Shadow's Blade
Notes: Shame on me. Shame. No more fandoms, I said. No more fics to distract me from the dozens I already have in progress. Nothing else. And what happened? I let a fellow-ficcer convince me to watch an Anime series. What happened then? I was interested. No. More than that. I was musified (Yes, that word does exist now, because I say so!) by the characters and this is the result. Over 3 years in the writing, but that's hardly the point :P
Slightly AU, yes, but I can blame that on the fact that I haven't seen all of the Kyoto arc (and I'm resisting the impulse to add 'yet' glowers at Ariana). All I know is that Kenshin and Saitou had to have another encounter.
High above the wooded land, gleaming like a polished silver coin in the star-spotted deep cobalt of the night sky, the moon painted the landscape with a pale wash. Its platinum caress cooled all that it touched, stretching out pale tendrils to all but the most shadowed of places.
Dappled by the beams that had pierced the branches of the tree he sheltered beneath, Himura Kenshin's eyes were closed, the breath of the wind tossing the leaves and letting light and shadow play upon his pale features.
A Manslayer in the Revolution, he had earned the name Battousai, becoming a faceless legend and a nightmarish one at that; a man who could kill a dozen enemies with a single stroke of his blade, a man without mercy, a man without qualms.
He had been that way for a long time, but things had changed, as things always seemed to do.
From a Manslayer, a ruthless, merciless, skilled killer, he had become a wanderer, one who lived by the ways of peace, only resorting to violence in the deepest and most desperate of situations.
How he had tried to leave his past behind, rejecting and forgetting the title and all that it had brought him, but there were some - it seemed - who could not and would not allow the shade of the Battousai to rest.
Kenshin opened his eyes, raising them to the clear night sky to chart his position by the starlight, the blue only marred by soft wisps of silver and purple cloud on the horizon, beyond the deepening blackness of the forest that surrounded him.
Exhaling a breath which swirled as a brief pale cloud in the chill of the air, his hands curled loosely around the sheath of his notorious blade. His left foot braced upon the silver-licked grass beneath him, the other leg bent at the knee and curled before him, the sword rested lightly against his right ankle and up to his left shoulder.
The night-chilled metal of the handle touched his temple, the weapon always close at hand should it be needed, his position one of habit that he had not succeeded in breaking, even when he had been in a place he had considered home.
Home.
The very thought of the Kamiya dojo he had left behind caused a bittersweet smile to drift across his lips.
Yes, it had been a home, something he had never had before, at least in his recent memories. There, he had found a strange blend of people who had become like a family to him, people who had made it possible for him to finally stop wandering.
The distinct memory of Kaoru's smile lingered in his mind, the sound of Sanosuke's voice half-joking with him, the constant giggles of Ayame-chan and Suzume-chan, the patient calmness of Megumi, the energy of Yahiko.
Kenshin's face tightened at the thought, his teeth clenching together, a line marring the smoothness of his brow. He had been forced away from them once more, simply because of the notoriety that his name still carried, notoriety he had not asked for, nor did he desire.
Once more, he had become a wanderer, leaving those who had accepted him, those who might have even come to love him.
Bowing his head over his sword, pressing his eyes tightly closed to force down the swell of anger and grief, his fingers tightened around the sheath, the ridges biting into his fingers, bruising the callused skin.
It was not fair, that it was not!
For the first time in years, he had found some semblance of peace and normalcy in a world much changed by the revolution and now, he had been forced to depart from it by the actions of others, by the murder of a good man, by the emergence of an enemy no other could face.
Shishio Makoto.
The flare of anger that spread through him was so hot that the former Man Slayer shuddered, recalling how he had harnessed such intense rage in times past.
Oh yes, he would be able to kill Shishio, if only in black vengeance for the peace that his intervention had lost for Kenshin, a peace that Kenshin knew he would never regain if his blade was once more bathed in the blood of another.
Drawing a breath, his brow and scar-crossed cheek pressed to the grip of his sword, the young man forced all thoughts of killing from his mind. There had to be another way, a way which meant that some day, he would be able to return to his 'family' with his honour intact and his blade unsoiled.
Alone, he sat, half bathed in the shadows of the trees around him, the long fingers of darkness lingering on his melancholy form, only the occasional slash of deep red of his distinct hair between the shadows revealing his presence.
Crickets chirped softly in the long grass, the only sound but for the whisper of the wind through the woodland.
And one other.
"How pitiful you are." The voice cut through the chilled air like a white-hot blade. "I wonder what would be said if our leaders could see you, the mighty Battousai and soon-to-be saviour of our country, hiding in the forest like a lost child."
Kenshin did not lift his head, not needing to look to recognise the one who intruded upon his solitude, though his hands slid further apart on the sheath of his weapon, one curving around the grip with a familiarity born of years of training and use.
How he had been found mere days into his journey, he did not know, but - at present - neither did he truly care.
"It is not polite to creep up on allies, that it is not."
The cool chuckle from the darkness made the hairs on the back of Kenshin's neck rise on end. "You are lucky this time, Battousai," the voice said, closer. "Had I not been ordered to leave you unharmed, you would be dead where you sit."
Kenshin's face slowly rose, although his eyes remained steeped in shadows, long strands of blood-red hair swathing around his pale face, the diagonal, cross-shaped scar upon his cheek even more prominent by the light of the moon. "Would you find honour in killing a defenceless man, Saitou?"
Bleeding out from shadows, into the glade less than four paces from the seated Man Slayer, the former warrior of the Shinsengumi stepped into the moonlight, his long, dark coat flapping softly around his legs in the breeze. In his right hand, a blade hung in a loose grip, the night's brightness dashed upon its surface like a flash of lightning.
"Defenceless, Battousai?" Saitou Hajime laughed, without humour, wolf-like eyes trained on the red-haired man, still half-devoured by shadow. His own dark hair was drawn back from his features, leaving them sharpened, angular by the harsh, merciless light of the face of the night. "You believe you can refer to yourself in such terms?"
"I know that I will not fight you now, that I do," Kenshin said quietly. He unfurled his slim body, rising smoothly to his feet, his blade once more hanging faithfully by his side, as he stepped forward a pace and into the light. Still, one hand rested on the handle of his sword. "If you attacked me, I would not defend myself and in this, I am defenceless, so I am. You would bring dishonour upon yourself."
Once more, Saitou laughed, a sound that sounded wrong and chilling emerging from the throat of such a man. "For the chance to bathe my blade in your blood, I might risk such a dishonour."
"You would not, so you would," Kenshin replied evenly, his hand finally lifting from his sword. He folded his arms over his chest, tucking his hands into the recesses of his capacious sleeves. "Even one such as you would be honourable, that you would."
Amber eyes studied him, cold, shrewd. One side of Saitou's mouth lifted. He swung his sword up, a streak of light cutting the air, the tip coming to rest against Kenshin's bare throat. "You truly believe that, Battousai?" he challenged softly.
Violet eyes gazed coolly back at him, devoid of any trace of fear.
Kenshin knew he had faced many enemies who could not come close to rivalling the man before him, but he had learned that to show the enemy that he was afraid was not useful or wise.
He also knew the man before him well enough to know that he was honourable to some extent.
"Yes," he said calmly.
His peaceful gaze captured Saitou's for a long moment, held it. The fire that the elder warrior carried had not diminished in the decade since their first encounter, during the rebellion. If anything, it had grown more pure and potent.
Finally, Saitou's mouth curved up in a half-smile that was not without amusement and the tip of his sword pressed briefly against Kenshin's throat, just enough pressure to bring a single beaded drop of blood to the surface.
"One day, Battousai, you will trust too much," he said in a conversational tone, as he lowered his blade, eyes - narrowed to burning amber slashes once more - never once leaving the Man Slayer's face. "That will be your downfall and when that day comes, I pray that I will be there to witness it."
Ignoring the narrow thread of crimson that was oozing its way down his pale throat, Kenshin inclined his head. "That might be the day upon which we face one another once more, that it will," he observed.
A dark brow arched. "You believe you will indeed fight me once more, Battousai?"
"No," Kenshin said, his voice a low murmur. His eyes lowered for a moment, then rose once more to Saitou's. "I believe that we are enemies and this situation will not change that. When we are finished here, I will not seek to fight you, but you will seek to fight me, that you will."
Gazing at Kenshin, who stood nearly a head shorter than he did, Saitou's cold eyes glittered with amusement. "You are wiser than you are given credit for, Battousai," he said, sliding his blade back into the sheath with a buzzing rasp.
"Wisdom does not matter in this situation, Saitou," Violet eyes held amber. "I know you. I know that we have always been enemies. I know this will not change in spite of our alliance. Nothing but your own mind can change this, that it cannot. I know that I am following the way of peace, even if you are not."
A puff of condensation from flared nostrils accompanied by a muted snort signalled Saitou's opinion on the matter. "I can see now, Battousai," he sneered. "As I have known since our last duel, you have lost your skill with the sword and intend to bore Shishio to death with talk of peace and friendship."
There was a flicker of emotion in Kenshin's passive eyes. "I have lost none of my skill, Saitou," the tone of his voice turned colder. "It remains, should I need it, but it is a choice, whether I use it or not."
"You are a sentimental fool, Battousai. Feh!" The expression of disgust on Saitou Hajime's face said more than a thousand words could. "Once, I may have considered you an equal, but now, you are nothing but a fool who has been tamed by a domestic life and stupid little girl."
"You will not speak of Miss Kaoru that way." The cool tone in Kenshin's calm voice turned diamond hard, his eyes narrowing.
"Miss Koaru?" Saitou's thin upper lip curled, a nasty expression creeping onto his lean, angular face. "So you have not had her, heh, Battousai? I did wonder. Perhaps I should do her that honour, after Sh..."
Whatever he was about to say dried up, the sharp edge of Kenshin's blade brought hard against his throat. "You will not speak of Miss Kaoru that way," the red-haired man repeated, his words laced with ice.
"So you still have some spirit in you, Battousai," Saitou hissed between his thin lips as the blade was pressed a little harder to his throat, just above the collar of his shirt. He could feel the sting of flesh opened, but gave no indication that he had felt it. His amber eyes glittered with mirth. "And for that little girl? Not even the woman?"
The flash of anger in Kenshin's eyes was brief, deadly, but the former Man Slayer caught himself. Saitou gritted his teeth as pressure was added to his neck but he did not pull back, not until Kenshin withdrew, his blade rasping back into the sheath.
Kenshin turned away, the muscles in his jaw tightening, his eyes tightly closed for a long moment. His hands clenched into fists by his sides and, as if becoming self-conscious of his physical display of anger, he replaced them within his sleeves, folded before him. "You will not make me fight you, Saitou," he said, although his voice sounded forced and hard. "I see what you are trying to do."
Rubbing his throat, still standing on the same spot, Saitou raised his eyebrows, a mocking look on his features. "And what might that be, Battousai?"
Violet eyes slowly opened, but did not turn to Saitou again. Instead, Kenshin raised his chin proudly, his long hair falling back from his features in loose strands, the moonlight playing across his eerily-youthful face.
"Our battle was unfinished," he replied, a thoughtful look on his face. "You wish to finish what was begun, that you do. This, we cannot do." He turned his head slightly to glance at Saitou. "Not until our task is over."
A dark brow lifted. "You say that you will not fight me again, Hitokiri?"
"No," Kenshin corrected, one side of his mouth lifting in an ironic smile. "I said that I would not seek you to battle you once more. I did not say that we would not face one another again. I know that when our duty is done, you will return to finish our battle, as you did this time."
"When?" Saitou's lips curved. He dipped a hand into a pocket in his Western coat, withdrawing cigarette from a small, silver case and lighting it. Drawing a feathery curl of smoke between his lips, he held it a moment before exhaling. "You seem confident in your abilities to defeat this enemy."
"I have to be." The smaller of the two men lifted his eyes to the skies once more, following the path of a wisp of cloud across the face of the moon.
"And if you fail?"
Kenshin's eyes darted to Saitou, who spread a white-gloved hand in a casual gesture which suggested that such a thing was more than a vague possibility. Kenshin laughed without humour, looking away again. "Then, I will no longer be confident in my abilities and you will be alone to be confident in yours."
Amber eyes narrowed slightly. "You trust me to do so?"
"You are in many ways a noble warrior, Saitou," Kenshin answered without a trace of guile, withdrawing his hands from his sleeves and turning them over to study them, touching the calluses on the fingers of his right hand with his left. "I trust that you will follow the code of the Shensingumi and defeat Shishio, even at the cost of your own life." Pivoting without seeming to move, he looked up at the older sword master, his expression serious. "But I do not trust you."
Saitou Hajime laughed, the same cold sound that had disturbed Kenshin's peace only moments before. "You see much, Battousai," he observed. "But I did not seek you here to discuss trust with you."
"No," Kenshin agreed quietly. "You sought me to fight, so you did."
"And you have claimed that you will not."
"That is so."
"And if I attack?"
Kenshin's narrow shoulders lifted a little, his head bowed slightly, leaving his eyes plunged into shadowed pools beneath his brows. "Then, our alliance would be at an end, that it would."
Silence lingered for but a moment, broken by the soft purr of a diamond-sharp blade drawn from a shadowed sheath. Saitou raised it once more, before him, bisecting his face as he studied the edge.
"I do not doubt your skill, Battousai," he said quietly, though the curl of his lips said otherwise. "However, we are no fools and Shishio must be an opponent to be reckoned with, if they feel that we are incapable of defeating him individually." The katana swung down, stilling a hair's breadth from Kenshin's throat. "How can you be sure that you are capable after so many months of..." Amber eyes flicked implicitly down Kenshin's slender form. "Softening up?"
Kenshin regarded him passively. "I know," he replied, "and that is sufficient."
"But is it?" Saitou challenged, drawing closer, his blade sliding slowly across the slighter man's neck as he brought himself less than a pace from Kenshin, staring down at him. "You can fight, this I know, but can you fight well enough?"
Kenshin's expression did not change, his arms folded within his sleeves, his gaze neutral. "What is it you suggest?" he said mildly.
Saitou canted his head slightly, regarding the young man as one might regard a victim before execution. "Indulge me," he replied. "Allow me to test you." His lips tugged upwards at one side. "No further than first blood."
"On whose part?" Kenshin asked, his hand dropping to his sword.
Saitou laughed without mirth, then tossed aside his cigarette. In the soft-dewed grass, the hiss of the butt being extinguished seemed to fill the night, masking the whisper of Kenshin's blade slipping free of its sheath.
"First blood only, Battousai." Stepping back, the older man sank down into his favoured fighting stance, his blade arcing along, nearly parallel, to his left arm. The narrow gleam of his eyes glittered in anticipation, his cold smile a thin, pale curve.
Standing, motionless, his smooth blade aligned down his right leg, Kenshin dipped his chin, barely perceptibly. A shadow touched one corner of his lips, perhaps a smile or perhaps a frown, but Saitou had neither care nor concern for it.
When Saitou struck after a heartbeat that seemed to cling to eternity, it was with all the strength and swiftness that Kenshin remembered well, the edge of his reverse blade blocking to match the elder man, though he did not yet attack.
"Have you forgotten all that you once know, Battousai?" Falling back a pace, Saitou prowled in a slow circle about Kenshin, the younger man turning to follow his every move, lupine eyes holding placid violet ones. "Do you live by defence alone now?"
"Defence is enough, that it is," Kenshin's voice was quiet.
"Heh. So you say."
A sudden lunge cause Kenshin to leap aside, ducking beneath the slice of light, his hair spreading in a fiery wave about his slender body. Upon instinct, his sword rose and the air rang with the song of blades.
Pushing hard against Saitou's blade with enough force to drive the man back a step, Kenshin rolled under a second swing that would have otherwise caught his head off his shoulders.
On one knee, he brought the tip of his blade to flick in caution against Saitou's sword hand. Saitou swung his sword down and, again, Kenshin slipped beyond its kiss, though a long strand of red hair fell softly to the grass.
Saitou lofted a brow, smirking. "Not quite first blood," he said. "But I shall take you a little at a time if I must." He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "This is most disappointing, Battousai."
Rising to his feet, Kenshin's eyes stayed locked on Saitou's face. "I did not ask to fight," he said simply, deflecting a high attack. They began circling one another again, Saitou ever attacking, Kenshin ever defending. "Thus, I do not fight, that I do not."
"Perhaps, you cannot."
One side of Kenshin's mouth drew inexorably upwards. "So you say," he echoed Saitou's words. "Though we fought at the Kamiya Dojo. You wish to anger me, this is so."
Saitou snorted with disgust. "Anger is nothing to me," he said coldly. He sank back down into his attack stance, his eyes narrowing. "You are not Battousai. You are nothing."
"Perhaps this is so," Kenshin agreed. "This is my choice, that it is."
"I am to fight by the side of a house-broken boy?" Slowly, carefully, he shifted his weight, deceptively still. "What good is a boy who will do little more than turn away a blade?"
And he attacked.
The suddenness of his strike from so relaxed a stance caught Kenshin by surprise. He leapt aside, barely managed to avoid the blade. It caught his upper sword arm, slicing through his clothing and leaving a narrow gash across the skin.
Before him, Saitou straightened up with a derisive smile, shaking the barest trace of blood from his katana. "First blood, heh, Hitokiri?" he said, shaking his head. "You, the great defender of Japan. How foolish they will seem when you face Shishio. You cannot defend yourself, let alone your country and your precious little girl."
Rising, his left hand clutching his right arm, scarlet slowly soaking the fabric beneath, Kenshin's eyes narrowed slightly. "I fight when I must," he said quietly. "This fight was your choice, not mine, that it was not."
"And how do you know you are capable, if not against me?" Saitou challenged, then snorted. "I hold no faith in you, Hitokiri. I have seen this in you before; tamed and broken by a woman, who will surely die before this revolution is over."
"You have drawn first blood this night, Saitou," Kenshin said slowly, though the calmness in his voice seemed drawn tighter and more forced than it had before. He turned away from the other man. "Let that be enough."
Gazing at Kenshin's back, Saitou's lips curled, amused. "You think I did not know about your first failing, heh, Battousai?" he asked slyly. "That ribbon you carried, the marks on your face? If you are lucky, you may die before this girl does the same."
"You should stop talking, Saitou."
"You will bid me to stop speaking the truth?" A barking laugh rang out through the clearing a flurry of frightened night birds whirring to the sky. "Will this one mark you before you let her die too, Hitokiri?"
Kenshin's head turned, a golden flare of warning visible between the blood-red strands of his hair. "You have been warned, Saitou," he growled, his hand falling away from his wounded arm. "You have a loose tongue. You should be careful, or else you may lose it."
"By your hand?" Saitou's grin was purely malevolent, his posture barely containing the fierce fire that burned so bright in his gaze. "Come, Hitokiri, surely you jest. It would serve us all better if you returned to your little girl and waited for death to come to you there." He chuckled, a cold, flat sound. "Perhaps, this one could die to save your worthless life as well."
Before the syllables had even departed his lips, Kenshin had turned on him, bloody and vengeful. His fingers curled about the handle of his sword, cloying and sticky, all softness gone from his face, every line of his features sharp and hard.
"That will not happen," he said in harsh tones. "And were she to meet such a fate, you would be chilling in the earth long before I would allow that to happen."
Saitou laughed derisively. "You are the one who bleeds now, Battousai," he sneered. "And you will again. I doubt our enemy will be as merciful as I have been. To you nor your weak-minded little girl."
Two blades sang as they clashed again, suddenly, Kenshin's reversed swing vicious and beautifully struck. Saitou's blade had caught it just in time, but had not stopped it entirely. It was it's master's hand that did that.
Still, a narrow thread of blood marked beneath Saitou's ear to the front of his throat, a dark wash ebbing downwards, staining the pale edge of his collar.
Golden eyes flashed at the sight. "Now," Kenshin's voice seemed to belong to someone else entirely, someone truly worthy of the title of Battousai, hard and without emotion. "We are even, Saitou."
The blade was slowly drawn away, bringing Saitou's cool smile back onto his lips.
"Perhaps," he murmured, sheathing his katana smoothly. Slipping his hand into his pocket, he withdrew the cigarette case and withdrew a fresh one, lighting and drawing upon it. The tip glowed brightly for a moment. "When we are done with Shishio, I will not show you the mercy I have this night."
"Walk away, Saitou," Kenshin seemed to have sunk back into the darkness beneath the trees, but his eyes flashed in warning, a sliver of silver indicating his blade was more than ready to drink deeply of Saitou's blood. "Walk away now. You have had what you came for, so go."
The older man regarded him for a moment, sneering. When he turned his back, the lazy shift of his weight was almost as derisive as the look upon his face, as if he did not truly count the young man a threat.
"I shall await you in Kyoto, Battousai," he said, as he walked away, leaving patches of darkness on the dewy grass. There was a quiet, mocking chuckle, very much like the one that had preceded him. "It shall be a most interesting time."
Behind him, Kenshin sank into a crouch again, on the roots of one of the ancient trees, yet his eyes, still gleaming bitterest amber hatred, watched until Saitou was out of sight, a bitter and present reminder of the past he had not and could never truly disassociate himself with.
The blood on his clothing, on his palm, on his blade, it all rang true. He was still and would continue to be Battousai, until this task was done and he could sheath his blade, nevermore to be used.
Until then...
He glanced down. A sweep of his hand left the trace of Saitou's blood on the grass before him, beading in the spots of dew. The blade hissed softly across his sleeve, then whispered as it met the sheath once more.
Violet eyes flicked in the direction Saitou had walked, the faintest of frowns marring his youthful face. "It will be interesting, that it will," he murmured quietly.