WARNING: Spoilers! If you don't know who Kenji is, please read at your own risk!
WITH DUE CREDIT: This fic was loosely spun off from two fics - "Over the Sting" by sasori and "Chronicles of a Rurouni", one of my earlier fics.
Thank you: Tanuki-dono, for pointing out to me that the canon Kenji lacked a bit in dimension. :D :D :D I so agree!! And, mina, if you love Kenji, please remember to read Tanuki-dono's fic! Now then, on to trying to give Kenji dimension! *insane laughter*
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Yesterday's Shadow is Tomorrow's Twilight
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Chapter 3: Enter Saitou
"Allowance. Reduction."
"No way!" Soujirou clasped his palms together and bowed his head. "Saitou-san! Have pity!! You've done that three times in two weeks already! One more and we won't be able to move from malnutrition!"
Saitou's reply was to blow a ring of deadly smoke into the environment.
"..." The pleading boy was still hopeful, "... please?"
The crab-head blew one last puff of smoke into the air, before flicking the cigarette onto the ground and squashing it with the heel of his foot. "Is there anything else about the Yuugure you have to tell me?"
"Saitou-san!" Soujirou cried exasperatedly.
At the same time, Enishi gave a muted, "No," while pointing to the curled up figure of Kenji leaning by the walls of the broken shrine they had agreed to meet up in, "but what about that thing over there."
Nonchalant about being called a 'thing', Kenji glanced up slightly from beneath his bangs at the other three people in his presence. He had tried to be very wary when it finally dawned on him that they were going to meet up with an officer. He didn't know if his family had reported his escapade to the police yet, but he wasn't taking any chances. The last thing he wanted to be doing was to be dragged kicking and screaming back to the dojo he had sworn to leave. But come to think of it, surely the network of the police was not so wide that a single report of a missing person could reach the ears of every officer within a single day?
"Thing?" Saitou queried, glancing in Kenji's direction - not really noticing Kenji, but noticing the fox beside him, who was busy preening itself. "That fox over there? Is it yours?" He looked momentarily at Kenji.
"No."
"I see," Saitou drew another cigarette from his pack, pining Kenji with a stern glance this time, "you both got him involved. You deal with the mess yourselves." He turned around and began walking away, waving an uncaring hand at the people behind him.
"Hey..." Enishi protested. "... This boy'll obstruct us if you don't take him in."
"He would, wouldn't he?" Saitou afforded one last glance at the trio, shrugging. "Then you'll just have to make him useful.
"The police station isn't a hub for dojo runaways."
Kenji's heart missed a beat. With wide eyes and slightly parted lips he stared at the departing form of Saitou Hajime. All of the scene around him dissolved into nothingness, and only one phrase bounced around in his mind.
/He knows./
Suddenly feeling an urge to want to remove himself as far away from this place as possible, the young Kenji stood from his crouched position and took a quick scan around the area for possible exits. As if he could sense the unease in the younger boy, Soujirou quietly walked up to where Kenji stood and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
"Thinking of going somewhere?" He smiled at Kenji, who was slightly taken aback.
Frowning, the young boy started walking away from the duo. "None of your business." He muttered, stopping just near the entrance of the broken shrine. He peered out cautiously, wondering if the Yuugure people were around and spying, waiting to pounce on him the moment he stepped into the open.
Noticing his insecurity, Soujirou tried again. "You might want to lie low for a while."
Kenji eyed him weirdly. "You're just hoping that I'll buy more food for you to steal, aren't you?"
"Ahahahahaha!" Soujirou scratched the back of his head. "Such strong perception!"
"Just let him go already," Enishi had settled in a dark corner comfortably among some logs left behind by the previous owner of the shrine, "do I have to remind you of how much you suck at being a baby-sitter?"
At this Soujirou's smile became considerably more contrived, though Kenji remained impossible to read. Still, it became invariably evident that Kenji was beginning to take note of Enishi's jibes, as he remarked, "You have something for calling me names, don't you?"
The white-haired man shrugged, drawing a long, silver sword from the sheath he had conveniently strapped to his back in the meantime, pretending to be maintaining it.
"Surely you are curious about the Yuugure, and why a couple of vagabonds like ourselves should be working under the mantle of the official police?" Soujirou found a comfortable spot on the ground and sat down as well. He gestured hopefully for Kenji to take another spot nearby where he sat, so they could be in the position for some random discussion, and was pleasantly surprised when Kenji took up the offer and plonked himself rather unceremoniously down on the spot which Soujirou had beckoned him to take.
Noticing Enishi half-glaring at him from the corner of his eyes, Kenji smirked. "I figured this would be a great way to get on your nerves," he drawled lazily at the spikey-haired man, who nearly bent his sword double at the insinuation. Soujirou smiled, though it was hard to decide if he was trying to be amiable or was just amused at the interaction. "Well?" Kenji then turned his calculating glance to the blue-clad wanderer. "Are you going to fill me in or not?"
"Let's see..." Soujirou turned slightly more serious, and the smile vanished momentarily from his face as he searched his brain for a good start to his narrative. "... I suppose you've heard of weapons of the gaijin, the foreigners?"
"Guns and bombs?" Kenji raised an eyebrow. "Heard lots about them, but haven't particularly seen any of it being put to practical use."
"Well I must say you came very close today," the dark-haired man commented carelessly, evidently alluding to the smithy affair, "anyway, this is the situation: there's been an organization secretly smuggling such weapons to into Japan. Their pretext is that they would appreciate some form of self-defence that doesn't require years of training. Underneath that, however, is a ploy as sinister as the hey-days of the Bakumatsu itself."
"A revolution." The fiery-maned boy concluded immediately.
Solemnly, Soujirou confirmed it with a nod. "That man who burglared the smithy in broad daylight was one of members of this organization, known as the Yuugure."
"How could you be so sure?" Kenji eyed the darker-haired person. "All he did was mouth the name of Yuugure, and brandish some sort of weapon he could have bought from some undesirable back alley."
"This gun," to the boy's surprise, it was Enishi who spoke next. He fingered the gun Soujirou had passed him casually and continued, saying, "is made of a special composition of metals that doesn't belong to any streak of foreign guns."
"Notice how the Yuugure man was trying to amass a great amount of metal just now?" Soujirou piped. "Doesn't take a genius to figure out whatever for, does it?"
Kenji's eyes had darkened to a deep purple by now. "They're making weapons." He said stiffly, brushing some wayward bangs out of his face. "Instead of procuring them."
"That much is obvious," Soujirou nodded again, leaning slightly backwards to bear his weight against a rustic pillar, "we have been on the trail of the Yuugure for days now. Just by a stroke of chance - or bad fortune for them, that today, they would send a man as boisterous as the man who was threatening you with the gun this morning to engage in the business of collecting metals. We were hoping he would lead us right into the lair, but of course, the little accident happened," Soujirou laughed nervously, "and-"
"It seems," Kenji interrupted, "precisely the opposite, in my point of view."
The light in Soujirou's eyes grew curious, and even Enishi had stopped looking over his sword to glance in the young boy's direction.
"Did it never occur to you that the organization known as the Yuugure," the boy was quick to dish out the cold facts he had already begun assembling in his mind, "have sent that man with the exact purpose of baiting the two meddling spies out, so that they can rid themselves of you once and for all time?"
The air tingled after Kenji's commentary.
"They don't seem like that stupid an organization to send so noisy a person out when things were at such a crucial stage, after all," Kenji further observed, the same time Enishi glanced out of the gapping shrine door with restrained horror evident in his pale features.
At the next moment the larger of the three had sheathed his sword, gathered his two companions in a clumsy but somewhat efficient method, and jumped clear of the large sphere of explosive heading in the way of the dilapidated former-shrine. The broken wood of the wall gave way easily to Enishi's tackle, just as the explosive burst into an unbearably white light, shocking the shrine into collapse and sounding out the echo of the monstrous affair for all who was near to hear it.
Kenji defected splinters which were flying out from the now roofless building, scrambling to his feet as quickly as he could. They were out in the slightly forested area which the shrine had resided in, and standing on the hardened dirt road - the only route which linked the timeless shrine to the main road outside, were two stoic fellows and a large mobile cannon.
"I see you have escaped us again," the shorter and leaner of the two held a regal looking fan against his pale chin and said, "I fail to see how simpleton wanderers like yourselves could escape the clutches of an organization like ourselves - but after this show of atheletic superiority, I am sure that we are not dealing with mere peasants here."
"Ahahaha," Soujirou, always one for a quick acquaintance, laughed in his most affable tone, complete with the hand-behind-the-head pose, "I think you think too highly of us, great sir!"
The man was not nearly as impressed as Kenji was exasperated. Beside him, his bulkier companion had already begun reloading the cannon and was adjusting it to aim towards the trio standing amidst the languishing greenary. "Speak up!" The kindly tone the man had previously taken dissolved into a nasty snarl. "Who else is among your band of vagabonds, and what is the reason you constantly try to pit yourselves against us?"
When the trio remained defiantly silent, the man's countenance contorted angrily. "Fire!" He half-screamed at his burly assistant, who fumbled around for the right trigger to pull. "Fire, and don't leave any of them alive!"
It didn't take too long for the next shot of explosive to reach the spot the threesome were standing at. Kenji's cold facade turned even colder, and he barely leapt clear of the dangerous object onto a sturdy tree branch. After gaining a firm foothold he glanced momentarily backwards before leaping onto another tree branch, further down the line of ancient trees, so that the incoming explosion wouldn't affect him too much.
An explosion eventually did occur, but it was nowhere near ground level. Even as Kenji leapt he saw the fireworks decking the lofty blue skies. The round sphere of doom exploded rather magnificently against the heavens and sent a steady stream of soot pouring on the area of the old shrine. The fiery-headed young boy rose to full height in awe of the sight, not noticing what was going on below him until a strangled choke turned his attention back to the scene.
The bigger man who was handling the cannon lay twitching on the floor, his hand around his neck as he gasped for air. Although a shinai was not the most lethal weapon in the world per se, Soujirou still held it stretched at full length against the neck of the leaner man, whose beads of cold sweat could be seen even by Kenji from where he stood among the trees.
"Not an inch, don't even think about it," Soujirou's smile had not lost it's brilliance at all.
"I think you underestimate simpletons," Enishi's voice could be heard next, as he fingered the hilt of his sword he had drawn in an instance. Kenji observed that he had yet to move a single step from where he originally stood, and was wondering about the reason when the nervous voice of the pursuer cut into his thoughts.
"Impossible!" The man was trembling, although he made a worthy attempt to act very brave. "How could anybody deflect a cannon bullet into the air just like that?!"
"Skill, practice, and a hell of a lot of good timing. And because I was a simpleton I didn't stop to think for once that the bomb would explode upon contact - which it didn't." Enishi shrugged the whole affair off like it was as common as sleep.
The man opened his mouth in an attempt to say something, but stopped short when he laid his eyes upon Enishi, who held his sword just over his shoulder. An instant fear seemed to grip the man, the same time a look of recognition flashed across his face. "You!!" He whispered harshly, jabbing a finger in Enishi's general direction.
Enishi continued to say nothing, although he did gaze thoughtfully at the fear-struck figure of the man. Then his gaze turned abruptly to the shadow lurking behind Soujirou, before he was found shouting, "Behind you!"
Quick to notice the urgency in his partner's voice, Soujirou saw that the looming shadow was poised and about to strike. He retrieved his shinai and was about to elbow the man who had just recovered from his neck injury when a flash of bright red obscured his view for a while.
When he spun around, there, in full sight was the large man who had attempted to knock Soujirou unconscious, and the considerably smaller Kenji, who buried one end of the metal rod he had picked into the right shoulder blade of the man.
The rod was lodged deep into the man's flesh - and although it had not drawn blood, Soujirou could hear the sickening crack of a bone breaking and a shoulder dislocating. Then the huge man thumped to the ground - truly unconscious this time.
"I'm just returning the favour," Kenji coolly eyed the slightly bewildered Soujirou, "for this morning."
"Well..." The older man tried to recover effectively from his stupor by going into his usual routine of laugh-and-tell, "... you sure have some fantastic jumping records!"
"He's gone," Enishi quietly remarked from where he still stood. In response both Kenji and Soujirou turned around to see that the man who had been under Soujirou's shinai previously was now scampering through the dirtpath, trying his best to get away. He threw furtive glances backwards, but did not stop for a moment in his escape. He turned a bend in the path, and Soujirou was just about to give chase when a blood-curling shriek halted him effectively in his approach.
The same man slowly backed into view of the trio again, his eyes locked on something that was in front of him. It was not long before a gleaming katana also came into view - and with it its' owner, the one and only Saitou Hajime.
"This is quite a catch," the officer commented emotionlessly, "so they've begun sending some of the higher security to thwart us." He pressed his blade more menacingly towards the frightened man. "I think we might be able to squeeze some fresh information from you just yet."
"Never!" The man was gesturing wildly now. "I will never betray the organization-!!"
Soujirou just about thwacked him clean over the head with his shinai, slight amusement visible in his eyes. "I think you should save that for the station," he addressed the unconscious man. Turning to Saitou, he continued, "Ah well, Saitou-san. That did not quite turn out as you planned, did it?"
The frowning officer chewed impatiently on the cigarette in his mouth, indicating that Soujirou had hit the nail on the spot. He turned around just as a few constables arrived to examine and take care of the aftermath. "This case draws closer to the heart of the Rengoku than I first thought," Kenji could not be sure who he was saying this to, but he saw that both Soujirou and Enishi stiffened slightly, "look carefully at that man yourself," were his final words before he departed as etheareally as he had arrived.
While Soujirou did not reveal anything through his practiced smile, Kenji could not help but note the look of raw recognition in Enishi's eyes, after he had a careful scrutiny of the man on the dirtpath.
... to be continued
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8/7/03
xd@tougenkyou.net