2
When Sanosuke opened his eyes, there was a small person sitting on his chest, peering into his face.
There were, of course, physical protests to the little guy's slight weight, but Sano stayed still. He blinked. Little boy was still there. Blinked again. He hadn't moved.
Was he in heaven…or hell? Because the child on his chest appeared to be, well…a "little Kenshin". A very miniature Kenshin, right down to an untidy mop of tied-back red hair flopping over his face and down his back. The eyes, behind bangs that needed trimming, were a shade of blue that was somehow both darker and more delicate than Kenshin's violet. No scars on his cheeks, at least.
Sano swallowed slowly as the youngster continued to stare down at him, wondering what he should say when the boy's weight lightened considerably, lifted off and away from him, and Sano found himself staring, with some relief, at the full-sized Kenshin he remembered.
The former rurouni's face was drawn tight with worry, then a measure of relief when he saw that Sano was awake. The both of them wordless with relief, they roughly clasped hands for a moment, Sanosuke both taking in and staving off the fact that he could hear the outside still being beaten down with rain and that it was still dark. How long had he been out, exactly? He felt dry and warm, so it had to have been a while.
"You hair is longer," was the first thing Kenshin said to him.
"Yours is shorter," was his reply, and he couldn't help the critical eyes that passed over the change. His hair was still long in the front, but had been shorn closer in the back. It wasn't an unbecoming hairstyle, it was just…different. Sano couldn't help feeling a moment of loss, but it was fleeting. He'd been through too much with Kenshin to know there was a possibility he could have come home to find that his friend had finally managed to fall to the sometimes insurmountable revenge and challenges that still haunted the shadow of Hitokiri Battousai. Next to the fact that Kenshin himself might not have been around, hair wasn't really that big of a deal.
Sano glanced at the "little Kenshin" balanced one of the "big Kenshin's" slender hips.
"This is a stupid question," Sano said slowly. "But he's yours, right?"
Amusement flickered over Kenshin's face as he nodded. "His name's Kenji. He wasn't supposed to be climbing on you."
The kid smiled sleepily at the eyes that flicked to him, completely unapologetic. Looked like he took some after Kaoru, then, as well. And there was no doubt in Sano's mind that if the boy was Kenshin's, then he was also Kaoru's.
"Sanosuke, are you all right?" Kenshin's eyes hardened ever so slightly, and there was likewise a sharpness to his question that both conveyed his great worry and his need to get answers, in no uncertain terms.
Sanosuke sighed and shifted his body slightly, both trying to take stock of himself and avoid the question for a few seconds longer. He could feel the resistance of bandages on his wounds, an especially tight-packed one on the bad stab in his shoulder. There was a light-headedness of medicine that had made him thirsty, but he didn't feel up to trying to keep even water down just now. He was at the dojo. He knew it by sight and scent, surprising himself by realizing how much he had missed the place. The futon was incredibly warm and comfortable, especially when compared with how he had spent the last few days and nights…
It wasn't polite to answer a question with another question, but Sanosuke was never very concerned with manners. "Is Yahiko all right?"
"Not a scratch," Kenshin said, quick to assure, but somehow at the same time, very terse. "Sano…you're hurt badly. What happened to you? Yahiko said you were being chased down by a group of swordsman."
They were good swordsman, too. Nothing on Kenshin's level, nor, apparently at this moment in time, Yahiko's, but they knew which end of the sword to hold. And they knew how to work together, with both each other and the shadows. Teamwork had definitely been their strength, and had nearly taken Sano down. Mutual underestimation was the reason he'd been hurt and also the reason he was still alive.
He thought about delaying the inevitable again with another question, this time of curiosity to know just how good Yahiko had gotten while he'd been away, but the look on Kenshin's face told him he'd better just stop beating around the bush. Kenshin didn't like it when his friends were hurt. Kenshin was tense and worried and maybe even a little angry, but there was nothing to direct these feelings to, no plans or courses of action without some kind of information.
"What happened to me…?" Sanosuke repeated, staring up at the ceiling as if he might find a way to explain there. "It's…my own fault, Kenshin. Don't worry about it. Just…give me a day to rest up a bit, and then I need to get out of here--"
"You'll do no such thing!"
Both men glanced at the opened doorway, where the pissed-off kenjutsu instructor stood. She came further into the room, where Sano could see her better, and to his relief, she, at least, hadn't changed much at all, except maybe to fill out a little in all the right places.
She went off on a tangent. Of course she did. Sano barely listened, found himself grinning weakly, sheepishly in her general direction, since the gist of what she was saying was all he needed to know anyway. She was worried. She was angry. And he didn't have sense enough to come home by knocking on the front gate bearing gifts for them from his travels like a decent, thoughtful person. No, instead, he had been dragged home by Yahiko, soaking with blood and rain and encrusted with ice and bogged down with fever they had spent the whole day fighting off, she said.
He thought about apologizing, but couldn't get a word in edgewise. He looked to Kenshin for help, but his friend only shrugged. Better to just ride it out, Kenshin said with his eyes.
"--and if you think you're going to just leave, you've got another round of thinking coming!" she finished, folding to her knees beside Kenshin.
"It's good to see you, too, Jou-chan," Sano said.
Her eyes softened just a little with light guilt, but it was still a fairly withering stare.
"What did you do this time, Roosterhead?" she demanded. "Quit stalling and spit it out."
Kenshin, beside her, only smiled slightly, encouragingly at Sano, a little island of peace in a potential sea of wrath. But his eyes were serious. He, too, wanted to know, and Sano's obvious reluctance to talk only worried him more.
Sanosuke let out a long breath, wondering where to begin when he noticed that Yahiko wasn't there. Aside from the his shadowy figure in the darkness and rain and the feel of his hand and the tone of his changed voice, Sano hadn't actually seen him, and he would have come running in to help the other two squeeze him for answers had he been anywhere nearby--unless his personality had changed drastically with a few more years of maturity. He doubted very much that it had.
"Where's Yahiko?"
Kaoru's hands twitched like she was making a great effort not to pounce on him and wrap them around his neck. Kenshin's only reaction of frustration was a slight bending of the right corner of his lips, like he'd taken the inside corner of it between his teeth before answering.
"He went out to look for the men who--"
"He what?" Sano was trying to claw his way out of the many blankets placed atop him, with two sets of hands, three if you counted Kenji's, though he was only holding them out to keep from toppling from his father's lap, were trying to hold him down. "You let the kid go out there all by himself?"
Kaoru said, "Sanosuke, Yahiko's more than capable of--"
"I don't care if Yahiko's so good now he can kick Kenshin's ass blindfolded, with one hand tied to his belt and his feet shackled together!" Sano shouted, not so upset that he didn't notice the slow blink of Kenshin's eyes to his remark. "You don't know what these guys can--how could you just--"
"He is no longer a child," Kenshin said softly.
There was a lot of meaning there, as well, Sanosuke suddenly knew. The shadow in the rain was not cast by the ten-year-old he remembered, and Kenshin and Kaoru wouldn't have the hold of youth on him any longer. Maybe he'd defer to their experience, maybe his own respect of them, but Sano had been hurt, had men ganging up on him in a weakened condition. The kid's blood had probably been up, and Sano wouldn't have been able to blame him if it was. He would have reacted the same way, lingering out in the rain waiting for the chance to show those guys what it meant to harm someone he cared about.
But, still…
Firmly laid back by his friends, Sano watched as Kaoru straightened his covers, tucking them in around him in a motherly fashion she probably used on her own son. He realized how much he'd missed them, just in the small movements, the concerned eyes, patiently waiting to hear his story, already imposing themselves to help, without even knowing what was going on.
He closed his eyes briefly. "I've…done something," he said.
The rain falling on the layers of ice and snow was causing flooding in some places. Wherever the streets dipped, or were paved with brick or stone not meant to absorb were the worst.
Myojin Yahiko swore quietly to himself. He hadn't had the urge to swear in a while, but there was plenty of cause, especially for some of the choice phrases coming back to him from his days with the yakuza.
He just couldn't get the image of Sanosuke out of his mind. His friend, one of the few men he respected more than any other--even if he wouldn't directly say that to Sano--had toppled onto the frozen street, peppered with bloody gaps in his shoulders, his sides, legs, gashes across his chest, clothes sliced up. Not merely ripped or torn, but sliced. By swords. Five swordsmen, advancing in the night, ganging up on an unarmed man. An unarmed man who, without it even being a good day, had a skill that could reduce them into little pieces of blood and gore and bits of bone. Not that he believed Sano would ever kill a man in such a way, but it was definitely a possibility. If he wanted to, he could.
Yahiko had dispatched them easily enough. Two hadn't even bothered to fight back, just collecting a couple of their comrades who stumbled back and fading away into the shadows and the sheets of rain. He didn't bother to follow. Getting Sanosuke out of the rain and his wounds patched had been far more important.
But he was alive, and Kenshin had said he'd be fine. Yahiko had, in fact, not been all that worried that Sano would survive. Yahiko had seen with his own eyes what Sano had said before many times: the roosterhead's strong point was his incredible durability. But he'd looked like he'd been through something, and Yahiko shuddered to think what might have happened if he hadn't been at the right place at the right time.
Passing under through the dingy, narrow streetways where he had encountered the swordsmen, Yahiko shuddered. Like an incredibly silly adolescent, he had been wandering around in the rain, which had both soothed and made worse his stricken heart. Remembering how he'd seen his sweet-faced Tsubame laughing and talking to and feeling at ease around that guy at Akabeko a few days ago was still enough to boil his blood, and watching her spending more and more time with him was enough to turn it into curdled milk.
He snorted, running a hand down his face, keeping his eyes and ears attuned to the shadows. At least something good had come of it. He wouldn't have been there for Sanosuke if he'd been sleeping contentedly in his own bed at home.
But there was still not a sight nor sound nor sense of those swordsmen anywhere, and it was even more irritating than the image of Tsubame's smile as she looked up at the new guy.
No. No, not now, he berated himself. Distractions could be deadly, and the others were counting on him. Yahiko set his hand on the hilt of the sakabato, reaffirming his amazement at the over-rich honor Kenshin had given him, stepping aside subtly as protector. Subtly, in that he would take back up the role if need be, but leaving this decision, this job to Yahiko.
He'd worked hard to try to find something to show for that trust, but the unrelenting rain had washed away all traces, and even when sunlight had bled through with the brief daylight, there had not even been one sighting of the swordsmen. It had simply been too late, too dark, and too miserable for anyone to even think of looking out the window looking for attempts of murder.
Yahiko sneezed once, shivering as the wind began to blow the rain sideways. It was about time to give up for now, he decided. If the men he was looking for had one iota of sense, they'd be sitting somewhere dry right now, not trudging ankle-deep in ice shards and snow sludge. Yahiko seldom got sick, but this was just asking for it.
Two steps were taken in the direction of home when they came to him. His senses snapped back on him with the irritation that of course they would come just as he decided he was finished waiting for them. Four instead of five this time, they moved almost in unison, an attempt to box him in using part of the street as a bulwark. They were dressed in black, and their faces and hands were bare, seeming pale and disembodied. It was eerie, but Yahiko had seen too much to be intimidated by such a thing.
"Tell us," the tallest one murmured over the sound of the weather. "Are you with Sagara?"
"A little brother, perhaps?" another inquired. Quite calmly, even politely.
Yahiko drew the sakabato smoothly, wondering how he should answer these. What would Kenshin say? "Sagara Sanosuke is my friend," he said after a quiet moment. "And any attempts to get at him will be through me."
That sounded close enough.
There was a delicate flicker of amusement through the four. It wasn't mocking laughter, just a soft voicing of amusement. "Did I say something funny?"
"Yes," the tall one said again. "Sagara dies last. All that he cares for is to die before him. We thought we'd gotten them all, but it looks like we were wrong. So you see young man, we are going through you before we move on to Sagara."
Yahiko's grip was white-knuckled on the hilt of the sakabato, but he couldn't help but to grin at the figures through the rain, whether they could see it or not. He was accustomed to being underestimated, and just as accustomed to making others regret underestimating him. There were four instead of the five of last night, which meant that he had injured one to the point of not being able to accompany the others. Fine by him, but you'd think he'd have gotten an ounce of respect for it at least.
It hardly mattered now. These men had admitted to murdering some of Sanosuke's friends, but they were about to find out that the friends Sano had in Tokyo were no pushovers.
"Then come at me," Yahiko invited. "If you think you can."
