Lchan: Action galore for this chapter! I ain't spilling anything more! Caution: this chapter might tend to sound a little hurried, especially in the first parts. Lacking somehow, or maybe it's just me. Dunno. So please read and review, peeps! Sorry if I'm not so good with fights, but, hey, I had fun making this, right? I'd really, really appreciate feedback! BTW, I've inserted a little bit of s/m in this chapter! READ AND REVIEW! Thanks! Luv ya, peeps!

Counter Strike

Combat

There was a sickening crash as a heavy man landed on the roof a speeding covered cart. He whipped out a long, sharp-bladed katana and repeatedly stabbed the canvas from above. He searched madly within the cart for impact, for flesh, for a painful yell or even a counter attack...but he found nothing.

Fury surged into the atmosphere, echoing and reechoing through a booming voice.

A horse's wild, terrified scream then took up the yell. In panic and terror, he reared high into the air. His frantic rider grabbed at the reins, but he ripped it out of his master's control. He flailed his hoofs.

"Jeta! Jeta, easy! Whoa! WHOA, boy! Jet—"

But then he was cut off, and there was another spine-chilling yell—this time, a human one. Blood sprayed the ground as the hard handle of the katana slammed into the side of the bewildered man's head and made him fly off his seat and onto the mud, red liquid dripping down his temple in torrents.

The cart careened dangerously to the side. The horse lost its balance on its hind legs and began to topple. And, with a last, few, desperate kicks of his front legs at the empty air, the horse tumbled onto his side!

The attacker leapt off the roof as the wooden cart hurtled down with the falling horse in a reverberating crash, inches from the wounded man's stunned profile. The horse fought wildly, screaming. But his harness wouldn't let him go.

The attacker approached his ignorant victim in slow, steady, intimidating steps.

The impact against the wounded man's head blinded him. The world was dim, blotted, and upside-down, blurring and blurring with every moment. Vaguely, he could hear the footsteps, the firm, calculated splashes.

"Who...who are you—?" he staggered...

And then he was up again, although he couldn't really tell from the way his vision twisted the world around him. He was jerked up roughly by the front of his shirt and shaken in what he felt as his attacker's lustful, crazed excitement.

"Where is the Battousai?" was the feral demand.

"Who are you talking about?"

More shakes. "Answer me!"

"Who are you? Who are you talking about?"

"Uhr...you FOOL!" And he was again in the air, without support, with the imprint of a hard fist burning on his face. The world was nothing but a dark, fast-moving blur. Dismay and sheer terror flashed inside him when he hit the ground headfirst and didn't lose consciousness.

"You rode with him!" his attacker boomed. "You let him stay in your cart! You were with him the whole afternoon! WHERE IS HE?"

Battousai...he meant Battousai...but who was Battousai? Oh, yes—cart...with him the whole afternoon. Sleeping...when he picked up the boxes...a crouched man...red hair...a scar...yes...a slayer...a murderer...a wanderer with a sword... Battousai? No...Himura...Himura Kenshin...right? Himura...Himura Battousai!

But what did this man want with him?

Then he felt an excruciating kick slam into his stomach. "Don't lie, old man! ANSWER ME!" It was a threat.

But the 'old man' could hardly even see, let alone speak. Nothing...he could see nothing! "I...I don't know..." he gasped out, vaguely.

"That's a lie! You have no business protecting that bastard! SO JUST TELL ME!" Another kick. This one was so hard that it made him roll over on his back. A foot slammed down on his chest and a face swam crazily in his eyes.

"He has left...I...I don't know where he is..." he whispered.

"You listen to me, old man..." The foot pressed harder into his chest, impeding his breathing in dramatic amounts. The lethal voice lowered to a hiss. "I'm only out to collect what men owe me...and the Battousai owes me a lot. Therefore...the knowledge of his location is INDEBTED to me!"

Damn...the pain...! Rain seeped into the wound on the man's temple. "I...I swear..." he gasped out. "He left...he has already left...hours ago..."

"I don't remember asking THAT. I want you to TELL ME WHERE HE WENT!"

Two jagged yells again ripped the silence as Gohei slammed into the stomach of his defeated horse, a bruise on his chest that formed his attacker's foot. He couldn't breathe...couldn't breathe...!

Jeta's hoofs again kicked wildly at the air at the pain of his master's crashing weight. Gohei slipped off his pet's body as quickly as he could. It was both to save himself and to ease the weak horse from the undeserved injury.

The world was a blur. Everything was a blur—disappearing one by one into a black void... He grasped around for support, found his pet's neck, and gripped desperately at the sodden mane.

"Pity." That was the hiss of sadistic sarcasm.

And then Gohei saw the glint of a sword's reflection on a mud puddle as, behind him, the antagonist drew it out of its sheath and raised it above his head.

Nothing...he could see nothing...everything was locked in a faraway emptiness...

Soon...soon...death would come...

"GOHEI-SAN!"

Huh? What...?

"Hey! You! I never thought cowards like you who pick on old guys still exist!" This voice was harsh and unfamiliar, and yet it consoled him somehow. It spat on, viciously and tauntingly: "It's a good thing I was wrong, 'coz I need PRACTICE!"

There was a flash of white, a streak of red, brown...a fist...a big, black kanji...for...

'Bad'...? What the...?

And in that moment, everything vanished.

(scene shift:)

"Ah...intruders..."

Familiar, bottomless eyes met Kaoru's gaze as she stared at her friend's uncle's tormentor. Her eyes were huge. Her body was numb. She was drenched in rain, but she still stood, staring, unmoving, stunned to the core.

(scene shift:)

"Can I help you? You seem a little lost..."

"Well, you can answer one thing for me, if you won't mind my asking..."

"I'll do what I can."

(scene shift:)

"You..." Kaoru murmured. "But how...how could you...?"

"Oh my goodness!" Megumi ejaculated, as she caught up with the motionless girl and passed her eyes over the halfheartedly flailing horse and the unconscious Uncle Gohei. Instinctively, as you would expect of a woman like her, Megumi broke into a fresh, authoritative pace and fell to her knees beside her new patient.

She quieted the horse with a few soothing caresses and then leaned over to examine the lifeless man's bleeding temple. Her forehead was creased. She was oblivious to everything else. She didn't even seem to notice the mud that now half-drenched her.

"What's going on here?" Young. Boyish. Impatient. Yahiko entered the scene.

The tight-smiled man was looking at Kaoru as if sadistically enjoying the play of questions, confusion, and astonishment on her features. Gone was the fake kindness that he had displayed for her enjoyment back when she asked him for directions in the baking rice fields. The deep, void eyes drowned her with its unexpected lust for blood.

"So we meet again," he said.

Kaoru could hardly nod. "Yes...you...you were the one..." She threw her hand in the direction of the tunnel that would lead them back to the setting of their first encounter. "You..." Then she shook her head, her eyebrows beginning to furrow. "You got me lost," she said.

"You know this guy, Jou-chan?" Sano demanded.

"Yes. I've seen him before, in the next village, beyond the tunnel," Kaoru answered, without breaking her eye contact with the serene, unfeeling antagonist. "He directed me here, saying Kenshin had come this way. But you're wrong."—to Taro. "He never came here!"

Taro merely smiled at her. "It was up to you to believe," he replied.

"You jerk!"

This time, he did more than smile at her impertinence. He laughed—out loud and as insulting as laughter could get. "You're nothing but a stupid, silly little girl to chase after that murderer!" he jeered. "Why did you do it anyway? For LOVE? He doesn't even deserve to LIVE!"

"He deserves it a lot more than you do!"

And then, in a raging blaze, Kaoru advanced toward her deceiver in all-out fury. On passing Sano, she yanked off the wooden sword that was tied to the load settled on his back, fashioned to dangle off the luggage from two, strong, tightly-knotted wires.

"Jou-chan!" Sano yelled, un-permissively, and then he staggered, for she had just managed to make the wires snap with one hard tug and enclose the bokken in her tight, white fingers.

He tried to grab for her, but she was too quick and slipped easily from his fingers.

"HAAAAAAHHHH!" she screamed, and she threw herself, flailing crazily, at her laughing enemy.

(scene shift:)

The bloated luggage of medicines, spare garments, and other outdoor necessities crashed to the ground, soaked.

A fierce yell reverberated through the sodden arena.

Sano whipped his clenched hand at the man's face, but he was gone in a wink, and his hand hit nothing but empty air and a few drops of rain that blew out of course at the force of his fist.

"Slow!" Taro jeered, from several meters away to his right. And then he was gone again. He reappeared above Sano's head, sword held high up. "HAAAAHHH!"

The battle-cry caught Sano's attention and made him move quickly out of the way. He barely made it. Taro's sword ripped a slit right at the waving kanji of "bad" that decorated his back.

"C'mon, Sano, you can do better than that!" Yahiko yelled at him.

"I know, brat!" Sano replied, angrily. "K'so!" He crashed to his knee, eyes shut and head bent low to the drenched ground. The sword and its owner sailed above his head, cursing at the missed shot.

Sano allowed a leer. "Slow," he commented, jumping back to his feet, twisting lithely around on his ankle, and slamming a well-aimed punch into the unguarded back. The extraordinary applied force, which he had learned from Anji's tutelage, made Taro jerk violently and stagger in pain.

But then he recovered his bearing in seconds and swerved to his side, sweeping his katana low, almost touching the ground, aiming for Sano's unprotected shins, the blunt edge of his sword swerving, speeding...

"Sano!" Yahiko yelled out.

Too late. Taro hit. Sano overbalanced. And he crashed to the ground with a dull, resounding thud.

"Yahiko, attend to Jou-chan!"

And then, with his back flat against the ground, Sano lifted his legs, folded them with his knees as close as possible to his chest, gathered strength, uncoiled, applied as much force as he could muster in a second...and then he struck! He kicked violently at Taro's stomach with both legs.

But his katana-toting adversary only stumbled slightly and took less than the time Sano had to take to get back on his feet to recover. Before Sano could fully regain his balance, Taro whipped his sword at his back, penetrating the thin cloth, the skin, the flesh, and then formed a long, large, steep gash that sprayed the earth with a pool of blood.

Rain quickly seeped into the wound, and Sano had to grit his teeth to keep from shouting out. Lightning ripped through the heavens. Sano was already lightheaded, but he refused to acknowledge defeat.

"DAMN YOU!" he yelled in sheer fury. He twisted around and struck out with his fist. The sword was reflexively thrown forward to hit his head, but he ducked quickly, sped for the man's guts, and then slammed his knuckles into the open abdomen.

Taro released a strangled, breathless scream of pain, and then he shot off into the air, crashing to the ground several meters away hard on his back.

Sano was gasping for breath. He staggered, tried to straighten his slumping back, but then the bleeding wound that lashed his rear and drenched his entire back with blood kept him from succeeding.

Second later, Taro again began to move. Blood dripped from his mouth, and he wiped it away with the back of a muddy hand. The rain washed his face as he rose slowly to his feet.

Then, upon straightening and recovering his poise, he leered at Sano again. "You fool," he hissed.

And then, too quick—almost as quick as Kenshin—for Sano to evade, he slammed the hilt of his sword into Sano's stomach and left him to crash down in his own pool of blood. The impact as he landed on his back was not kind to his injury, and he released a yell.

Above him, Taro whipped his sword at the air, and then poised the tip to aim for his open chest.

(scene shift:)

Megumi had no skills with the sword, but it was all she could do to help. The broken bokken that Kaoru had tried to attack their adversary with, the one that instantly cracked against the lancing blow of the katana, the one that had failed to protect the young woman and weakly allowed her to receive a harsh blow of the fist to her fragile face, bringing to the woman-doctor another severely injured patient...Megumi picked it up.

The sight of Sagara Sanosuke, drenched in his own blood and pinned under a dishonorable katana, struck her heart so dramatically that she was forced to clamber to her feet, grab the remains of the bokken, and throw the piece with all her might toward the crazed tormentor's unwary head.

The impact of the bokken's handle made him twitch and halt, sudden as that.

And then...slowly...slowly...he turned to meet her furious glare.

She shifted her eyes to check on Sano, the rest of her face unmoving. He was alive, and he, too, was glaring at her in reprimand. He refused to applaud her interference. She knew from the way his eyes chastised her that she had been stupid to have done what she did. She would only get hurt.

And somehow, as out of place as it may seem, it comforted her to read from the muddle of the coffee-colored eyes that he wouldn't be thrilled to watch her suffer or die. It was there, unconcealed. It was care.

Well. What was done was done. She flicked her eyes back to Taro's furious, mocking glower, her feet frozen in place. She raised her chin.

Bring it on then.

"You dare to interfere, woman?" Taro mocked her. He turned around, trusting that Sano was too weak to reenter the combat and was no longer a threat. "Well..." Then the sardonic intonation vanished. His darkest scowl yet lined his face. "You brought this on yourself," he hissed.

Megumi gripped the other piece of the bokken in her hand. It was too short to be of any destructive use, but it was all that she could defend herself with. She tried to imagine how she would do it.

She had seen Kenshin do it before. She had seen Kenshin against Saitou...against the Oniwabanshuu... Perhaps...she had a chance to have learned those moves by watching. Kenshin...if Kenshin were here...

But he wasn't, so Megumi quickly shut out the thought. She rain dripped from her lashes, but she maintained her gaze on the adversary she had provoked... Soon...soon...

Suddenly, there was a wild yell, and a flash of a soggy, yellow gi, from the right, a few meters ahead.

"NOOOOOOO!" was his loud, adamant yell as he boldly and unthinkingly threw his entire weight into the drastic jump—a dive that he fashioned to intersect with the man's speeding body in midair.

"Yahiko!" Megumi yelled.

And, in a wild tangle of limbs and soggy garments, Yahiko closed his arms around Taro's torso and dragged him with his own weight to the ground. Taro struggled, flailed, and dropped his sword.

Megumi ran for it and wrenched it out of his reach.

There was a fierce struggle among the mud pools: Taro against Yahiko, who was desperately hanging on to the captive swordsman, who, in turn, was haplessly a hundred times stronger than the amateur kendo student.

After only several seconds, Taro managed to free one hand, and he used it to maneuver the struggle and turn the tide against the raging, resolute boy. It didn't take him more than a minute to pin Yahiko into a no-escape tableau and slam his forceful, solid fist into the boy's head.

Against his will, Yahiko lost his grasp on the moving world...and it slowly disintegrated into nothing.

(scene shift:)

Sano could hear her—the fox-lady. His fox-lady—vulnerable, but fighting with impressive fire. Taro's hisses flooded his ears. His back hurt; his breathing came in gasps. The rain fell into his eyes. His vision was blotting...blotting...

But no. No, he had to get to the fox-lady. He had to protect his fox-lady. He mustn't black out yet. Not yet. Stand up.

And so he slowly, adamantly staggered to his feet, not even feeling his own body except for the sharp, jagged shoots of pain that raked every so often through him.

Blotting...dimming...blurring...black curtains were shrouding his vision...

He yelled out inside his head. She was holding a sword, but she couldn't use it...didn't know how. It was knocked easily out of her hands, leaving her defenseless...enraged, but defeated...

And then, after several dragging moments...he saw, he felt her fall.

Something exploded inside of him, but his body couldn't take the strain. "No...darn it..." he hissed. "No...damn...damn..."

Seta Taroshido's eyes met Sano's again. His smirk. Then, it was zoomed in. He was again in front of him. Sano struggled to glare, to say something annoying. Then he heard quiet laughter...felt an impact...pain...

Then nothing.

tbc

Lchan: Oh—kay. I left that hanging, didn't I? Well. Next chapter...uhm...let's see...you'll be seeing Kenshin again, for sure! Please review, peeps! You've come this far, right? And don't worry, Kenshin will have his turn on the fighting arena. And, of course, there'll be room for a little K+K later.