"Mr. Himura, report to the main office, please."
Kenshin heaved a sigh, setting his pen down. It felt silly to hear a name called over the intercom like that, that authoritative voice calling a staff member to their proper place just as it would a student. He had no idea what they might want him for this time, but he rose dutifully, preparing to do as the static voice commanded.
There was a soft clink as his old pen bounced off the empty bottle that graced his desk. Kenshin paused, a smile making its way to his lips. Yes, the empty sake bottle...
Shishou had presented them each with one at Christmas dinner. And each had indeed been filled with alcohol, even Yahiko's. It had been impossible to explain that everyone in the house but Kenshin and Meg was below the legal drinking age. Shishou was adamant in his gifts.
But that hadn't stopped Kenshin from confiscating them the second his old teacher had left the apartment. Only Misao-dono had protested, and she had been easily pacified with one of the cookies that Saitou Tokio-dono had sent. He'd let Sano have his, but only after he had promised not to tell the girls. And Shishou had insisted that "the men of the house... and you, bakadeshi" sit together and drink in silence.
So they had. And it had been nice.
The next day, Shishou had left. And they had taken Kaoru-dono to get her photos done, though she had refused to say who had sent her the gift. An admirer, perhaps. She had to be simply swimming in those.
Kenshin touched a fingertip to the front of the ceramic bottle, where a very old photograph of him had been securely attached. Each bottle had been ornamented with one- his was a shot of himself from the college performance of "Jekyll and Hyde". He had been the lead, and he'd loved it so... It was a fond memory as much as it was an embarrassing one.
Shishou simply loved to embarrass him, though...
"Mr. Himura, to the office please."
Kenshin winced and bolted out his door, not taking the time to lock it. He sounded rather peeved now... But it wasn't far at all to the office, so he slowed down one he rounded the corner.
The vice principal, for that was who had called him, had made a habit of calling him to mediate disputes. Apparently, his "success with subduing that Sagara kid" had made its way to the higher authorities rather quickly. And now, of course, whenever there was a problem with a student, call Himura! Hell fix it!
He truly couldn't say that it bothered him. After all, the Guidance department was usually so busy with scheduling that there was no time to help troubled children. He had no skill at blocking out class periods, and had made a rather large mess of things more than once, so they left him out of such projects. He preferred spending time with the children, anyway. It was why he had taken the job in the first place, to maybe help someone in need.
It made him feel quite good. And that wasn't a feeling he would push away.
So he arrived at the office in ridiculously high spirits, albeit a bit late, humming some song from his Christmas CDs below his breath and smiling cheerily at everyone he passed. He got the usual amount of strange looks, but more than one staff member smiled back and even a few students did too.
Kenshin made his way down the thin hallway to the assistant principals office, expecting the usual sounds of a rebellious student- grumbling, swearing, kicking chairs. But when he was greeted by nothing by silence, curiosity assaulted him like never before. He'd never been called here for anything but subduing combatants. What could this be...?
He poked his head into the office, then entered fully, not speaking a word. The dark-haired man at the desk waved him to a chair, and Kenshin sat obediently.
The foreboding air in the small room was impossible to ignore. The florescent lights glinted off the engraved nameplate, Horace Sanders, catching his eye before he could think to ignore it. Sanders. He'd not known his name before. This man had only been the assistant principal, the one who wore the green coat with the fur around the collar, the one that looked so warm when they had fire drills or bomb threats when the temperature was in the teens. He had been faceless and nameless. Only a commanding voice.
"Mr. Himura. Kenshin Himura, am I correct?"
"Yes, that you are," he returned, voice seeming unnaturally loud in the stillness.
"Very good." Horace scribbled something on the sheet of paper that sat on the pristine desk in front of him. "Kenshin Himura, I expect your letter of resignation on my desk by two this afternoon."
The shock that went through him was numbing, tingling through every last fiber of his being, strangely cold and yet burning all at the same time. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, his heart skittering up to his throat. He couldn't move a muscle.
And somewhere, voices were laughing.
"Re-resignation?" he whispered, lips shaking. "But-"
"It makes for less of a mess than if I simply fire you," Horace informed matter-of-factly, as though this were simple business. "If you don't resign, however, you will be fired. This just makes it a bit easier on the both of us."
His lips moved, but no sound came forth. Fired. Fired.
"But why...?" he finally managed, the voice that issued from his throat a pathetic and thin one. His eyes hurt. He couldn't focus. His throat was growing cold.
"A young lady advised us to your..." Horace coughed, and Kenshin felt every muscle stiffen. "Well, your untimely breach of ethics. In addition to that, your medical records came under question. A schizophrenic who sleeps with students simply doesn't make for a valued employee. I'm sure you can understand that, Mr. Himura."
Someone had found out.
Those were the only words that cycled through his mind, the only ones distinguishable amongst the delighted jeers from Shinta-tachi. Only Battousai was silent. Shinta and the voices that floated on her wings were relishing this pain, cheering how she had been right all along, that nothing good in his world would ever last, that he had been betrayed again.
Again.
He rose wearily from the uncomfortable chair, arms hanging slack by his sides. Finally. It had finally happened again. Things had been too perfect. And in one moment, everything he had feared came to fruition. With one stab of the knife, she was gone... with one unperturbed sentence, his life was over...
"I sent one of the janitors to help you clean out your office," Horace called after him, sounding as though he expected a thank-you. "And before you go, you had a phone call... One of the secretaries cleaned up the notice. Something about the agency doing its adoption review this week. Good luck with that, Mr. Himura."
He stumbled out of the small office, the latest blow shaking him even further than he believed possible. Now they came. Three months since Christmas, each day filled with nothing but happiness all through the family, the only problems solved within days, and now they came... after he had been fired.
Schizophrenic. Sleeping with a teenaged boy. History of violence. No livelihood.
He was simply the model parent.
He should have expected this. It had all worked too well. Everything had some together, everyone had been happy. He had been happy.
He couldn't be happy.
She didn't deserve to be happy.
It was what she had been told ever since she was born, after all. She didn't deserve happiness, and she wouldn't have it. Kenshin was really a fool to think it, Battousai even more pathetic to struggle for it.
Shinta giggled and pulled the door to Kenshin's office open. It was actually quite funny. All destruction was funny, if you looked at it right. Irony, black comedy, it was all the same. Hopes dashed to pieces, lives torn asunder. Truth be told, she missed the old days. There was nothing more enjoyable than mocking a dying man. When the last thing they would ever hear was her laughter, well...
It was a shame she could only mock the little queer anymore. He just cried and poisoned her with the damned medication. It wasn't much fun.
"Well, lets close this chapter of my life, Mr. Oliver!" Shinta sang gaily, throwing the door open.
The janitor the little brats had christened Ollie, among many other less kind nicknames, raised his scarred face from where he had apparently been contemplating the floor. Shinta and Ollie had amused each other over the year, sharing a sense of humor.
But never would it be said they were friends. Much the opposite, truly.
"So they finally kicked you out, hm?" Ollie observed, placing one of the many picture frames into the cardboard box on the floor, after a few misses. The old man was very obviously blind, having been injured in some silly war he refused to speak of.
"Finally!"
They packed in silence. And when the consensus was a conclusion, Ollie shuffled towards the door.
"Oh, Mr. Oliver?" Shinta called sweetly, sitting lightly on the couch. Ollie turned back, the cloth he wore over his ruined eyes twitching as his brows rose.
"Tell Mr. Sherman the best assassin Japan has ever produced is looking forward to bathing in his traitorous blood," she informed with a tight smile. "Killing him and his Key Club will be great fun. Oh, and you, of course, and Sanders. What a joy."
No surprise registered under the scar tissue, but she hadn't been expecting any. Ollie merely nodded and left.
Shinta giggled and then promptly went back to sleep.
Kenshin stared at his empty office in utter desolation. It was gone. Everything was just... gone.
He picked up the white sheet of paper that had been left on his desk and began his letter of resignation.

*** *** ***

"Sano-otou-chan! Get me a soda!"
"Get yer own damn soda, girl. You've been sittin' on yer ass playin' that thing all day. I've got my own stuff t' do."
"MOU!"
"Shut up! I'm sick 'a yer complainin'! You've got legs, y'know. Stop usin' 'em for hangin' out the window and get your own soda."
Normally, such an exchange would only make him laugh, being able to understand the undercurrent of playfulness and fondness that ran beneath the abrasive language as well as the girls could. Sano didn't sound like that when he was angry, only when he was teasing.
But the man sitting at the dining table with a clipboard and a pen didn't know that, and he wouldn't learn it in a week. He would see it only as verbal abuse, endangering the children. A man who had a lover who verbally abused his children wasn't reliable.
Of course, his mind had been made up the minute he passed through the door. The first thing he had asked Kenshin was how old Sanosuke was. He had answered truthfully that he had just recently turned twenty, but had found nothing to say when the social worker reminded him that Kaoru-dono was only two years younger. When Meg-dono had come later that day to check on his medication, he had asked what it was for, and afraid to lie, Kenshin had confessed to his schizophrenia, though he had managed to keep Battousai a secret as of thus far.
He had known when he had first gotten the phone call before Christmas that this would be hard. He had hoped it wouldn't be a disaster, but it truly didn't seem that he would be that lucky.
The first two days, they had truly been a picture-perfect family. As perfect as a family could be with one parent schizophrenic and the other barely older than the children. But after that, they had disintegrated into their usual patterns of teasing and roughhousing and such. They were a loud family, true, and it didn't come across well to others all the time, true, but they were happy. They really were happy. He had told them all about his lost job, but it hadn't even ruffled the waters. They had held a quick financial meeting, let Kaoru-dono work the figures out, and had decided that they would get by fine if he got a part-time job until he could find somewhere to hire him full-time. He had started a job search that very moment, with Misao-donos eager assistance. It had really been a remarkable display of teamwork, and he had hoped at first that it would win them some points where Mr. Richards was concerned.
However, he had the sinking feeling that it wasn't going to matter very much.
"Mr. Sagara," came the harsh, clipped tone. "Speak with me in the kitchen."
Sano stopped in his perusal of the comics page, and glanced over at Kenshin. He could do nothing, only look down at his feet and shiver. These interrogations came at least once a day, Mr. Richards calling one of them into the kitchen to find holes in their family ties.
This was the last day. He had never spoken to Sano. This was their last day to convince them that everything was fine. Tomorrow, Friday, Richards would make the pronouncement, and everything would be perfect, or everything would be over.
There was nothing he could do anymore.

Sano flumped down into the wooden kitchen chair, trying to force the belligerence from his face. It was a natural reaction to someone preparing to ask him stupid questions, but it wasn't going to help them any.
"First, Mr. Sagara, how do you feel about the children?"
"I love them," he responded hotly, fingers clenching into his jeans under the table. "I love them like they were my blood. They call me Dad now."
Richards didn't even twitch, writing busily on his damned notepad. "And how does Mr. Himura feel about them?"
"The same." He struggled to not sound condescending. "He's their father too, y'know. He's known them since they were little girls."
"You have a sexual relationship with Mr. Himura."
"Um, yeah."
"How does he interact with the girls?"
Sano blinked, not understanding the sequence of the questions. This entire process had never made sense to him, and it made even less now. "He's a good father, really loving and affectionate. He makes sure they know how he feels about them, and they feel safe and secure with him."
"Have you ever seen him touch them in a sexual fashion?"
"You SICK SON OF A BITCH!!!"

 He had expected the explosion ever since he had heard Sano sit down. It had even taken a little longer than he had expected. They managed to stop him before the boy had punched Richards in the face. It had taken some speed and some creative maneuvering, but between the four of them, it had been done exactly in time.
Now all five sat in the kitchen, the cloud of guilt that hung over them painfully smothering. Yahiko didn't even protest when Kaoru-dono pulled him tightly into her lap, as though to reassure him. The dark-haired boy patted her arm, letting her hold him, if just this once. Misao-dono sat on the counter next to them, the chairs being either occupied or too close to Richards, and Kaoru-dono tugged her close with her free arm.
Kenshin pulled up a chair next to Sano, casting a forlorn glance to his children.
Misao-dono offered him a weak smile. He gave them both the brightest reciprocation he could manage, then met Yahiko's dark eyes. The boy gazed at him soberly, a familiar glint of worry hardening his expression.
Yahiko had always intimidated him, if just a little. He was so much like Sano, and yet his opposite in just as many respects...
And then he let himself glance up at Sano, who was still quivering with rage in his chair. The fury was just as evident on his face as his shame at not being able to restrain his volatile temper.
"I was planning on doing this anyway, so you've made my job easier," Mr. Richards observed after they had settled. "I would like to ask a few follow-up questions to complete my report, and the agency's decision will be reported to you tomorrow."
"Anything you need of us," Kenshin nodded, well aware of how pale he was.
"First, Kaoru and Misao. Tell me about Mr. Himura's social life."
"He doesn't have one," Misao-dono offered. "Never dated of went out nless it was with us. He never even showed interest in anybody, till..."
"Tou-san and Sanosuke-otou-san still don't go anywhere unless its with us or Yahiko. We do things as a family." Kaoru-dono fell silent after having spoken her piece.
Richards wrote for a few moments, then adjusted his glasses and looked up again. "Kaoru, Misao, and Yahiko." He was beginning to stumble over the names. "Has Mr. Sagara or Mr. Himura ever hit you or touched you in an inappropriate fashion?"
"No."
"Absolutely not."
"Hell no!"
"Mr. Himura, has Mr. Sagara ever hit you?"
Kenshin felt Sano stiffen next to him, and knew in an instant what he feared so. It seemed so long ago now, the night he had confessed his past to the boy... It really wasn't anything he should have to report in circumstances like this. It was even a ridiculous question, there had been no behavior to prompt such an idea, but...
"Not in anger," he answered truthfully. "There was a time I had gone into a sort of... fit, I suppose you would say, you would. He feared I would harm myself, and slapped me once to startle me awake. Nothing more than that."
There was a long silence, broken only by the scribble of the mans pen. Finally, he coughed and lifted his head, the air of finality signaling his last question.
"Mr. Himura, you are schizophrenic and have been hospitalized for this condition more than once. You have no job. You have no family these children can depend on should something happen to you. You are engaged in a homosexual relationship with a young man older than your own daughter by little more than two years. Tell me why this adoption agency should allow these children to remain with you."
Kenshin stared at the tabletop, fists clenching by his sides.
Everything depended on this.
"Schizophrenics have children every day, they do. An illness rarely means parenting a child is impossible," he said carefully, calmly. "I have been hospitalized three times in the past ten years, I have. Any psychiatrist will tell you that is a very small to negligible number. Secondly, I may have no blood family, but there are plenty of responsible adults upon whom the children can depend, there are. I can give you phone numbers, if you wish. Finally, any court of law will tell you that homosexuality is not a sound reason to deny parenthood, indeed it is not. As for the sexual impropriety you have insinuated, I am aware of Sanosuke's youth, that I am. However, he was at a legal age when the relationship began. And," he paused to hopefully add the necessary emphasis, "he is not my child. Miss Kaoru and Miss Misao are. Yahiko has become so as well. You would have no legal backing to take these children away from me were they my own blood, indeed you would not. So you have no legal backing to do it now."
"Noted." Richards scribbled some more, then stood up rather abruptly. "I will let you know of the decision tomorrow morning."
They watched him leave, Kenshin trying to calm the frantic racing of his heart, then listened to him pull open the front door and thump down the stairs.
And then there was silence.
"I was waitin' for him t' ask if Mr. Sagara had ever touched Mr. Himura in inappropriate fashions," Misao-dono giggled. "Seemed next on the list."
"Misao!"
"Oro."

He had kissed them all goodnight, even Yahiko in the bed they had made for him on the couch. They had tried unsuccessfully to fit him into the girls shared room, but he had insisted that he was fine where he was.
Misao-dono had been in the bathroom when he had said goodnight to Kaoru-dono, while he had held her for a few moments and kissed her hair. So he waited in the hallway for her now.
The door creaked open and then closed, Misao-dono's long braid undone and the loose hair hanging to brush the back of her knees. Kenshin smiled down at his youngest daughter, then took a few steps forward to meet her.
"Are you all right de gozaru ka?" he asked softly, not sure how else to phrase it.
Misao-dono patted his arm, her large eyes unnaturally bright. "I'm okay," she reassured with a weak smile. "I mean... even if we do get sent back t the orphanage, Ill be turning seventeen soon, so it'll really only be a year until they cant tell me where t go... and then we can come home."
"You mean, you and your sister would come back to me even after you are adults de gozaru ka?" Kenshin caught her smaller hand in his, smiling almost tearfully.
Misao-dono nodded, then straightened up on her socked toes and hugged him about the neck. He returned the quick, tight embrace, memorizing how her slight form felt in his arm, then kissed her on the forehead and let her go.
"Oyasumi, Misao-dono," he whispered.

*** *** ***

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Himura," Richards pronounced, in a cool tone that proclaimed all too well that he wasn't sorry at all.
He didn't have to go on. The silence that fell across the living room was a deafening one. Kenshin only stared at him, blankly, blindly, glad he had sent the girls out of the room, glad they wouldn't see the tears that were gathering in his eyes, glad they wouldn't see him break down like this, glad...
Glad they wouldn't see the golden rage that was building inside his mind.
"Why?..." he managed to whisper, to hiss, his chin shaking. The chill that was building in his throat made it difficult to swallow, difficult to breathe. "Why now, after they've been with me for almost half their lives? Why now?!-"
"Its unfortunate the problem was not seen before now," he returned, the light glinting off his steel eyes. He had the look of a man sated in a triumph not entirely his, the look of a man who would rest well tonight only because of sleeping pills. The look of a man who had sold out to control. The look of those men in that clean white room that had told him he was going to America. A man who had convinced himself that he was doing the right thing.
The chill coalesced into the ice he knew so well, the cold that frightened him more than anything else, and Kenshin fought it back, struggling to keep it away, before it burned, before it burst into-
Inferno.
"The only problem here," Battousai spat contemptuously, "is you."
He rose from the couch, hands curling into fists. How dare he. How dare this shell of a man take his children away. No one touched those girls. Enough had been taken away from him, from them. He alone could protect them, not the agency, not the state institutions. The government had never been able to take care of itself, not in Japan, and not here! When a child was given to the highest bidder, the price was paid by innocence. The pain and guilt suffered in the dead of the night refunded every dollar, the knowledge it was wrong, that the little one couldn't bear the pain.
That pain had created him, and he knew it. He had been born of the shame that burned through those eyes whenever that man had told him what a pretty little boy he was. How lucky he was that he was his father. How lucky he was that he loved him so much. How no one would ever understand what they did together. It was only training to everyone else, but it was love to him. And if he told anyone, they would laugh at him or think he was a bad boy and take him away, and put him back on the street, and he didn't want that, did he?
How easy it had been to kill, when he'd seen that smile on every target.
He wouldn't let that happen again. Not to those innocent eyes. So much like the little ones had been. Before everything. It wouldn't happen.
He wouldn't let it.
"Are you threatening me, Mr. Himura?" The cold assurance had broken into something that far more resembled panic. He knew his track record, did he? How nice. It would save him the problem of explaining before he got this danger out of the way.
"Its not a threat, its a statement of fact," he explained serenely, even as his blood boiled. "You're the problem. And the only way to solve a problem is to eliminate it, am I right?"
That panic had become fear, a true sickening fear that colored his features. Richards jumped to his feet, catching up his clipboard. "You have two hours to say goodbye to the children," he snapped out, backpedaling slowly. "Then someone will be sent to pick them up. Make sure they have all their possessions. You will never be seeing them again, Ill make sure of that. And this behavior will be reported to the agency as well as the police!"

*** *** ***

"The snow is beautiful de gozaru na."
She started from staring into the road, gasping both in surprise and delight.
"Tou-san!" Shed feared never seeing him emerge from his room again! Shed been fearing the worst ever since the social worker had left, not being able to see his smiling face tell her everything would be all right, that everything was fine and he would never leave her. But now, now would be that time, and-
"...Tou-san...?"
He wasn't smiling. He wore the same quiet look he had when he had told her the baby rabbit they had taken in from the cold when she was eleven had died, the same certainty of her tears, the same hopelessness.
And he was carrying two suitcases, and her duffel bag.
"Mr. Richards left this morning de gozaru," he said softly.
"I-I know." Kaoru took a step forward, her throat tightening. There had to be some other explanation. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening-
"I had a full breakdown those few months ago. I was fired last week. They cant leave that be de gozaru." His lips were white, arms stiff where they hung by his side.
The long silence was agonizing. She couldn't force air though her lungs couldn't do anything but stare pleadingly, his soft eyes, his quiet and sad eyes.
"You will be going back to the agency de gozaru."
"The orphanage..." Kaoru whispered. "But... what about you? Will you... will you go back, back to how you were...?" He was just like her, he couldn't be on his own! How would she... how could she go back to a life without him? Shed lived with Kenshin for longer than she had known her birth parents!
"I don't know." Even more painful was the silent sorrow he was struggling to hide from her, the sadness that was crystal in his eyes.
The thin layer of snow crunched beneath one heel as he took a step closer to her. "For ten years," he whispered, "I have fought to keep Battousai hidden."
Kaoru shuddered in the cold, looking away from his eyes, afraid of the severity of his words, afraid of this being real. They had never spoken of Battousai, not since that horrible winter so long ago. He knew how much she feared... him. That other man she had seen looking through her fathers eyes, speaking with his lips.
"But all of this year has taught me something," her father continued, setting her suitcases down in the snow by the curb. His white hands were shaking, his jaw set. "Inside me," he whispered, looking deep into her eyes, "lives a vicious manslayer who will never change."
Kaoru quailed beneath his eyes, but forced that aside. It didn't matter what Battousai was, it mattered what Kenshin was! "But you always went back to normal so soon afterwards!" she protested, wanting to grab onto his shoulders but afraid to touch him, fearing he would shatter, this painfully fragile man... "No matter how close he comes to you, you are yourself, tou-san! You're my father!"
"If we stay together any longer, I will endanger everyone with each incident, and Battousai will return each time."
This wasn't happening. This wasn't the kind, gentle young man who she had met all those years ago, who had taken her home and had taught her how to tango and do box-steps when she was only eleven. This wasn't the man who had given her such bright and reassuring smiles when she was sad.
This was a man with pain and sorrow in his eyes. This was a man who knew he was helpless. A man who had lost hope.
A man who had simply given up.
"When I first met you, Kaoru-dono, you told me you didn't care about my past de gozaru." His white lips quirked in a fond smile, a loving smile, one that was sadder by the emptiness in his eyes. "I was happy about that."
His chin began to shake, fingers clenching and releasing, eyes flicking down to the virgin snow to avoid the sight of him.
The sight of him saying goodbye.
"Day after day, I continued to rest my soul, and I really felt I could become a normal man de gozaru na."
It was only then that his arms slid around her back, pulling her close to him, tight to the thin chest that was frigid in the cold. It was the desperate violence of the embrace that forced a gasp from her constricting throat.
And she wanted to hold him. But her arms were unmoving.
"Thank you for everything," came the husky voice she knew so well, the one that soothed her nightmares. "I am a wanderer. I must be wandering again."
Her lips moved soundlessly.
"Sayonara."
She could feel the snow through the knees of her jeans as he released her, her fingers stretching out for his warmth. A wanderer. A man with no roots, no home.
No family.
"Tou-san," she begged, tears scalding her cheeks, palms digging for purchase in the snow.
He was walking from her.
"Tou-san..."
And even she sobbed, all she heard was the snow falling.