front of the closed shoji, the slightest of their movements warily watched by the soldiers that had remained outside with them. Any word, any noise that someone was able to catch voyaged promptly from whispers to ears, and sometimes caused a brief stirring that others took always care of hushing with vehemence.

It was into this scenario, where the man solemnly walked. As soon as the first man noticed him, he could hear the sea of whispers starting once more, and many a face turned to give him a surprised, maybe accusing stare, but when their eyes met the steely spark of his, and his uncovered, angry red cross-shaped scar, most expressions of censure turned to astonishment. Nobody hindered him when he began to cross the human sea in the direction of the door, and even the soldiers just saw him pass by and muttered something among themselves after he was gone out of their reach

"Hi... Himura-san…"Asami stood as the last obstacle, her tall body covering the shoji. He stopped in front of her in a demanding gesture, but when he saw her eyes widened in distress he forced himself to soften his expression somewhat.

There was fear, always fear in every eye…

"Please, Asami-san," he said. The woman slowly nodded, regaining her composure as she could before she stepped aside.

As Kenshin put his hand over the old wood, angry voices crowding his ears from inside, he allowed himself a last fleeting instant of hesitation. Behind that door, a new war was waiting for him. It was a confrontation where he could lose his humanity, where he could be reduced to nothing more than what he had been before.

But no, not like before. Before, he had fought for an abstraction; now he would do it to preserve and honour what he had already found.

Wasn't it so?

A sudden noise of a hand being slammed on a wooden table broke his musings, and he could clearly hear an irate deep voice lifted over the others.

"Why do you keep babbling? It's useless! You stand alone against the government, against law and against Tuyunoki Suyukazu!"

The arm pressed against the shoji froze for a moment, then stiffened in a final determination that even smothered all the pain and the nausea. With a quick but firm movement, the door was slid open, and the red-haired man was immediately pierced by eight pairs of eyes that turned, surprised, to find the reason of the intrusion.

Tuyunoki…Suyukazu…

"Himura-san…"

"Who are you and why do you interrupt us?" the same man that had given the document back asked him acidly. Kenshin did not mind the tone, for he was already more than used to it. Instead, he advanced some steps towards them, and let the candlelight fall over his hair, features and cross-shaped scar on his cheek.

"As I suspected," His voice was steely, and as cold as the snow which paved the ground outside. "Tuyunoki is the corrupt one."

(to be continued)