Author's Notes (2-22-05): Thanks to everyone who was amused by the ninja digression. I'm done with them now, mostly. 8D But a few of you pointed out that things were getting a little bit, um, absurd. Very true! Of course, I can't promise that the rest of this fic won't be a little bit absurd, due to the very nature of the curse and the colorful Souma clan, but I can promise that things are going to be a lot more "sober" from here on out. Probably. :P

Disclaimer: Yeah...


Juunishi Part 13

After the men put their clothes back on, the female ninjas disappeared without a word, abandoning their leader to his fate. Saitoh and Chou bound the ninja boy while Kenshin, Hiko, Sano, Yahiko, Aoshi, Soujirou and oddly enough, Enishi, decided to go search the house for any remaining women. Anji, Katsu, and Yutarou went outside to secure the perimeter.

They tried to remain blindly optimistic. Perhaps the Souma ninja had been bluffing? Maybe the kid was just trying to save face in light of his ninjas' embarrassing attack?

"This is where the women were last." Hiko informed the group. Every warrior was on edge. They weren't worried about another ninja attack since that would actually be pretty amusing, but they were concerned that the Souma clan might pull out the big guns, so to speak. There was no telling what kind of forces the wealthy, powerful, and altogether shady clan could muster.

Maybe they'd hired an army of mercenaries or at least ten really competent fighters? Or maybe they'd bought a fleet of warships? Or maybe they had state of the art weaponry just waiting to riddle them with bullet holes? Or maybe they'd even rounded up a group of men who wanted nothing but to see their deaths because of something that each of them had done in the past? It could all be waiting for them on the other side of the door!

Kenshin and Sano pulled open the sliding doors as Aoshi and Soujirou burst into the room, weapons drawn. They sidestepped, allowing Enishi and Hiko to follow them into the room, but there was no one inside. Kenshin, Sano, and Yahiko nodded to each other and suppressed grins. They'd survived far too many dangerous experiences to be stupid enough to be the first ones to walk willingly into a room that could have easily held their doom. Sano and Kenshin stepped inside once it became obvious that it was safe.

"I expected some kind of ninja booby-trap." Yahiko admitted as he let his guard down. He walked into the room and managed to hit the tripwire that everyone else had already noticed and stepped over. A bucket of cold water dumped onto his head, making him yelp in surprise.

"Quit fooling around, Yahiko." Sano admonished. "This is serious."

Yahiko pulled the bucket off his head with a short embarrassed laugh. "Yeah, ok. I'll be good." He quickly glanced at the other warriors, but no one seemed to think anything of it. They all actually thought he'd done it on purpose? "Phew."

While the others searched the empty room, to no avail, Yahiko turned the bucket over, examining it.

"Hey guys, I found something!" Yahiko shouted happily as he pulled another secret ninja note off the bottom of the bucket. "I thought this bucket might have a clue!"

"Read it." Enishi demanded. He seemed to be taking the whole 'women getting kidnapped' thing just as hard as the rest of them.

"Ok, ok. It says..." Yahiko trailed off in embarrassment. "Nothing useful." He crumpled the note in irritation. "Ninjas think they're soooo damn funny."

Aoshi regarded him with his patented silent stoicism.

"So does anyone have any idea what this means?" Soujirou held up some sliced rope and a feather. "I think it's a real clue." He gave Yahiko a comical grin.

"Maybe one of them escaped?" Sano said hopefully.

"Probably Misao." Aoshi and Soujirou said at the same moment. Aoshi shot a secret ninja glare at Soujirou. Nobody noticed.

Hiko shook his head. "Oh, that's nothing important. The girls were just having a bit of fun."

Soujirou eyed the items thoughtfully. "Girls are weird."

"There's nobody in here." Enishi growled low in his throat as he finished searching the futon closet. "We should go check Kaoru's room. That's where I saw her last."

Kenshin blinked. "Oro?"

Enishi ignored him and walked on past. It was quite possible that the white-haired psycho simply didn't understand what Kenshin's all-purpose "oro" actually meant in this scenario. To the initiated, it translated roughly as, "Why exactly were you in my bedroom with my wife?"

Kenshin followed after his brother-in-law as the rest of the warriors split up to continue the search. Enishi stepped into the Himura's guestroom through a perfect Enishi-shaped hole in the door. Kenshin had no problem fitting his smaller body though the opening.

"Enishi." Kenshin said, trying to get the man's attention. "Do you mind telling me what happened here?"

"I walked through the door." Enishi stated as though the answer was obvious and required no further explanation.

"What were you and Kaoru doing?"

Enishi paused in his search of the room and gave Kenshin an eerie calculating look. "I was comforting your woman after you jumped out the window. She really hates your guts."

Kenshin's jaw dropped.

"Let me tell you what she said about you..."


"It looks like the girls really have been kidnapped." Sano made the obvious statement when all the men had met up back in the restaurant section.

Kyoshiro looked bored. "You couldn't just take my word for it?"

Saitoh pulled out a dirty dish rag. "Anybody care if I stuff this down his throat?"

Nobody did.

"Well, we're going to have to go back to the Souma clan's hideout and rescue them." Sano said. His tone brooked no argument.

"Do I need to point out that this is obviously a trap?" Saitoh asked.

"Nope." Sano replied. "Even I've figured that one out."

Saitoh smirked. "Hmph. Maybe you're only as dumb as you look."

Sano popped his knuckles threateningly. "You're lucky that I'm saving my energy for the coming fight. At any rate, we should move out."

Saitoh looked annoyed. "Why do keep giving the group orders? Last I checked I was still in charge."

Hiko was about to speak up, but decided against it. If they didn't want to bow to his obvious superiority, that was their loss. His wisdom was wasted on lesser men anyway.

Saitoh continued. "And besides, doesn't Himura usually speak for you and your little friends?" The former Shinsengumi cast a searching glance around the room and finally spotted Kenshin sitting in the corner, alone. "Why is the Battousai pouting?"

"I hurt his feelings." Enishi said with a smile.

"Oh." Saitoh took it all in stride. He pointed a warning finger at the psychopath. "Play nice."


The trek back up into the mountains was going to be really long and probably really boring. Since it was late, the streets of Kyoto were mostly deserted as everyone was either home in bed or in the red light district having a wild time.

To top it off, most of the warriors were starting to feel a bit fatigued. It was the first time that they'd beaten their enemy, gone home, partied, defeated an army of ninjas, and then had to go back out and fight again.

"You know," Saitoh began, breaking the gloomy silence that had settled around them. "When you kill your opponent, you're less likely to have to fight them twice in the same day."

Chou snickered and Enishi nodded his agreement. The Kenshin-gumi ignored the comment. Kyoshiro, the ninja prisoner, marched along in silence, which was probably a result of the gag that was still shoved down his throat.

"This may not be a good time to bring it up, but do you all remember what I told you about the Souma clan at our first briefing?" Saitoh asked.

Sano thought about it really hard for a minute and realized that he couldn't recall a single word. It seemed like forever ago. And it was definitely something that had happened before this particular story started, since part 1 took place deep inside the Souma clan's secret fortress.

Kenshin noticed the confused look on his friend's face and spent a moment skimming through his own memories. He had a perfect recollection of the entire event. The memory was like a sepia colored movie with white fuzzies dancing at the edges.


Enter Flashback:

"Welcome to the first and hopefully last briefing that we'll have to have for this mission." Saitoh said with just a hint of sarcasm. "I trust that all of you will be able to understand and remember what I'm about to tell you, since all of this is very important."

He looked around at the eleven men, fitting each one of them with his cold stare. In the sepia-color-scheme, his eyes were about the same color as his face. It was kind of disconcerting.

Sano yawned and dropped his fishbone. He picked it up, dusted it off, and stuck it back in his mouth. Kenshin was disgusted a second time.

Saitoh narrowed his eyes at the street fighter. "I'm going to start by giving a very detailed analysis of the fortress's layout. We've managed to get our hands on about fifty maps. Unfortunately, these maps only cover about half the total area. This base is filled with mazes, traps, secret rooms and passageways, and the whole thing is rigged to explode. It makes Shishio's base look like a rundown dojo."

He proceeded to give them a two hour un-comprehensive walkthrough of the secret fortress. Sano fell asleep three minutes in and since Kenshin was experiencing the whole thing a second time, in the form of a movie-like flashback, he decided to fast forward.

"Well, that's about all we have on the base." Saitoh said, seeming to take pride in the fact that most of them were bored out of their minds. "Now it's time for bad guy profiles. We've compiled as much information as possible about the kind of fighters we'll be likely to encounter. I'm not going to lie to you guys and say this fight is going to be easy. These men are not only collectively stronger than the Juppongatana, they're also completely insane. There's no telling what we can expect from them."


Kenshin exited his memory and gave Saitoh a look. Unspoken understanding passed between the two of them. Sano noticed it and felt totally out of the loop.

"What is it guys?"

Kenshin decided to fill everyone else in. "They threw the fight."

"You mean they lost on purpose?" Sano asked. "Isn't that kind of stupid?"

"You're missing the point, moron." Saitoh enjoyed being back in control. He could almost forget about all the trouble and embarrassment the last hours had given him as he picked on the intellectually challenged street fighter. It felt just like old times.

"They pulled their punches." Yahiko started thinking aloud. "They didn't use their real strength..."

"I barely won..." Katsu spoke softly, probably more than a little hesitant to admit as much.

Yutarou swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat.

Sano shrugged. "I didn't have any trouble. I didn't even have to use my Futae no Kiwami. The guy went down like an itty bitty baby after a few hits to the face."

"Except now they have the upper hand." Saitoh reminded him. "They've got our women as hostages and you can bet that they're not going to offer us a guide through their labyrinth-like fortress like they did the first time we fought them."

"Which is why we brought this loser along." Chou added, pointing his thumb at the captive ninja.

Saitoh smiled ruthlessly. "He's agreed to guide us into the base."

"There's something I don't understand." Hiko said.

"I think that's the first time I've ever heard you admit that." Kenshin commented dryly.

Hiko shot him a warning glare that seemed to say, "shush."

"Anyway, I don't know why they went through all the trouble of kidnapping the women and luring us back out here to the middle of nowhere. What's the point? What do they want with us?"

Saitoh removed their prisoner's gag. "Answer his question."

Kyoshiro scowled and spit into the dirt, trying to get the taste of the nasty dish rag out of his mouth. He gave Saitoh a casually defiant look and shrugged against his bonds. "I don't know. My clan doesn't usually let me in on their secret little plans."

"They gave you specific orders, didn't they?" Saitoh probed.

"Well, yeah." Kyoshiro admitted.

"And?" Saitoh was about to get irritated. Nobody wanted to deal with an irritated Shinsengumi captain.

Kyoshiro sighed and seemed to relent. "They told me to kidnap all the women."

"Kidnap the women and then attack us feebly? Those seem like pretty lame orders." Saitoh smirked.

Kyoshiro growled under his breath. "No. They told me to kidnap the women and kill all of you. Not specifically in that order."

"So if you didn't kidnap the women to use as bait, why they hell did you kidnap them?" Sano demanded.

"I guess they figured you guys wouldn't be needing them anymore." Kyoshiro grinned evilly. "And who'd want to let those fine women go to waste?"


"Are you comfortable?" A pleasant male voice asked.

Kaoru wasn't sure why her captor would care, but she nodded anyway. Even though she was bound, gagged, and blindfolded, she was resting on a bed that was soft and satiny. It would have been hard to resist the urge to fall asleep if she wasn't so pissed off.

The next person who tried to kidnap her was really going to regret it. The whole "damsel in distress" thing was getting old.

Kaoru was in the middle of making her escape plans when someone came to her side and removed her blindfold. She squinted against the brightness and quickly appraised her situation. She was in a plush, elaborately decorated bedroom. An expensive looking tapestry on the wall depicted an impressive Chinese style dragon. The room was full of murals and vases and furniture all adorned with dragons. Even Kaoru noticed the theme.

Her lone captor stood before her, wearing nothing but elegant blue silk pajamas unsurprisingly decorated with a green dragon.

Kaoru had never seen the man before, and that was probably a good thing. He was more handsome than Aoshi and his smile was warmer than Kenshin's. It was definitely a dangerous combination. If she wasn't married it would have taken every ounce of willpower to resist his sex appeal.

"Here, let me help you out of those." He said, and immediately set about freeing her. She was liking him more by the minute.

Kaoru quickly reminded herself that he was the enemy and that seemed to help her keep her focus. "Who are you and why have you kidnapped me?"

"Ah, where are my manners?" He smiled roguishly. "My name is Souma Hanzo. And please, do not think of yourself as my prisoner."

"Are you saying I'm free to go?" Kaoru asked. She highly doubted it.

"Well, not exactly." He kept his smile in place as he turned and retrieved a silver platter and a bottle of something that looked suspiciously like fine imported wine. "Care for some wine? Or perhaps you'd like to sample some French delicacies? Our chef used to work at the finest restaurant in Paris."

"Ha!" She laughed. "Like I'm going to fall for this elaborate ruse? The food's probably poisoned."

He set the tray down and opened it, revealing all sorts of tasty looking hors d'oeuvres. Without a word he set about pouring two glasses of wine, handed one to her, and then started sampling the appetizers. It smelled exquisite and Kaoru's mouth started watering. She realized that she hadn't eaten dinner.

"Trust me. We wouldn't want to go ruining food this perfect." He took a sip of the wine and sat down on the bed next to her, but not close enough to be creepy. He seemed comfortably at ease with her and not even a little bit evil. Kaoru was confused.

"So..." she began as she tasted the wine hesitantly. It was full-bodied and delicious. And definitely not poisoned. "Why am I here, then?"

"You're my honored guest." Hanzo said as he offered her a small fork. "Please, help yourself to whatever you desire."

"You know," Kaoru said as she started devouring the delicacies. "My husband is going to be pissed when he realizes that I've been taken."

Hanzo laughed softly to himself. "Ah yes, the infamous Battousai."

Kaoru was startled to hear Kenshin's old nickname. It was never a good thing when the bad guys knew his past.

"Don't worry about him." Hanzo said with confidence. "You're never going to see him again. My clan has made sure of that."

The fork stopped halfway to her mouth as Kaoru froze. In a flash she pulled the utensil back and let the appetizer fly. It smacked Hanzo right in his pompous face.

Kaoru jumped to her feet and rushed for the door. She grabbed the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. The door was locked shut.

Hanzo began to laugh in amusement. Kaoru turned and glared furiously. He was dangling a tasseled key from one hand.

"I think you're missing something." He said with a tantalizing grin. "You could try and take it from me, but I won't give it up without a fight."

Hanzo was a little shocked when the woman came rushing back at him without a moment's hesitation, lunging for the key. He barely pulled it out of her grasp and the two of them tumbled back onto the satin sheets of his expensive four-poster. They wrestled briefly and Hanzo was amazed at her strength and determination. But she was nowhere near strong enough to overpower him.

He pinned her on the bed, panting and grinning like a schoolboy. "You sure are a feisty one. It's been a long time since I've been able to be this close to a woman like you." He said happily.

"I can't imagine why!" Kaoru spat the words. Her eyes flashed in anger. "I figured you did this sort of thing all the time to other helpless victims!"

She struggled relentlessly. He enjoyed every minute of it.

"Well, you may be surprised to hear this, but this isn't the sort of thing I do on a regular basis. In fact, I haven't spent a lot of time with women."

"Well, don't take this personally," Kaoru spoke angrily. "But most women aren't exactly attracted to psychopaths." She tried to twist out of his grasp, but he pulled her back.

His silk pajamas were coming undone from all the movement and they slid off one of his shoulders, exposing a hideous looking indented welt that seemed to stretch diagonally from shoulder to hip.

Kaoru stopped struggling and stared. She'd seen wounds like that before.

Hanzo easily sensed what she was thinking. "Oh, this? It was a parting gift from your husband. I'll admit it stings a little bit, but as you can see, it's hardly even slowing me down."

"You fought Kenshin tonight, and you can still move?" Kaoru was amazed. There were very few opponents that Kenshin didn't level with his succession technique.

"Your husband underestimated me and my clan." Hanzo informed her. "Believe me when I say, that was his last and greatest mistake."

"Oh please." Kaoru rolled her eyes. "I don't think anything tops his earlier two story naked leap from our bedroom window."

Hanzo raised a puzzled eyebrow. "Your husband was a strange man.

"IS." Kaoru corrected him. "My husband is a strange man. But I still love him, nonetheless. And he is soooo going to kick your ass when he comes to rescue me."

Hanzo grinned. "You have a lot of faith in a dead man. Your husband isn't coming for you. It doesn't matter though, because after tonight, you're not even going to remember his name."

"What are you talking about?" It was Kaoru's turn to be confused again.

"Let's just say that the Souma clan has a lot of abilities that your husband and his amusing friends never knew about."

"I don't believe you."

"What you choose to believe is irrelevant. The facts remain: Your husband and all his friends are already dead. No one is coming to save you. You're mine and pretty soon you're going to like it that way."


Author's Notes 2

I originally stopped writing this fic about two and a half years ago because I was worried that no one would want to read the end of it because what I had planned wasn't as amusing as the rest of it. There's plot, action, and romance in store, but it's going to be tough from here on out to work the humor like I did in the first chapters. From here on out I hope you guys can enjoy the action and drama as much as you've enjoyed the humor. Thanks again for reading!

Also, this chapter was almost posted on the 3 year anniversary of this fic. I thought about waiting a few days, but then I decided "Nah."