italics/thoughts
flashback
see glossary at end for definition

Chapter Six
Ansatsusha no Kangae [An Assassin's Thoughts]


"Uncle Ken, are we gonna come back soon?"

"Yeah, can we, Uncle Ken?"

Kenshin smiled down at the two young girls tugging eagerly to the hem of his hakama. "Certainly, Ayame and Sazumi. But for now you should go to bed and get some rest, that you should."

He smiled and waved as the girls and their grandfather disappeared down the path. During the time he had stayed at the dojo, they had become like the little sisters he had never had. His smile faded.

He turned to walk back to the dojo, and his hand brushed against his sakabata. Sometimes he wished that he had never picked up a blade, but he always wished that he had never taken another's life. Nothing gave him the right to end another's life. Nothing. Not even for the Hitokiri Battousai.

He sighed as he slid the ::sudare:: shut behind him.


Miyuko stepped out from behind the tree, silently watching the screen to make sure he did not come out again. This was the man she was to kill? The man her employer said was so dangerous? Though he looked as though he could use the katana at his waist, Miyuko did not think that he would hurt a fly. Miyuko was used to more...challenging...targets. The man couldn't be a government official or the like, either, wearing those clothes and staying in such a small place--they just didn't do that. Why was he so important, then, enough so that her employer was willing to pay thrice the usual sum of money for his assassination?

Pulling a black strip of cloth from her pouch, she folded it so that it made a sort-of mask. She tied it in a particular way, so that it both hid her face and held her hair back out of her eyes. Add that to her red-lined black hakama and haori set, now billowing in the wind, and she was a fearsome sight indeed.

She waited until the lamps were turned off, standing as still as a rock. She counted the time off in her head silently, and after an hour and a half, decided that it was safe to make her move.

She stepped with a silent grace that had been practiced and perfected for years, and moved quickly without a single rustle of cloth or shuffle of a footstep. The sudare made not a sound as she slid it open.

Now where would he be...?

She peered into the first room she came upon, but there just was a young boy with dark hair, snoring and sprawled out on his mat; he had been with the red-haired man earlier, she remembered. Miyuko moved on. The next room was empty, and the one after held a young woman, also with dark hair, slightly younger than Miyuko's age; she was one of his companions, as well. There were only two rooms after that, and both were empty. Gliding down the hall, she saw a sudare, left open, leading to the outside. She walked smoothly to it, stepping silently before the doorway. She drew her sakabata and slowly moved it forward so that she could check the reflection for any signs of trouble on the porch. She rotated it slightly, until its blade reflected the red-haired man.

Surprisingly, he was sitting directly next to the screen opening, leaning against the wall with his head down and gripping his sword as he slept, in a position where he could not be seen until someone coming out was level with him. Very clever, but odd--that was a warrior's sleeping stance. Very odd. Could he actually have been a warrior, maybe during the Revolution? Possibly. But that did not matter now; a sleeping warrior, no matter how strong or skilled, was the same as anyone else when asleep: just as easy to kill. She stepped in front of him.

Miyuko drew her katana, the one on her back. It was a long, dark katana, with red diamond-shapes set on a black handle, and the fang of a tiger fastened just above the hilt, . Her feared katana, ::Toramune::. The one she used for killings.

She raised Toramune; both her hands held the hilt, which was hovering just below her chin, and were on the katana the opposite way, a good position for a downward thrust; that would make it a clean kill. Letting go with her left hand, she raised Toramune above her shoulder and prepared to strike...

But for some reason she could not. There was no urge to kill, at all. Miyuko was shocked. Why couldn't she kill him? Her blade had slain countless, and now she couldn't kill one man?

Why?

Those two little girls they would probably cry if he died. He probably had friends, and family, and a wife who would cry, too. How had she felt when ::Akita:: had been...? Miyuko wrestled her thoughts away from that; this was no time for reminiscing, especially not about him. She would have to act quickly, before she paused again.

Miyuko gripped the katana.

Why should you kill him? A little voice in the back of her head taunted. Is taking another life, spilling more blood, and causing so much suffering really worth your pay in yen...?

Yes, she answered herself. Other people are nothing to me. I suffered the fires of Hell, and they should feel it, too!

Akita suffered, too. Would he want this just for him?

She couldn't answer herself.

Closing both her mind and her eyes, Miyuko thrust Toramune downward sharply at the man...

...And she missed.


sudare: Japanese sliding paper-and-wood screen door
Toramune: "Tiger Heart"
Akita: a male's name meaning approximately "autumn rice field"