I almost gave up on this story, but I never back away from a challenge. Sorry if it's a bit on the short side.

Thank you for your patience.

Desert Rose
By Lady Calliope

Chapter 17: The Drums of War

Kaoru's eyes widened as far as her skin would allow. Thinking that perhaps she was still suffering some after-effects of the poison, she re-red the message again. And again. But try as she might, there was no mistaking it.

Enishi had betrayed them all.

At first she was too stunned to speak, her vocal chords frozen by disbelief. Then she glanced back at one particular part of the letter. "I'm afraid I will have to kill my brother the emperor and the good doctor Megumi to show my disappointment."

Her reaction was immediate, and the warrior within her took control.

"Kenshin, we have to stop him. He's got Megumi and Sano trapped in that palace and they don't even know it!"

The redhead continued staring at the floor, face obscured by his bangs.

Kaoru was unperturbed. "We have to get back to Sumaktra as soon as possible. Souzo, get some fresh horses together as well as our weapons. I'll also need a change of clothes. We have to leave as soon as possible."

For his part, Souzo was quite conflicted and confused. What was all this about killing the emperor and why did they need horses? Should he listen to Kaoru's orders? More importantly, what was so interesting on the dirt floor that had captured Kenshin's attention throughout his woman's commanding speech?

It seemed that Kaoru had endured enough of their leader's silence as well. "Kenshin! Are you even listening to me?"

His reaction was not the one that either of the tent's other two occupants had been expecting. Faster than she could blink, Kaoru found herself in a pair of strong arms, cradled against Kenshin's chest as he ran across the camp. Bewildered and blushing more than a little, she barely had time to comprehend her surroundings before she was deposited in the arms of one of the other Hitokiris she had seen around the training area. The other men were clearly as surprised as she was to find their leader dumping his woman into the arms of one of the guards. The situation became clear, though, as Kenshin made to turn his back to her and run back towards the opposite end of camp without so much as a word.

"You don't honestly expect me to stay here while you go running back to the capital do you? They're my friends, too!"

Without turning to face her, he addressed the man whose arms she currently occupied. "See that she does not leave the camp, Seiichi. I will leave instructions with Souzo before I leave. In my absence, you are all to look to him as your leader."

Kaoru was fuming. How dare he not even look at her before running off! "Kenshin Himura, if you think for one minute that all your men combined can keep me here when my friends are in danger then you must have spent too much time in the sun. I'm going with you and there's nothing you can do about…"

Her sentence was cut short as his lips captured her open mouth.

The kiss itself must have only lasted a few seconds, but to Kaoru it felt like years. She didn't have time to close her eyes before he withdrew and allowed her to look at his eyes for the first time since the message arrived. Gone were the eyes of the man she knew, the man who had rescued her and whispered goodnight. These were the eyes of an experienced warrior, a man who did not negotiate with anyone.

These were the amber eyes of Battousai.

"Do not follow me, Kaoru. I do not want you to see."

And he was gone. No one saw him move. All Hitokiri eyes flickered back and forth, uncertainty and fear in their expressions. Only something extremely serious and even more dangerous could rouse this fighting spirit within their captain. The men had only seen him like this on one other occasion: the night Aoshi Shinimori was killed by an assassin.

Kaoru, however, was not as amazed as her fellows. If anything, she was more determined now than ever to get back to Sumaktra. If you think you can just kiss me and run away to fight a traitor by yourself, you've got no idea who you're dealing with, Kenshin.

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They arrived in the midst of chaos. Men were running to and fro in the light of dawn like snekcihc with their heads cut off. Some were scrambling for their uniforms, others for their weapons, and still more were trying to find out what all the fuss was about. Clouds of dust swirled through the encampment, twisting and dispersing like an odd spirit about the tents. He knew immediately that the Kahaktrian Army had been called into battle.

"We must find Saitoh," Aoshi said, grabbing Misao's arm and setting a pace few could keep up with.

"So soon? And here I thought I might get to enjoy the scenery a little," the gypsy quipped, pulling her arm from his grasp and matching his stride. "What's got all your men so spooked?"

Aoshi's mouth turned down at one corner, the closest thing he got to a grimace. "Let's just say that this one time I don't want to be right."

After aggressively negotiating their way through the bedlam, they arrived at the general's tent. Without invitation, and without ceremony, Aoshi threw back the tent flap and entered. Misao paused momentarily outside, taking a last look at the desperate countenances of the soldiers swarming around her. She followed her lover inside.

"It's about time you got your ass back here, Lieutenant. As you can see, we have a bit of a situation on our hands," Saitoh said in way of greeting.

"I gathered as much," Aoshi replied, gathering himself taller in front of his general.

Saitoh smirked. "Looks like you found the weasel. Still playing around with that smoke and mirrors bit, I see."

Misao bristled at the insult but held her tongue. Even she could see that the commanding officer was on edge about something.

Never one for wasting time on pleasantries, Aoshi ventured his guess rather bluntly. "I take it Nihamra has mobilized, General."

"Astute as always," Saitoh rejoined, unfolding a map on his desk. From the numerous arrows and words covering the paper, Misao knew that the general had already planned his strategy.

Aoshi raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. "This is unexpectedly soon for the enemy to declare open war. What prompted the change?

Saitoh merely spared his best soldier a knowing glance.

"The banquet. Convenient," the stoic man supplied.

"Even more convenient that Battousai happened to be there along with two personal guests of the emperor. And one of them was framed for the assassinations shortly before being poisoned and disappearing," he finished, casting a glance at Misao.

The general continued. "We just received word yesterday evening. The Nihamran Army is on the move and headed straight for Sumaktra. They will arrive tomorrow by the end of the day."

"Unless we're there to welcome them," interjected a voice from behind the lieutenant. The young woman was still dealing with her newfound guilt over the incident with Kaoru as well as cursing an innocent man, but she was determined to make right what had been wrong.

Saitoh eyed Misao. She had changed over these past years, there was no doubting that. There was a hardness in her eyes that replaced the foolish determination that so often used to get her into trouble. She was a warrior. "Don't say such obvious things, Weasel Girl. Of course we're going to meet them. Consider your honeymoon over."

Aoshi's eyes followed the man as he crossed the tent and removed his sword from its wooden rack. "When do we move out, sir?"

"Why do you think those idiots I call soldiers are running around so frantically?" The general's eyes were lit with the anticipation of battle. "We leave yesterday."

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He pushed his horse faster than ever before as the sun climbed to its apex in the cloudless sky. Some subconscious part of him felt sorry for the animal; its sides were heaving and foamy, its tongue lopping around outside of the mouth like a dying fish. But only a small part of him was paying attention to the animal beneath his legs. Surprisingly, though, he wasn't thinking much of Sanosuke or Megumi during his frantic race across the dunes either. This isn't to say that he wasn't in a rage about their current hostage situation, but he was going to get to Sumaktra in time. He did not have the capacity to consider any other possible outcomes. No, most of Kenshin's thought processes were not focused on what lay ahead of him.

It was what was behind him for which he feared.

Kaoru was, to put it politely, a stubborn young woman with an admirable, yet sometimes annoying, independent streak. Once she set her mind to something not even a herd of wild horses could deter her from accomplishing what she set out to do. It was one of the things he loved--No! Not love. I meant admire. Yes, that's it. I admire her. I don't love her. Love has no place in battle--about her, but at times like this that fierceness was more likely to get her injured or killed than save anyone. That was why the rope had been necessary; hopefully she'd forgive him for that within this lifetime. But if there was the slightest chance that she could be in danger, he knew that he would not be able to fight as Battousai. And if he was just Kenshin, he would not defeat Enishi Yukishiro.

For a moment, his thoughts turned to the youngest child of the Yukishiro family. Enishi had been very fond of his sister Tomoe, but it was a fondness that, at times, seemed to overstep the bounds of a brother-sister relationship. Ever since their mother died, the boy had looked to Tomoe to fill that hole in his life. He not only worshipped her as his older sister, but depended on her as his mother. When she had been killed all those years ago at the young age of twenty-six by an assassin, the news of her death shocked Enishi into silence. He didn't speak a word to anyone for years, spending almost all of his time locked in his palace room. He refused to hear anything relating to her death or life. No one had been able to shake the boy out of his depression. Then suddenly he emerged one day, hair whitened from years of grief, ready to rejoin the family. He was by no means an amiable young man, never had been, but Kenshin had no inkling of just how deep Enishi's scars ran until he read that letter the day before.

He has become a man willing to spill family blood over unfounded revenge. He will not succeed, Battousai vowed, spurring his steed ever onward.

Before he left, the leader had told Souzo to send word to General Saitoh regarding the planned coup d'etat and pledging the service of the Hitokiris to the Army as long as a temporary truce was agreed upon. It was highly likely that Enishi had been behind the assassination of the two Nihamran delegates at the banquet, and if that was true, then Yukishiro was looking to start nothing short of a war: he was planning on making himself emperor no matter what the cost.

For a few moments, all that filled the swordsman's mind was the sound of hooves beating relentlessly on the scorching sand and the sight of endless desert in front of him. Today it felt like the ride to Sumaktra was taking much longer than it usually did. But then, most days the emperor's life was not in immediate danger of being prematurely terminated. Kenshin quickly calculated the distance to the capital using landmarks learned from years of traveling the same path. If he continued at his current pace, he could make it to the palace by sundown.

He hoped the appearance of Battousai was enough to keep Kaoru right where she was—where he had left her.

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"Like hell he's keeping me here!" she growled as she struggled with her bindings. What kind of man kisses a woman and then has her bound with rope while he rides away to save people? "Coward," she answered herself.

He was afraid of her, of what would or could happen to her if she came with him. But didn't she realize that, like it or not, they were in this together? Regardless of the fact that it was two of her best friends that were in mortal danger, she knew that he just didn't trust her—or himself with her around—in a battle. She knew it was because he cared, perhaps he even loved—no, no she wouldn't get her hopes up—but what was the point of her training tirelessly all these years, developing her father's style of sword fighting, if people could not look past the fact that she was a girl and not let her fight as a consequence? She was sick of being treated like a lady, when all she wanted was to be viewed as an equal.

Gritting her teeth as the ropes continued to rub her wrists raw, she prepared herself for the pain that was to come. She had to get her hands in front of her so she could reach the knife hidden at her thigh, but that infuriating man had tied the knots too tight for her to slip loose of them. Steeling her will and forcing all of her concentration on the task at hand, she started to slid her joined arms up towards her head. She continued reaching, and bit down on her tongue when she finally managed to dislocate both her shoulders as her arms reached the level of her ears. Fighting back the tears, she continued to move her arms forward, rotating them over her head and down towards her stomach. Two sickening pops accompanied the move as her shoulders crunched back into place. Breathing hard, her eyes swam with unshed tears as she focused on pushing the pain from her mind. Finally she was able to get at the knife tied up under her dress and cut herself loose from her bonds.

After checking to make sure she hadn't alerted her "guard" to her movements, she glanced down at herself. I'm never going to be able to fight in this outfit. There has to be something here…She almost crowed with joy and thanked whatever god was looking after her when she saw that there were spare clothes in one corner of the tent. As quickly and quietly as she could, she exchanged her ruined gown for the coarse pants and top—two sizes too big. Well, it's better than fighting in a dress.

With even more care and delicateness, she lifted the back flap of the tent and rolled out and under the canvas. The sand burned her bare feet as she stood—and found herself face to face with Souzo.

"Going somewhere, Kaoru?" he quipped.

She wanted to punch him, she really did. "Out of my way, Souzo. I'm leaving and there's nothing you can do to stop me so why don't you just take your warning and shove it—"

"I thought you might be needing these," he interrupted, half of his mouth raised in a quirk. She looked down to see him offering her a sword with carrying strap and a pair of small sandals. When she lifted her questioning eyes to his, he merely shrugged. "Himura just doesn't want you getting hurt, but he's going to need help. Just don't make me regret this."

She nodded in understanding, slipped on the shoes, fastened the sword and strap around her shoulder so the blade rested against her back, and looked to him once more. "Thank you, Souzo. I'll repay the favor someday."

And with that, she set off for the area where the horses were tethered, praying that whatever god had favored her before would do so again. She needed to get to Sumaktra before sundown, before Enishi won, before her friends were killed.

Before Kenshin was lost completely to the demon in his eyes.

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He didn't bother to tether his horse before his feet landed on the ground and swiftly started carrying him in the direction of the throne room. He wasn't too late, he couldn't be too late…

Relief washed over him when he saw Megumi standing in front of the throne, apparently unharmed. He had made it in time, then. The raging amber began slowly waning from his eyes.

"Megumi, listen, we need to get you and Sano out of here. Enishi is planning to kill you both and take the throne…"

He stopped when he noticed a single tear roll down her cheek, but she made no move to leave. "Megumi, what are you…doing…"

Rising from where he was sitting behind her on the throne, Enishi smirked maliciously at the redhead. He moved the knife he was holding from her back to her throat. A quick glace to his left and he saw the prone form of Sanosuke sprawled on the cold floor, a trail of blood running down from an open wound near his temple. Upon further inspection, Kenshin was relieved to see his friend's chest rising and slowly falling. He wasn't dead, just unconscious.

Turning his attention back to the silver haired man in front of him, Kenshin could feel the change in his eyes—they were the darkest, most vibrant shade of amber imaginable. He could taste the bloodlust on his tongue. "Enishi!" he snarled. "I'll kill you!"

"Ah, there you are. For a minute I thought you weren't going to come out and play."

"Let her go, Yukishiro, or I will use your blood to clean my blade," Battousai spat. In response, Enishi dug the blade a little deeper into Megumi's throat, and a thin line of crimson spread across her pale neck.

"You're a monster," she hissed, headless of the knife at her throat. He chuckled. In the next instant, he threw her down to the ground and kicked her viciously in the side. She coughed, the blood running down her skin from the cut in her throat. If possible, Kenshin's eyes swirled even darker.

Enishi laughed, the sound of it echoing throughout the room. "I am so glad you could make it to the reunion, Battousai. I've been waiting for so very long."