And the dead didn't come back. Right?
He sat up, looked around the room. they were laughing. Probably at him. "Keep laughing and i'll cut out your tongues." He said, his voice serious and cold, his face red with embarrassment.
"Or you'll what, Saito?" Came a familiar voice. A ruroni's voice. A DEAD ruroni's voice.
He turned toward the voice, the person whom the voice came from.
he backed into a wall. "You're dead. You're fuckin' dead!" He said, pushing against the wall.
"No. I'm as alive as you are, that i am." kenshin said.
He was dead. That was the only explanation that he could think of. He, Saito Hajime was dead.
Standing, Kenshin was braced by Yahiko and Tien as he walked slowly over to Saito. "You're not dead either." Kenshin said, rolling his eyes. Kenshin sat down beside Saito, raised a shaking hand to his shirt and pulled the folds apart, revealing the bandages stained with old blood. "If i was dead, do you think i would need these?" he asked, arching eyebrows. "If you were dead, would this hurt?" He slapped the man in front of him.
Touching his cheek, Saito felt the sting of reddening skin from the battosai's blow. He was alive. Then so was Kenshin.
"How did..?" He left the question hanging.
"Aoushi made it look like he was dead." Yahiko offered, keeping unnecesarily close to Kenshin.
"So..You are alive and well."
"Mostly." Kaoru said, laying a small, delicate hand on the ruroni's shoulder.
"What business did you come to discuss, saito?" Kenshin asked, reminding him of the reason he had come in the first place.
"Two families have been massacred over the last week and a half. We belive it was the same person or people. The families were of govornment officials living here in Tokyo. My faction of the police force was put in charge of the case." He said, his voice still bewildered.
"It's Yuushi." Tien said, completely confident in his assumption.
"Who?" Saito asked, turning to the other red haired man.
"I'll explain later." Sanouske said, looking out of the open doorway.
"We belive he may be hiding out in another house, somewhere near here. We think he has committed other murders over the countryside. He leaves no witnesses, so we don't know what he looks like. That's all we have." Saito said, staring at Kenshin.
"I know how to get him to come out of hiding." Kenshin said, startling everyone.
"How?" Was the unanimous question.
"Live bait." His voice was one of the Battosai. "Me."
"No!" Kaoru said, hitting him over the head. "I already lost you once to him, i'm not doing it again!" Tears were swelling in her eyes.
"We have to go on and act like he is still dead. Otherwise he will suspect something." Tien said, Kenshin was still asleep. He had slipped a sleeping draught into his tea earlier.
"He's after me. Only me. I don't want any of you getting hurt, got it? So don't get killed okay." Kaoru said, sitting close to the hallway in case Kenshin stirred.
"Kenshin can't fight Yuushi alone. I tailed him at the beginning of the meji era, he actually escaped my watch. He had killed a police officer. A corrupt officer, but an officer." Aoushi said, staring into the sake cup at the amber liquid.
"It was rumored he was stronger than the battosai during the revolution." Sanouske said, remembering the rumors of the Hitokiri Kitsune.
Unbenownst to the kenshin-gumi, their precious Ruroni was already gone.
He had woke before dawn, sneaking out the outside door. He sat silently doing laundry as he listened to his extended family talk. Saito had left the night before, after he had been forced to go to bed by Kaoru and Tien.
Sighing quietly, he hung another shirt up to dry. The sleeping draught his uncle had given him made him dizzy, but he had refused to sleep, and therefore the the medicine was weakening in his system. Clear thought was hard, but he could think.
His brother was alive. And his brother was trying to kill his family. Now he had to stop him.
Yahiko left for the market, carrying his bokken and a bucket for rice.
Kenshin grabbed a hat and followed him, donning his blue Hakama and gi so as not to be recognized.
That's this chapter, More to come!
Thanks for sticking with me through the miss-updates. I know it got really annoying. I feel like a total idiot, i really do.
Baka! -kagome.
