Author's Note: Hello! Yet another updating date skipped...but the good news! I've come back revitalized and ready to go! (with my huge math test accomplished effortlessly!) But the bad news—I'VE LOST THE SPEECH COMPETITION!!! NO!!! Well, I suppose I didn't deserve to win, but...THE SHAME!!! (Hey, you would be ashamed if there were only four other excellent competitors...) It's just too bad, I guess. But the winner is a little unpopular, so a fellow competitor was crying today and everyone's complaining about the choice...oh my goodness. The angst! The sheet angst! Just kidding, it wasn't that bad. So...I have got to understand that I can't accomplish everything in life, ne?
A sad confession: My parents are going to divorce—well, at least, there's a strong possibility. Right now, they're seriously discussing it in the living room, and I'm typing away in the computer room. I hope they don't...I don't want to feel the pain and lose the family's familiarity, which millions of other people have felt...
Review Responses:
Arteme: Wahh!! You're so kind!!! Yeah, I'm sorry for the confusing part about the past battle between Battousai and Saitou. I guess only Battousai and Saitou would know what I was talking about...
Assassinatorgirl: Thanks for the wonderful compliments! Don't worry; the answer to your question will soon pop up soon!
rurouni madness: I'm not sick of you! In fact, I look forward to your reviews! (They're so inspiring!)
KnKWorshipper: Thank you! Heh, I know all about homework procrastination...
MizzLee: Thank you! I hope it is!
Animegurl23: Hahaha! Arigatou!
Whisper of Darkness: That's what I'm trying to aim for! And thanks!
Brittanie Love: I hope you like this and the next chapters too...!
PrincessSakura4: Yeah...heh heh...I feel that way also!
Palmtree: Yup, I'm trying to represent Kaoru as a strong person—she really has a strong will and determination, ne?
Laura: Thanks—I will!
Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin, but this story idea is definitely mine.
A Cloak of Protection
Chapter 10: Into the Past
DAY TWO – 10:00 am
The interior of the practicing hall was rather dimly lit, save for the weak shaft of white light filtering in from the open double doors.
This detail Kenshin vaguely noted.
The red-haired rurouni stiffly and resolutely stood at one end of the dojo. The feeble beam of morning light slowly faded to darkness as it neared the far wall, streaking across the width of the wooden dojo hall. Glimmers of dust lazily swam in the shaft of light.
At the other end, a tall, slender man dressed in a dark-blue police uniform stood straighter and flicked a stray lock of dark hair away from his narrow golden eyes.
Standing next to the open double doors were Sanosuke and Yahiko, their chocolate brown eyes solemn, eyes trained on the tensed scene.
All was deadly silent. Kenshin could feel his eyes narrowing, as he steadily gazed across the length of the dojo at Saitou.
Smirking, Saitou licked his thin lips, and slowly started to draw his sword out of the sheath hanging at his side. The high, metallic shriek of the sword drawing out of Saitou's sheath came to Kenshin's ears from across the dojo.
Kenshin bit down on his lip and bent down in the Battoujutsu stance, leaning forward with his right knee and grasping the hilt of his sakabatou in his clammy right hand. Now he was starting to have second thoughts; why had he agreed to this, he did not know...
Then, from seemingly out of nowhere, I want to finish this delayed fight with Saitou Hajime!!
Kenshin's eyes flashed.
Hand clenching tighter on the hilt of his sakabatou, knuckles shining pearl- white, Kenshin tensely, almost unconsciously, formed one short word on his lips: "Come."
The dry, almost noiseless sound reverberated through the silent dojo hall. They, Sano, and Yahiko were the only to hear it, save the still, solemn nameplates nailed onto the dojo wall that were bearing witness to the whole scene.
From far away, a soft pattering of sudden rain came from outside the dojo hall. Like the tears of sorrow, of regret, of urgency...pattering softly and yet sharp as a thousand arrows through his swelling heart...
A dry sound erupted from Saitou's side of the dojo.
Kenshin snapped to attention, seizing the penetrating rain arrows and tossing them away like snap-and-break chopsticks from his heart. His hand tightened even more on the hilt of the sword, as a blue blur streaked towards him. The glint of a sword soared in front of the blur, heading directly toward Kenshin's chest.
Kenshin's violet eyes smoldered, and he swiftly drew his own sword, the sound of the metal shriek grating at his ears. He was just in time to block, and throw off, Saitou's sudden attack.
Without missing a single beat, Saitou grasped the hilt of his katana and thrust it hard toward Kenshin again. Pivoting, the dry scratch echoing faintly through the dojo hall, Kenshin drew up his sakabatou again, colliding with Saitou's impending attack. White sparks flew with the sudden, forceful impact of two expertly maneuvered swords. The crash of the swords shuddered down Kenshin's spine, chattered his teeth, and rattled his head.
Something unexpected popped into Kenshin's mind. This same fight...this same technique...this same jolting crash of the blades...why, he had already experienced all of this just ten years ago, in the Bakumatsu....
The corners of Saitou's thin lips drew up into one of his trademark sneers. He swiftly withdrew his blade and leaped back, positioning his sword and his body into a familiar, curved stance. He effortlessly bent his knees, drew back his right elbow, and stretched out his left arm to extend parallel to his ready blade. His gloved left hand bent slightly over the gleaming tip of the blade.
Kenshin leaped back also, skidding backward. Drawing in a quick, short breath, he drew up his sakabatou in front of him at an angle, throwing out his left arm for momentary balance.
No doubt about that, Saitou was good. How could he have forgotten exactly how good he was?
Saitou's eyes flashed a bright, liquid-gold color. Without warning, he was off again.
Kenshin's deft eyes followed Saitou's movements, measuring where he was going to strike with his attack. He bunched up the muscles in his legs, ready to counter.
The blue blur flew straight at Kenshin. Prepared, Kenshin skillfully thrust up his sakabatou and struck hard, propelling his sword arm forward.
Yet again, the two blades sharply collided with a high shriek of pure agony. The sound echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls, dimly returning.
Saitou slowly bent his face closer to Kenshin's, and visibly smirked. Pulling back his gloved left fist suddenly, he forcibly propelled it forward again, into Kenshin's stomach.
Their two shiny blades stayed struggling against each other's, sharp tips glinting in the faint light. Kenshin's blade wavered slightly against Saitou's, as he doubled over and pressed his left forearm against his stomach, desperately trying to regain his breath before Saitou's next attack.
Heaving in a single, long breath, Kenshin neatly shoved Saitou's blade away from his and stepped back, eyes narrowed.
Forcefully driven back, Saitou planted a shiny black heel down on the ground, skidding across the wooden dojo floor. Throwing back his sword arm, clenching his katana tighter, he drew back into his stance from before.
Kenshin hastily drew in another breath and positioned himself into the Battoujutsu stance again, sheathing his sword. With his clever, trained eyes, he focused them on the tense, still man arched into a stance across the length of the dojo hall.
Then his heart skipped a single beat. He hadn't noticed it before, but this stance...
Kenshin's mind swirled in a haze of memory. He quickly drew in another breath again and cautiously bent forward even more, getting into a more forceful stance of Battoujutsu. His clear violet eyes kept their gaze on the still figure at the other end of the dojo.
Then the still, blue-clad figure tersely, spoke, barely moving his thin lips. The tip of his left index finger almost touched the sharp point of his katana.
"Gatotsu."
Then Saitou was off again, streaking at Kenshin like a bullet, sharp tip of his blade aimed directly at Kenshin.
Kenshin's eyes narrowed slightly. Saitou kept using this attack—did he not consider that Kenshin might have been able to read his moves?
Quickly, Kenshin grasped the hilt of his sakabatou and drew it out, crashing with Saitou's katana yet again. The sheer force almost bowled Kenshin over, but he kept at it, gritting his teeth, grinding his sandals into the wooden ground, digging the dull side of his sword into Saitou's sharp side of the blade.
Saitou deftly ripped his blade away from the collision and drew back his elbow again to draw his katana perpendicular to his body. Hastily shoving himself away from Kenshin, he used the force to quickly push himself off the ground and leap high into the air, pointing his sword straight at Kenshin again.
Kenshin bit his bottom lip and prepared to defend himself against Saitou's strong blow again. He knew Saitou had the upper hand in this fight, and that he himself was on defense...but he couldn't bring himself to wound Saitou seriously. He could easily have done that ten years ago, when they were bitter enemies, but not now, when he was just the gentle rurouni living at the Kamiya dojo.
That's right...Kaoru-dono. Why in the world am I fighting Saitou when I could be setting out for Kyoto now? I need to get out of here! Kaoru-dono could be in danger right at this very moment...or quite badly hurt...
Kenshin quickly snapped up his bushy red head, to tell Saitou that he couldn't do this anymore...couldn't fight him again...that they weren't bitter enemies now...that they should stop.
To his immense horror, he glimpsed Saitou coming right at him again, while he had been thinking about Kaoru-dono and the fight. Kenshin quickly snapped up his sakabatou to at least try to deflect some of the blow, but Saitou thrust his katana under Kenshin's blade and deftly pierced his left side with the sword.
Saitou smirked again. With his right hand, he neatly twisted the blade and tugged it back out again. Lightly touching back down on the ground, he stood up and flicked his blade around, ridding the shiny metal of Kenshin's crimson blood.
Kenshin hastily drew in a surprised, startled breath. Slowly, he painfully doubled over, his lips slightly parting in pain. Hastily transferring his sword to his left hand, he painfully clenched at his left side with his right hand. A warm, wet liquid seeped from between his fingers and stained his magenta gi. Sinking down from his standing position, Kenshin knelt on the wooden dojo ground, sword flat on the ground.
Saitou casually took a few paces away from the pained red-haired rurouni, smirk curling up his lips, and slowly brought up his bloodied katana again.
Kenshin's fiery red bangs swayed in front of his eyes, shielding them from the world. He drew in quick, ragged breaths, still clutching his side as liquid agony flowed from his wound. With his left hand, he clenched the hilt of his sakabatou so tightly that his knuckles shone pearl white.
From the sidelines near the open double doors, Sano and Yahiko waited anxiously, breath bated, brown eyes wide in surprise and concern for their red-haired friend. But they knew better than to step in.
Saitou's golden eyes flashed, and he started forward menacingly, taking little steps at first, and then running full out to the kneeling red-haired man. He gripped his katana in his hand and deftly twisted it so it was perpendicular to his body, and then charged, hitokiri eyes completely focused on Kenshin.
Kenshin didn't make a single move. His white-knuckled right hand still gripped his side, while crimson blood flowed between his fingers. His long red bangs still shaded his eyes so that they couldn't be seen.
Saitou was almost upon Kenshin. His bloodied katana flashed in the dim light as he thrust it toward him. Then his heart leapt suddenly, into his throat, so suddenly that Saitou almost skidded to a complete stop.
The long, fiery bangs fell back from Kenshin's eyes. Underneath gleamed a pair of liquid amber eyes. They narrowed in distaste as Kenshin glared with revulsion at Saitou.
Saitou felt his already narrowed eyes narrow even further, so that they formed two black slits. So, Battousai had finally returned from this weak rurouni. Well, it didn't matter—Saitou was still going to win their unfinished fight from ten years before; now he was fighting his real opponent, not the rurouni.
With a surge of power and hate, Saitou gripped his katana and bore it down onto the still kneeling Kenshin—or rather, Battousai.
Kenshin—Battousai-- didn't even flinch, didn't even move up from his vulnerable position. He tightened his grip on his own sakabatou, and quickly drove it upwards, neatly sending his blade crashing into Saitou's. Kenshin's great force overpowered Saitou's, and Saitou was sent hurling back into the air.
Kenshin finally looked up, twin golden sparks blazing from his pale face. He slowly withdrew his blood-streaked hand from his left side, and transferred his sword back to his right hand. The hilt grew stained with crimson blood.
Plunging the tip of his katana into the hardwood floor, Saitou used that to lessen the force of his fall. He gently landed on the ground, gloved right hand gripping the hilt of his katana, left knee touching the ground, right knee raised. A scowl slashed his usually smirking mouth into a straight line, and he shoved himself up into a standing position.
Then the smirk came back on full-force. This was what he wanted.
Saitou glared defiantly back at the standing Kenshin, who was staring across at him with narrow, golden eyes and a downward-curved mouth. Then Saitou positioned his blade and dove at the red-haired man standing before him.
Kenshin easily lifted his sword and waited.
With a loud yell that filled the dojo hall, Saitou swiftly leaped up and slashed downwards at the golden-eyed Kenshin. His blade flew down in a curving arc, desperate to taste more of Kenshin's crimson blood.
Kenshin disappeared from where he first stood. A cloud of dust swirled up from where he was standing. Saitou felt his blade slice forcefully through the air, and managed to catch himself just in time to stop his blade sinking into the hardwood ground. If he got his sword stuck, he would be completely vulnerable.
Kenshin deftly swung around the blue-clad man at an incredible speed, and, gripping his sakabatou in both hands, leaped up to slash at the man's back.
Saitou almost stumbled as he turned to look for his red-haired opponent, stray locks of dark hair falling into his amber eyes. Then he felt cold metal slicing through his left shoulder, ripping the arm of his blue police uniform. Liquid warmth quickly spilled over to replace the cold metal.
Kenshin neatly drew back his blade from Saitou's shoulder gash and flicked it sharply around, sending droplets of red blood flying everywhere. He quickly leaped back to counter Saitou's next, sudden attack.
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"Sanosuke," Yahiko began quietly, "can't we just stop them? Like, at least try? Can't we do that for Kenshin? I mean, he's already fighting Saitou, like he wanted to before, but he's going to get hurt like this! Let's try to stop them!"
Sanosuke only stared ahead at the bloody swordplay, lips pressed together. After a moment, he spoke. "Remember what you said before, Yahiko? That they were knee-deep in the past? I have a feeling that they really are, and that they won't respond to anyone unless it's someone that survived the Bakumatsu—someone they know from the past."
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For the next fifteen minutes there was only the sounds of swords clashing against each other, Kenshin's sandals dryly scratching the hardwood floor, Saitou's more elegant shoes clicking on the hardwood, and soft thuds as they leaped off the ground. Then Kenshin finally inflicted a heavier strike on Saitou than a flesh wound: as their swords collided and struggled against each other's again, Saitou's bloodstained sword snapped from all of the force Saitou bore down on the blade.
The high, metallic sound reverberated through the dojo.
Kenshin drew in quick pants, his face flecked with drops of crimson blood.
Saitou, in shocked dismay, looked quickly down at his snapped sword. The smooth, sharp edges of the clean break glinted in the dim light. As if in slow motion, Kenshin distastefully watched the other half of the blade clatter to the hardwood ground, golden eyes narrowed.
Saitou dismally sighed. "Ya're, ya're..." he murmured, examining the clean break. Then he swiftly glanced upward at Kenshin, amber eyes narrowing. With a clean, deft motion, he flung the sharp broken blade at his opponent and dove at Kenshin, nimble fingers fumbling at his belt.
Kenshin was taken by surprise. His own hitokiri eyes narrowing, he stepped back and nimbly blocked the flying blade with his own sakabatou, Saitou's broken blade glancing off his sword. The broken blade clattered noisily across the hardwood ground.
Then he felt a sharp pain at his right wrist. Kenshin angrily gritted his teeth and swiveled his head around, clutching his sword tighter.
Saitou, standing just behind Kenshin, expertly struck again with the metal end of his belt, and it thwacked against Kenshin's wrist forcefully and painfully. Kenshin couldn't keep his hold on the sakabatou's hilt, and it too clattered across the hardwood floor.
Without his sakabatou, Kenshin had no means of defense, except for his not- so-notable hand-to-hand combat skills.
A sneer lifted up Saitou's lips once again, and with a twist of his wrist, he flung away his belt also, and it vehemently struck the dojo wall. Deftly shrugging out of his blue police jacket, he swiftly bunched it together between his palms to acquire a rope-like form. Under his blue police jacket, he had been wearing a tight black shirt that showed off his muscles.
All of this took just a few seconds. Kenshin struggled to stand up.
The sneer growing wider on Saitou's face, he rapidly threw his rolled police jacket over Kenshin's bushy red head and twisted it around his pale neck. Seizing the ends, Saitou cruelly twisted it even tighter around Kenshin's neck and pulled upwards.
Kenshin, golden eyes opening wide, felt the increasing pressure at his neck. As Saitou's strong force lifted him into the air, Kenshin felt his sandaled feet actually leave the ground. A tiny sound escaping his throat, Kenshin groped with his fingers at the jacket wound around his throat.
Saitou's lips curled up, and he pulled at the ends of the wound-up jacket tighter. As Kenshin rose higher into the air, he squeezed his eyes tightly together and visibly struggled to draw in breath. He tried to yell, but all that came out were a few choked sounds.
Sano, gingerly bent forward, long-fingered hands on the knees of his white pants, and glared at Saitou in rage and hate.
Yahiko, right hand up to his mouth, could only watch with wide brown eyes as he tensely watched the ensuing scene before him.
Then the two heard the sound of hooves clattering to a stop somewhere beyond the open double doors. Someone wearing nice shoes stepped quickly to the ground, a carriage door was hastily slammed, and that same someone walked briskly up to the dojo hall, shoes clicking on the ground.
Bewildered, Sanosuke pushed himself back up from his crouched position and resolutely stood up, moving out to the open double doors in order to get a glimpse of what was happening outside. Yahiko quickly glanced over at Sano for a second, but then whipped his head back around at a distant yell behind him.
Yahiko's auburn eyes widened in relief.
Kenshin had lowered his right arm, left hand still groping at the jacket wound around his throat, and driven his elbow vigorously into Saitou's stomach.
Saitou's golden eyes widened. Dropping the two ends of his wound-up jacket, Saitou hastily doubled over, clasping his stomach in pain, trying to get back his breath.
Kenshin limply dropped to the ground, and the blue jacket plopped down beside him. He struggled to sit up, bringing his hands up to his bruised throat, quickly drawing in long breaths.
The two fighters struggled to stand up again, both drawing in long breaths, both wounded heavily. Saitou's eyes narrowed, and he positioned himself into a fighting stance, still willing to keep on going. Kenshin knelt down into a fighting stance as well, golden eyes still focused on Saitou.
This was it—the final attack.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author's Note: I admit, this chapter is supposed to have more than one scene, but the fight scene dragged on so long that I just wanted to stop it here--! I guess I am progressing slowly, taking tiny strides, onto the next step of the plot ladder.
By the way, I welcome constructive criticism! Just be careful—I take each and every one very seriously. (Shihali, I believe you saw a good example of this...sorry about that!) I'll hopefully update next weekend.
-Twilight Sky