A/N – Once again, I have taken liberties with the canon timeline – I have made Enishi much closer in age to Tomoe, and turned Tomoe into more of a seductress.
Disclaimer – I don't own Ruroken. Don't sue.
Chapter 2
Dark eyes watched, coldly, calculatingly, as the girl entered the club. She drew attention immediately, with her modest clothes and her purse clutched to her chest like a lifeline, everything about her out of place in this sleazy, run down strip club. The watcher saw the man in the corner note her presence immediately – note it, and dismiss it, until it became clear that she was heading straight for him.
Then… the man who had once been the most dangerous killer on the Mekong turned his head, a quick, almost unseen glance; before the watcher could duck, he could feel himself speared by hard, amber eyes. Panicked, he broke eye contact, but it was too late – he knew that the other had seen him. Not just noted his presence, as he was no doubt aware of every single patron in the club, but also seen him.
It was him, the renegade American.
He knew that they were watching him...
1973
"Tomoe!" Yukishiro Enishi whispered, his face white and set. "Nee-chan…"
The unfortunate messenger shifted uneasily, and the powerful yakuza leader whirled on him, grabbing him by his collar and all but lifting him off the ground. "Where is he?" he snarled dangerously. "Where is that murdering bastard Himura?"
His face gaping, slowly going purple, the messenger opened his mouth and tried to speak. "Y-Yukishiro-sama," he managed, before Enishi threw him down in disgust. "He has disappeared," he said, his voice heaving and shaking. "No one has seen him since…"
"Find him!" Enishi snarled. "I don't care how long it takes, I want that bastard found!"
It had taken them almost eight years to track him down, but two years ago, a yakuza informant had seen a red haired man with a cross-shaped scar on his cheek in Bangkok. The word had gone quickly back to Yukishiro-sama, who had ordered a full investigation. The results, though much obscured by the passage of time, secrecy, and the inevitable blurring of fact and fiction in the Asian underworld, had led to an elaborate plan of punishment and revenge beginning here and now, with this meeting.
"Unfortunately, Miss Kamiya, there is one problem. The yakuza arena fights are always to the death, and I have not used my sword to kill for years."
"What…" she stopped, swallowed, "what exactly did you mean, 'use your sword to kill'?"
His eyes were wry as they met hers. "How much did your uncle tell you about me?"
"N-not much," she stammered. "He said that you were a spook or an assassin, once. That you walked away, after the end, and never went home. He said that if I showed you the lighter, you'd understand who it was from, and give me what help you could. He didn't tell me that you knew their leader, and he didn't say anything about swords."
"No, I don't suppose he did." She saw him look down, at the cigarette lighter that had stirred so many memories. "The swords were the finishing touch…"
Kenshin Himura rose to the top of the food chain on the river through sheer ruthlessness. His youth and deceptive appearance worked both for and against him – it was a great aid during assassinations, when no one expected a young, fresh faced youth to be the killer, but it also greatly hindered his more public role in the underworld. At first, they refused to take him seriously –
That was when the swords came into play. Kenshin used the conventional weapons of assassination for his covert work – guns, knives, garrotes, explosives, even fatal overdoses – but in his role on the river, something more dramatic was needed if he were ever to get near to the big bosses, the major arms and drug dealers who were doing such damage to the American effort behind the scenes. He needed to establish a reputation for extreme ruthlessness, and the best way to do that was through some type of extraordinary cruelty – there were pirates on the river who cut off men's feet and hung them from their boats, and others who wore with great pride a necklace made of their enemies' foreskins.
Unwilling to go to such lengths, Kenshin had only one affectation he could use – his lethal skill with swords, put to dramatic use against his enemies. Soon he became a familiar figure, a young man with cruel, cold eyes walking with lethal grace, a set of Japanese swords at his side. It was said – rumour deliberately spread by a delighted Katsura – that he had killed a hundred men, and over time the rumours mutated and grew wilder and wilder. They said he was the reincarnation of the Japanese demon, Battousai. They said he had once swum up to a boat with his sword in his teeth, boarded secretly, and slaughtered everyone on board; he had once cut off a man's hands and feet after killing his entire family in front of him; he had once killed an entire troop of ninja sent after him by a powerful drug lord.
That last one, at least, was true – after he had persuaded the last ninja to talk, he had gone after the drug lord, destroying his entire network in the process. In two short years, Kenshin Himura and his swords – with the aid of a handpicked gang of ruffians kindly donated by Katsura – had disposed of a great number of informants, smugglers, pirates, drug lords, and criminals, and he had built himself a terrifying reputation.
Only Katsura knew how many more he killed on his own, in secret…
"Will you help me?" she asked, not understanding his mood. The frozen calm she had seen at first impression had given way to a wry, rueful humour, but she knew that he was troubled by her request.
He smiled. Kaoru drew in her breath – when he smiled, he was beautiful. It wasn't the first thing you noticed about him, nor even the third or fourth, because his physical presence was so striking. "You know that I will, Miss Kamiya. Else you would not have flown all this way to meet me."
"But…why?"
For the first time, he avoided her eyes. "Your uncle. He helped me work some things out…" He shrugged, turned his head to his right – and the rueful, self-deprecating humour vanished, replaced by watchfulness once again.
She followed his gaze; saw nothing but an old drunk, gazing blearily at the twisting pole dancers, hands working busily under the table.
"Who is he?"
"I don't know." As he spoke his right hand, which had been playing with the lighter, slipped unobtrusively below the table. Kaoru, daughter of a policeman, niece of an old soldier, knew what that gesture meant. Moving slowly, trying to remain calm, she moved out of the way of his gun.
"Is he yakuza?" She tried to make her body language project calm and unconcern – just a man and a woman talking in a dingy, run-down bar. Unfortunately, she rather thought it was too late to deflect attention from themselves.
"Most probably." His eyes, sharp and cold, were fixed on the old man's hands, which were not, as Kaoru had first thought, working in his lap. "Come on."
Slowly, carefully, he stood up, gripping her arm with his left hand, his right hand buried in his jacket pocket, hiding the gun. They walked to the entrance of the bar, his body crowding and shielding hers, his eyes darting over every patron, every dancer, and every server.
They passed the old drunk, who ignored them, and then exited into the light of day, leaving behind smoke and shadow for bright, blinding sunlight and a shock of humid heat. Kaoru blinked, blinded by the change in light, but her companion dragged her along the pavement with him, moving as quickly as he could to put distance between them and their watcher.
Finally, they came to a stop in a deserted alley.
"Why didn't he try to follow us?" she asked, panting. "Are there other watchers?"
"Yes. They've been watching me for some time."
"Oh," she said, subdued. "So that's how you knew the connection with Yahiko's kidnapping…"
He smiled at her again, that same enchanting, rueful smile. "It doesn't take much logic to connect constant surveillance and the sudden appearance of a damsel in distress. As I said, Enishi wants me dead."
"What did you do to him?"
There was a slight pause as his smile faded, turned distinctly bitter. "I murdered his sister."
Tomoe.
White, white skin and fathomless black eyes, the only hint of heat the sensual grace of her walk and the intoxicating scent of white plum…
At 22, Kenshin had not been ready for her. A black magic woman, she'd fascinated him, ensnared him, and almost seduced him into her brother's syndicate – he'd almost turned on Katsura, when the Major had tried to awaken him to what was happening.
He'd have done anything for her, killed anyone she asked him to – at night, when they were tangled up in each other, her long hair wrapped around them both and her long, red nails scraping over his chest…
When the betrayal came, as he'd sensed it coming, ignoring his screaming instincts, it had been devastating.
Ah. He had managed to horrify the girl. Her blue, expressive eyes – so open, so innocent – were shocked; clearly, she had no idea what to say. The man she had turned to, the hero who had saved her uncle, had murdered a woman in cold blood. He wondered if the news would scare her away, or whether she was desperate enough to stay with him despite his less than pristine past.
Kenjiro had dreamed of those eyes – ever since he'd first seen them, they'd haunted him, the memory of her sheer joy sustaining him through the long, long years.
A child, no more than twelve or thirteen, smiling and laughing at the camera – a picture of long-forgotten innocence. My niece, Genzai had said. My Kaoru...
A/N – Thanks so much for your response to the first chapter! Virtual cookies and pats on the back to all my wonderful reviewers.
