-
He killed her.
The thought ran around and around in Kaoru's head as she pounded on unyielding air, tears trickling down her cheeks; a foolish chain of words, given the blood she'd seen on Kenshin's blade before he was ever trapped in the demon's circle.
He killed her. He killed her. He killed her...
Protecting us.
All for nothing. She'd felt a breath of freedom with that slice of steel, a momentary lapse in the curse's hold - then acid ice had clamped down once more. The circle was still glowing, the fever still eating at them all. Misao and Megumi were white-faced and wobbling on their feet; Benkai had crumpled near the steps of the silent house behind them, red lines lacing arms and throat.
The curse breaks if the caster dies. So- Involuntarily, her eyes flicked to the house. So quiet, after that scream?
"Go."
Kaoru jerked at that familiar voice. "Kenshin-"
"Go." His eyes were still violet, but his tone hard and chill as if he faced Saitou over drawn blades.
But - to kill - I-
"You are the master of the swords that save life." Bleeding, Kenshin leaned on sparking air, cold gaze fixed on a still brown kimono. "Save his."
She ran.
Wooden steps rattled under her sandals; Kaoru raced for the door, hoping speed would startle whoever was still in there enough that she could knock them out before they had time to counterattack. I can't kill. But I can't let Benkai die. But I can't-
A hard hand yanked her aside, just as a blot of purple lightning struck where she'd been standing. "Far enough, Tanuki."
Oooh, I hate that name! Temper overriding good sense, she tried to bokken Saitou a good one-
Thunk.
A very surprised Chinese feng shui master slumped to the floor, eyes swirling.
And a shiver of fever... lifted away.
"They don't have to be dead," Kaoru realized, trading blows with a mad Chinese woman with a black-stained staff. Felt her hair prickle from static, as yet another bolt passed close enough to singe her sleeve. "They don't have to be-"
The far wall exploded.
-
Guess the kami's rules about youkai not interfering with humans kind of get thrown out the window when you smack 'em a good one...
Sanosuke shook off the last of the chains, dodging balls of white fire that sailed up, over, and around him, thrown by the triplet of now-withered crones out for his blood. The gargoyle kitten was clinging to his jacket like a sack of horse chestnut burrs, wailing for Mama Cat. His guards lay broken on the floor, holes where their hearts should be and horror fixed on their faces. Poor bastards never stood a chance.
"Mortal." The three-part voice was like wind hammering the shore; like a typhoon tearing the last planks of a ship asunder. "You will learn what it is to face us."
"I've-" The white blast flung him against a bit of still-standing wall; Sano barely twisted in time to keep from crushing the kitten. Brown eyes went wide as wood flowed, seizing him in thorny manacles. "I've got a name, damn it!"
"Not for much longer." Black raised a wrinkled hand.
"Aku. Soku. Zan."
Gasping, White touched a trembling hand to the steel piercing her breast. "You... dare..."
A swirl of mist, and all three were gone.
Dazed as if he'd taken a Ryuu Tsui Sen, Sanosuke blinked up from the floor. Those shoes, that stance... no, it couldn't be. "Saitou?"
Wolf-yellow eyes narrowed. "Rooster-head."
"Nice to see you, too." Sanosuke felt his eyes slide shut. "Look out for the kitten. She's really not that bad... hell, why am I telling you, not like you're going to look out for a cat that isn't a cat..."
"Prrr?" Fur nudged his hand.
"Kitten?" Kaoru's voice, shocking him out of the gray haze of exhaustion. "Sano!"
"Jou-chan?" It couldn't be. The universe just wasn't that kind; he'd seen that, in Kenshin's ravaged body.
But what if it is?
Hardly daring to breathe, Sanosuke opened his eyes.
Familiar blue smiled back at him. "Hey."
"Jou-chan." He blinked back tears. Blood everywhere, bodies everywhere, but none of them were hers. Nothing else mattered. "You look... great."
"And you look like ten miles of Tokaido potholes!" A bokken waved threateningly under his nose, neat match to the blistered hand helping him sit up. "Have you seen what your hand looks like? Megumi's going to tie you up and stuff you in a coffin!"
Sano grinned. "Oooh, kinky..." His stomach suddenly dropped to his ankles. "Wait. Megumi's here?"
"Ahou." Saitou snatched up the last groaning curse-caster from the floor, the shaven Chinese head bearing an all-too-characteristic bokken-knot. "Outside."
Outside? You mean I have to move? Biting back a whimper, Sanosuke got to his feet. He was a man. He was tough. He was...
About to fall over.
Kitten squirming in her grasp, Kaoru lodged herself under Sano's arm, tugging him back into balance when his steps faltered. "We were so worried about you, you jerk! But you probably don't know what's going on, it's been a nightmare-"
"Some Chinese spy hired that Demona and these feng shui guys to curse Kenshin, and you, and kill us," Sano said matter-of-factly, counting bodies as he passed them. "Looks like between you and those weird youkai sisters the Wolf chased off, you got 'em all. Except for that guy Saitou's got. Ghost Face, I think they called him." He drew in a welcome breath of night air as they stepped outside. Wait a second. Something's missing. "Hey." He swiped a hand at his forehead, feeling a blessed absence of heat. "You got the curse!"
"Almost."
"Kenshin." Sanosuke slid to a stop on the veranda stairs, wobbling against Kaoru. I thought you were dying. I knew you were dying.
Or maybe he had. This Kenshin wasn't weary and sick, so haunted by guilt and remorse he'd lost himself healing everyone but his own family. This Kenshin stood straight and strong as Megumi bent over a fallen man in glasses and a brown kimono, hand by his daisho, ready for any attackers they'd missed. Long red hair glowed like flame over his blue gi, his cross-shaped scar was clear and unfaded as if it'd been made the year before, and his eyes-
Amber. Sanosuke swallowed, looking over the clearing again. Seeing what he'd missed before; while some bodies had the characteristic whirling slices of Shinomori's Kaiten Kenbu, and others the deep thrust of Saitou's Gatotsu, all too many bore the neat, clean slashes of Hiten Mitsurugi.
Battousai's angry ghost...
No. No, he couldn't be a ghost. The small figure had feet.
Saitou arched a brow. "He broke the circle?"
"Wards of that nature require active concentration." Aoshi appeared out of shadows, cleaning his kodachi. "Disrupt that, and they shatter without further interference."
"I can't break Benkai's fever." Megumi's voice was clinical, a doctor's, right hand taking the young man's pulse with studied calm. But her left fist clenched on her medical bag, knuckles white. "I don't know why. It broke for the rest of us."
"Guess." Dropping his prisoner to blood-soaked earth, Saitou raised his blade. "Make your farewells to this world, enchanter."
Ghost Face's shoulders shook. Good, Sanosuke thought maliciously. Creep ought to be cowering...
Hang on a sec. He's not shaking.
He's laughing!
"Go ahead." The curse-caster's Japanese was rough, shot through with overtones of the Mongolian plains. "Kill me. Murder me as you did the others! Kill me, and watch him wither away. His own broken oath binds the curse to him; I can taste it in the air, tearing at his heart. There's nothing you can do to save him."
"No," Kenshin said softly. Amber softened, violet glimmering in its depths. "There is."
-
So this is what death feels like.
The rest of the world was dim and cold, but Benkai could still feel himself breathing. It hurt.
It'd be so much easier just to stop.
Himura promised he'd bring me home. I don't want to... make him break his word...
"What is your name?"
You know. He couldn't get the words out. Not that it mattered.
"What is your name?" Firm. Fierce. It demanded an answer.
Breathe in. Air. "Private Enomouto Benkai, translator. Commission date..."
"A soldier's name. Unfit for an honorable shugyosha." A known hand gripped his shoulder, small and warm and strong as steel. "From now on, you are Enomouto Benkai of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu."
And within him, something - shattered.
No - my duty-
Was gone, fading like dreams in the dawn. All that was real was Kenshin's hand on his shoulder, the solid weight of the bokken in his belt, and the cold nose brushing curious whiskers over his foot.
"A hatchling?" Benkai whispered, blinking at the white glow of young eyes. Forget the sudden absence of the odd weight he couldn't quite remember; like a spiked band on his heart that had somehow rusted free, leaving only echoes of pain, and honor, and regret. This... this was real.
She needs me. They need me.
"A watchbeast this young, on her own?" Benkai fought to sit up. "Where's the rest of her clan?"
"Isn't any rest of her clan," a tall, battered guy in torn whites said tiredly.
"Sagara Sanosuke?" Benkai hazarded. "What do you mean, no clan? She can't be more than a few days old!"
"Yeah. Well." Sanosuke was still giving him a very odd look; then the tired fighter shook it off. "Long story short... ah hell, I'd better just show you."
-
Demona gasped in smoke-stained air, blinking away the black rheum of death on her eyes. Burned flesh crumbled away as she sat up, revealing whole skin underneath. How... how long was I...?
Long enough, apparently. The clearing she'd meant to make a new clanhold was empty save for ashes and charred bodies.
Empty, and silent.
I hear no one. No one.
A body size let her identify as Dragonfly's sprawled just inside the ruins of the front doorway, blackened skull gaping in empty surprise. Demona ignored the mess, going through the ash of the curse-caster's sleeves and pouches with methodical slowness, then frantic haste.
No seal.
Fear clenching talons in her heart, Demona bolted for what had been the rookery. Cooked blood, half-charred human bodies, shattered chains, spell-blasted walls...
And not a trace of eggs. Or the hatchling.
"Noooo!"
-
Dawn broke just as the watchbeast finished her skin of goat's milk. She yawned, curled into a fuzzy, tiger-striped pile next to the hay-padded eggs, and hardened into stone.
"You're sure she's not an oni?" Sano said in an undertone.
Rubbing the urge to sleep away from his face, Kenshin let their voices draw him out of the sad melancholy left after they'd washed the blood away. Sano had protested that he was fine, but Megumi had taken one look at the battered fighter and ordered him into the wagon with their odd cargo.
Benkai laughed, setting down the empty skin against the side of their appropriated wagon. "Trust me, Sano, all gargoyles do that. They're really good people. There's a whole clan in Ishimura, watching over our nights; just try telling them about the sword-ban!" He shrugged. "Though most gargoyles didn't carry swords even before it. With their strength and speed, they're more into jujitsu. They know how to dodge blades, but only a few of them, like Tomi-san, ever really bother to learn how to use them."
"He was your teacher?" Kaoru asked, squeezing Kenshin's hand in firm reassurance as they kept pace with the rolling wheels. I know, her eyes said. I know it hurts.
But I love you.
"He tried," Benkai said sheepishly. "I just couldn't seem to get it. Not until-" He hesitated. Bit his lip. "Himura-san. What did you do?"
"What my shishou did for me, long ago." Kenshin smiled. "Helped you find the strength within yourself to live."
"No." Gripping the side of the wagon, Benkai shook his head. "No, it's more than that."
"More than that?" Wide-eyed, Kaoru looked between them.
Benkai swallowed dryly. "I'm not who I was yesterday, am I?"
Kenshin's smile faded. "No. No, I think that you are not. And I do not think you will be able to reclaim that self, that I do not." His gaze went distant. "A sword is a weapon. Hiten Mitsurugi is satsujin-ken; it kills, even as it protects. To save your life, I slew the soldier within you. As my shishou once slew the child within me."
"Shinta," Kaoru whispered.
"I am not him anymore, beloved." And it hurt, it hurt so much to say it. Even more than it hurt to know it. As he had finally known it, facing a creature that wanted nothing more than his family's death.
Human, hanyou, youkai - I am still myself.
And that self... is not Shinta.
"I spent years trying to become him again. Trying to reclaim the child who had never touched a blade. All that time, chasing a ghost, when I should have been with you. When I could have been happy, had I only accepted who - and what - I was." Kenshin touched black hair, fearing to look in her eyes. "I hope... someday you can forgive me."
"Kenshin..."
I've hurt her. Again. He closed his eyes, heart aching.
"You baka!" Thwack.
"Oro!"
"Some Hiten Mitsurugi master," Sano muttered, leaning over the side to yank up on a blue gi. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Two hands...?"
"Funny. Get in here." Sano dumped Kenshin on the wagon floor. Looked him over, shook his head, and swung himself over the wagon's side. "Think I want to talk to a certain fox-lady anyway. All those times I swore I saw kitsune-ears on her, and she never 'fessed up - huh!"
"Because she didn't know, you jerk!" Kaoru jumped into the argument. "You think Kenshin knew he was part dragon?"
Sano grinned, striding forward to give Saitou and the ninjas on point a nod, and wink at Megumi handling the reins. "Guess you guys are going to think twice when I tell you something's a tanuki trick, huh?"
Kaoru hurried to catch up to his longer strides. "Trains are not tanuki!"
"Oh yeah? You checked all of them?"
"Why, you-"
Kenshin smiled as they settled back into the old, familiar arguments, feeling the parry and thrust of their ki like patterns of a comforting kata. It felt good. Like home.
Almost good enough to distract him from what he had done.
"It doesn't feel wrong, you know," Benkai said quietly. "It just feels - different." He interlaced his fingers, searching for words. "Like standing by a stove after a winter earth-shock. Everything's upside-down, some of it's in pieces... but I'm okay. Really."
"It will feel more than different, soon enough," Kenshin said bluntly. There is so much I should tell you. So much I should say.
But his gaze fell on a cloth-wrapped bundle behind Megumi, and caution barred the words from his tongue. "I will tell you more when we are away from here."
Benkai followed his gaze to the bound and unconscious feng shui master. "Megumi said he'll be out for hours." Doubt rang in the young ronin's voice. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"I have had my fill of death." Kenshin suppressed a shudder at his own words. Too true. Gods, far too true. Something within him had... not reveled at the deaths, but...
The shock of steel through flesh. The savory salt of blood-smell in the air. The pulse of dying ki swept up by his own as their owners' hearts failed. It had sung to him, sweet as the siren call of Kaoru's love.
Saitou was right, curse it all. I was... hungry.
Now Battousai slept within him like a sweet-sticky child, finally sated after an O'bon feast. Ready to respond to attack if any threatened, but otherwise content to wander in peaceful dream.
As he... I... was content to leave Ghost Face among the living, once we knew his hold on the curse was broken. Kenshin breathed deep of country air, feeling the hitokiri's strength inextricably mixed with the rurouni's in his veins. Two sides of a self, but still, we are one.
Yet - if we leave such a curse-caster living, what do we do with him?
Benkai laughed suddenly.
Kenshin arched a questioning brow. "Aa?"
"I just... well..." The ronin shrugged. "You realize, we probably just took out the one thing the Chinese had that our army couldn't handle? And if I'd done my duty as a soldier, I never could have - we couldn't have..." Words died as Benkai paled.
"So," Kenshin said softly, feeling the shock finally ripple through Benkai's ki. "Now it hurts."
"Oh gods." Pain radiated from the young warrior as he hugged himself against the chill. Against the knowing of what he was... and what he could no longer be.
Working with the jostle of the wagon, Kenshin leaned himself against the shaking young man. "So now you know." He took a chill hand within his own, finding the acupressure points that would soothe a torn heart. "A soldier is not a swordsman. A soldier is a child of guns and the fog of war; a creature of bullets and cannon and never, never knowing the face of those you slay. Though a soldier, like a swordsman, is trained to kill... he is first a human being. And most humans would never, could never, knowingly lift hand against another to kill." Press and soothe. Shift the grip slightly, and press again, fighting the body's slide into shock. He could lose this young one in a heartbeat. "For most, there is a barrier in the soul. A lock that holds back the killer within. And though soldiers may slip it with drink or hate or the mob's fury of their troop firing as one... still, it remains."
Benkai blinked. Nodded slowly. "Sergeant Deguchi said something like that," he whispered. "That - some soldiers hesitate-"
"All soldiers hesitate," Kenshin said bluntly. "A swordsman cannot."
Behind glass, dark brown sought his gaze, wide with disbelief. No, Kenshin could read in that pale face. Tell me it's not true!
"To create a swordsman, to unlock the strength within you that could fight spells of malice, I... shattered that lock. It will never hold you again." Violet met that fearful glance, gentle and inexorable as the tide. "All that will keep you from murder is the strength of your own heart."
Benkai shook his head, ghostly pale. "I'm - I'm not that strong-"
"You are."
"How can you know?"
So much agony in those quiet words. Kenshin wanted to soothe it, to whisper gently to the injured child until it was lulled into sleep...
But gentleness was not the answer. "Benkai. Look at me."
Glass-shaded brown met amber, and shuddered.
"You see?" Battousai said matter-of-factly. "I am here, and you do not flee. You have the strength, Benkai." Amber softened, gaining flecks of violet. "And since we have the strength not to slay this enemy of ours, shugyosha... what shall we do with him?"
"Himura." Aoshi's voice, ghosting back on the morning breeze.
Kenshin extended his ki sense outward, catching the worried and wary auras of Yan's fellow villagers. "I wondered how long it would take our encounter to draw notice, that I did." He arched a red brow at the ronin; silent question.
Benkai started, breath settling back into something nearer normal. Turned a considering look on the limp bundle of curse-caster. "You know," he said slowly, "I think I have an idea."
-
Nguyen Sun watched the small party of battered Japanese approach, and tried not to sweat. It didn't matter that he was the headman of Red Creek village. It didn't matter that he had two dozen of best brawlers his farming settlement had ever seen backing him up. It didn't even matter that every last one of the foreigners was sporting bandages, dark-ringed eyes that spoke of a sleepless night, and an air of overall weariness that ordinarily would have had the nastier thugs among Nguyen's entourage licking their chops at the thought of easy prey.
No. What mattered was the wagon. A very ordinary wagon, drawn by a phlegmatic brown pony, carrying a pretty woman driver, a mysterious tarp-covered cargo, a cloth bundle the size of a thick rug, and one half-asleep Japanese redhead. A very memorable wagon the Chinese had brought through here not a month before.
Red hair, Sun thought with a shiver, thinking queasily of the good silver bars hidden under his house, tacit exchange for his influence silencing his fellow villagers when they might have objected to the Chinese encampment. The Japanese assassin.
Li hadn't said that was what he was, but Sun hadn't acted as a gatherer of information for China this long without knowing when to gather information for himself. Li had arranged for those... very odd people to take over the abandoned clan-house a few hills away. Li had brought in supplies, and soldiers, and quietly arranged for his people to keep watch for any Japanese heading this way. And paid well for the privilege. Li had said, without ever actually saying, that his people meant to work against Japan, reaching out through uncanny means to slay those accursed invaders in Seoul.
Li wasn't here. The wagon was. Add that to the noise and odd lights that the whole village had seen last night, dancing on the crest of the hill like far-off lightning; the smoke that still lingered in the air now, bringing the all too familiar scent of burning bodies...
There's only six of them, Sun told himself sternly, looking over the redhead's companions; the lady wagon driver, a threadbare man in dirty whites with bandaged hands, a tall man in policeman's blue, and a pretty young miss in swordsman's gi and hakama. And, of course, the brown-clad translator. Four to one. We can take them.
Wait. Weren't there supposed to be seven of them?
Six, seven - what does it matter? And two of those are women! Pah, are you afraid just because they're carrying swords? The samurai are dead and gone!
Violet eyes met his, deepening to a steely blue. Almost as if that quiet gaze was flecked with fire...
Sun froze.
One of the Japanese men snorted, wolf-yellow eyes coldly amused. Said something in an undertone.
"Good morning!" The young translator stepped forward with a cheerful bow, bokken tucked through his obi. His accent was tolerable, even if it did smack of Seoul. "You are Nguyen Sun, yes? Yan mentioned you were the man to see about... matters around here."
"That was wise of him." Sun puffed out his chest and stalked forward, flash of fear pushed aside. He wasn't dealing with the assassin, after all; he was dealing with this impressionable young man. Benkai, did Yan say his name was? Heh, the old carter was right. Far too transparent to hide his true nature. Sun didn't bother to hide a smirk as he met that glass framed-gaze, probing for the weakness, the will to see good in others Sun could twist to his own advantage.
Brown eyes matched his glance, guileless and unafraid. "I think we've found something that belongs to you."
"Have you?" Just how much of a fool are you, boy? We're close in. We could take you all in an instant-
"I think so." Still smiling, Benkai waved at the man in white. Who promptly plucked out the cloth-wrapped bundle and dumped it on the ground in front of Sun's second in command, Chen.
The bundle groaned. Chen threw him a wary look. Pulled away dark cotton.
It can't be. Sun recoiled as if he'd unveiled a pit viper.
Chinese eyes glared up at him over a silken gag, black and hot with rage.
One of Li's enchanters!
"I'm sure you know what to do with this," Benkai said softly.
Sun swallowed. "Get out of here."
"But Boss," one of Chen's younger cousins objected.
"I said they're leaving!" Sun snapped. Glared at the young ronin in brown, painfully aware his heart wasn't in it. "Get on the main road and don't stop. Don't take anything from my people. Don't talk to them. Don't even breathe near them if you can help it. Just go."
"Arigatou, Nguyen-san," the redhead said gently.
Not trusting his voice, Sun just stepped back, holding up a hand to stop his underlings as the wagon creaked past.
"We're just going to let them go?" Chen snarled as the laden wagon rounded the corner out of sight. "We could have-"
"Chen." Sun nodded at the forest clinging to the right side of the road. "What's up there?"
"A flock of-" The thickset man bit his lip, staring at the brown wings stuttering through the wind. "They had someone up there?"
The eyes, Chen. I keep telling you to look at the eyes. I should take my own advice more often. Sun didn't know how Yan had missed it; the cloth-seller was getting older, but he wasn't blind.
Redhead's a killer. The others may be fighters, or not - but he would just walk through us in a rain of blood.
Even Benkai's eyes weren't innocent. That clear brown gaze had known what Sun and his men were capable of, what they meant to do... and was utterly confident they would never have the chance.
"Yes, Chen," Sun said dryly. "They had someone up there."
-
Tanuki - raccoon-dog.
Jou-chan - "Little Missy".
Oni - ogre.
Baka - idiot.
Arigatou - thank you.
