Act Four: The Demon Lord

"Miss."

The voice stopped me even before the feeling of other people's chi surrounding me made me stop and turn. I looked over my shoulder in question, raising a brow and hoisting my bag of miso higher. "Can I help you?" I inquired to the numerous men behind me, but pointed my gaze at the tall man on horseback with long black-hair that had spoken to me.

He smiled, and something in the slow and easy smile on the handsome yet cruel face triggered a flutter of a memory in the back of my mind. A whisper on a dark night, urgently sliding between a back fence, the sound of terror in a woman's voice. The low sobbing of others, and the smell of blood that hung in the air around a gray stone house. My blood ran cold, and the inquisitive smile on my face froze and disappeared.

"Do I have the pleasure of greeting the blossom of the Green Dragon Inn?" the man asked, leaning forward to rest his arms across the front of his high saddle.

I turned my head quickly away from him and his assembled men. "No. You have the wrong girl. I don't know who you speak of."

"That's funny. There aren't very many gold-haired, green-eyed European women in Tokyo. I thought for sure you were Shinrin Sachi from the roadside village of Atokae to the north."

I turned to look up at him for a last time, fire boiling behind my eyes and making my voice sharp. "My name might be Shinrin Sachi, sir, but the woman you speak of is long dead and gone."

He smiled like a cat and looked down to his men, who all grinned back up at him and chuckled. "Fine, then, Miss Shinrin. But I'll be around for awhile. Let me know if Sachi-yabi decides to appear again."

I turned sharply and walked away, back to the vendor's booths, hoping to lose the man whose chi reeked of evil. This was something to file away in the back of my mind to watch out for, but not worry Kenshin about. If I couldn't handle my own past, who was I to force it onto him?

I stopped in front of a fish vendor, and waved him away as he began his pitch. He gave me an offended look and turned to another interested customer. I had just matched the face to a name. It was a name that I remembered from the low whispers in the women's dormitory at the Green Dragon, a name whispered during the nights when no moon hung in the sky, to match the blackness of the world outside. A name that had owned a residence down the road, that we were all frequently warned about. Mygomi Hishori. Slave trader and geisha master. And to those who sold their bodies for money, he was known as the Demon.

There had been an incident a few years back, after I had returned back to the Green Dragon. A young girl who had lived in the geisha house of Mygomi's had been beaten to death after she wasn't able to perform. The cruelty and seriousness of Mygomi's punishments served as a warning to any and all that allowed him to get his hands on them, or their service on his board.

The little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I looked up from my revere into the black eyes of Hishori. Shivering, I turned away. I would have to be very careful. The Demon had his eyes on me.

Threading my way through the bustling marketplace, I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure that either Mygomi or one of his gang members weren't following me. Taking back alleys and shortcuts to be extremely sure I wasn't followed, I made my way back to the dojo, my heart race tripping nervously at a fast pace inside my chest.

I am calm. At peace. I am still, like water on a spring morning. I am as pure as raindrops, and as true as a monk's flute song. My leg is…falling asleep.

I squeezed my eyes shut again, tighter, and breathed in slowly, exhaling after a count of four. Focus, grasshopper. Mediate to become one with yourself and your world. Clear your mind of the inconsequential. Float on the breeze, and free yourself from your weary body for a time…

A rapid pounding of feet and an air current being broken raggedly near me made me snap an arm out, and I caught Yahiko by the back of his gi. Opening my eyes, I looked at him. "Going somewhere?"

"Lemme go!"

"I was mediating, and you broke my concentration. Now, tell me where you're off to in such a hurry."

"YOU were MEDIATING?!"

"Why not? Of course I was. No one in their right mind would choose to sit on the well cover and just zone out unless they were mediating. What did you think I was doing? Waiting for someone to come and hand me a bucket so I could pull water up for them?"

"Oh."

"Yeah. 'Oh.' "

"I was going to the beef bowl shop. Wanna come?"

"It beats sitting here and letting my limbs fall asleep."

"We'll meet Kenshin and Kaoru and Sano there."

"Everyone?"

"Yeah. Even Megumi's coming," Yahiko added.

"Why the big group?" I asked, my interest piqued. Yahiko shrugged at me.

"Ugly said something about talking about something she's heard recently."

"Hmm," I said, frowning. "This could be interesting."

Yahiko and I slid into one of the more private back booths at the Akabeko beef bowl shop. Tae sighed. "I hope at least some of you are planning on paying," she said, glancing pointedly at Sano, and then at myself. I smiled weakly, spreading my hands palms out in an 'I'm sorry, but what can I do?' gesture. Kaoru glared at both the freeloader who frequently skipped out on his bills, and I, who would rather labor in the kitchens washing dishes in exchange for a meal that I couldn't pay for.

"We'll pay, and they'll pay us in labor later."

Sano and I stared at her with flat faces and small glares. "Fine."

"That's what you think…"

Kenshin and Megumi looked up with amused glances, and quietly smothered their laughs. I looked down at my side to find Yahiko's head already burrowed into a bowl of rice. I looked up, settling down cross-legged. "Yahiko said something about a meeting," I started, and then shot Kaoru a concerned look. "What's going on?"

The raccoon-girl cleared her throat. "Uh…well, it appears there are a couple things that we all need to talk about."

Kenshin raised his head up from his food. "Kaoru-dono, you best let this one explain this." She nodded consent, and he continued. "It seems as if a few yakuza gangs have settled into the area. They've been tormenting the people in the villages, and misusing their swords."

I looked up from my bowl sharply. "Rogue samurai?"

"I'm afraid so," Kenshin said, nodding. I snorted down into my food.

"Those idiots. You'd think that after all this time they'd realize that the government's not going to change back, but nooo…" I said sarcastically. "They have to terrorize people to try to gain back what they once had. Bah. They're not real samurai. A real samurai didn't need to push people around to get their respect. He had it through his actions."

Sano cut his eyes over at me. "Getting a little worked-up about samurai honor, eh?"

I frowned dryly at him, using my chopsticks to flick rice at him. "Pathetic."

Kenshin's sakabatô fell between us, and we both levitated a few feet into the air and out of the way. "Play nicely, you two," he said, drawing the sword back and sheathing it once again.

"Sorry."

"Sorry. So what's your plan?" Sano asked, leaning back and lacing his fingers behind his head.

"Well, this one would like to go meet with them and see why they've come, and what they want," Kenshin mused slowly, and the rest of us broke down in laughter.

" 'Meet with them'? And what side of your sakabatô will be doing the talking?" Yahiko brayed, and Kaoru looked down at her student, clunking him over the head with a fist. "Hey, ugly, what'd'ya think you're doing?!"

"Shutting you up, brat. And I'm not 'ugly'."

"You are from where I'm sitting."

Suddenly, the other side of the table was a mass of flailing limbs and yells. Kenshin and Megumi quickly separated the fighting sensei and her student, and pried Kaoru's hands off of Yahiko's neck.

"Can we all just please get along?" Kenshin said, sighing into his hand as he propped it up on the low table. "We still have to talk…"

"Right. Everyone! Listen up!" I shouted, and traffic in the front part of the restaurant stopped as people turned to stare at us. "Oops, too loud," I whispered, turning red and sinking lower behind the booth screen.

"Domo, Sachi-san. Anyway, this one needs you to come with him, Sano. This one has heard a rumor that you might know some of them, and the less violence there is, the better, as this one thinks."

Sano sat up straighter. "You mean, soldiers from the Sekihõ Army?"

"That is some of what this one has been hearing, that it is."

The ex-fight merchant leapt across the booth and lifted the smaller red-head up by the collar of his gi. "Where? Who are they? Why are they here? Do they want to see me?"

"This one hoped you could help him answer those questions," Kenshin gasped, and Sano dropped him.

"Then what are we waiting for? C'mon, let's go already!"

"Sano, it's not that easy. This one doesn't think they would like to see this one strolling into camp with you. We'll have to be more careful then that."

Sano slumped down, looking defeated. "Then what?"

"We need a plan."

Sano's eyes lit up and he slowly turned to face me. Kenshin turned too, both of them with a strange light in their eyes as they tilted their heads to look at me. I looked from one to the other with worried looks.

"Y'know, in a kimono, without a bokotu in her hand…maybe if Kaoru and Megumi did something with make-up and her hair…"

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no! NO! SANO, STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT! Kenshin, he's thinking about using me as a distraction to get in!" I looked over at Kenshin as he narrowed his eyes.

"Do you still have that green kimono that matches your eyes?"

"Ok, YOU'RE thinking of using me as a distraction to get into camp too! NO! I REFUSE!"

"They always did like their women," Sano told Kenshin. "They'll think she's the greatest thing to ever walk into camp since new rations of sake. They won't think to ask her questions, and then she can keep it clear until we get in."

"That seems like a good plan."

"Kenshin, are you saying that you're planning on sending ME INTO A CAMP FULL OF MEN WHO HAVEN'T SEEN A WOMAN IN WEEKS?!"

"We'll be there, of course, if it gets out of control," he reasoned.

"I don't believe this!" I yelled as Kaoru and Megumi hid smiles and laughter behind their hands.

"It's not like I'm asking you to lay all of them," Sano said, waving me off. "Just do something to keep their attention on you. Show a little skin, whatever."

Kenshin turned and glared at Sano, eyes changing and narrowing into slits. "You did not just imply that, correct?"

"Ok, maybe not then," Sano said hastily, waving his hands in front of him at Kenshin in a 'no'. "They won't mind it if you just sing or dance or something."

"That's better."

Kaoru brought her hand down from her mouth. "Sachi, you can't be thinking of going into the camps," she said.

"Why not?" I asked her. "I have two people who say they'll back me up, and if they don't, they'll need their own back-up," I threatened, looking at the two men who smiled cheerfully.

"But that's like, sentencing yourself to be in danger," Megumi argued. I thought for a minute. A picture of some poor gangster reaching out to touch me floated through my thoughts, and then I saw Kenshin leap out of the bushes on him, eyes glowing and sakabatô drawn. I smiled.

"No, I don't think that will be a problem."

Kaoru looked at Sano and glared. "I should have known you'd try something like this."

"Hey, just be glad we're only asking one of you to help us, and not all three. Besides, if we're resorting to singing and dancing, we want them watching, not laughing, so that rules you out," Sano said, grinning evilly.

"SAAANOOO!!!" She and Megumi leapt over the small table to the laughing man, and Kenshin somehow got stuck in the middle of the fight. Yahiko waded into it with his shinai drawn and swinging, and I sighed and sat back, crossing my arms. Here I was again, Sachi, whore-for-hire.

"I won't be made useless," I said suddenly, my voice clear as it rose above the other's quarrels. "It's as much my fault for everything as you all have paid for the troubles you've brought down before. Helping out in the camp is the least I can do."

They all turned to stare at me. "She has a point, you know," Megumi said. "When I wanted to kill myself to make up for all the deaths I had caused through the opium, Ken-san convinced me to become a doctor instead and use my knowledge to help."

"I went from hating all loyalist to living with one," Sano said, smiling slightly. From across the table, I saw Kaoru's lips move and heard her mutter something.

"Yeah, is that for the friendship or the free food and bed?"

I smothered a smile, and Sano turned to Kaoru with a dull expression. "If it's your food, it's definitely the friendship that keeps me around." Kaoru's fist shot out sideways and collided with the side of his face as she sipped demurely from her cup of green tea.

"On another subject," she said putting her tea down again, "We need people to help with cooking or cleaning if they expect to stay at the dojo for free…" Kaoru started, and Sano and I hastily scrambled over the rest in the booth in an attempt to flee before things got ugly and we were at the end of Kaoru's hands.

"Yeah, well, we'll see y'all later."

"Yes, have a good lunch!"

Running out of the restaurant's front door, we stopped and grinned at each other. "We're bad," I said to Sano as he pushed his bangs away and peered in the door again. He laughed at the shocked and angry faces we had left behind.

"Awful," he agreed, nodding. "Where you headed?"

I looked up, and then back at him, raising an eyebrow. "You first."

"To see a man about a horse…you?"

"To see a man about a katana," I said, pointing down an opposite street. He nodded.

"Good luck."

"You too. Hope everything…comes out alright." I giggled and sprinted away before his hand could land on me, waving back over my shoulder. Turning, Sano headed in the other direction, whistling.

Inside the restaurant, Tae gasped, her hand over her mouth as she watched the two outside the door walk away. "What is it, Tae-chan?" Kaoru asked worriedly.

"Sano-san and Sachi-chan both skipped out on their bills again!"

Around the table, everyone's heads dropped forward into their food with a thump, wearing identical resigned expressions.

"What is this? You pass twenty and your life goes to hell for a year, and then it straightens out again after that?" Megumi asked furiously. "On moment, you're living with a gang, and the next, you're being told you're too much of a liability to go with them?"

"This is cheap," I muttered back. "It's like, 'do what we say, not as you did.' "

"You're twenty-two?!" Kaoru shrieked, looking at me from head to toe and then leaping backward. "But I thought you were younger! Older! Something!"

Megumi and I looked at her with raised eyebrows, both smirking slightly. The quality of appearing both younger and more mature at once was something that I possessed, making it hard to believe my age when discovered.

"Yes, I'm twenty-two. Megumi and I are the same age. Why?"

"I thought, I mean…how old where you when you met Kenshin?!"

I counted backwards on my fingers, ticking them off and then folding them back until I got down to sixteen, and then slowly thought, adding another year.

"Seventeen," I concluded. "Your age. But Himura was twenty-one back then, remember. Three years after then Meiji wars ended."

"Ohhh…" Kaoru fell backwards, her eyes crossed and spirals floating above her head in confusion. Megumi and I bent down and tugged her back upright, smacking at her cheeks to waken her up again.

"Come on, Kaoru. No time to be flighty. Remember, we're supposed to be 'holding down the dojo.' "

She gritted her teeth and bolted up again, holding a fist in front of her face. "Grrr…that's right! Stinking men leaving us here to 'hold down a dojo'. Like it's going to run away? Bah!"

Megumi frowned. "How come we're always left back and even Yahiko gets to go? Come on. He's ten. We've been through more."

Kaoru looked up at Megumi. "Hey, watch it! That's my student you're talking about!"

"The one that calls you 'ugly'?" Megumi asked her dryly.

"Vixen!"

The older girl sighed. "You know, you wouldn't need names if you weren't worried," she said fiendishly, the vixen ears all but sprouting from her hair.

If she was a vixen, and Kaoru was a raccoon-girl, I wonder what that made me? Probably a mongoose, I thought flatly. Raising my attention back to the other two, I frowned, watching Kaoru leap toward Megumi and reach her hands out for her neck.

"You may complain," I told the two other girls steadily, "But I won't settle to be idle with despair that I wasn't brought along. Kenshin has his obligations, and we have ours. And moping, and fighting, isn't included."

The slender man raised his katana over Kenshin's bowed head. I was sure that he would rather let himself be killed then deface his honor. And somehow, seeing his head fall to the ground for an unjust accusation wasn't something I was planning on just letting happen. Finding a good man is a hard thing.

"Stop! That's not the samurai way!" I shouted at the ex-soldier, eyes troubled.

He sneered back at me. "What do you know? Don't tell me how to live by my code."

I tilted my chin up in defiance. "As a foreigner, I make it my duty to see this way of honor is kept. Without it, how will your people live?" I asked softly.

"Would you follow the samurai way?" the light-eyed soldier asked, interested in me, this small girl who dared to correct him on his own heritage.

"I would. Even if I had to kill myself," I answered steadily.

"You're a bold one."

"I do my best."

"So let me guess…what is he, your boyfriend?"

I grimaced. "Please, tell me where we wear nametags that announce it."

He laughed, and turned back to Kenshin, using the butt of the sword hilt to lift his chin up. "You've gotta tell me where you found this one. You don't come across them very often."

"This one was fortunate." The soldier looked from Kenshin to me, and sized me up.

"So tell me, if I kill you, will she kill me?"

"Probably. But you should be worried more about Sano."

"Sanosuke? Huh?"

"Long time no see, Nobunga."

"CRAP, SANO!!! WHERE'VE YOU BEEN?" the soldier asked, leaping backward and raising his arms in front of himself as Sano walked out from behind the bushes.

"Here n' there. And Kenshin's right. I would kill you. And she would too. So you better let him go."

"WE THOUGHT YOU DIED!"

"More or less," he muttered. "Now, c'mon Nobunga, I asked you to let Kenshin go."

Sano and I sat across the table from each other, the shadows thrown from the single lantern lit flickering across our faces. Yawning widely, I propped my chin up with my hand, resting my elbow on the edge of the table. "Ok, what did Kenshin say to you before he left?"

"He said that he had to go check on some rumors he had been hearing."

"Which means?" I yawned again, and then tried shaking myself awake. Right. Focus. This was a very important matter.

I felt my jaw drop slack and my eyes started to flutter shut. Stifling another yawn, I rubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand.

"- And knowing Kenshin, that means that he's going to – "

Zzzz…

I jolted awake again, reaching across and tapping Sano's palm where it lay open from gesturing on the tabletop. "Sano, can we finish this some other time? Like, In the morning? I'm not quite…awake," I said, blinking furiously to keep my eyes open. Or at least halfway open.

"I understand he went to go check on a gang, and won't be home for awhile, and that he's probably worried for us, which dignifies his orders to me to stay in our room. The rest can wait. I don't intend on going out tonight, anyway. All I want is a soft bed and a warm man." I blinked, shocked. Did those words just come out of my mouth? I looked at Sano's red face as he tried with master effort to avoid looking at me. Yep. I'd said it. A sure sign I was tired and I no shape to be doing anything other then sleeping.

I beat a fast retreat, waving goodnight to Sano and padding down the hall to the room I shared with Kenshin. The floor was cold, and I stepped lightly and quickly. After spending half of my life in bare feet, it was what I was most comfortable in, though it maybe didn't provide the best warmth.

Once in the room, I flopped down onto the futon and burrowed under the covers, curling up tightly and shivering. I nestled into the slight dip that was in indent from where Kenshin always slept, and breathed in the lingering smell of him, a mixture of musk and the cold metallic smell of steel, with a little of an outdoors smell in it too.

Sighing, I closed my eyes, and dropped into a deep sleep.

I stood in the corner of Kenshin's and my room, with only my wrap-band and hakama pants, looking out the window to see what was going on to make the noise below, and what would have caused Kenshin to tell me to stay.

The dark night wasn't revealing anything, so I lit a lantern and held it up next to me. I raised a hand to cover my mouth as I gasped. The front gate had been smashed down, and now lay broken from its' hinges and splintered on the ground by the gate.

Sounds from behind me caused me to turn sharply, and the shoji screens slid open to reveal the same tall dark man that that questioned me earlier in the week in the market. I left the lantern on the windowsill and backed up rapidly into the wall, hands reaching behind me for something, anything. They were met with bare wall.

Gritting my teeth, I stood up as he walked into the room, grinning as he watched me. "So, Sachi-yabi, this is where you come to at night now. How…quaint. The whore and the glorious Hitokiri. How…touching. And at the same time, how did I not see that coming?"

I glared at him, sinking lower into the balls of my feet as I stood warily, ready for anything. "We all have our pasts, Hishori, and not all of use choose to keep them, like you," I spat at him. "Once a slime-bag, always a slime-bag. I remember you now. You owned that whorehouse that masqueraded as an up-right geisha house, and in the dark of the night unspeakable things went on inside it. The stories of torture, murders and deceit don't just stay inside the walls of one house, Hishori. They spread like your evil."

"Big words for such a little girl, Sachi. But you probably think that your Hitokiri will be here any second for you." Hishori leaned forward to me, leering. "He won't, darling, I'm sorry to say. He's being…occupied elsewhere. So it's just you, I and a few of my men for now. But I don't underestimate the Battôsai. So we'll be quick, shall we? You come with us, and no one gets hurt. Not you, not your friends, not your Battôsai. Understand?"

"Like crystal. But unfortunately, understanding and complying aren't the same thing," I hissed, stalking forward toward the long black-haired man with the sharply handsome features. "And I never was one to take orders from the likes of you."

His eyes widened, and his handsome expression turned nasty. His hand cracked out, but I jumped to the side of it, and kicked, my foot colliding with the side of his unguarded jaw. Ducking under his other arm, I ran from the room on light tiptoes, lifting my long hakama pants and sliding along the smooth wood floors.

Skidding to a stop in the corridor near the formal entranceway, I lifted a kendô stick from the rack outside the training room. Armed with it, I ran back into the main house hallways and down the hall to Megumi's room, throwing the door open. "Megumi! Wake up! There's an attack!" I left her as she sat up and threw back her covers, and rushed down the hall to Yahiko's room. He was more ready then Megumi, and ran out after me, his practice bokuto in hand.

I sent him to go find Sano while I alerted Kaoru. Skidding around the corner to her room, I saw a group of men down the hall from her door. Increasing my speed, I ran into them with flying stick, wading into the middle and dealing out heavy blows and sharp cracks on any exposed body parts.

Once they were all dealt with and on the floor, I back-tracked to Kaoru and ripped her door open. "Kaoru! Get up! We're being attacked by a Yakuza group!"

"WHAAAT?!" she yelled, leaping out of bed and reaching for her own kendô stick. Her eyes widened suddenly, and I felt a presence behind me. In-taking a breath sharply, I leapt up and backward, over the gang member. He turned quickly, before I had time to strike, and my stick was met with his steel blade.

Gritting my teeth and grunting from the pressure and strain, I quickly pushed it to the side with force, disengaging his blade from mine. "A little help here would be useful, Kaoru," I gritted out, but she was already a step ahead of me. The man fell with a resounding thud, and a large bump on the top of his skull. Jumping over him, Kaoru joined me as we ran back to the others.

As we passed the middle of the dojo, Hishori appeared in front of us from behind a corner. "Going somewhere, Sachi?" he asked me levelly, and reached forward. I dropped to the ground, planting a hand and sliding between his legs and beneath him. "Yes, away," I retorted. But stopped, seeing as though he had failed in grabbing me, he had grabbed Kaoru instead. The look of surprise on his face at this change in things was comical, but the rumble or rage and flashing of eyes that followed wasn't. She squeaked in surprise and a bit of fear, and I punched him in the back.

Hishori dropped her to the ground and spun to face me, eyes wild. "You're all together too much trouble for a whore," he growled, and reached for his sword. An air current rushed to the side of my face, and I ducked left as a fist whizzed past the side of my head and planted in Hishori's face.

"Thank you, Sano, I was wondering when you were going to get here," I shouted back at him as he, Kaoru and I continued to race down the halls. "Where are Yahiko and Megumi?"

"Safe. I left them in the practice hall once the rest of the gang had been cleared out from the back of the dojo. They all ran after they decided things had gone to hell."

"Good."

"Would someone mind telling me what's going on here?" Kaoru demanded hotly, and I turned to her.

"Sorry. It'd be my fault as it's me they'd be after."

"Arrgh…" she growled, and looked as if she wouldn't mind giving me what the gang member outside her bedroom had received. But if I had been in her place, I would have been angry too. It's not every day that your dojo gate is destroyed. Or hopefully not, anyway.

I arrived at the front door first, and held it open for them as they passed through. Just as I was about to leave myself, a hand grabbed me from behind, and I was thrown across the floor, skidding and crashing into a wall to a stop. I watched booted feet as they kicked the door shut and then an arm as it dropped the bolt across it.

Blinking slowly, I tried to rise up by pushing myself up with my arms, but I was stopped as the same boot I had watched pressed down on my back. My face slammed into the floor again, and I felt blood rush out of my nose. Another foot collided with my ribs, and I groaned in pain.

"This would have been so much easier if you would have heeded what was right, Sachi. It's a pity you didn't listen before, so with these injuries now, do you know what that means?"

"You're an ass?" I offered, and was treated to another sharp pain shooting this time from my arm and a boot heel to my elbow.

"No. This means a few week's recovery from these bruises and cuts. So if you can't work out in the geisha house for me, you can work in my own bedroom, can't you?"

I was abruptly hoisted up into the air by my hair, and I yowled in pain and slashed out with my hands and nails, catching Hishori across the face. He hissed in pain, and I glared at him through the blood that streamed down my face and over my eyes from the cut in my forehead that I had gotten from sliding into the wall. "Although I have to say, sasuga, Sachi-yabi."

Suddenly, the door literally exploded apart behind us, cut down the middle and then kicked in. The bolt shattered, flying through the air. Hishori ducked, dropping me lower. I took the opportunity to walk my feet up his chest and kick him in the face, biting into his wrist that's hand held me at the same time. Yelling in pain, he dropped me again, and I crawled down the hall, grasping the side of the wall with two hands and pulling myself up. Turning back, Hishori had started to turn toward me again, and then stopped, slowly turning to face the nonexistent door instead.

Kenshin stood in the doorway, only he looked as I had remembered him from the days when I first knew him as Hitokiri Battôsai. His once big blue eyes were narrowed and turned a deep red-gold with rage and bloodlust, and he held his sakabatõ in front of him at the ready. "I wondered what the gang member had meant when he had told me that 'the boss had an appointment with a flower', but now I understand. Sachi is obviously the flower, and you are obviously the offending boss. And I am here to kill you for the trouble you have caused me, and the pain you have caused her."

Flipping his sakabatõ, he pointed the blade edge out, like if would have been on a normal katana and settled lower, preparing to strike. My eyes widened, and Hishori stopped still.

"Battôsai. It's good to see you again."

"No time for small talk, Mygomi Hishori. You had your chance, and now it's your time to die."

Hishori's eyes narrowed to match Kenshin's. "I don't doubt your skill, Battôsai. I'd be a fool to do so. But I also do not underestimate mine. Know that even if you do kill me, others will be after what I sought, sooner or later, and they will be more powerful," he said, pointing down the hall to where I leaned against the wall, eyes wide. Kenshin's eyes flickered down to me, and for a second he faltered. That time was all Hishori needed to draw his sword and lunge forward.

Kenshin's eyes flicked back to Hishori, and he raised his sakabatõ to meet the falling katana. They sparred, and Hishori met his thrusts, parrying them. He lunged down at Kenshin, chopping down with his sword in an attempt to crush the smaller Kenshin. His blade sliced thin air instead.

Turning, he looked to see Kenshin behind him, ready for his next attack. Mygomi yelled, arcing in from the right. Kenshin held his stance, but then was forced to jump back as Mygomi suddenly changed the direction of his attack, reversing it to come in from the left. The two blades met again between the two bodies, pressed together in a tight X.

Pressing back, Kenshin stepped between the blades and Hishori's body and drew his sakabatõ down swiftly, loosening the lock of the two blades. Jumping into the air over the other man, he raised his sword over his head and swung it down as he fell. A resounding crack echoed down the hall, and I winced and closed my eyes until I heard the thump of a body hit the floor.

I opened my eyes to meet Kenshin's narrowed gaze on my own. "That is the second time I have killed for you, going against the vow I made to myself ten years ago. I put myself in further repentance and debt for you. Though I wish I were never pressed to do it, for you, I am willing to go against that vow. But do not make me continue to break it. The next time I must kill someone, I cannot say without doubt that I won't mind it."

He lowered his bloody sword blade, turning it over again so it became a once again normal sakabatõ. But with the red blood dripping from the blade, I wondered if it would really ever be normal again.

I went back to our room as Kenshin herded the others back inside and helped Sano re-erect some semblance of an outside gate again. Crawling back into my bed, I pressed my face against the mattress, trying to keep the tears in by pressing them back under my eyelids, and stifling the sobs that choked my throat.

What I had seen tonight wasn't either the Hitokiri I had known, or the Rurouni that was peaceful now. What I had witnessed was the true Hitokiri Battôsai side that had earned him the name issued in a hushed whisper of fear in dark alleys and inside gangs. And once I had seen that side, I knew why Kenshin hadn't wanted anything to do with it, and why others spoke of him in fear. And I had caused it, for what seemed to be the second time.

A soft hand fell on the back of my head, smoothing down my hair and going lower to my shoulders, where they rubbed across them, trying to loosen the tight knots of muscle that had settled between my shoulder blades.

Turning my head up, I sniffed, looking back at Kenshin. "I'm sorry. Do you want me to leave?" I asked, and sat up quickly, swinging my feet off the side of the slightly raised futon, getting ready to leave if he asked me to.

Kenshin reached toward my face, and I subliminally cringed away from his outstretched fingers. He frowned, and a look like pain flitted behind his wide blue eyes.

"Sorry," I apologized again, seeing the look on his face. "I didn't mean it. I just…" I trailed off, and his fingers landed lightly below my eyes, smoothing the tears off my cheekbones with his thumb.

"No. Stay. I need you here." Kenshin said quietly, and I crawled down the bed to him, resting my forehead on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and up the back of my neck, cupping my head in his hand. He supported me as a few solitary tears ran down my nose and dropped off onto his gi, staining the shoulder, soaking through until it was dark in small patches.

"Kenshin."

"Bijin?"

"I'm afraid."

"I know. I'm afraid too."

"You hide it better then I do."

"But it's still there, living inside me. We would be fools not to fear things. That would be the worst mistake to make. If you were never afraid of anything, you would never have the sense of caution that makes you aware."

"Kenshin, he said more would be after me. Why are they after me? I haven't even been a prostitute for the past few years. I don't have any more profit on me."

Kenshin gently pushed me up so he could look eye-to-eye with me. "Bijin. There is something you need to know."

"What?" I asked, cold fear trickling into my heart, his serious eyes and tone making me nervous.

"I learned something tonight from the man I interrogated to the gang's dojo. There is a price up on you in the slave trader circles."

My eyes widened, and I put a hand up to my mouth. To have a price on one's self is like slave suicide. Once up, it doesn't come down until you're caught and auctioned off to the highest bidder, whoever they may be. "I don't understand. I bought my freedom. They can't buy me or sell me back into the trade!"

"The price is high enough to make that fact not matter. And to them, freedom papers are only slips of paper. And they can be ripped up and thrown away."

The room spun before my eyes, and I gasped. Kenshin pushed my head down, and the blood rushed back up to my head again. The dizziness and ringing stopped, and I looked up again. "So this means that more traders will be coming to try to find me."

"Yes, bijin."

"Kenshin, what am I supposed to do? I can't run. They'd find me wherever. And I can't hide. They'll rip the city apart until they find me."

"You'll stay here."

"But that puts you and the rest of the people here in danger."

His eyes went dark and narrowed again. "Then we'll deal with the danger. But you go nowhere without me from now on. No leaving, and no running. The only way I can protect you is if you stay with me."

"I understand."

"Good. Then for now, the only thing that we can do is rest. A body can't function without sleep."

I nodded, and numbly slipped back under the blankets. Kenshin soon joined me, but I turned my back to him, facing away. Kenshin put a hand on my shoulder and rolled me back over to him. I sighed, and then nestled against him, thinking I'd only be safe if I could melt into him. He wrapped his arms around my back, holding me to him and resting his lips on the top of my head. I focused on the rhythm of his breathing, and slowly forced my breath even to match his.

Protected, I drifted off to meet uneasy dreams of shadowed men, and chains that clicked against it's self. My wrists tingled in remembrance, and felt heavy, as if I were wearing them again. The weight suddenly dissipated, and instead a steady presence by my side accompanied me through my dreams for the rest of the night.

Kaoru looked suspiciously at me, then back to Kenshin. "How come the instant she walks into town we suddenly have more gang traffic? What do they do, follow her?"

Kenshin and I looked at one another, silently conversing with our eyes. Now wasn't the time to tell the girl about why they were here. It would only add fuel to her fire that she had stoked high enough against me already.

"And STOP DOING THAT!" she yelled. "I know you're talking even if you are only using your eyes!" She spun off and Kenshin shrugged.

"Miss Kaoru doesn't like being left out of things," he explained.

"I guess not. She certainly isn't as cheerful as usual today."

"She doesn't like it when things are happening around her that she doesn't know, especially when they effect her."

We both turned to look at the smashed front gate and I grimaced. "Yeah. I guess that's kind of in the realms of effecting her. Do you think I should pay for the new one?"

"That would be a nice gesture."

I sighed. "New gate, coming right up. As soon as I find some money."

"Are you turning into Sano?"

"I resent that."

"I resent it more." Sano's voice behind us caused Kenshin and I to jump a few feet in the air.

"Oro?"

"Whoa!"