Why is your smile so weak?
Do you wish you had a king you'd be proud to serve?
Tired of taking the beaten plough over the trodden meek
Those wet paths down clenching curves…

2
So Different

It was all backwards. Completely backwards.

I knew I hadn't been to Kyoto in years, but unless they had torn everything down and rebuilt everything on opposite sides of the street…

I walked beside Shino. She was watching me out of the corner of her eye. I knew I looked like a brain-scattered fool, walking around with my mouth hanging open, sometimes stopping suddenly to look at a building I knew was built backwards from the way I had first seen it.

It was as if I was holding up a mirror and looking at the streets of Kyoto through it, everything reversed.That's when I first began to think of it as another world, a mirror world.

Lots of people carried swords, many among them women. Evidently there was no sword-banning act here. Unless it had been repealed while I was away, which was anywhere from unlikely to impossible. I wondered about history. Had there been a revolution? Had the same side won as in the world I had known?

With no answers for me there, my eyes drifted from the backwards streets and back to Shino. I guess I had seemed to calm down because she was no longer watching me so carefully. Instead she was looking at the ground.

Now it was my turn to scrutinize her. As much as she was like Kenshin, there were…differences.

She had so many of his mannerisms. The mollifying smiles, the appeasing words, the way she moved her slender hands, or frowned, or blinked, even the way she wet her lips with her tongue put me in mind of Kenshin.

But…she handled herself in these crowded streets very differently than he would. Her eyes were downcast, her hair covering most of her face. A vigorous wind blew over us, and she almost stopped walking to grab at her hair as it was blown back from her face, patting it low over her right cheek, over her scar.

Was she…ashamed of the scars on her face? Kenshin wasn't. Or at least, he never seemed to be. He always wore his hair tied back, out of his way. His head was always held up, and he usually smiled as he walked along, looking like the happy, unthreatening rurouni he was. It just seemed to be part of the way he looked, like the way some people have different shapes of eyes, or lower foreheads, or freckles or moles. But then, Kenshin was a man, and carrying a sword made it no secret he was a warrior. Warriors get scars. I have plenty of my own.

So then, did being a woman make such a difference it would bother this girl-Kenshin more than the guy-Kenshin? I supposed so. Women were more concerned with their looks like that…

Still…it made me feel bad that she felt bad about it.

I almost jumped when my own stomach made a loud, gurgling sound. Shino smiled, looking up at me. "Hungry again?"

"Yeah, well…" I shakily smiled back, rubbing the back of my head. My nerves were still a little tight.

She pointed northward, my eyes automatically following the line of her finger. "There's a place called Shirobeko just down the street. It's a nice place, I think. I can't stop to stay, though. Will you be all right by yourself?"

We were parting ways. I was a little surprised to feel a lump in my throat at the thought, almost like I was losing my best friend all over again. The world had just gone ass-backwards on me, and I still wasn't entirely certain I had all of my sanity. Her presence, so like Kenshin's, had begun to provide a bit of an anchor for me.

Then again, I had been acting like a complete weirdo and she was probably eager to get away from me.

I forced another smile and said I would be all right.

"Your burns aren't that bad. Keep watch over them though," were her parting words, and with a gentle smile, she turned and went her own way.

I watched for just a few seconds. With her back turned, there was no telling her from Kenshin.

Raking my good hand through my hair, I exhaled noisily and went in search of food.

Shirobeko. It was mostly symmetrical, on the outside anyway, so it didn't unsettle me too much at sight. What would unsettle me would be Tae's sister, Sae. I gulped, standing outside the doors.

If there was a female Kenshin here, would there also be a male Sae? Or a male Tae? Oh, Lord, what if back in Tokyo there was a boy Kaoru or a little Yahiko girl? A Tsubame boy? The thought alone was enough to curdle my blood.

Deciding I could go the rest of my life not knowing about any of these sudden gender switches, I turned away from the Shirobeko and made a mental note that, if there was no way for me to go home to my world, never to go to Tokyo again.

I found a more seedy joint to get some food, and also a game of dice. The familiar sounds of gambling soothed my nerves again. This was normal. This was something I did often.

The most I did with the gambling was to break even, and then I settled down to drink for a while. Sake. That was normal too. The taste was normal. It still tasted like sake. I had half-wondered if sake would be water and water would be sake in this place, but no.

On the other hand, it wouldn't be half bad if all the water was really sake. I know I'd find a river, stick my head in and never come out!

I laughed quietly to myself at the thought.

Somebody screamed at me to quit my cackling. I made an obscene gesture in his general direction. I was seeing double at that point and could only hope the one I flipped off was the right one.

I drooped over my next drink, raising my eyes slightly to see that it had gotten rather dark outside. It would have been wiser to get lodgings before I drank myself into a stupor, but at the time I wasn't thinking about anything but forgetting the abject weirdness all around me.

So I sat there, drinking. Busted one guy's head for trying to pick my pockets once. Drank more. Glared dangerously when someone suggested that maybe I'd had enough. Ordered more just out of spite.

I eventually had to take a leak. Tossing a few coins down I made my way outside, wondering what time it was and if it was too late to get a room at an inn.

Wandering around for maybe half an hour proved that being drunk and having a humiliatingly poor sense of direction can end you up in some weird places. It also didn't help that the seeing double thing came and went as I walked along, merging the buildings together into and doubling the streets until they were unrecognizable.

There was nothing wrong with my hearing, though, as I passed an alleyway and heard a woman's voice say, very distinctly, very firmly, and with tooth-numbing politeness, "Let go of me, please."

I knew the tone well, if not exactly the voice. That was that girl-Kenshin's voice. No, I had to stop thinking like that. That was Shino's voice.

Better go see if she's okay, I thought, stumbling toward the alleyway from where her voice had come. It was dark. I could make out more voices the further I went.

"Come on," someone was crooning. "We can pay you."

"Unless you want to give it to us for free," someone else said.

There was a round of snickering as I came found the end of the alley where the moonlight showed through a gap in the roofs. The alley ended dead, and I could see the small form of Shino standing beyond the men who were pestering her. She stood quietly, looking out through her veil of red hair at three knuckle-dragging buffoons.

"Leave me alone," she said in the same firm, quiet voice. Her hands were by her sides, balled into fists.

The third man muttered something that was too low for me to hear and took a step forward. In the blink of an eye, Shino's sword was free and pointed at him.

I had almost walked out to help deal out justice on these men who would gang up on a lone woman in the dark, but once she had her sword out I grimaced and leaned against the wall instead, a little curious to see if Shino was as good as Kenshin with it. Squinting through the distance and the dark at the blade she held I was both relieved and strangely disappointed to see that she did not hold a sakabato. It was an ordinary katana, though a well-used one judging from the knicks on the blade. It was almost funny how the worn-out blade matched her state of dress.

I smiled again as she first showed how much faster she was than they, running under one man's arm as he reached for her. Not as fast as Kenshin might have moved, but there was no reason to use full force on these miserable creeps, was there?

Had I not been such an idiot, or maybe not quite so drunk, I might have noticed there was something wrong sooner…

As it was, I sat back and enjoyed the show. Shino was very fast indeed, ducking and running, but she wasn't making much use of the blade. It only really served to keep the men at a little distance. When any chance came for her to cut them, she didn't take it. Of course she'd be as unwilling to cause harm as Kenshin. He could cut loose freely with his reversed-edge, but she had a blade only dulled with time--still too lethal for her to use against another human being.

Or maybe that was only part of it.

Shino had moved closer to me. Not close enough to see me in the shadows, but close enough that I got a good look at her face. I fully expected to see the stern battle expression Kenshin usually wore when he had to fight. But, she didn't have such an expression. She looked afraid. Fear was marked cold and wet in her eyes as she backed away with her attackers advancing.

Bewildered, my eyes fell to her sword, on her hands. They were…wrong. She wasn't holding the sword right. I don't use swords, but I lived with sword-people for, how long? I knew how one was supposed to be held. Her hands were close together on the hilt, instead of holding it balanced at the guard and the end like Kenshin held his sakabato or Yahiko held his shinai.

My eyes widened, a new horror growing inside my chest. What the hell was she playing at? It was almost like she didn't…she didn't…

Shino fell, tripped up by the well-placed foot of the one of the guys she was fighting. She gasped softly as the sword fell from her hands, spinning wildly in my direction before coming to a rest just inside the shadow. I stared it, appalled. Oh, God…

Oh, God, I was such a fool! A stupid, drunken fool! I should have realized! She didn't know how to use it! She didn't have Kenshin's skills! Here I was just standing and watching, and she was really in trouble!

Shino scrambled to her feet, as the three men surrounded her. She started to dart between two of them, but the one behind her got a hold of her long red hair, pulling her back. The cry she let out as her hair was yanked made my blood boil and red appear around the edges of my vision. A roar burst from my throat before I really realized that it was coming from me as I charged out of the shadows toward them.

I came back to myself maybe a couple minutes later with three bleeding thugs at my feet making mewlings sounds for mercy. I laughed at them as I kicked their quivering butts again for a second time just to make up for the memories I didn't have of the first.

I watched them flee, feeling very satisfied as I loosened my knuckles. "Cowards," I grunted as I turned to make sure Shino was all right.

She was looking back at me with such uncertainty. Hurt. There was such undisguised hurt in her eyes…

"Hey. Shino, it's me, Sano. It's okay," I said, feeling like an oaf. I was never good at reassuring people, and I was a little offended myself that she'd look at me that way. "I'd never hurt you."

"Oh…no. No…Sanosuke, I didn't mean…" She dropped her eyes, fumbling herself, twisting her hands in front of her ratty gi. "I'm sorry."

I walked over to her sword and picked it up. It really was in bad shape, and from the feel of the hilt in my hand it had once been worn down by hands much bigger than hers. It looked like it had been narrowly salvaged off the garbage heap.

"You don't know how to use this," I said as gently as I could, still not quite able to believe it. "If you can't use it, why do you carry it?"

Shino leaned her head forward, the hair sliding over her face to hide her eyes. Moving over to me, she reached out with one of her little hands and took the battered sword from me and slid it carefully back into its sheath. "For protection," she whispered.

"Protection? How can you protect yourself if you can't fight with it?"

"It helps. Sometimes. Sometimes the sight of it is enough. They move on to seek out more helpless-looking prey."

Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

Distressed by an emotion I couldn't put into words, I ran a hand over my face, and the movement cause the walls around me to sway.

I felt her hands on my arm, steadying me. I looked down into her eyes, wide with worry. "Sanosuke, are you hurt?"

She was very close to me, and the moonlight was falling on her hair, pouring over the white-gold of her skin. She was so very lovely…

Kenshin! I tried to remind myself, but he was now only a mere distraction, pushed back in my mind as a friend I was only vaguely worried might be angry at me for dating his sister. She wasn't his sister, of that I was very certain, but somehow it just felt as benign. She was of Kenshin, but she wasn't Kenshin. I could accept that.

"Sanosuke?"

"What? Oh. No, it's okay. I'm just drunk." She raised her eyebrows, and I smiled at her sheepishly. "Well, I had a rough day, you know?"

"Do you remember anything yet?"

"Remember…? Oh. Oh, no. Still blank."

"I don't think drinking so much is going to help your amnesia."

I chuckled softly. "You get attacked by three big guys, and you're worried about me? Don't worry about it. As long as I remember the important stuff, I'll be all right."

That remark was rewarded with a slight smile. "I suppose so."

I felt a stab of disappointment as she moved away from me, starting toward a little bundle of blankets at the angle where one building met another to form a corner of the alley.

"You're sleeping here?" I asked her.

"I was going to. It's a safe spot. Or it was, before they found me here. I'll have to find another place to sleep tonight."

Shino knelt and began to gather up her belongings. I frowned at her back. "But, don't you have somewhere to go?"

She looked back a me, that…that hurt look back in her eyes, eyes so like my rurouni friend's, that she tried to hide behind a weak smile. "No, I don't have anywhere to go," she said softly. She turned away again, folding her blanket.

I watched her a moment, trying to examine the ache that was growing within me. I looked again at her badly worn clothes, that poorly-kept sword. At the little corner where she was planning to spend the night. I thought about those punks who had tried to harm her, about what might have happened had I not come bumbling along.

I watched her straighten up, letting the little wash of anger that came with that last thought make my decision for me. I swayed only a little as I walked up behind Shino as she folded the two blankets over her arm and touched her gently on the shoulder. She jumped, not expecting the contact, her delicate face looking up to mine. Again I was mesmerized by what the moonlight could do to her hair, running it through with streaks of both silver and gold.

"Look," I said as evenly as I could manage. "I know I look like some kind of thug, and you don't really have a reason to trust me or anything… But you helped me out when I was hurt and that means I owe you. Besides…I kind of need to sleep off my drink, and I don't have anywhere to go either. Do you think it would be all right if I stayed with you again tonight? We could look out for each other, in case those guys come back?"

She stared back at me for a moment, then smiled very slowly. "You don't look like a thug, Sanosuke."

I laughed. "It's funny to hear that from you," I said, without thinking. "Kenshin always said I did."

"Kenshin?" She raised one of her fists to an eye, rubbing at it. She was sleepy. She was adorable.

Adorable? Where did that come from? Damn it, Man, you're not that drunk!

"Is that the Kenshin you asked me about earlier? You called for him when you first woke up after I found you, too."

"Yeah. He's my friend."

"And he is a 'Himura' as well?"

"Yeah."

"That's quite a coincidence."

"Oh, yeah. Heh. A…coincidence."

She was curled up right at the corner, with her back firmly against the wall and the blanket around her shoulders.

She slept a kind of exhausted sleep, I thought, for how deeply it was. The only time I had ever seen Kenshin sleep so deeply was when he was wounded or sick, when his body would force him down into deep, healing slumber.

I sat several feet away from her, one of her blankets covering my knees. She had offered it to me with a shy little grin, saying it was so warm she didn't really need two.

The blanket was so threadbare and full of holes you'd need two to equal one, if you asked me. I didn't say such a rude thing, though. I wouldn't have meant for it to be rude anyway. It was just…

She was so ragged. She was beautiful, but she was thin and pale. Everything she had showed of so much wear and tatter. She was sleeping in the woods and in alleyways. She was so…destitute.

Kenshin was always a bit on the shabby side, but never anything like this.

I tried to think of ways Kenshin might have made it in his ten years of wandering. I knew he probably did a few of the same things I did exploring the mainland for five. He'd employed his martial skills, body guarding and the like. I think he took on little chores at inns and such in exchange for lodgings and things like that. There was always someone, somewhere who could use some help.

I wondered about Shino. Why was she like this? How had she gotten her scar? Where had she grown up? She couldn't have had an upbringing like Kenshin's, if she couldn't use the sword.

Was there a female version of…me? Somewhere in this reversed world?

I shuddered, not liking any of the images of a female Sano walking through my mind.

"What am I going to do?" I moaned softly. My head was starting to pound with all this weird thinking. Why was I sitting here watching over a woman who looked like my friend? Why was I suddenly so afraid and worried for her that if God opened the gateway home right in front of me where I sat, I wouldn't just leave her behind like this?

I swore as quietly as I could, just to get some frustration out. Tugged at my hair for the same reason. Almost wished those guys would come back so I'd have something justified and satisfying to punch.

I glanced at Shino, but I hadn't disturbed her rest.

She lay with her hair falling just a little over her face. She looked sad, even when she was sleeping. Hurt. That word was starting to overtake Kenshin's name when I looked at her. What had happened to put that look in her eyes?

Maybe I was making too much of it. After all, she'd been getting along just fine before I came along. She'd continue on all right without my help, I was sure.

She made a small noise in her sleep, a clutching motion with her hands I wondered at and was still again.

"Oh, son of a bitch," I swore softly at the sharp stab of pain the little noise had made in my heart. I dug my fingers into my scalp. "What am I going to do?"