5.

Upon returning home he didn't even bother with eating, he just headed straight for the closest jug of saké and started in. Hiko was one of those individuals that found it nearly impossible to get drunk on the rice liquor. Probably a reason why he enjoyed the stuff so much. This night though... it wasn't for the lack of trying. Angry, disgusted, and dare he admit it... ashamed? He almost completely chugged the first one down before moving onto a second.

No amount of saké would get that image out of his head.

Very late now, the fire in his irori was crumbling to just embers and coals. Slowly, Hiko's lips curled down, eyes narrowing, in a sour grimace of distaste. He pulled the sakezuki saucer from his lips and glared at the clear liquid inside. It had become harshly bitter. With a scowl, he flicked the contents into the fire, causing a momentary flare.

The girl's look of wide eyed horror as she reached a hand out towards him was bad enough. It was seared onto his conscious thoughts. However, the realization that she didn't recognize Shouta and the haunted look of betrayal towards himself, really twisted the dagger in him.

She had even pleaded with him, for god's sake.

And he couldn't shake the fact that the child was instinctively terrified of the man.

He jerked his head, mouth set in a grim line, the fingers of his left had clenching the fabric of his hakama where it rested on his thigh. He tried to rid himself of the image, his eyes dark and foreboding as he stared across the room at where her billet had been set up in his storage room.

This kind of thing occurred across Japan every day. Who was he kidding, it happened all over the world. Children were sold into slavery, most were abused. Life wasn't all cherries and roses. Japan was decaying from the inside out and harsh reality could not be avoided. He'd been watching the leprosy affecting his country for years. He even stood in the gaps on occasion trying to protect the people where he could according to the rules of Hiten Mitsurugi.

Hell he'd even stepped in and slew the bandits who had attacked and killed everyone in the slave outfit that Kenshin had been in. Then he'd gone back to see what could be done for the dead only to discover that Kenshin had stayed there and buried them. By himself. Seeing that was what had spurred him into taking the boy on for training.

Hiko scowled, staring back at the fire, his thoughts churning. Look where that had got them both. Kenshin's idealism had been manipulated to turn him into a paid killer. The results of which had brought about the Kenshin who existed now; a pacific trying to atone for his sins. Something that Hiko had desperately tried to warn him against. He shook his head. His baka deshi.

Kenshin's journey, Hiko's journey, now this girl... Inevitably it would all be for nought. The country's decay was going to continue coming and continue destroying, no matter what he did to try and counter its effects.

He and Kenshin both knew that. Yet that student of his had somehow found a way to balance the march of decrepitude with an optimism often lost on Hiko. He heaved a sigh. He couldn't do anything for that girl. She was property, plain and simple. What Shouta did with his property was his business. Legally speaking, Hiko had no leg to stand on. Best to just cut this nonsense off at the knees and not look back.

But that look of utter betrayal coming from that little girl's eyes as Shouta carried her away, drilled itself right back into Hiko's thoughts and consciousness. That horrified understanding that he wasn't going to reach back out and take her away from someone who claimed they knew her. Someone she was instinctively scared of. Those eyes were going to haunt his dreams. With a growl, he turned towards his shikibuton, snatched up his o-katana where he had laid it at the head of the bed and scrambled to his feet.

"Peach..." he grumbled, snorting in disdain. "Momo. Who would name a girl peach?"

It was moonless that night, utterly dark, a light haze obscuring most of the stars. He stalked across the yard towards the training ground, slipping the o-katana into its place under his sash. Posts he'd planted, and straw figures for practice purposes, loomed up like silent enemies in the darkness. That was just fine, Hiko thought to himself, a sneer curling his lip. He was in a mood to absolutely demolish something, anything to rid himself of the image of the girl reaching out to him.

With a vengeance he went at it. Crouching into the first stance, his right hand hovered mere inches from the samé hilt of his sword, the left clenching the saya. He paused there, controlling his breathing, staring hard a nearby post.

Battojutsu, the art of drawing the sword, was a first attack move. In Hiten Mitsurugi it could be so fast it looked as if the swordsman never really moved until after the sword was drawn and held horizontally away from the body. Both Kenshin and himself often times had mowed opponents down before the others even thought to grab their own swords.

It was actually a two handed move. The right pulled the sword out, the left pulled the sheath in the opposite direction. In his case, being so tall and with a blade much longer than normal, its was crucial that he get it out free and fast. That was often missed in the eyes of observers. Which was why the sword and the saya could be such formidable weapons.

Hiko smirked as he paused in position, then he launched his powerful frame into action.

Most of the poles were set up to endure slices and stabs, not to actually cut the things in two. Hiko did just that, going at them in a tightly controlled, furious, frenzy. Stabbing, slicing, cutting... he bypassed any warms up and went straight into the most difficult forms, eventually working up a good sweat as he mercilessly hacked his way around the training grounds. He did not hold himself back, he went at it with everything he had, even focusing the chi energy he was channelling into shouts as he attacked.

It wasn't helping, despite the fury of his onslaught, the girl's pleading face, her hand reaching towards him continued to torment him. With one last furious, upwards strike he hit out at one of the poles. In an instant he knew he hit it wrong. The blade stuck hard and fast, the jarring abruptness of the swing stopping suddenly reverberated unpleasantly up his arm.

He let out a snarl of disgust, looking at the pole with his nihonto stuck fast in it. He grabbed his elbow, feeling the numbness creep up his arm. He rotated his shoulder, shaking his arm loose, willing the deadness away.

Grasping the samé wrapped hilt, he tried pulling it back out, to no avail, and then he lost his temper.

Snarling, he took a step back, and with a burst of sheer anger, he slammed a hard, front, heel kick onto the post. The top broke off where the sword had started to cut through it. Post top and sword fell to the ground with a loud crack and small shower of splinters.

Disgusted, he reached down and snatched the sword back up, barely seeing the knot in the wood that had caused the blade to stop. He dragged a hand through his long, black, hair. The tie had come out at some point in time. He looked around in the dark, realizing that trying to find it would be a lost cause. He stood up straight and twisted the o-katana about to see if the blade had chipped or bent from the impact with the knot of wood.

Finally, he just heavily sighed, his shoulders sagging. He sheathed the o-katana and returned to the hut. Tossing another log on the fire, he stepped into his storage room and returned with a small wooden box where he settled on the floor. Hiko knew better than to mistreat the sword as he pulled it free from his sash.

He started to feel like an idiot.

The irony not lost on him.

He slid the saya off and set the blade on his lap, then opened the little box. Inside lay a strange brass hammer, a small pot with a cork in it, a square of cotton cloth, small sheets of rice paper and an even stranger looking tool. Consisting of a tightly balled piece of silk that was threaded into a hollow stem of bamboo which was then tied onto the handle. The ball of the silk contained highly refined, talc-like, stone powder.

He forced himself to stop and just think. As he folded a small square of rice paper, he slid it along the muné, cleaning the blade of any oils or rust and inspecting it for knicks. He hadn't bent it, despite the amount of force it had taken to actually stop the swing of the attack. His thoughts constantly returned to the girl as he wiped the blade down, then picked up the silk ball.

Very lightly, he tapped the blade until the powder started and a fine coating of it appeared. It didn't need much. With another piece of the rice paper, he began polishing the blade until it reflected like a mirror. Once that was completed, he uncorked the small pot. The smell of cloves permeated the air and he added just a few drops of the choji oil onto the blade before corking the bottle and putting everything away. Pulling the little cloth out of the box he set to oiling the blade, finishing up the job and satisfied he at least hadn't damaged his own damned sword.

He might have damaged a whole lot of other stuff that day, but Winter Moon was still very much intact. He slipped the sword back into its sheath and returned to its place at the head of his shikibuton. Turning back towards the fire, the girl's image resurfaced and he closed his eyes. There was no getting her out of his head apparently.

He sat still a moment then looked at the chabudai where he and the girl had been doing test tiles just the night previous. He'd been mixing small test batches of glaze, experimenting for colour and he'd let her use the thin sharply pointed tool to carve whatever she wanted on one side before he'd carve what was in the glaze on the back.

Tilting his head, he reached over and pick one of the tiles up.

He hadn't really been paying close attention when he let her carve on the tiles. Mostly he just wanted the ridges and valleys of a carving to puddle the glaze to see what kind of results it would get as he sought to create his own colours. He stared a moment at the tile, frowning slightly, then he reached over and grabbed another one. Gazing a moment at it he reached over and picked up a third.

A realization started to wash over him like a slow motion, cold shower. "Inchiwamu?" He whispered, staring at the first tile. The single squiggle of the carving revealed itself to be an inchworm. He looked at the second one. "Gacho..." he breathed, softly. Three flowing lines, creating the image of a goose in flight.

Hiko shook his head, she'd been with him nearly two weeks and he knew she had no idea how to write or read. He looked at the third one. "Také," he whispered staring at a bamboo stem with one node and three leaves, rendered with only five lines. He stared at the other tiles, making out even more images, and some not so much.

One thing was certain, at six the little girl was drawing, with incredible minimalism, the natural world around her. A little nurturing here, a bit there, and a talent like that could...

A rumble of thunder from an approaching storm rolled around the mountains surrounding his home. Signalling the arrival of a Spring storm. Rain began to pelt the hut.

"Ah dear gods!" Hiko groaned, running his hand through his somewhat wild looking, long, black hair. "What the hell are you trying to do to me?"


The storm proved to be more than one. They seemed to chase each other around the mountain range for the remainder of the night and well into the wee hours of the morning. Hiko finally gave in, never bothered to get out of his clothes, and crawled under his kakebuton, almost immediately dropping off into a sleep that was neither restful or deep. He just kept having dreams. The girl, Kenshin, previous wars and skirmishes he'd been in. All marched like an endless line of ants across the screen in his mind.

He managed to ignore the thunder and hard driving rain. Yet he never really fully fell asleep. Drowsing almost the entire night only added to the events of the day, leaving him weary and irritated. He lay there, back to the irori, eyes closed, tuning out the thunder that was slowly rumbling away. The only thing he couldn't fully shut out was the incandescent, white hot, flashes of lightning that lit the mountains up like a fireworks show.

He was in that state, half asleep, half awake, when another flash of lightning, briefly flared through the hut, followed by a enormous crashing. Hiko jerked slightly, frowning and cracking open one eye. Far far away he heard the rumbling taper off from the thunder. He blinked his eyes open then slowly sat up, pushing the comforter down.

Since when did thunder 'crash'? Thunder always exploded, then pealed, rolled and rumbled, like a kumi-daiko drum ensemble. He looked around the hut and followed a long ingrained hunch.

He searched for the presence of chi energy.

Instantly he felt it and he scrambled to his feet, snatching up the o-katana. Stumbling into the genken to shove his zori onto his feet, he grabbed the storm shutter, jerked it open and looked out into the utter darkness that engulfed his surroundings.

A stiff, cold wind caused the surrounding trees to thrash, and the rain was still coming down, only not as hard and fast. The yard was drenched however, and the sound of water dripping off nearly everything could be heard. He looked over towards the workshop, as a flash of lightning lit the yard. Far off, the thunder rumbled, losing its teeth.

The crashing that had woke him up was much louder than the departing storm's voice.

Searching the workshop entrance he could see the fusuma panel was slid open just slightly. He knew he'd shut it hours earlier. The chi energy, just a flicker, was coming from there. He gripped the saya in his left, and headed for the shop.

Already in none too pleasant a mood, he positively seethed as he approached the shop. His hearing picked up the sound of more pottery crashing to the floor, each break and shatter causing him to flinch. Reaching up to grab the fusuma, he drew it aside so hard it broke free of its gutter and fell.

He knew, he could tell by the chi, it was her.

"Is this the kind of gratitude I get for taking in a little thief?" He snapped out loud as he scanned the darkened interior of the workshop. The shelf of drying greenware that had been directly to the left and ahead was tipped over towards him, the upper shelf resting against the support posts.

A flash of lightning revealed a macabre scene of chaotic destruction. Anything that had been on the shelves were scattered and shattered all around the interior of the shop. The table had been knocked sideways and one of the stools had fallen over. Hiko grabbed hold of the shelf with his right and slammed it hard back into place, not caring as more pottery fell and shattered. The whole shop shook at the force of his slamming the shelving back into place.

In the midst of the pile of broken ceramics was a small dark shape. Lying on their back, a suspicious looking wooden box clutched to their chest. Hiko's anger flared white hot, as he stepped forward, reaching down to snatch the Kintsugi box out of their hands. The figure didn't protest, barely moving and trying to roll onto their side away from him.

It didn't take a great leap of logic to figure out that she had tried to get to the top shelf by using the stool and the table and had caused the whole unit to fall over.

"Is this the thanks I get!?" he snapped out loud again as he set the gold repair box aside. He stepped forward again, reaching out to grab the front of the girl's haori. She was trying to crawl away, obviously stunned by the fall. Her movements were sluggish, not caring as she dragged herself away from him through the broken pieces of ceramics.

A strange wet gargling sound reached his ears as he gripped the fabric and bodily hauled the child backwards and out of the shop, shards of pottery falling off of her. Pulling her close to face him, he couldn't help but notice she felt like a dead weight in his grip, her head rolled back, seemingly boneless and she barely lifted her arms to try and protect herself.

A strange part of him knew what it was he was seeing, she had obviously been trying to steal, but the question erupted out of him anyway. "What the hell were you trying to do?!" At least that was his intention...

Lightning flashed in the yard again, illuminating the girl's face.

Hiko literally froze in horror, eyes widening, mouth dropping open, the words failing to come out of him.

That brief glare of blue white light revealed half her face was misshapen and swollen. He could see dark smears of blood trailing down either side of her mouth. Feebly trying to raise her arms again, her head fell backwards, her neck unable to support her. That wet gargling sound issued from her again; an attempt to scream, an attempt to cry out in pain?

In his defense, Hiko realized much, much later that he had let go of her haori and she fell to the ground, collapsing in a heap. She barely managed to roll onto her side, sluggishly dragging herself through the mud and puddles seeking somewhere to hide.

Not unlike a wounded animal.

Blinking a moment in shock, Hiko felt ice running through his veins. His thoughts raced ahead of him, trying to put the pieces together. With a scowl he rose and quickly returned to the hut where he grabbed the first thing he spotted; his mantle hanging on its peg. He set the katana aside, and headed back out into the rain.

Moments later he crouched by the girl. She continued trying to drag herself towards the darkened, wet, bushes to one side of the shop. As he settled his mantle over her, she slipped, falling chin first into the dirt and mud, a gargle bubbling from her throat. She feebly attempted to roll away from him, covering her head in defense, her legs curling to her chest.

"Stop," he said gruffly, pulling her arms away from her head. He curled her arms across her chest before wrapping her securely in the thick cloak. Scooping her up, he rose and headed back to the hut. She went limp in his arms, her breathing coming in ragged gasps.

He set her by the irori, adding a few more logs to it. Stoking it to get the flames up, the fire illuminated the hut. Stepping into the storage room he grabbed a few towels and crouched besides her. With her arms pinned by the mantle, she couldn't cover her head, yet she still twisted slowly away from him, trying to hide her face, her body shuddering. Hiko realized she was sobbing.

"On'nanoko!" he said gruffly, reaching out to sit her back up, facing him. "What have I told you? I am not going to hurt you..."

He hooked his finger under her chin and lifted her face up. She wouldn't open her eyes, or at least the one she could open. Pain flashed across her face. Her breathing was still ragged as she began to sob in shame and defeat.

What he felt when he saw her face, was a white hot anger he was barely able to clamp into submission. The right side of her face was puffed up indeed, her eye swollen shut, her lip fat and cut, blood still oozing from it. It was just the initial swelling. Under the skin he could see the rising colour of what would no doubt be a deep purpling black and blue bruises.

Using the towel, he did what he could to remove the dirt and the blood from her face. She feebly tried to pull away, still shuddering with gargled sobs. Frowning, he tugged the mantle apart, and got a clear look at her throat.

The bruising and swelling was apparent there as well. He grit his teeth, willing himself not to react as he continued trying to clean her up. The grim reality of this child's past 24 hours caused the scowl on his face to harden, making him looking formidable and dangerous. He pulled her arm out, and she flinched hard, jerking in pain.

He glanced at her wrists. Sure enough, more bruising and harsh red marks. Defensive wounds, not to mention welts and slicing from trying to drag herself through the broken pottery.

Pieces were slowly falling into place as Hiko silently cleaned her up. He even retrieved Kenshin's old clothes again, taking his mantle away, helping her get out of her muddy haori and into something dry. She still cried, the salt from her tears causing her to whimper in pain as it reached her cut lip. She refused to look at him, turning her head away the moment he'd released her chin.

While she cried he could feel the shame and rejection coming off of her in waves. He scowled, more at himself than anything. This turn of events being mostly his doing. Who the hell was he fooling?

It was all his fault.

He let her lay in a dejected ball, as he cleaned up then disappeared back into the storage room. Minutes later he set her little billet up next to the fire pit, just catty-corner from his own bed.

"Sit up, on'nanoko," he ordered gruffly, scooping her up and settling her on the billet, keeping her up with one hand. With the other he filled a cup with some water getting it into her before wrapping a pair of blankets around her. The security the warm blankets offered caused her to go limp. Tears leaked from her eyes as he tucked the blankets in. Then he sat down next to her, draping a large arm around her shoulders.

"Look at me..." he said, forcing her attention.

She feebly shook her head no, unable to speak at all.

"On'nanoko," he said gently, "Look at me."

She grew still, her head hanging, looking like the pathetic beaten creature she had actually been all along. Her lips, were she could move them, were curled down in grief.

Hiko carefully turned her head, slipping his hand onto her jaw and lifting her chin. "Look at me, girl," he coaxed.

Her chin quivered, the tears starting again as she shivered in what? Fear? Rejection? She barely managed to open her good eye, looking at him with utterly no trust in her gaze. Dull and dark, the one eye she could look out of, held no hope either.

Why should she trust him? Hiko mused. He'd sent her back to that... continual abuse and quite probably certain death, and she knew it.

"Don't try to talk, all right? Just nod or shake your head. Got that?" He waited patiently before she finally nodded.

"I know what has happened. This isn't your fault," he said to her, forcing her gaze. He smirked slightly. "I am going to make this right. But I need you to be very, very brave. I need you to do something for me as well." Making sure he had her full attention he added. "Do you understand me?"

She didn't respond, just staring back into his dark eyes. She didn't turn away though.

"Were you just after the gold?" he asked carefully.

She finally broke his gaze, looking down, dejected. She shook her head no.

"What else were you after?" he asked.

She couldn't move, her shivering increasing as she just went limp. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at him, her chin quivering.

"On'nanoko..." Hiko said softly, his arm tightening around her shoulders, holding her close to him. "I said I'm going to make this right." He lifted her head back up. "Look at me..."

He waited patiently until she finally complied, looking at him with infinite sadness. "No one..." he said to her. "No one is ever going to hurt you like this ever again. Understand? What else were you after here tonight?"

She stared at him, trembling, then she lifted a hand and pointed at his sword.