So just stay there, in that place, and there I slowly come
I still don't know the way, but I can still go
Through the pain and the wind, I can make it home
Just be patient, my love, my going is slow

8

Sanosuke's Tact

"I really, really hate this," I muttered darkly.

Among the old lady's eccentric collection was a very large mirror, cracked near the top and set in rusted metal stand that had once been gilded to look expensive. It was in this that I looked on my burns. Still blistered, still red, still hurting.

In the corner labeling her new vials of sandalwood oil, Rei-baba shrugged. "At least you didn't get hit in the face, Kid."

I grunted. Yeah, that would have been pretty bad…

"How am I supposed to explain this, though? They keep asking--"

"Just tell them to mind their own business."

"You don't know these people! They're so…persistent."

"Considered telling them the truth?"

"The truth? Oh, yeah, I can do that over dinner tomorrow night. 'Hey, Shino, the fish's great. By the way, did I happen to mention I magically traveled here by way of a mystic stone from a world where you're a man? That Kenshin guy I mentioned? That's really you.' How does that sound?"

"Not too shabby."

"You're not helping, Grandma."

She shrugged again. "When I first came here, I let the man who was later to become my husband believe I had been cursed for past misdeeds. When I went back to our old world, he actually came after me, and suffered a thunderbolt of his own. When he brought me back, he certainly had a new appreciation for the pain I dealt with to remain with him."

"Yeah?" I accepted a new canister of poultice and began applying it to my burns. It was a chore I was truly coming to hate. "Hey, Baba, can just anyone travel with those rocks?"

"Nope, just the lonely."

"A great many people get lonely."

"Yeah, but chances are, a great many people weren't going to die from it like you were."

"What? I wasn't going to die just because--"

She chuckled, throwing the new bottles onto shelves in no particular order. "I wasn't suggesting that you were going to curl up and waste away, but there are many ways that being very lonely can kill you. For example, you might take your life so for granted that you'd be willing to do extremely reckless, dangerous, or self-destructive things just because you believe that no one cares. Or your need for love could have become so great you'd believe anyone who reached out, and might have suffered a terrible betrayal. What do you think?"

The casual way she spoke made me squirm. That…did sound a little familiar. The first part, anyway.

"I still don't know about this--"

"Kid, if you're going to start bouncing back and forth again on this, I'll kick you out on your ass. You hear me?" The old woman waved a heavy ladle at me menacingly. "I understand why you're so confused, but you're under the impression that love's a destined thing, that certain people are meant to fall in love. If that was so, then how could a person love more than once in the same lifetime? How many times has that happened? The heart is as boundless as the sky if you let it be. Are you listening to me, Son? Love is a choice. You choose to love someone as readily as you choose to hate someone. You can be given reasons to love or to hate, but in the end, it's still your choice to feel the way you do."

"But…you said the stone brought me to someone I'd--"

She turned back to her work. "The stone took you to someone you could love, and to someone who needed you. Someone who could love you and someone you needed. She's drawn to you, and you to her, but not by any magic from the stone. Just because it knew that you could love each other didn't meant that you would choose to. You've been on the verge of leaving since you came here. Nothing is forcing you to stay."

"Other than my lack of knowledge to get back?"

She shrugged again. "You can go back anytime. All you have to do is ask me how."

I fiddled with the clean new bandage strips, turning from the mirror. I still hadn't asked how to get back. That hadn't gone unnoticed… But that's just because I wasn't ready to go back yet.

I mulled over what she said a while, letting the gentle wind from the open windows blow over the fresh coat of poultice, in no hurry to mummify myself again just yet. I thought about what the old woman was trying to tell me.

I turned my face to the wind, unable to keep back my smile.

"Sanosuke."

I jerked my head toward Rei-baba, a little surprised because she had never actually used my name before. She had abandoned her tools and was looking out into the forest, a frown making the lines around her mouth stand out sharply. I thrust my shovel into the ground, glad for a chance to stop trying to dig out a particularly old and very deep-rooted sandal tree.

"What is it, Grandma?"

She looked concerned for moment, then snorted. "There's another injured boy out there," she said, pointing vaguely south.

"Injured boy?" I looked where she pointed, but I couldn't see anything but trees and foliage. "Where?"

"A little ways off. I can sense him there. Come on, then. We'd better go and see what we can do for him."

We walked much farther out into the woods than she should have ever been able to see, and finally came up on a huddled form trying to steady himself against a boulder. Dried blood coated the arm gripping the stone, and his other hand was wrapped tightly around his ribs. He lifted his head, hearing us coming, and looked at us with bleak sapphire eyes.

"Kaoru!" I cried, rushing past Rei-baba.

He fell into me, gripping my shoulders for support. "Sano! Thank God. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find you," he said in a strangled voice. "I'm sorry, so sorry… I tried to protect her--I'd have died before I'd let them have her…but she was afraid they'd kill me--she went with them…I tried to stop her…Sano, I'm so sorry--"

I looked down at his bowed head in growing terror. "Kaoru!" I snapped to shut up his delirious babbling. He quieted instantly and lifted him slightly and then set him down against he boulder. "Baba--!"

"Yes, yes," the old lady said testily, already digging in the small back she kept slung over her shoulders. "Get off his clothes, Boy, and let's see what he's done to himself."

Kaoru resisted, though. Grabbing at my arm he said, "Sanosuke, never mind me! You have to help Shino!"

"What happened? Where is she?"

He made a soft, choking noise, his eyes unfocusing again. "So stupid… I knew she was a slave, but I didn't think for second…someone would be looking for her."

"What?" I said desperately. It was all I could do not to shove Rei-baba out of the way and shake him until he made some kind of sense. "Kaoru!"

He looked back at me, then gritted his teeth, trying to focus. "It's been two days, Sano," he said throatily. "You said you were working in the forest this way. Took so long to find you… They came to the dojo, and he had papers and everything." He shook his head.

"Papers? What are you talking about? Kaoru!" I said sharply.

His eyes snapped back to me. "Ownership papers…Shino belongs to him."

I stared down at him, fighting the waves and waves of horror threatening to crush me.

"The old man, he let her go," Kaoru babbled. "She saved his son's life, and he let her go as thanks. But the old man's dead now, and the boy wanted her back…" His eyes slid shut.

"Kaoru--!" I caught him before he slumped forward.

Rei shook her head as she peeled away his blood-sodden gi. "Damn," she whispered.

"No," I said, not sure what I was denying. I clenched my fists, trying to stop my hands from shaking. "I don't understand. If someone…owned Shino but let her go, then how could--"

"Once a slave, always a slave," the old lady said roughly. "Just because the man who owned your girl let her go her own way for doing him a service never meant she was free. That just meant that his heir could take up her receipt of sale and claim ownership of her again. It's completely legal."

I whirled, my feet set to fly back to town, but the old lady was remarkably fast, grabbing my wrist. "Sanosuke, wait!"

I tried to shake her off, but she only tightened her grip. "Let go, you crazy old hag! Get off! She needs me!"

"I'm glad," she gritted, using my arm to pull herself off her knees, "that you finally realize that. But you don't know where she is, and your other friend here--who is badly injured and also needs your help--is the only one who can give you that information. Now act like you've got some sense for once and help me get him back to the house."

"Sano… You're still here?"

"Of course I am, Idiot!"

I think that had been the longest eight hours of my life, hovering around Kaoru's bedside, glaring at his eyelids as if I could will them to open. Grandma kept saying something like, "a watched pot never boils," but I didn't have any concentration to spend on sorting through her stupid metaphors.

Kaoru blinked slowly, eyelids sliding heavily over his dark blue eyes. "We've got to help Shino."

"I know!" I said through very clenched teeth.

He tried to sit up, but I pressed him down, keeping my hands away from the bandages and very nasty bruises that seemed to over him from shoulders to abdomen. "Stay down. You're really hurt."

Drifting from somewhere outside in the herb garden, I heard Rei-baba's warning of, "If he tears his stitches, there'll be hell to pay."

Kaoru looked in the direction of her voice. "Who is that?"

"The crazy old lady who saved your life. Where the hell is Shino?"

He took a deep breath, flinching. "With Horibuchi Seiji," he gritted.

"Who is that?"

"Shino's master," he hissed, as if he'd just been forced to say a foul word. "That son of a bitch. He thought he could just come and take her. Had a lot of hired help with him. The law was on his side too. I'm so sorry, Sano."

I could say nothing, just stood shaking with growing rage.

"It's her fault too," Kaoru said, surprising me so that it went down a level. He stared at the ceiling. "That girl…is very brave," he whispered. "I hope I never need the kind of courage she has."

"What?" I said softly, suddenly afraid.

"She asked me not to tell you," he said in the same haunted voice. "I was on the ground with swords pointed at me. She said she'd go with them quietly if they didn't harm me. She said not to tell you what happened, to just say she just ran away… Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl. Trying to protect us--" He broke off with a little gasp, not finished talking before he ran out of air. "How can I live with myself if he hurts her?"

"It's not your fault, Kaoru," I said roughly. "It's mine. I should have been there. I should never have just left her!"

I got up, stiffly moving for the door. "Tell me where she is."

"Seiji's father bought Shino when she was just a little kid. Even if he let her go, Shino belongs to Seiji by right of inheritance. You'll be in trouble with the law if you just go in and take her. Shino will be really upset if you get yourself arrested or killed on her account."

I turned back to look at him. He lay tiredly on Rei-baba's bed, a few drops of sweat at his hairline. He wasn't trying to talk me out of anything. He was simply stating the facts.

I snorted. "Screw them all. And Shino will get over it."

He closed his eyes. "Then listen and I'll tell you how to get there…"

I ran all the way back to the city. I did not get lost.

Kaoru had a good idea of prominent landmarks. Using the dojo as a starting point, I sprinted through the streets. I saw the beef bowl house. A string of shops. The marketplace. Long street. Lady's yard with a lot of cats. Left turn. Right turn. Running straight until the land started to rise and the city thinned out and then gave way to tightly manicured gardens.

Yet another rich man enjoying another western-style mansion. It sprawled out proudly over an immense plot of land, framed on either side by elaborate hedge-mazes.

I stood just where the cover of spindly little trees ended. I was soaking wet with sweat, dizzied with my day-long racing, but fever and fatigue were the farthest things from my mind.

Shino needed me.

Damn it… It… It just wasn't fair!

Every time I closed my eyes even for the briefest moment, all I could see were Shino's wounded eyes. Damn it to the darkest pit of hell! Just one look at her in a single, unguarded moment, or listening to the noises she made when she slept and any fool could tell she had suffered more than anyone should ever have to suffer. Especially a soul like hers. A scarred and beautiful soul who tried to protect others even when she so badly needed and almost never got protection herself.

No more. Never again. I would not let this happen again. No one would hurt her again. No one would frighten her, look down on her, make her feel ashamed. I was sick of seeing those things in her face, her eyes, her posture. Never again. I wouldn't allow it. I wouldn't allow it!

I didn't care that my heart was trying to ram its way out of my chest. Who cared if my lungs burst? I didn't need air. I needed to get Shino.

I needed her to feel different things. I needed to know that she would feel warm. Warm and safe. Protected. I wanted to show her myself, wanted it with all my soul. I no longer cared if she learned to defend herself or not, because I would do that for her from now on. My arms could be as gentle with her in them as they were strong against the things that were outside them. I'd shelter her forever.

If she only chose to let me.

They weren't going to let me in.

Not that much could stop me. I couldn't remember feeling such a cold detachment in my entire life. Battle usually made my blood run high, but this was like fighting my way through a cold, featureless tunnel to a warm light beyond.

A light I prayed held Shino, safe and unharmed.

Otherwise it didn't matter who I backhanded out of my way. I remember several people ran up to me. I remember thinking I hadn't minded so much, back in my world, when a lot of guys carried wooden swords instead of steel. But it didn't matter in the end.

I had caught them by surprise.

I must have looked like a demon. Disheveled and flushed and drenched from hours of running. Teeth bared, eyes flashing. It made me almost wish they had been prepared for me. But they weren't. No one had been expecting someone to just come bashing his way in. The effect was wasted, really.

Servants scattered like cockroaches, and my only opposition were a handful of surprised bodyguards. Lousy security. Paid cheaply. Good against the regular stuff.

But not guys like me.

Had any of those guys slashed Kaoru? Or put their hands on my Shino, taking her from a place I was so sure she'd be safe?

Someone was going to pay dearly, oh-so-dearly when I found him.

I was trembling with exertion and carefully conserved rage when I found myself in a hall. Groans came from behind me, but I was out of opposition, save for a small, wiry young man with glasses standing in the doorway. He didn't try to attack me or get in my way, nor did he run like the ones who had no intention of stopping me or getting in my way.

I reached out and snagged him by the scruff of his western-style suit. "You! Are you Horibuchi Seiji?" I ground out.

"Tadao…Horibuchi Tadao," he corrected flatly, as if I was disturbing his tea time or something. "Seiji is my older brother. What has he done now?"

"I'm looking for a girl!" I snapped. "She's got red hair, crossed scars on her right cheek. Tell me where she is."

The threat was heavy and very real in the air, but the young man barely blinked. "You're looking for my brother's slave--"

"Shino is no one's slave! No one's!" I shouted, my voice ragged with outrage.

Tadao's lips pursed in annoyance. "Well, I don't know what she told you, but she does by law belong to my brother, inherited from my father, her original owner--"

"If you say that again, I will snap your neck," I said, the last vestiges of my patience completely gone. "Tell me where Shino is. I'm taking her away from here. Now."

I jerked him out of the doorway and sent him stumbling along the hall.

"Fine, fine," he grumbled. "Let's see… Seiji was very angry with her for messing up her face, so she'd been confined for a while, but he may have moved her if he's forgiven her yet. Perhaps so. The damage isn't so very bad. We might as well go and see…"

I followed him through the twists and turns, barely seeing the richness of the place. Not caring about his words as he murmured on. There was only one thing I wanted from this place.

He stopped suddenly and I nearly bumped into him.

"Wha--" I began, but then I heard it too.

A man's voice cursing. "…tell me 'no,' you don't tell me 'no'…"

My heart began to pound as I shoved passed the young man with glasses and moved toward the voice.

"…forgotten your place…you're mine, I own you…"

"…no…"

A sharp smacking sound made me break into a run.

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME, YOU SCUMBAG!"

My run became a sprint, reaching out with my fists to connect with the arching doors at the end of the hall.

They burst inward, one of them falling off the hinges and landing with a deafening boom on the floor.

A canopied bed, lost in billowing gossamer curtains was in the middle of a giant room with no windows.

I spared no attention for the man who jerked up, shocked at my banging entrance.

All I had eyes for was Shino, trapped beneath him. I saw his hands, though, still trying to undo the insanely complicated knots that she had tied her obi and the bindings on her small chest into in a heartbreaking effort to protect herself from the very thing he had been trying to do to her. Her hands were behind her back, evidentially tied there. Bruises and fingers marks were on her bare shoulders and slender arms. A nasty bruise almost the same color of her eyes spreading from the corner of her mouth and over half of her scar.

She looked back at me, her eyes bright with feverish terror. "S…Sanosuke?" she whispered.

Horibuchi Seiji, who at the scant glance I gave him seemed to be not much more than a bigger, sharper version of his younger brother Tadao, saw my face and had the good since to jump off the bed and take several steps backwards.

I ignored him for the moment, striding to the bed I pulled Shino out of it, setting her on her feet. I carefully freed her hands and shucking my jacket I wrapped it around her shoulders, then turned her toward the door. "Go," I said tersely. "Get out of here. Go to the woods. Hide. Wait for me there. Now," I added when she opened her mouth to protest, not in the mood for argument.

Trembling slightly, she moved along with me as I pushed her toward the door. I watched until she disappeared to make sure she obeyed me, catching sight of a irritated-looking Tadao. He wisely made no move to stop her.

Behind me, Horibuchi seemed to find his voice. First he called shrilly for his guards, but only saw his younger brother step up, and it wasn't to defend him we saw as the young man leaned against he wall to watch. "He took them all out, Elder Brother. No one's coming."

Horibuchi's eyes flicked back to me. "Who the hell are you and what do you want?"

He backed away as I moved toward him. "You'd piss yourself if I told you what I wanted right now, you sickening bastard," I hissed. "I've been told she saved your life, and this is how you repay her?"

His eyes widened, then narrowed. "For a slave, nineteen years of freedom is payment enough for something so ridiculous as pulling a little boy from a river," he snarled.

"A freezing river," Tadao corrected quietly from behind us. "You would have died if she hadn't been there, Elder Brother."

Horibuchi snarled an obscenity at him. "She was to be mine! I couldn't believe it when the old man just let her go, and I couldn't believe it when I found her again. But of course he didn't mind letting her go. He'd already had her so many times. No more, though. She's mine by right. I have the documentation there."

I didn't bother to follow where his finger pointed. Whether it was a trick to distract me or not, I honesty didn't care if there were papers that stated that Shino was owned by anyone. He'd already had her so many times… The words were enough to send me teetering over the edge.

Before I was aware of moving, I had him pinned to the wall with my arm, teeth bared and growling. Fear flickering satisfyingly in his eyes.

"I swear before everything that is holy you will never get a chance to hurt her again." My eyes moved from his face to catch his brother, who had finally dropped the unconcerned attitude, staring back at me with dark, solemn eyes.

I turned my face back to Horibuchi. "Never again," I was my fiercely whispered promise.

An hour was spent stomping through the woods around the Horibuchi home, and I spent most of it cursing.

It was my own fault. I'd told her to come out here and hide, but I guess I'd somehow expected it to be easy for me to find her again. I should have known. Even badly shaken up, the blasted girl was clever.

I'd wanted to get her quietly and get the hell out of this place, but I'd soon had to resort to calling for her, finally hearing a gentle cry of an answer back and following it to a fallen, hollowed-out tree so covered with undisturbed moss that it was easy to overlook as a potential hiding place.

I should have been more gentle, but I reached in anyway and dragged her out, grasping at my jacket before it could slip from her shoulders. I shook her slightly. "Shino, are you okay? Are you all right?"

She opened her mouth, her glassy eyes on my chin. "Yes. No. I…I don't know…"

If anything could have prepared me for a girl to cry, the events of this day had. She didn't burst into tears, or become hysterical, but then I hadn't expected her to, being who she was. She breathed deeply and slowly as she cried, obviously having trained herself to weep quietly. I just held her and let her do it, somehow not feeling as clumsy as I might have with any other girl in need of comfort.

After a time her breathing quieted. She looked up from where she had been pressed to my chest. I smiled gently at the sight of her upturned face, sweet with its wide eyes and tear streaks that I lifted a hand to rub away with my thumb.

"Sano…you came," she said.

I snorted. "Well of course I did, you little fool. Did he hurt you?"

She shook her head, but I passed my thumb over the wide bruise on her cheek, silently letting her know I knew otherwise. "It doesn't matter now. He'll never be able to harm you again."

She blinked slowly, then her eyes widened. "S-sano? Sano, did you…?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Did I what?"

Distressed, Shino's face swung in the direction the house lay.

I chuckled. "There are very few times that I've ever wanted to kill someone more, Shiden-me. But I didn't kill Horibuchi. I had a feeling you wouldn't much approve of that no matter how he deserved it."

She breathed out, relieved, looking back to me. "But…but you said--"

"He can't touch you again. He has no claim to you now, none at all. You see I, uh…"

"Sano?"

I smiled sheepishly at her. "Well, I um… I bought you, Shino. I had to use all the money I had been saving for your tuition, but I bought you."

Her jaw dropped.

"Well, I had to do something. He took a little convincing--" I flexed my fists, "--but eventually he saw things my way."

She smiled gently.

"He was very angry, though. We'd better watch ourselves."

She nodded. "Is Kaoru-san all right?"

"Yeah, I left him with Rei-baba. Climb up." I turned around and bent my knees slightly, the way I did when I had carried her piggyback from Kyoto to Tokyo weeks ago.

She smiled. "But I can walk, Sano."

"So what? Climb up."

She sighed good-naturedly, doing as I said. Once she was securely on my back I started moving at a goodly pace, eager to get away from the city before Noribuchi roused his guards or called the police or something.

"Sano?"

"Yeah?"

"So I, um…I belong to you now?"

"Yeah, I guess you do."

"What are you going to do with me then?"

"What am I going to do with you? I'm going to keep you."

"Dwah?" she exclaimed.

I laughed. Then after a pause I asked, a little tentatively, "Is that okay with you?"

There was another pause.

"Yes," she answered softly.