No one in the Aoi-ya rises before the hour of the rabbit. In fact, Aoshi sleeps until well past dawn; the angle of the light in his room suggests mid-morning by the time he manages to rouse himself. He stretches almost absentmindedly before he dresses, testing the muscles that had ached the night before, and finds himself healed of any soreness.
He has a spare uniform stored in his clothes chest. He doesn't bother closing it with the three belts this morning — instead, he loops an obi about his waist and knots it in a single clamshell. It's not the way he'd tied it before his fight with Gein, but it leaves no slack, nothing for a skilled fighter to grab.
Downstairs, the kitchen staff have put together a simpler breakfast than usual. The spread includes the remnants of last night's fish, and there's rice and miso soup, but no eggs, no natto, and only pickled cucumbers instead of the usual three choices.
Sagara seems bleary-eyed as he finishes off a bowl of soup; Himura and Saitou look rested, but tense. The space around Himura's mouth is tight, and every so often, Aoshi could swear those guileless eyes look more golden than anything else.
Kamiya struggles with her chopsticks for several moments before she finally shoves her bowl of rice away, turning her attention to her soup. Her sling's deep blue contrasts with the white of her gi.
"I dislocated it in the fight with Kamatari," she says, when she notices him watching her. She looks to Takani, and adds, "Megumi, please remind me not to underestimate somebody with a chain again. Kenshin made that kind of fight look much easier than it turned out to be."
Takani sips at her tea and says, "You know what I think of fighting at all." When Myoujin makes a grumpy noise in response, she softens enough to add, "I don't like the thought of you trying to undo my work today. Fighting when you're hurt just puts you at risk of further injury."
Kamiya seems to recognize that for the peace offering it is. She smiles, and then gently thumps Myoujin — who's still making grumpy noises — on the top of his head with her chopsticks.
"I'm not even asking you to be polite, Yahiko, I just want you to use real words."
"Tired," is Myoujin's only response, before he rests both his arms on the table and then pillows his head on his arms.
It's an answer that speaks for everyone. Aoshi sets his teacup down.
"Misao. Hannya."
Hannya looks up from his meal and presses a fist to his chest. Misao leans over to pour him a cup of tea before saying, "Aoshi-sama."
"You will defend Kyoto should any of the Juppongatana return," he tells them.
Both of them bow their heads. Misao murmurs, "Commands of the Okashira are absolute," even as she places her hand over her heart. After a moment, before Aoshi's disquiet can really set in, she smiles and adds, "Besides, we like this town."
Sagara snorts. "Let me guess, you keep all your stuff here?"
"That, too," Shikijou replies, while Saitou reaches for his cigarette case. As Saitou lifts a cigarette to his mouth, Shikijou snaps, "Do you mind? Some of us are trying to eat, here!"
Aoshi stands, not wanting to listen to the various taunts and jibes around the table. Okina rises shortly after he does, and they both move for the door.
The eighth of July has dawned, and on the street, it looks like any other day in the early half of Gion. People come and go, laughing and talking. Fashionable women wear fans in their hair, or have patterns of fans on their kimono or obi, but aside from a few final opening ceremonies, there's nothing of particular note for the festival today.
It's the anniversary of the Black Ships, but nobody's talking about that. Those who are old enough to remember it don't want to; those who can't remember are usually wise enough not to mention it.
On any other morning, Okina would be out front, sprinkling water along the walk, or sweeping dust away from the doors, greeting the passersby and advertizing the Aoi-ya. Today, they hover in the entryway while Okina checks over his tonfa, searching the steel for dents, and Aoshi adjusts the way his kodachi sit on his back.
They wait for Himura, Saitou, and Sagara in companionable silence. It's the first time they've been alone together with no notes of tension since he returned to Kyoto.
Perhaps Okina has finally forgiven him for towing Misao into the deep water of their work. It's a pleasant thought, if not one he's fool enough to believe.
They leave before the hour of the horse, when the sun is high in the sky, but not before it by much. Sagara furrows his brow at the sight of Okina standing with him, either unused to seeing Aoshi and Okina near each other or unsure of Okina's place in Shishio's stronghold, but he says nothing of it. Saitou merely raises an eyebrow, while Himura accepts Okina's presence with complete equanimity.
He spares a moment to wonder if Himura realizes — as he had evidently known in Aoshi's previous life — just how dangerous Okina can be.
The forest around the mountain compound seems empty of human life. He can't help but notice the rustling of woodland creatures, the way the birds only stop singing as they approach; when he looks to Okina, his mentor's expression is grave. They share a nod, both having seen the same thing.
Either Shishio has pulled his sentries back, or they were part of last night's ill-fated plans. Aoshi finds he doesn't much care which of those is true.
The compound itself seems deserted. Sagara's footsteps ring hollow in the hallway just past the door, the kind of echoing that one only hears in an empty room.
Somewhere close, someone's heart beats quickly.
At the opposite end of the entrance hall, Komagata Yumi stands in front of the doors. The neutral line of her mouth, and unconcerned lack of focus in her eyes, suggests boredom. But he's heard her heart; even if he hadn't, he knows better than to believe an oiran's face.
Her gaze flickers over them as they approach her. She conceals most of her opinion of them behind an oiran's politely inviting expression, but Aoshi has lived too long among onmitsu not to see the coldness that creeps into her manner.
"Shishio-sama has been waiting for you," she tells them.
Okina actually laughs in reply. "Should we apologize for the inconvenience? What can be said of the ambitions of a man who waits for his enemy to come to him?"
Her expression twists for a heartbeat, and Aoshi sees precisely what Shishio Makoto could value in a woman an unwise swordsman might dismiss. It vanishes swiftly, her fierceness smoothed away, hidden again, and she asks, "Do you mean to take his patience lightly?"
"If you're going to talk about patience," Saitou snaps, "then don't try mine. Who else is here, Komagata?"
Rather than seem unnerved that the police know her name, she laughs as if delighted. "My name in Yoshiwara is still undiminished, it seems! Thank you, Saitou-san; that's a pleasure to learn. As for who else is here…"
Her eyes glint. Komagata steps into the shadows, and behind her, a door swings open.
"Come find out," she tells them.
"Shishio-sama has prepared our fortress with many means of escape," Komagata says as she leads them through a warren of empty halls.
Were he not trying to recall what he knew of this day in his last lifetime, Aoshi would be unsettled by the silence, by the stillness of the air. The portion of his thoughts dedicated to analyzing the world around him half wonders if they'll stumble upon a room of men who'd killed themselves in shame at the failure of their fire. He dismisses the thought swiftly — not because it's unlikely, but because Komagata would never lead them to something so incriminating.
"If you're poor guests in any way," Komagata says, with only the barest emphasis on the word, "then Shishio-sama will leave through one of them, and we'll all begin again."
An interesting threat — and likely the only leverage left to them. Aoshi notes it, but sees no need to reply.
Neither do Himura or Saitou, and Okina has all but vanished, any sense of his presence dimmed, even to his Okashira. It's Sagara who demands, "Wait, was that a threat?"
Komagata sniffs, as if the idea is entirely beneath her. "I wouldn't dream of threatening you."
Sagara's voice is wry when he answers, "'course not. That's what your Shishio-sama is for, right?"
"Speak of him with respect," Komagata says, coldly, "or don't speak at all." She flings another door wide open, and they step into a room that might well be a Buddhist temple.
Candles line the walls and floors. Aoshi sees statues of the Buddha and the Bosatsu scattered around, and a man kneels before a pair, prayer beads clicking as his fingers move. Aoshi ignores the man's mantra to study the statues.
It only takes him a moment to place them: Kannon and Jizou.
Interesting choices, for a man in Shishio's service. And that thought brings recognition, though he recalls a different statue in this room, in his last lifetime. It would seem that Yuukyuuzan, in this life, does not revere Fudo Myoo.
"No way," Sagara says. "Anji?"
Yuukyuuzan's head jerks up, and he stands, turning to face them. He'd lined his eyes with soot, and his expression is grim.
"Sano," he says. "I suppose I should have known you would oppose Shishio."
"Why don't you?"
"My temple," Yuukyuuzan says, as if all his reasons are as simple as those two words.
But Sagara only nods his understanding. His gaze flickers toward Komagata, and he asks her, "Let me guess. You're expecting a one-on-one fight, right? Shishio's counting on Anji here to tire me out."
Komagata only smiles. She doesn't bother looking at Sagara — instead, she says to the rest of them, "Remember to be well-behaved guests."
"By which you mean we must not interfere, that you do," Himura replies. It's the first thing he's said since arriving at Shishio's compound; his voice comes out bitter.
Komagata's smile widens.
"Come on, Anji, think. Don't you know how many people are gonna suffer in the world Shishio wants?" Sagara cracks his knuckles, stepping forward.
"To be alive is to suffer. That's the most basic tenet of the path toward Enlightenment."
"I'm not interested in Enlightenment, you idiot, I just want a world that doesn't suck!"
The hint of a smile darts across Yuukyuuzan's mouth, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. "So do I. But to build such a world tomorrow, we must tear down the world as it is today."
Such philosophical posturings don't interest Aoshi. He crosses his arms over his chest, allowing his eyes to rest on Sagara and Yuukyuuzan, but he listens intently to Komagata's movements.
He should have expected that Yuukyuuzan's philosophy would infuriate Sagara beyond words or power of speech. He almost wonders what Sagara would have made of Aoshi's own view of the world, the one he'd still been clinging to before he met Himura.
As it is, Komagata is working her silent way toward some distant corner of the room, and Aoshi moves unobtrusively to follow her.
Sagara's first kick is all but sloppy. He moves well, footwork carrying him toward and away from Yuukyuuzan as he needs, but it looks instinctive, rather than trained. His punches and kicks seem to rely on power more than technique, and Aoshi spends a heartbeat picturing what will happen when Sagara's endurance runs out and his strength fails him.
Not a pleasant thought. Aoshi forces it away and returns to dividing his attention between Komagata and the fight.
The third time Sagara lands a blow on Yuukyuuzan — a strike to his right shoulder, well-placed; if he can get enough force behind it, he can reduce the strength Yuukyuuzan will be able to bring to bear — Aoshi hears bone crunch. It's a bunch of small sounds, as knuckles and phalanges break, snapping like thin twigs, but there's something deeper, harder to hear, that startles him.
The Futae no Kiwami. Sagara has finally used it, and he actually managed to fracture the bone in Yuukyuuzan's arm. It hangs limp, swinging slightly as Yuukyuuzan staggers backward with a hiss. The fallen monk looks down at it, apparently trying to curl or twitch his fingers, but they relax from the fist they'd been clenched into.
"Won't be punching me with that one," Sagara says, cocky.
Rather than take offense, Yuukyuuzan simply agrees: "No. I won't."
"God, don't you ever get pissed? Like, what, when your orphanage got burned, did that just boil all the anger right out of you?"
"Sano," Yuukyuuzan says, almost sighing. "Why should I throw a fit of temper over you breaking my arm with a technique I taught you, in a fight I chose to join?"
That seems to puzzle Sagara. He offers, "Because it hurts?"
Yuukyuuzan shrugs his un-injured shoulder. And then he snaps out with a kick, forcing Sagara a few steps backward. He lunges forward, faster than Aoshi would have expected, punching with his left arm.
Sagara dodges, the movement so crisp that he could only have learned it from Himura.
Both men re-orient to face each other, and Aoshi keeps his gaze focused on Yuukyuuzan, even as he listens to the soft clicking noises coming from Komagata's location. A code of some sort? He can almost discern a pattern in the pauses between each tap.
The more he watches, the more he realizes that the monk is as much a brawler as Sagara. It would seem he taught himself to fight, rather than being trained to it, as Aoshi and Himura and Saitou all were. That realization leaves him wondering just how Shishio Makoto had come to the sword.
That information, even could he obtain it — and he can't; the former revolutionaries of the Meiji government hide their dirtier secrets much too well — wouldn't be actionable. He is not Himura, who delves into the minds and hearts and histories of the men he fights, defeating them almost more with the truth of themselves than with honest steel.
A mis-timed blow — on Yuukyuuzan's part; the monk is finally flagging — and Aoshi hears a pair of soft tones. Almost like bird call, though more hollow than that. Mechanical.
A telegraph, he realizes. A washed-out courtesan, who was only ever famous for her adherence to fashions that ceased mattering centuries ago, has learned to use one of the newest western technologies present in Japan.
More importantly: that technology can be interfered with.
Sagara dodges one of Yuukyuuzan's fists, though only barely, and Aoshi moves again, soundless, drifting toward Okina.
Okina's eyes glint. "New orders?"
"There's a wire in this room and in others. Find where it leads," Aoshi says, quiet. "Cut it."
"Yes, Okashira."
He almost doesn't sense Okina's retreat.
Aoshi turns his attention back to the fight. Yuukyuuzan's swings have turned wilder than before, and though Sagara is tiring, too, he dodges more easily. That lean, rangy frame has finally become an advantage: he's moving less weight and with more flexibility than the fallen monk. They trade a flurry of blows, and when they part, Sagara turns to spit blood on the floor. Yuukyuuzan raises a hand to his ribs, narrowing his eyes, and his brow twitches in a stifled wince.
Broken ribs. Good. Were the stakes lower, Aoshi might nod his approval at the ruthlessness. It's not a quality he recalls seeing much of from the Kenshin-gumi and is one they sorely needed.
"You really think any of those kids you took care of would want to see this country fall to Shishio? The hell kinda person would that Tsubaki girl be if she wanted other people to suffer just beca—"
But Sagara falls silent when Yuukyuuzan grabs him by the throat. Yuukyuuzan leans into the hold, his face twisting in rage. He's close to snarling when he says, voice roughened and too loud, "Life is suffering! That is the most basic truth of this world, and it can only be —"
Sagara struggles free of Yuukyuuzan's grasp. He stops to take a pair of wheezing, painful-sounding breaths, and roars back, "Oh, come off that crap! The only people who live like that are you monks! Or did Tsubaki think that life is just awful, and everybody should just suck it up?"
At that, Yuukyuuzan loses what had been left of his composure. He lashes out to catch Sagara by the throat again, so far past anger that at first he's only yelling wordlessly. It takes nearly a minute for the sound to resolve into speech: "You benefited from her death, from the deaths of children like her, you don't deserve to say her name!"
Rather than fight free of the grip, Sagara relaxes, dropping his full weight into Yuukyuuzan at an awkward angle. The monk hadn't been prepared for it, and Sagara takes full advantage of Yuukyuuzan's surprise. His teacher's strength means nothing when Sagara shifts the game, executing a surprisingly good throw.
Yuukyuuzan hits the ground heavily. The back of his head bounces against the wooden floor, and before he can rise, Sagara sits on him.
"Can't believe I'm the one sayin' this, but stop fighting and think for a goddamn minute! It's a crime the kids you took care of are gone. Someone should find that mayor and hand him over to the police."
Sagara stops to take a breath, and has to spare a moment to wrestle Yuukyuuzan back to the ground.
"But you need to call this what it is, Anji. You didn't join up with Shishio to honor your temple or the lives of those kids. They'd hate what he's gonna do — they'd be begging you to stop Shishio no matter what. We both know that. So what are you really doing?"
Yuukyuuzan snarls and manages heave Sagara off. Before he can rise or draw his arm back for another blow, Sagara whips out a hand to grab him by the ankle and haul him back.
"You're pissed, is what it is. You said it yourself. You're punishing the world for not having those kids, that girl, in it anymore." He reels Yuukyuuzan in again, this time slapping his palm against the floor. Wood splinters beneath his hand. "And that's the last thing they'd — for shit's sake, Anji," Sagara snaps when Anji bucks underneath him again, his knee narrowly missing Sagara's groin, either annoyed at the near-miss or that Himura's method has failed so thoroughly.
He slams his forehead down into Yuukyuuzan's face. Bone crunches in the blow, and Yuukyuuzan reels back, collapsing onto the floor, blood streaming steadily from his nose. They all wait, but Yuukyuuzan doesn't rise.
Aoshi tilts his head to listen for a heartbeat. He finds one, and relaxes slightly. There will be no crisis of conscience after a kill, then.
Sagara stands and takes a couple of steps back. His feet aren't steady, and he tries to dust his hands together, but misses the first time. The scent of sweat and blood clings to him even as he moves away from the center of the room.
He makes four steps before collapsing to one knee and then passing out.
Himura sighs. To Komagata, he says, "It would seem my successor will get his wish, that it does. To be honest, that is likely for the best."
Saitou's only remark is, "Thank the Buddha. I thought they'd never shut up." He ignores Himura's reproving glance to step over Yuukyuuzan's legs, heading toward the opposite door, depsite the fact that Komagata is still at the telegraph machine. He lights a cigarette as he goes.
Interesting, that Saitou would do something that would so easily announce his presence in the shadowy —
Saitou turns his head just enough to catch Aoshi's eye. As soon as Aoshi returns the glance, his gaze flicks toward the door Komagata hasn't opened yet. His empty hand rises from his side in a casual motion, and he makes a hand-sign that Aoshi, born into the Shogun's service, immediately recognizes.
Hide me.
Aoshi dips his head in the smallest possible nod. Whatever Saitou's purpose, it will only lead one place.
Komagata's expression gives no clue to her thoughts as she rises from the telegraph machine, retrieves her lantern, and heads for the doors. But Yuukyuuzan has served his purpose, in neutralizing Sagara for a while.
The doors swing open to reveal what looks less like a hallway and more like a tunnel. The flickering light from Komagata's lantern illuminates only more darkness. It puts Aoshi in mind of the grave he'd taken refuge in, so many months ago — and so little time ahead — and he slows his step, allowing Himura to pass him.
Before he follows, he holds his hand out for the cigarette.