Shifting the Balance complete

by draxal

The completed version of Shifting the Balance, originally posted under P.L. Nunn. Kenshin's world is rocked when his family is brutally kidnapped by a nefarious Englishman with ties to Kenshin's past. A gravely wounded Kenshin is joined by Sano in a pursuit that takes them on an epic chase that spans the ocean. Yaoi and non-con warning. Ken x Sano. Ken x Kaouri.

4. Chapter 4

Chapter Thirteen

Kenshin couldn't sleep. Not in his and Kaoru's room. Not on the porch outside in the balmy fall air. He'd slept better on the road, unprotected from rain and wind, than he did here. He rose with the sun after a miserable night and padded around to the front of the dojo while Sano still slept. If he was going to be restless and melancholy, he thought, he might as well not disturb other's sleep with it. Besides, Sano got testy if he was woken too early in the morning.

But, seeing the early side of dawn proved useful, for he was the only one up and about when Saitou came knocking at the gate, self-satisfied in his well pressed uniform and his slick smile and slicker black hair.

"What did you find out?" Kenshin demanded flatly, with one hand on the sliding gate panel and the other on the side of the gate, a sleepless night making him just a tad surly and Saitou's ever-smug expression getting under his skin.

"Erizawa has extended an invitation to his for breakfast tea."

Kenshin frowned, wondering why Saitou had bothered to come round and include him in such a summons. He didn't trust Saitou or his motives and Saitou had already said he'd just as well not have Kenshin along for dealings with the former shogunate lord.

"And you decided not to go alone - - why?"

Saitou smiled. A motion utterly devoid of humor or good will, that always had made Kenshin's skin crawl.

"He asked for you."

"Ah - -" Kenshin felt his gut flutter.

"Not specifically by name," Saitou added. "He wished for you to come because you were the one that saw his daughter's body. Or her supposed body, as the message was phrased."

"Oh." Perhaps not so bad as he thought. Or perhaps he was merely reaching for anything to fool himself into optimism. "Do you want to leave now?"

Saitou inclined his head. There was a carriage outside the gates, a uniformed police driver in the coachman's seat. The dojo was peacefully asleep behind him, aside from the ghosts that had kept him awake. Sano was asleep. Just as well, he thought. Sano had never been the best participant of calm, rational debate and anything other than calm, cool heads might offend Erizawa into withholding vital information. Sano would be angry at him for going without him - - but, they'd both get over it.

He took a long breath of cold morning air and stepped outside the gates, sliding them shut behind him. Into the carriage with Saitou then, who didn't disturb the air with banal talk, who sat silently staring either out the window or at Kenshin with speculation in his narrow eyes. Always thinking, Saitou. Always plotting out a situation to his best advantage. Always figuring how to get every last bit of usefulness out of a man before he discarded him.

Kenshin tried to ignore him. Tried to get that same blank expression on his face - - the emotionless one that deprived an enemy of knowing what he was thinking - - and couldn't quite achieve it. Didn't know whether he'd lost the ability somewhere along the way - - after four years of peace and happiness, or if Saitou just wasn't enemy enough anymore to merit it. Or maybe he was just too tired to find the strength - - maybe - -

He pressed a knuckle to his mouth, staring intently out the window, frustrated with the turmoil his thoughts had been dissolving into of late. He'd be good to no one if he couldn't pull himself together and start to focus. But it was considerably easier thought that done.

They reached Erizawa's estate and this time there was a servant waiting at the gate to usher them in. At the house, a woman met them, bid them good morning and led them to a fine, spacious tea room with broad doors open to lord Erizawa's garden. Erizawa himself sat on a cushion before the tea table, his morning kimono of the finest quality, his lined face composed into neutrality. This was a man who would never loose the ability to hide his emotions.

Kenshin bowed his head, little enough respect for a man in who's home they had been invited. Saitou did - - marginally. The woman urged them to settle onto cushions across from Erizawa, while her lord sat there silently, his hands planted on his thighs, his eyes fixed on his guests.

Tea was poured and while they drank it, another servant came in with a simple breakfast of rice and miso soup. It was only good manners to take breakfast in silence without broaching the business they had come for. Kenshin had no appetite. He managed a few mouthfuls of rice, a few swallows of soup and sat there afterwards with the warm cup of green tea in his bandaged hands, waiting while Saitou and Erizawa took their time finishing breakfast.

Finally, when they had finished and the servants came to clear away the remains, Erizawa spoke.

"What interest does the government have in my business beyond these fictional dealings with the Englishman Winter?"

Saitou shrugged. "You are a man of power. Men of power are always of interest to the government. What you chose to do with that power - - that is what may or may not be of interest to those who enforce the law."

"If I had dealt with this man and his backers - - our agreements would surely have been beyond suspect. I am not a Yakuza ruffian."

"No. I'm sure you're not," Saitou agreed. "And I'm sure your involvement - - your supposed involvement - - with this Englishman was beyond reproach - - you being the honorable businessman that you are. But, no businessman likes to have his affairs probed - - and I might be able to ensure that any - - suspicion - - of your involvement in this matter be erased, if you were to offer some bit of help in finding this elusive and treacherous Englishman."

"What assurances can you give me of such a thing?" Erizawa leaned forward, down to serious business now and Saitou smiled, having the fish on his hook and skillfully settling down to negotiation.

It went on like that for some while, the two of them discussing business with no mention of a murdered daughter escaping either man. Kenshin almost begin to wonder why he was here, why Erizawa had asked for him. Almost. Such men hid their motives well, he knew. Finally when some sort of satisfaction seemed to be reached on both sides, the old man motioned for fresh tea to be poured and waited while the woman scurried gracefully in to serve them and then retreated before speaking.

"Rumiko was my youngest daughter. She was to be married next year. To a scholar. I allowed this match because she wished it so - - and a father may be generous to a younger child. Because she knew the language of the west, she begged to do me the service of being my voice to the English. Being adventurous, she was eager to leave Japan in order to secure honor for this family. She had my seal and my authority to bargain with these men - - this English shipping conglomerate that backed this English cur. She would not have dishonored me or my name, so I believe you when you say she was murdered when she discovered this man's dealings with the Yakuza. She would have come to me directly with such treachery. She was a good daughter."

"I'm sorry," Kenshin said softly.

Saitou said nothing, running his finger idly around the rim of his tea cup, aching no doubt, for a taste of the tobacco that one hardly ever saw him without.

"You found her body?" Erizawa looked at him directly, dark eyes fixed upon him with all the intensity of Cat when she was begging for a scrap of fish.

"I did. In a canal, in Tokyo."

"And you knew it was this man, Winter, that murdered her - - how?"

Kenshin swallowed and said. "Not until later. I had - - met him earlier and invited him into my own home not knowing what he was. He stayed there for weeks before he took my wife - - I believe to pass off as your daughter to his backers. This was weeks ago and if we have any hope of catching up with him - - we need your help, lord Erizawa."

"You invited a murderer into your home?"

"Yes."

"As did I." The old man's eyes bore into him. The voice, which had been calm and neutral until now, dripped with venom.

Kenshin took a breath, not flinching from that gaze or that voice. He'd known that this man was too sharp not to put two and two together.

"Did you think I would not know?" Erizawa spat.

"No."

"What audacity, to come into my presence - - assassin."

Kenshin said nothing to that. What could a man say to such truth?

"I could have ten assassins of my own in here in an instant to take my rightful vengeance."

"Really?" Saitou said, giving up his pretense of guestly courtesy and fishing in a pocket for his cigarettes. "That would be a shame. A terrible waste of life."

Erizawa's eyes flickered to him, narrowing slightly as Saitou lit up a smoke. Saitou shrugged. "He doesn't kill anymore. I on the other hand - -"

"You come to me for aide and you bring - - this? Himura the Battousai who everyone has thought dead and gone these past years."

"I'm not," Kenshin said softly. "Not the Battousai anymore. Not for a very long time. Yes. It was my blade that killed your son. I was very young. I had a lord - - not unlike you - - unto whom I answered. I was given an order and I carried it out - - like any honorable samurai would. As you would have expected any of your samurai to do if you had given such an order. I did not enjoy it. I regret it. I am sorry. Deeply sorry."

Erizawa cursed at him.

"You did give orders of a like nature," Saitou said. "I know very well, you did. He's right that you would have expected the same. A samurai that disobeyed such a command would be expected to take his own life in shame - - or have it taken from him, if he balked at the honorable thing to do. Why hold a grudge against the sword when the hand that wielded it is long dead in the revolution? Why not hold your grudge against the man that dishonorably murdered your daughter?"

Erizawa slammed his palms down so hard on the table that the tea cups rattled. He pushed himself up and stalked to the open doors, then turned and stabbed a finger at Kenshin.

"I curse you for taking my heir from me. My first born. The man that ordered it is dead, so I have no one else to turn my anger upon, even though that anger be so many years old. I pray to the gods that you lose what is precious to you, Battousai!" he spat.

Kenshin did flinch then, shivering despite himself. Angry of a sudden, despite himself. His fingers bit so deeply into his thighs that the flesh went numb. The man could wish him all the ills in the world - - but to wish them upon Kaoru and Kenji - - Almost he rose to do - - what, he had no clear notion, but Saitou's hand on his shoulder stayed him. Saitou's fingers hurt, pressing into bone and muscle and exerting surprising strength, considering Saitou was sitting as he was. Saitou didn't look at him, just put the cigarette out in a tea cup and smiled at Erizawa.

"Curse him all you want, but give me a location and names so that I can find this Englishman Winter and put a stop to his machinations."

"Where in hell is Colombo?" Kenshin was not in the best of moods. He very much felt the need to bash in a few of Saitou's teeth. He had marks on his shoulder, he was sure, from Saitou's fingers biting into his flesh. Probably ones on his arm as well, from Saitou's hand on it the entire way out of Erizawa's presence. Like Saitou couldn't trust him to walk out of a room without causing trouble. Like Saitou expected him to flat out attack the old man for wishing his family ill.

He was angry, yes, but he hadn't lost complete control of his wits. So he simmered and slammed a fist into the door of the coach hard enough to make the wood crack a little and great, blinding streaks of pain to run up his arm from his hand and center in a spot just behind his eyes.

Saitou gave him a look and blew out a cloud of smoke that made Kenshin's eyes sting. "A British colony, I believe. Or a protectorate. In India or perhaps off its coast. Ceylon, maybe. I'll find out the details when I get back to police headquarters."

Kenshin took a breath, collecting himself. "Don't lay hands on me again, Saitou."

Saitou smiled and tilted his head. "Don't act like a fool, then. You've obviously been picking up bad traits from Sagara."

Responding to that in the way in which he wanted, would have propagated the claim that he was acting the brash fool. So he pressed his lips tight and stared out the window. "How soon can you arrange a ship?"

"What? Do you think you're going?"

Kenshin slanted him a murderous look.

"It is official government business." Saitou took a drag of his smoke.

"Then pretend I'm going at your behest instead of the other way around. I don't frankly care one way or another. I'll find passage on my own, if I have to and you and whatever schemes you've got going, can rot in hell."

"Kenshin, Kenshin - - you have no patience anymore."

"In this? No."

"I'll arrange passage, no fear." Saitou sighed. "I don't suppose you'll be able to leave that idiot Sagara behind."

Kenshin shrugged, looking back out the window. "If he wants to come - - he's welcome." Not to mention, that he didn't quite trust Saitou at his back. Sano, he trusted there. Sano - - he very likely needed there - - at least for the time being while he was less than whole.

Of course Sano was pissed. Sano being anything else would have come as a great shock. But Kenshin hadn't quite expected the open hand against the side of his head when he stepped back inside the relative security of the dojo. He'd been concentrating too much on what Erizawa had said - - about the prospect of Kaoru and Kenji being dragged to far off lands - - to pay much heed to who was coming out as he was coming in.

It wasn't near to noon yet, so Sano couldn't have been up for long, but long enough, apparently to achieve a degree of irritation that prompted him to violence at the sight of Kenshin.

"Where the hell have you been?" Sano bellowed as Kenshin hit the gate jamb and leaned there, with a hand against the side of his head over the throbbing hurt of impact. "You went to see that old shogun, didn't you? Without me! You dumbass, what were you thinking? I've been sitting here worrying my ass off over what trouble you'd gotten yourself into and did you give a shit? No. Couldn't care less about what Sano thinks, could you. I bet Saitou was there. He was, wasn't he? Saitou rates higher than I do, doesn't he?"

Kenshin held up a hand - - and thought for a moment he was seeing double, but then the double in question was about a head or more shorter than Sano, though the hair was just as dark and almost as long and spiky and the face every bit as agitated with the situation at hand.

"Yahiko. You're back," he stated the obvious, but then, his head was pounding a little and a man ought to be granted a little leeway to such mundane observations after having his brains rattled.

Yahiko, whom he'd last seen about three months past on his way out of Tokyo to expand his horizons, frowned, apparently agreeing with Sano's denunciations. Kenshin felt a great relief seeing him safe and sound, considering that he'd gone looking for Kenshin and considering what dangerous people that trail might lead him into the midst of. Yahiko was a master of the Kamiya Kasshin style of swordsmanship, he was wily and he was intelligent, but he was still a boy - - all of seventeen. And he still had a hot headed streak that had only dwindled slightly in the past four years.

"Sano's right, Kenshin, you shouldn't have left without telling someone - - what with everything that's going on," the young man said, sounding by far more rational than Sano and managing to make Kenshin regret slipping out of the dojo without a word. Well, not a tremendous regret, but a little.

"Sorry," he apologized and slipped warily past Sano, who was still glowering, and moved to clasp Yahiko's arm. Yahiko reached for him, then hesitated, eyes going wide at the sight of the bandages.

"Oh, Kenshin - -what happened?"

Kenshin glanced back at Sano. "Sano didn't tell you?"

"I only got back a little while ago and Sano's been bitching the whole time about you taking off without him."

"I don't bitch," Sano exclaimed. "And you're still too damned short to mouth off to me, so watch it, shrimp."

Yahiko's eyes narrowed with all the indignity of a young man accused of being anything but adult.

"I am not. I'm almost as tall as him." He jerked his chin at Kenshin and Sano burst out laughing.

"And this is something you're bragging over? Gods, I know girls taller than him."

"Shut up, Sano," Yahiko cried and Kenshin, after a glare at Sano for what he was most certain was a grave insult, decided that Sano and Yahiko had taken up their relationship exactly from the point that it had been broken off. He walked past them and they followed, still bickering in what one had to hope was a good natured way.

Yahiko really had matured a great deal in the last four years from the hotheaded youngster he had been. Kenshin never would have given him the sword if he hadn't. Never would have considered it, if he hadn't trusted the young man to keep a sane head and use it wisely. And all it took was half a morning in Sano's presence to make him revert. But it wasn't entirely a bad thing. Sano and Yahiko might fight and bicker and cross over the border of violent retaliation for each other's infractions, but it was all prompted by a genuine affection.

Yahiko had missed Sano a great deal. He'd moped about it more openly than any of the rest of them for the longest time after Sano had left. Kenshin had empathized silently, but he'd had other distractions to keep his mind from it - - namely Kaoru and the dojo and the rather immense and frightening step of matrimony.

And the world had gone on, as ever it did, with each of them following their own paths - - until fate decided differently and brought them back together here.

Yahiko had been in Nagoya these last few weeks and had come back when the rains had started, tired of the road and wanting a solid roof over his head for a while. He had the sakabatou with him, though he did not carry it outright for the most part, the police much stricter now a days about such obvious infractions of the law. The Meiji government was damned and determined that this era be a peaceful one and was ruthless in seeing that peace enforced. Yahiko was not a fool. He was not out to blatantly arouse unwanted interest. He did not go out of his way to find trouble - - though he was not adverse to it when it found him. He had a little more of the brawler in him than Kenshin ever had - - but then, Sano had been a big influence in Yahiko during those years when he was most easily influenced.

Kenshin didn't ask to see the sword - - though he wanted to. He wanted his fingers around that worn and familiar grip so badly he could taste it. It was only a blade and a backwards one at that - - but it was a weapon he could use without hesitation and without the guilt of breaking the vows he had made to himself so many years ago. That weapon might keep him from killing men - - he could make no such promises with any other. Instead he asked what sort of trouble Yahiko had been stirring up, in search of him and his family, being honestly worried about the answer and needing it to take his mind off the elusive sword.

"He's been pissing off Yakuza. Big deal. So have we." Sano interrupted before Yahiko had the chance to speak, the three of them half way around the yard towards the back. "What the hell did the old man have to say to you? And don't give me any bullshit answer, Kenshin."

Not only was Sano tending towards physical violence this morning, he was bossier and more imprudent than usual and Kenshin was most assuredly not in the mood to be bullied. He'd had enough of that from Saitou during the last leg of their visit with Erizawa.

He narrowed his eyes, concentrating on blocking out Sano's impertinent demands. Yahiko saw the look right off and backed down a little from his own eagerness to hear what Kenshin had to say. But then again Yahiko always had been a bit wiser in some things than Sanosuke.

"Don't give me that look, Kenshin." Sano plowed ahead, oblivious or perhaps very much aware and merely choosing to ignore Kenshin's obvious dark mood. Aside from perpetrating a little violence of his own, there was not a lot he could do to curb Sano's pestering. He contemplated that when Sano caught his arm, hauling him to a stop.

"What the hell happened?" Sano demanded.

Kenshin twisted his arm out of Sano's grasp, stepped around the taller man and kept walking to the back. He heard Yahiko caution Sano to let it be and heard Sano's answering curse before the sound of their footfalls following him resumed. He just needed a little while - - a little time to recover from Saitou's company on the ride back - - and the sure knowledge that his family was well and truly distant from him.

Colombo. Saitou thought that it was a port in Ceylon. Kenshin only vaguely knew where Ceylon was. Far enough away from Japan that they might as well be on the other side of the world. He'd never been outside of Japan. Never even to the mainland in all his years of wondering. It had never occurred to him to leave the land of his birth. He had never wondered for the sake of adventure, like Sano - - he'd done it out of repentance.

The woman - - the widow Hatayama was hanging fresh washed laundry in the yard when he reached the back, her daughter weeding the ornamental garden along the fence. He'd forgotten about them, when he'd come back here - - to the place that had always been the most informal, the most comfortable of all the dojo. They both paused when they saw him, and he hesitated a moment in his step, before nodding and continuing on to the room he had not been able to sleep in last night. He went now, because he had a purpose. He'd need things for a voyage. How long of a voyage he didn't know. He'd ask Sano when he was of a mood to talk again. Sano might know, having sailed to the mainland and back.

He looked about the room, melancholy at the sight of Kaoru's dress kimono and her teaching gi and hakama. At her extra sandals and her neatly folded scarves and ribbons and sashes.

He would find her. He would - - he tried to hold on to that conviction, but in the back of his mind, a timid little voice hinted at the possibility that he might not be able to. Or that he might be too late when he did. If he couldn't - - he'd never return here - - never set foot in this place again, without her here to fill it with life. He sank down, next to the low table where she kept her cosmetics and her ribbons and her mirror and combs. There was a dried arrangement in a vase, the flowers long withered and the leaves gone to brown. He stared at it, unfocused until a soft head pushed urgently against his arm and Cat demanded she be acknowledged.

He scratched under her chin, then down her back to the spot she liked best at the end of her spine. She purred and stepped daintily up onto his thigh to put her cold, damp nose against his jaw. Her whiskers were a feathery tickle against his skin. He shut his eyes and breathed, fingers immersed in cat fur. And for a few brief moments, it was enough.

And then he sighed and returned to the solid reality of here and now, and shooed Cat off his lap and did what needed doing, gathered what needed gathering and went back outside to face the world.

Or at least to face Sano's scowling countenance and Yahiko's patently worried one. They had settled on the porch a ways down, near the well and the goldfish pond.

"He's taken them to a place called Colombo," Kenshin said quietly, now that he could voice it out loud without his hands trembling or his voice breaking in frustration. Saitou is arranging passage - - as soon as he does, I'm leaving to go after them."

"We're leaving," Sano corrected, sullen and determined all in one.

"And me. You're not going without me," Yahiko announced.

Kenshin's eyes flickered away, and he wondered how many people he could drag into this - - how many people he could endanger in this desperate quest for his family.

"I am," Yahiko insisted, voice breaking a little as it vibrated between the tones of man and youth.

"I need to go and see Saitou," Kenshin said, avoiding the issue. "I need to find out about this place and his plans to get there."

"Okay." Sano prepared to rise, spitting out the stem of grass he'd been chewing on and dusting off his hands on the legs of his pants. "Then let's go and see the bastard."

"He's at the police headquarters, Sano." Kenshin pointed out and waited until the ramifications of that to sink in.

"So the fuck what? - - - - oh. Oh, okay, I get it. You trying to get rid of me?"

"No, Sano." Sano could be trying. He could be exhausting when his feelings got bruised. "I'm trying to keep you out of jail. I'm not going anywhere without you."

"What, like this morning?"

Kenshin cut him an irritated look, tired of tip-toeing around him. "Drop it, Sano. It's over. It's done. I don't need a guardian or a baby-sitter."

That was angrily said. Sano blinked and blinked again, then his lips turned up in an almost lazy grin and he shrugged rangy shoulders.

"Well, all you had to do was say," he accused, as if it were that easy. As if Sano ever backed off from anything because a body simply asked him to. Sano never took 'no' that easily and Kenshin nodded and warily walked past, expecting anything up to and including violence against his person. But Sano just shrugged and turned his attention to Yahiko, suggesting that the two of them go and investigate a few of the places that Yahiko hadn't been old enough to venture into the last time Sano had been in Tokyo. Did Yahiko have money for a game of dice? One shuddered to think what sort of trouble Sano could get Yahiko into in the mood he was in.

Chapter Fourteen

Sano started drinking early. Ideally it should have dulled the irritation. All it did was make him moody and more touchy than he'd started out. It was all Kenshin's fault. Damned irritating little snot, trying to leave Sano out of something that Sano had gotten himself firmly planted in the midst of. Going behind his back with Saitou of all people, to accomplish important tasks. Like he didn't trust Sano or - - gods forbid - - he was trying to protect him. Nobody protected Sagara Sanosuke. Nobody needed to. Who was the injured one here, after all?

"Sano? What are you muttering about?" Yahiko was staring at him. Yahiko who was almost grown up, whose face had grown out of its childish roundness, whose hands on his ceramic mug were long fingered and hard. He had the same eyes though. Even as a child, his eyes had been old. Maybe not wise, but street-smart and hard as obsidian.

"Nothing," Sano said and swallowed the rest of his beer. "C'mon." He rose, pushing himself away from the table. "There's nothing going on here this early. I want to stop by the Cross-eyed Lizard."

"That's closed down," Yahiko said and Sano frowned, remembering many a night spent within the Lizard's confines, drinking and gaming. He felt suddenly dislocated, hit with the knowledge that it was gone and he'd missed the passing. He wondered how many other of his haunts had evaporated.

It was afternoon. The sun was on its way towards the far horizon, making the shadows long and the air cool. Yahiko suggested another place and Sano lifted a brow at him.

"What do you know about places like that? They don't let kids in there."

"I'm not a kid," Yahiko ground out. "And that's bullshit anyway. They let anybody in who has money to blow. You think I was raised in a convent, you moron?"

"Moron?" Sano's hand shot out and smacked Yahiko up against the back of the head. The young man hissed and spun and shook a fist under Sano's nose. "I'm gonna kick your ass if you hit me one more time."

"You think you can?" Sano grinned at him. "You don't even have your stick sword. Oh, yeah, Kenshin gave you his ass-backwards blade, didn't he? You don't even have that, shrimp."

"Don't call me shrimp!" Yahiko snapped indignantly. "And you can't just carry swords around nowadays without somebody running to the cops and then you've got all sorts of explaining to do and it's just not worth it unless there's something really important up. And I don't need a sword to kick your lanky ass, Sanosuke."

"Yeah, so go ahead, take a shot."

Yahiko narrowed his eyes, gauging. "What? You gonna just stand there and let me hit you?"

"No sweat. I'll hardly notice, I promise."

"You fuck - -"

Sano grinned. Yahiko glared, wary now. The people passing them on the street cast them suspicious looks and gave wide berth.

"You know," Yahiko took a breath, another and the tension in his fists drained away. "You're probably right. Your head's so hard, that nothing could get through. I'd forgotten."

Sano snorted. "Ha! And look at you - - maybe you are growing up - - having the sense to back down from a no win situation and all."

"Fuck you," Yahiko grumbled.

Sano laughed and ruffled the young man's short, spiky hair, which gained him a glare and a few muttered comments on his ancestry. "So Kenshin says you've been doing a lot of roaming about, lately."

"Not as much as you," Yahiko said sourly, a little bit accusingly. "At least I remembered where home was."

"Yeah, well - - you didn't have the law after you."

"If you'd have bothered to go and try and straighten it out, you might not have. Kenshin would have called in some of the favors they owed him if you'd have let him - - he said as much."

"The hell with that! Like I needed him solving my problems. Like he wasn't - -" part of the problem. With Kaoru clinging like some lovesick leech and Kenshin ready to give up what autonomy he had and fall under the spell of everything she offered. Legitimacy, honor, home, family, responsibility. All the things he'd been lacking those long years as a rurouni. All the things he thought would make him whole. Maybe they had. Sano hadn't seen a problem with the way he'd been. But then, Kenshin always had been more critical of himself than anyone else ever could be.

They bickered back and forth, in what was generally a good-natured fashion all the way to the tavern Yahiko had suggested in the Shiba district, which sat at the very edge of Tokyo Bay. The smell of brine and fish was strong, the whistles and calls of merchants trying to off load the last of the day's catch filled the air. The bars and taverns here, at the busiest dock in Tokyo were always crowded and always filled with opportunity for a man with an eye for it. There were the taverns that catered to visiting seamen and the one's that discouraged foreign clientele, if only because the native patrons were menacing enough to make even the most boisterous foreigner think twice about slinking into to the dark, smoky depths.

Sano used to frequent such places on a regular basis. He used to be one of those menacing presences. He thought, with a little more drink, he just might fall into that category again. He begged a little more coin off of Yahiko, and found a raucous game of dice to join in. He won a few rolls and lost a few, managing to keep his investment constant. It wasn't as good a luck as he'd had on the road to Sendai, with Kenshin's ill-fated presence along to tip the scales of luck in his favor - - but it wasn't bad. The drunker he got, the better his rolls. Yahiko played for the first hour, before he lost the last of his money and then sat back to watch Sano milk what he could from what remained to him.

The crowd in the tavern grew thicker, the smoke fouler as more and more bodies finished with the day's work staggered in for drink or drug or game. There were a few women that offered themselves for a price that weeded amongst the men, the smell of their strong perfumes a contrast the to acrid odor of sweat and smoke.

Sano finally lost the last of his borrowed coin and reluctantly retreated from what had been up to the last, a vastly entertaining game. He slung a comraderdly arm across Yahiko's shoulders, ruffling his hair in a fashion that the young man hissed at and tried to shrug off. Yahiko's indignity aside, he was drunk enough from an afternoon in Sano's company not to have quite the grace presently, to escape from Sano's long arm. Which made Sano snicker at the kid's inability to hold his drink - - he was just like Kenshin, who couldn't down more than four or five beers without getting addle-brained. A man had to figure it was the weight, small men not having the tolerance that bigger one's possessed. If he'd had his rathers though, he'd have rather have had a drunk Kenshin at his side that a staggering Yahiko- - Yahiko made a mean, snarly drunk - - while Kenshin - - Kenshin got touchy and warm and tended to lean all over a body in search of support, which had been an alarmingly nice thing from the very first time Sano had managed to get him smashed, oh years and years ago.

"Back to the Dojo?" Yahiko asked, when they hesitated at a cross roads, the blue shadows of evening long and dark along the left hand side of the street. Might as well, Yahiko hadn't a coin left to his name and aside from stirring up trouble in one of the various bars they'd pass on the way out of the Shiba district and back on the path to Kamiya Dojo, there was damn little else left for them to do.

"Yeah, fine." He wondered if Kenshin were back. Wondered sullenly what plans he and that bastard Saitou had made, cloistered together behind the walls of the police station. Pushy, narrow-eyed bastard! Sano would just bet he'd pushed Kenshin to leave him behind.

A group of men walked towards then, down the side of the road where the shadows were weakest. Maybe six of them, a few staggering a little with drink. Easier to shift over to the shadowed side of the road than battle for right of way with a bunch of drunken day workers.

"Hey, boy." a voice slithered out of the alley on the dark side as they started to pass. "Imamura Kazuo sends his regards."

Just that and Yahiko tensed up, shrugged out from under Sano's arm, swinging about towards the alley in somewhat slurred battle readiness, grabbing at his back for a sword handle that wasn't there.

"What the fuck?" Sano said, turning about to see that the six drunken men, were not so drunk after all, and had crossed the street to block them in from the other side. Forms shifted out of the dark shadows of the alley. Another half dozen at least and armed.

"What the fuck do you want?" Sano demanded, shoving his hands in his pockets with careless disdain for the lot of these thugs.

"Imamura Kazuo is the local Yakuza boss." Yahiko supplied, eyes flickering about from man to man, shrewdly assessing who had what weapon. "I sort of roughed him up a little - - when I was looking for Kenshin."

Sano laughed. "Imamura Kazuo? I remember him. He used to be the old bosses' running dog. Little snot-nosed back-stabbing shit. What? He kill the old boss and take his place?"

"You shut up." One of the men snarled and rushed at Sano's back. Sano stepped out of the way, hands still in his pockets and slammed out a foot to smash the man's knee inwards.

"You make me." He grinned. Which pissed them off to no ends. With the silent efficiency of men used to secluded back alley assassinations they rushed. They weren't half bad, doing this for a living and all. Sano had to take both his hands out of his pockets almost from the start. Yahiko swam in and out of his sight, a swordsman without a sword, in the midst of a brawl, who still had a swordsman's speed and a swordsman's agility. Not like Kenshin. Nothing like Kenshin - - but not bad for a kid that had been playing with bamboo sticks the last Sano had seen him. He was probably right good with that sword Kenshin had given him. Probably could have dealt a lot more damage than he was dealing now with just his fists and his feet. He didn't take hits well though. Not from men almost twice his size. He staggered once when somebody got a glancing blow in from the side and Sano bullied his way close enough to cover him while he got his wits back together. Sano blocked a knife thrust and broke the attackers wrist for good measure.

They were mostly down, their Yakuza attackers when the remaining ones decided that Sano and Yahiko were a bit more than they could handle. The last three backed away, leaving the moaning bodies of their comrades scattered about the mouth of the alley.

"Not finished," one of them promised.

"Yeah, you just bring it on," Yahiko growled back taking a step forward, over a prone body.

"You tell Kazuo I'm back in town. Sagara Sanosuke. He'll know who I am. You tell him we've got some old business to finish and some new," Sano said waving a hand at the sprawled bodies, moving past Yahiko who was swaying a little, adrenaline mixing with alcohol, mixing with adrenaline.

"Yeah - - I'll tell him." And the man grinned of a sudden, eyes lighting just behind Yahiko. Sano swore and spun, but it was only in time to see the young man stagger, eyes wide. The man he'd stepped over had pushed himself to his knees. There was a dagger in his hand smeared with fresh blood. Yahiko hissed and slammed a fist, backhanded into the kneeling man's temple. The blade clattered to the ground. The others were running by the time Sano flashed a look back to see if they were going to continue the attack.

Yahiko had one arm wrapped about his waist, fingers pressed against his side. "This is why I don't drink," he complained. "I didn't even hear him get up."

"He get you bad?" Sano moved up, kicking the unconscious offender in the head for good measure.

"No - - just a scratch."

Which was a damned lie, as much blood was leaking out between Yahiko's fingers.

"C'mon." He steered the young man past the alley, away from the bodies, away from the curious who were just beginning to gather the courage to slink out and see what had happened. Yahiko staggered a block down the road and Sano swore, putting a hand to his back and feeling material soaked with blood. Fuck. He didn't need to deal with shit like this again. He really, really hated it when his friends bled all over him.

"You musta really pissed them off, for them to go to that much trouble," he said, just to evict a response. Yahiko was pale and breathing hard, a thin sheen of sweat on his skin.

"Yeah - - I was - - sorta - - in a bad mood." His left leg crumbled. Sano caught him, shoved an arm under his knees and scooped him up. Damned if the kid wasn't a few pounds heavier than Kenshin, height be damned. A little bulkier in the muscle department, a little thicker around the shoulders.

"Damnit - - Sano - - put me down! You'll - - drop me."

"No I won't. Listen, Megumi will fix this right up. It'll be fine."

"Tell - - him - - I'm sorry. I 'm sorry. I - - fucked up."

"You tell him, moron!" Sano snapped, but Yahiko's head had lolled, his eyes rolling back in their sockets, lashes half fluttering as he wavered on the very verge of fainting.

Megumi was not gentle in her accusations. She was blunt and angry and damned deadly with her verbal incrimination. And all that in the span of time it took for Sano to get Yahiko into the dojo and for her to very quickly assess the damage through the blood before she chased Sano away.

How could you let this happen? You had to take him to those seedy places you frequent - - you had to get him drunk - - and yourself so drunk that you couldn't even fend off a few simple thugs? Your fault. This is your fault, Sagara Sanosuke! There'd been more, before her attention was fully focused on removing the blood soaked clothes from the wound - - she'd demanded he take himself from her presence - - in that bone-chilling voice that she used when she was truly pissed off.

He didn't think telling her it had been more than a few simple thugs - - and that neither of them had been that drunk - - would be a good notion at the moment. At least he didn't think he'd been that drunk. He wasn't so sure, now that he was stone sober. She was right though, he should have taken better care - - He should have been watching the kid's back.

Is he gonna be okay? He'd asked, as the widow shooed him from the room, and Megumi hadn't answered, bent over Yahiko, immersed in her work.

So he padded outside to worry alone. And paced. And wished he had a drink now, when he truly needed one. And watched the sun disappear from the sky entirely and plunge the evening into moon drenched darkness.

Megumi didn't come out, though she sent the widow or the girl frequently enough for fresh water or clean cloth or more candles. Sano was afraid to stick his head back in and demand to know what progress had been made. Ha, he was afraid. He hadn't been afraid of those Yakuza thugs. There was damned little he was afraid of, save for ghosts and supernatural stirrings and - - and well, losing those few things that mattered in his life.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he was to blame, for not watching the kid's back. Maybe it was his fault for dragging Yahiko out and getting the both of them drunk and all because he was trying to prove some elusive point to Kenshin.

And where the hell was he, so late in the evening? Not still in Saitou's company. Certainly no sane person would put themselves through the deliberate hell of putting up with that bastard all the day long and well into the night. Unless Saitou had double-crossed him. Sano wracked his brain trying to figure out how or even why such a double-cross might be initiated. After all it hadn't been particularly Kenshin's presence that Saitou had been bitching about - - it had been Sano's. Which began the niggling little fear that they'd gone off without him. That Kenshin had bent to Saitou's pressure - - or his own misplaced notions that he needed to protect Sano - - idiot idiot idiot! - - and gone and left him behind.

There would be hell to pay if that was the case. Once he tracked them down. Once he was sure Yahiko was okay - - -

Kenshin was tired. His head hurt. His shoulder did. His right hand itched under its bandages with contumacious intensity. It had been a long, frustrating, mind-numbing day. But he knew more than he had going into it. He knew the place they were going - - he knew how far it was and how long it would take to get there. He knew about the local culture and the local support that could be expected or not expected when they got there. He knew how strong a presence the English were on that island and how unlikely English forces were to help in the apprehension of one of their own blooded lords. Saitou had worked out a plan. Saitou always had plans - - always had back up strategies just in case - - always went into things with motives both clear and hidden. Kenshin didn't particularly care what the hidden ones where, though he knew - he absolutely knew that Saitou had other things on his agenda besides Kenshin's small family and extracting vengeance on Winter - - all he cared about was finding Kaoru and Kenji. First and foremost that, though the vengeance thing was a close second on his list of priorities.

He'd opted to walk home from the new police headquarters in the Kodenmacho district where most of the government offices were clustered. He'd needed the time to clear his head. Needed the time to get rid of the cobwebs that had been clinging for weeks now. He'd had a focus, but it had been tempered by weakness and injury. It was time to get it back. It was time, for at least a while, to push the those few idyllic years of peace and sedentary life away and reclaim what he had been. He was rusty and out of practice, he was realist enough to know that as truth, but the body never truly forgot.

It was dark when his sandals stirred the dust on the road leading home. The lanterns were lit outside the gates. He almost missed Sano, sitting there, outside the half open gates, he was so still in the shadow. Sano was never so still. Nor did he frequently loiter outside the dojo walls when there was more chance of supper inside. Kenshin stalled, frowning, noting Sano's dark eyes quietly fixed on his approach. Noting the dour curve of Sano's broad mouth and the way his big hands clenched and unclenched across his knees.

Oh, there was wrong here. Terrible, terrible wrong that made his heart hammer in his chest and his breath hitch in his throat.

"Sano - - what?"

Sano's eyes flinched away from him. Hurt. A moment and he looked back, gesturing with a short motion of his head towards the dojo and all that it contained. "Kid's hurt. M'sorry."

Kenshin blinked, wondering for a moment which kid. There were a number that frequented this place. But then, Sano generally only referred to the one as 'the kid', and Sano hadn't promised to take any other young person on his rounds with him that afternoon.

Kenshin stood there, blinking at the look of utter misery ghosting the shadows of Sano's face, then he swore softly and dashed past the gates. Into the yard and past the dojo proper towards the back where the private rooms were, where a wounded body might be tended.

He smelled the blood before he saw it. Oh, he hadn't been prepared for this. Not here and now when the enemy was long gone from this place. He stood in the doorway, staring with wide, horrified eyes at Megumi, sitting blood stained and weary next to Yahiko, who was pale as snow and still as death. The widow sat on the young man's other side, stained hands in her lap, dark, sorrowful eyes fatalistic. Dying and death were no strangers to such a woman. A woman that had lived through a husband's death and fought off her own daily for years on end against the mountain and the beasts that inhabited it.

"Megumi - - ?" he couldn't bring himself to ask. The ache in shoulder and head and hand intensified, thrumming to the point where he had to put a hand on the doorframe to keep from swaying.

She looked up at him, bitter eyed. "Alive. Barely. He's lost a great deal of blood. It was not an opportune place to be stabbed."

"Stabbed?" Kenshin narrowed his eyes, confused - - needing an explanation for all this - - blood.

"Its Sanosuke's fault," Megumi spat, clenching her small fists. Wetness made her lashes clump. "Everything was peaceful and he comes back and all hell breaks loose."

Kenshin blinked, not understanding. "How?"

"He dragged him out and got him drunk and gods know what else and can't even take care for him when those thugs attacked."

"Who? Who attacked?"

"I don't know. Yakuza, he said. If that's even true. If it wasn't just some bar brawl that he started and pulled Yahiko into with him."

Yakuza? He remembered that look of Sano's at the gates. Of misery and guilt. Of Sano taking blame for this - - and if it were Yakuza retaliating for Yahiko rattling their hierarchy searching for information about his whereabouts - -?

"Megumi - - Yahiko doesn't need a guardian. He's not a child anymore."

He said it softly, and Megumi hissed and stabbed a finger at him.

"He's not you! Understand? You giving him that damned sword doesn't make him you!"

"I know - -"

"You don't know anything. You defend Sanosuke's bumbling - -"

"Its not Sano's fault." He moved forward, went down to his knees next to her and put a hand on her trembling shoulder. She was tired and snappish because of it. "Sano doesn't lie. If he said it was Yakuza, then it was Yakuza. Yahiko went after them looking for me, so if there's blame to fall, it should be on me."

"You would say that," she said, softer.

"Will - - he be okay?" he asked. He should have asked sooner, but he'd been too busy trying to piece together what had happened - - trying to defend Sano against the accusations that Megumi had already no doubt tossed in his face.

"If I have a say," she said stubbornly.

"Then he will be okay," he said, trusting her abilities.

She gave him a look and called him a fool under her breath, but there was the hint of a smile lurking in her eyes, which reassured him.

She shooed him out, saying his presence was tiring. And he went gladly enough, never much good in sick rooms. He went back to find Sano, still outside the gates, haunched over his knees, staring at the star speckled sky.

"Why are you sitting out by the road?" Kenshin asked.

Sano shrugged.

"She say's he'll be okay. She says it was Yakuza who attacked you?"

Another shrug.

"Are you waiting for them to come here to finish it?"

"I wish they'd try."

Kenshin stood silently, waiting for something more and when he didn't get it, sighed and held out a hand. "Sano, please come inside. The neighbors will talk."

"Like I give a fuck." Sano canted a look up at Kenshin, at his proffered hand. "I should have watched his back."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I got him drunk. Was so damned happy to be prowling around my old haunts - - I let my guard down."

"You always let your guard down. It was bad luck. It isn't your fault."

"Megumi says it was."

Kenshin frowned, a little annoyed at the woman for throwing accusations about like so much festival confetti. Annoyed at Sano for this sulk when there were more vital things afoot. Annoyed - - just a little - - at Yahiko for getting hurt when Kenshin wanted badly to leave in pursuit of Kaoru.

"Then stay out here, if you believe that," he snapped. "My head hurts and my shoulder does and I'm not in the mood to deal with that - -" he waved a hand towards the dojo. "- - and your tantrums."

Sano's eyes got wide. Sano's mouth opened, offended. Kenshin had meant it to be offensive. Kenshin took a step back towards the dojo as Sano rose, thinking that if Sano hit him - - he was in too miserable a mood not to retaliate, and a fight inside the yard was far preferable to one in the street.

But, Sano didn't attack him, in any sense of the word. Just sniffed and shoved his hands in his pockets and padded past, leaving Kenshin to slide the gates shut and follow on his heels.

He sat down next to Sano on the porch by the kitchen, staring at darkness and listening to the fish hit the surface of the pond as they hunted mosquitoes. After a while, Sano queried.

"You with Saitou all day?"

"Unn." Kenshin nodded, distracted by the widow sliding open the door to the room Yahiko was in and quietly slipping out. Sano watched too, frowning. Afraid, Kenshin thought.

"She said he'd be okay," he said that for Sano's benefit, as much as for himself.

"If she says - -" Sano said, then after a while. "What'd you do - - all day with that narrow-eyed bastard?"

"Made arrangements. Gathered information - - you missed very little."

"I didn't say I was jealous or anything." Offended again.

"Of Saitou? Over me?" Kenshin said it in kidding. To lighten Sano's dark mood, but Sano's eyes widened and a heat rose on Sano's cheeks and he grumbled something incoherent and looked away. Which left Kenshin blinking and vaguely uncomfortable and recalling with embarrassing clarity the sensation of Sano's fingers through his hair and on the skin of his neck, of lying next to Sano with Sano's long arm firm around him and the pleasing smell of Sano's scent in his nostrils.

"I - - didn't mean - - that." That didn't come out right either, stammered and anxious. There were too many things of late that had him off his balance. Sano looked at him, eyes shadowed and tired, mouth twitching in anger or nerves. Kenshin ducked his head then, letting the hair slid over his face, taking escape behind that shield and silence.

The little girl surprised them both, padding up so quietly that Sano cursed and Kenshin flinched, fingers automatically reaching for a hilt that wasn't present at his belt. He was that jumpy, that a little girl could startle him.

She bowed her head and shuffled her feet, sensing the animosity in the air. Kenshin attempted a smile for her, to let her know it was not directed her way.

"Minako?" he asked.

"Miss Megumi says you should both go and find supper elsewhere. That she and mother don't have time to fix it. That you should go and eat and then come back and sleep because she doesn't need the two of you exhausted and irritable when she's exhausted and irritable."

Kenshin blinked at her no doubt word for word recital of Megumi's message. Sano did. Sano recovered quicker.

"I don't have any money to eat out. Do you?"

Kenshin shook his head mutely.

The little girl held out her small hand. There were enough coins there for a miserly supper.

"Miss Megumi said neither of you would have money and to give you this."

"She did, did she?" Sano said wryly and reached across to take the coin before Kenshin could.

"We probably shouldn't - -" Kenshin said. " - - just in case she needs us."

"She doesn't need us. She wouldn't have sent the little girl to chase us out otherwise." Sano was more than willing to flee. Sano grasped him under the arm and pulled him up, not willing to argue the point, but considerate enough not to pull on the aching shoulder.

They went to the Akabeko, with the twin objective of a decent meal and letting Tsubame and Tae know about Yahiko. Tsubame would be distraught, being very much affected where Yahiko was concerned. Kenshin told her gently that the young man had been injured and Tae sent the girl off to the dojo post haste, wisely seeing that she'd be no good at the restaurant until she saw that Yahiko wasn't on the verge of death. Kenshin hoped that he wasn't. He had to trust Megumi.

Sano weaseled a better meal out of Tae than the money they had would have normally bought. He sat there savoring it with an almost libidinous expression on his face, and finally after the serious task of eating had been conquered, he sighed and said.

"That'll be the last one of those for a while, huh, Kenshin."

"Why do you say?"

Sano snorted. "Don't even. When's the ship leave? Tomorrow? You had that look on your face coming down the street of a man about to say good-bye to home. Weren't planning of skipping out on me, were you?"

Kenshin sighed, pushing the last dregs of food about on his plate with a single, forlorn chopstick. "No. I told you I wouldn't."

"So when?"

"Saitou arranged passage on a Dutch trader. It leaves at high tide tomorrow night."

"Ha. Told you. Try and hide things from me, will you?"

"I wasn't hiding things."

"You didn't mention it. Just forgot to spill an important fact like that, did you?"

"There were obvious distractions, Sano," Kenshin said dryly.

"Humph." Sano reached over and snagged a leftover chunk of beef from Kenshin's plate, a furrow between his brows that had nothing to do with the eminent completion of their late supper. Still very much worried over Yahiko. Still holding onto the guilt that Megumi had planted. Or perhaps it had been there before the woman had voiced it. Telling him again it was not his fault, would be a waste of breath. Sano would believe what Sano wanted to, regardless of what Kenshin tried to impress upon him.

They went back home. The night had brought rain with it. There had been a few days there, Kenshin thought wryly, where they had been dry. But a storm was brewing now and it brought with it strong wind and cold rain. He hoped, if it were a persistent one, that it did not interfere with the departure of the ship tomorrow.

Sano had wanted to pay a visit to the Tokyo Yakuza. Had been very adamant about it, spouting names of men that needed to be taught a lesson in who to mess with and who not to mess with, that Kenshin had never heard. Sano always had skimmed the borders of the underworld. Sano knew people and things that truly honest men were ignorant of.

"No," Kenshin had said. "If we leave tomorrow and we've started a war with the Yakuza - - who will protect our friends when retaliation comes? I'll speak to Saitou. I'll see that they're protected."

"You trust him?"

"I trust him enough. He won't let me down if I ask that of him."

Sano had been dubious. But Sano had conceded.

At the dojo, they found Megumi asleep with the widow and her daughter, while Tsubame sat watch over Yahiko. With Yahiko in Kenji's room, which had once been his - - and the girls in the spare room, there was only Kenshin and Kaoru's room available. And again, Kenshin found that space uncomfortable. But there was little help for it now, with the wind blowing rain onto the porch and rattling the panels of the doors.

Sano shook himself like a dog, spraying water on the floor in a wider arc than that which simply dripped from him. Kenshin opened his mouth to reprimand him, then shut it, thinking it hardly mattered. Kaoru wasn't here to complain about a little water. It was hardly worse than when Kenji would rise early at the sound of rain and run into their room to pounce upon them while they still slept, a wet and laughing interruption of dreams.

"Do you want a dry robe?" he asked, hands shaking of a sudden, nerves shattered by the sudden attack of fond memory.

"Sure." Sano had shed his jacket and his dripping headband, tossing the both in the corner by the doors.

Kenshin gave him a dry cloth to dry himself and one of his own plain house robes. It would be too small, but it would do until Sano's clothes were dry enough to put back on.

"Don't just leave them in a pile there," Kenshin murmured. "They'll never dry."

He caught a glimpse of Sano shedding his trousers, of Sano bending to wipe the moisture from his body before slipping the robe on. Ignore it and take care of his own wet self. Loosen his belt and step out of the soaking hakima. Shed the only marginally less wet kimono and hastily run a cloth over his body before donning the dry robe. He leaned over and twisted his hair to wring out excess water. It was past his shoulders now, a handful of weeks having seen respectable growth. He'd have to cut it in the front a bit, otherwise it would blind him when he could little afford to be blinded.

Sano was staring at him. Sitting against the wall by the door, shadowed eyes fixed upon him.

"Sano?" he asked, because there was something about the intensity of the stare that made him - - nervous.

Sano flinched and looked away, folding his hands together between his knees. He shook his head, shuffling aside the query.

"There's - - a bed roll," Kenshin offered, hesitantly.

"Nah," Sano said. "I don't know if I'm much up for sleeping. I'll sleep on the ship."

"Oh." Kenshin felt the same. Felt a distinct abhorrence for lying down and shutting his eyes when there were so many things to inspire nightmare. But he was tired. He felt it in his bones. Felt it in the tremor of his muscles. Megumi said he was nowhere near to being healed. That he needed weeks of rest to begin full healing. He supposed he'd get it on shipboard. Weeks and weeks until they would reach their destination. Too long to go without sleep. Too long to go without nightmares. And not all of them about Kaoru and Kenji.

Might as well shut his eyes now and let them come. There was no stopping them anyway. He wouldn't recall the majority come morning. He never did. Just the shadowed remnants and the unease they left behind.

"Kenshin?"

He glanced to Sano. "Humm?"

"Sorry."

Not back to that again. He was too tired to chase away Sano's guilt. "It's not your fault, Sano," he breathed, weary and soft.

"Not that." Sano's mouth twitched in annoyance. "About - - you know - - not trusting that you wouldn't run off without me. I was pretty pissed off - - and well - - well, it was stupid, because I know you wouldn't, since you promised and all."

"Oh." Kenshin almost smiled. He padded over to the wall and slid down next to Sano. "I don't suppose you have a lot of reason to trust me there. I've done it before, no?"

Sano shrugged. "Yeah and maybe you might have had some justification. Back then I was a lot more talk than I am now."

"Of course."

Sano's eyes narrowed a little. "You don't have to agree so quickly. I wasn't that much talk. I could back it up - - I can just do it better now."

"I know. You've improved a great deal. It's more than merely physical."

"Yeah? You can tell that? How? I mean - -" Sano paused considering. "Are you saying that I acted like a fool back then? Is that what you're saying?" Sano leaned towards him, emitting just a touch of offended threat.

"Sano - - calm. Please. No, you act very much the fool now - - and jump to just as many false conclusions - - it's just that you can tell when a man - - has gained something. Some insights perhaps, that help to make him more than he was when he was a boy."

"You never knew me when I was a boy," Sano growled, obviously still undecided on whether to take this conversation as a serious affront or not. Kenshin refrained from mentioning that Sano had been eighteen when they'd first met and all appearances aside, he'd been a great many years older than that.

"Of course." He tried to look innocent of insult.

"Hummph." Sano canted him a sideways look. "The only reason I'm not gonna kick your ass for all of those non-slurs is because it would wake up the house and they probably need the sleep more than we do. But I owe you one."

"Ah, I'll keep that in mind."

"You should." Sano leaned his head back against the wall, a grin pulling at his lips.

Sano made the uneasiness go away. Sitting there, shoulder to shoulder, Kenshin didn't feel the depression as acutely as he had. The wind and the rain buffeted the world outside. A little water still pooled at the door, but not much. The candle flickered and he shut his eyes, lulled by Sano's steady breath and the constant patter of the storm.

He came awake of a sudden, hardly aware that he'd fallen asleep, his cheek warm where it had been pressed against Sano's shoulder, Sano's arm a heavy weight over his own. He shook that off, startled to his knees and looking for a weapon that he didn't have as someone rattled the doors and slid them open on the tracks.

It wasn't attacking Yakuza or murdering Englishmen or mountain bandits - - it was a heavily listing young man, skin pallid and sweat sheened.

"Yahiko?" He cried, scrambling to his feet, to take hold of the boy's arm. Yahiko was trembling slightly, clammy to the touch, eyes a little glazed but determined for all that. "You shouldn't be up. Where's Tsubame?"

"Asleep. She fell asleep. I didn't know how long I'd been - - I was afraid you'd left."

"What the fuck are you doing up?" Sano was slower to wake than Kenshin. He sat there, with his long legs sprawled out under the too short folds of Kenshin's robe and glowered up at the both of them.

"Sano - - I messed up, huh?"

"You should not be here," Kenshin said firmly. He felt the bandages under the thin material of Yahiko's robe. The morning outside was gray and moist. The storm had passed with the night. "Let's get you back. Miss Megumi will be furious."

"I'm sorry. I wanted to help - -'

"Yahiko - -" Kenshin said warningly, as the young man shifted, trying to disentangle himself from Kenshin's grasp.

"Kenshin - - I want you to take this back - -" He brought his hand around from behind the door frame, fingers clutched around the painstakingly polished, dark wood of a sheath. Kenshin's eyes fixed on the familiar grip of a well-worn hilt. He tore his gaze away, wrapping an arm about Yahiko's waist and forcibly turning him on the path back to Kenji's room. The door down the way slid open before he could safely get Yahiko that short way down the porch, and Miss Megumi stuck her head out. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed in annoyance.

"And just what, do you think you're doing?" She demanded.

Kenshin blanched, feeling that threatening question aimed at him.

"And what are you doing with that, Yahiko?" She flung a second question.

"Oh, quiet woman, he was giving it to Kenshin." Sano strode out onto the porch, looking ridiculous in Kenshin's robe, arms and legs protruding from the edges.

"Don't tell me to be quiet," she snapped, marching up to Kenshin and Yahiko and snatching the sword out of the latter's hand to toss it without care at Sano. "Neither one of them is fit to use it."

The noise woke Tsubame, who was devastated at falling asleep when she should have been watching Yahiko. She wrung her small hands and apologized profusely to Megumi, scolding Yahiko softly in-between. Yahiko was plainly distraught over her upset, but his eyes kept drifting to Kenshin, worriedly.

"I gave it to you," Kenshin said softly.

"You need it. You need to get them back."

He couldn't argue that. He'd spent a good deal of the past weeks wishing it was back in his hands. He might have saved himself a great deal of pain and effort if he'd had it. But he'd given it to the young man in good faith - -

"He's an idiot, kiddo. He'll take it and thank you for it when his brain starts functioning again." Sano shoved the sakabatou at Kenshin's chest and bullied his way between him and Yahiko, dropping to his knees next to the boy's pallet. "Listen, I'm sorry I didn't watch your back as good as I should have. Damned Yakuza are slippery as snakes and - - well the one just got past my notice. Don't you be going after them again without some damned heavy backup, got it? Which means not until the two of us get back, okay? Let it ride and until then, Kenshin's promised to get Saitou to have some of his police buddies keep them off you. If I come back and find you've done something stupid, there's gonna be hell to pay."

The young man blinked, a little dazed from fever or blood loss. Kenshin could sympathize, having only recently been there himself.

"Yahiko - - thank you. I'll bring them back." Kenshin knelt next to Sano, the sword clutched in both hands. The young man smiled and held up a hand. Kenshin grasped it, squeezing gently. Sano's bigger hand covered the both of theirs and pressure was stronger, but it was good pressure. It transferred Sano's boundless energy through him when he needed it. When Yahiko's injury made him sick and the prospect of a long sea journey had his stomach pitching and him not even on the deck of the boat yet.

Yahiko grinned through the pallor, a hint of that indomitable sparkle in his dark eyes.

"I know. I'll expect you back in no time."

Chapter Fifteen

Moonlight glinted off of Tokyo Bay. A hundred masts swayed like bamboo in the wind, straight and narrow and interlaced with rigging. A few thicker columns of steam ship smoke stakes broke the delicate tracery of masts. It was no less congested on the docks at night than it was during the heat of day. Ships came and went at all hours. There was always work to be had at the harbor.

Megumi came to see them off. A solitary well wisher that carried the hopes of Yahiko and Tsubame and Tae and the widow and her daughter and anyone else who had a care whether Kaoru and Kenji lived or died. Much less Kenshin and Sano. She yammered at Kenshin to take care for his wounds and pressed a pouch of salves and bandages into his keeping. He had that simple smile on his face during her lecture. The one that hid all the layers of whatever true emotion he was feeling under a veneer of good nature. He had a light sack of belongings and the sword shoved through his belt. Sano had less, having abandoned his worldly belongings years ago and never having stopped long enough since to collect more.

When Saitou strolled up the docks, trailed by two uniformed officers carrying a large trunk, Sano frowned. Megumi did, being a sensible woman. Saitou ignored the both of them, sparing Kenshin a nod, and lifting an eyebrow at the presence of the sakabatou before turning his attention to the Dutch merchanteer that rocked gently in the water next to the dock. He waved a hand at his flunkies and they carted his chest up the lowered gangplank and onto the ship.

Trapped on a ship with Saitou for weeks. Saitou who had gotten damned chummy with Kenshin of a sudden, when he'd never had much care for his company before. The notion made Sano slightly queasy. The touch of Megumi's fingers on his arm distracted him from dour thoughts of Saitou. Her dark eyes were intent. Worried. She urged him aside a little, when Kenshin went to talk to Saitou at the foot of the gang plank.

"I don't trust that man." She whispered.

Sano sniffed, his thoughts on the subject of Saitou well known to all and sundry.

"I don't trust him not to lead you into trouble. He doesn't care about Kaoru or that child. He doesn't care about either of you. Don't let him talk Kenshin into something suicidal."

"If I can help it." He said, staring under the cover of his lashes at Kenshin and Saitou.

"He won't be thinking of himself - -" she said. "- - self-preservation won't be the first thing on his mind when he's focused on that girl. It never has been."

"No." Sano had to agree.

"I want her and the child back - - but I'd prefer if the both of you survived the experience."

He shrugged.

"It wasn't your fault, Sano." She finally said. "About Yahiko. I'm - - sorry I said it was. I was wrong."

He looked at her. Really looked, instead of diverting half his attention to the ship and the cop and the redhead. Apologies from Megumi were few and far between. He'd rated very few of them in the time he'd known her. He didn't quite know how to respond, so he shrugged and gave her a crooked grin.

"S'okay. I've been accused of worse things."

"Yes, but you weren't actually at fault here." She smiled back and he took the insult as it was intended. Light hearted and far from hurtful.

All the cargo was loaded and the mate called down for any stragglers to board and Sano strolled towards the gangplank with Megumi trailing on his heels. Saitou had already boarded and only Kenshin remained to give one last farewell to Megumi and Tokyo and Japan.

Up the plank after that, the ship's crew eager to pull it up behind them. They stood at the rail along with the dozen or so other paying passengers to watch the dark shore drift away. The lights of the harbor grew smaller and smaller, winking fireflies that rolled with the sway of the ship. Saitou stood down the rail from them, a solitary figure casually sucking at his cigarette.

So they were on their way. Departing from the land of his birth yet once again. It wasn't as exciting this time - - his gut wasn't filled with as many churning butterflies. Maybe because this time he wasn't afraid to leave. Oh, he'd been gung ho enough about it the first time - - ready to set out on his grand adventure - - but the thought of leaving everything he knew and loved behind to delve into the mysteries of the great wide world had been sobering and frightening. But anything that raised the hackles on the back of Sano's neck - - was worthy of facing head on. Fear was a thing to be challenged and beaten down into submission.

He wasn't afraid this time. He wasn't sad. He wasn't leaving anything vital behind. He didn't even feel the need to stand and watch the shore recede and might not have, if Kenshin hadn't remained by the rail.

"The first stop's - - what? Manila?" he asked, already jumping weeks ahead. Kenshin nodded, eyes nothing but shadow under the fall of his hair and the night. Kenshin's hands were light, graceful things on the rail, but there was a tenseness about him that belied his casual stance.

Sano knew the route. First stop at the Philippines then around the Dutch East Indies making a stop or two on the way before they hit the open waters of the Indian Ocean and headed up towards the southern tip of India off which the island of Ceylon sat. A long sail. A long time to be cooped up on a boat with Saitou. Maybe Kenshin could keep blood from being shed between the two of them.

"What's the furthest you've been from home?" Sano asked.

"Not as far as you." Kenshin admitted. "Outside of Japan? I went to the coast of Sakhalin once from Hokkaido during the revolution on an - - errand - - for the man who was my lord at the time."

"An errand?" Sano lifted a brow.

"Don't ask."

Sano didn't. Kenshin didn't like talking about those days and the sorts of errands he'd been asked to complete.

"You know - - for someone who was a rurouni for ten years - - you kept yourself on a short leash."

"I never had the desire to leave Japan. I suppose that even though I fought for the revolution - - in my heart I always held with the old order's isolationist views. I don't like all the things the foreigners have brought with them. I don't like the changes I see in the port cities. I suppose I don't like a great many things - - which means absolutely nothing, because no one can stop change."

Sano supposed not, but the way Kenshin said it, it sounded like he was foretelling doom and destruction - - he was distraught and not bothering to hide it from Sano as he had from Megumi. Sano didn't ask why, because Kenshin would only deny it and a body had to feel a little honored that Kenshin trusted him enough to show something other than his gaming face.

When the shore was nothing but blackness and the ocean a dark vastness that a body could sense but not see, the ship was truly on its way out into the waters of the Pacific, heading out into the currents that would take it south towards the multitude of islands that sat off the coast of the mainland. The ship rode low in the water, heavy with tea and rice and other exports that it would trade along the way.

Japan faded away in the distance, and the world beckoned from the darkness ahead.

Kenshin did not experience sea sickness. He most certainly did not. The queasiness in his gut was in no wise from the constant pitch of the sea and the deck under his sandals. If anything it was from the questionable ship's fare and a worry he couldn't stop from gnawing at his insides. There was little enough to do to relieve it. He was on his way on the trail of the man who'd taken his family and yet the optimism refused to come. It hadn't come since he'd set foot back in Tokyo. He'd been so fueled with determination before that he'd hardly had the time to fall prey to doubt.

Perhaps it was the inaction. Perhaps with nothing to do but wait, helpless at the whim of the ocean and the winds - - all the dark thoughts gleefully took advantage of the lack of momentum and crowded their way in. Regardless, he sank deeper into a queasy sulk, spending a great deal of the time in the small cabin he shared with Sano and Saitou.

Two sets of stacked bunks with a narrow aisle between them. Two sea lockers at either side of the door. One small port that barely let in the gray light of day. It was a dismal room, with the ceiling so close to his face when he slept - - having been relegated the top bunk by reason of his smaller statue - - that he began to feel pangs of claustrophobia.

Sano tried to draw him out into what activity he had found. Gaming with the crew, fishing off the rail with a few of the other passengers. Not much to do on a merchanteer vessel, save do the exercises Megumi had advised to loosen the stiffness in his hands. Repeatedly. She'd said in moderation, not to tear healing flesh. He couldn't stand moderation when his fingers were clumsy and his hands had little strength.

Saitou read. And smoked. The cabin was more often than not filled with the foul stench of tobacco. Upon complaint Saitou would lift a brow, take a long drag off his cigarette, contemplate the issue for a moment, then blow a lungful of smoke into the room before turning back to his journal. It drove Sano to distraction. Sano bitched day and night about Saitou, wanting very much to steal the man's store of cigarettes and toss them into the ocean. Kenshin cautioned against it, not particularly wanting a fight within the crowded confines of the cabin. Or anywhere else on the ship for that matter.

Days turned into a week and there was nothing but water and gray sky surrounding them. Nothing to alter the environment. Not even a stray bird to break up the monotony of the sky. He wondered how Kenji had taken to such a long trip, the child never having experienced more than a few boat rides down the canals outside Tokyo. Had he been frightened? Or had he shown the bold, fearless face he usually did? Kaoru would have encouraged the latter. Kaoru would have held her head high and faced the adversity of the Englishman's captivity with courage and pride. But - -

- - But, so much vast ocean with no landmarks to mar it - - it was disheartening.

"There's a game in crew's quarters." Sano padded up to him at the rail, a tall shadow on the deck in the moonless night. Sano did not speak the language of the crew, but he'd managed to work his way into their good graces nonetheless. The rules of dice were the same everywhere for the most part. They gambled for pittances, partaking of the game more to relieve the boredom than for any gain. Kenshin had sat in on a few, listening to the unintelligible banter of the crew - - picking up Dutch words here and there - - mostly keeping Sano's company.

"No. Not tonight." He preferred the darkness and solitude.

"And not last night and not the night before. You're becoming as unsociable as Saitou, Kenshin." Sano complained.

He didn't answer that. Not having a reply that would have satisfied Sano. He shut his eyes against the constant flutter of wind and hair and salt spray and waited for Sano to go away.

Sano didn't go away. Sano slid up to the rail next to him, and stared out into the pitch. Silent for a long while, just a sturdy, solid presence at his shoulder.

"Will you stand here all night?" Sano finally wanted to know.

Kenshin had stood here, at the aft rail a good many nights, while Sano found other entertainment. It was better than spending time in Saitou's company or trying to read one of Saitou's dry journals or - - gods forbid, engaging the other Japanese passengers in conversation, when he hardly wanted to speak to the people he did know.

"Its not a bad place to be. The wind is cool."

"Fritz says there's a storm brewing." Sano said. Fritz being one of the few crewmen who spoke a spattering of Japanese. Kenshin beetled his brows, not liking the sound of that.

"He says maybe it'll hit by dawn or thereabouts. We'll be at the port in Manila in less than a week. Only a day's layover, I hear. Fritz says there are games in that port that you wouldn't believe. They bet on anything."

"Ah - - your notion of heaven. To bad you have no money."

Sano snorted softly. "I have a little. I'd like to get that narrow eyed bastard into a game or two and win some of the stash he has."

Kenshin canted a dubious look Sano's way. "With his poker face? You'd come away with nothing but a scowl, Sano."

"Ha, you think he could out play me? Just because a man's quick with his hands doesn't mean luck runs his way. Just look at your gaming luck!"

No good would come of replying honestly to that. Engaging Saitou in any sort of game of chance would be a dangerous and risky venture and one best avoided.

"Come play a few rounds of cards with us. There's a new game I've learned, I'll teach you."

"Why bother, with my luck?"

He could see the ghost of Sano's grin in the darkness. "Ah, but as bad as you play, it means more luck will gather at my feet. Come help me win, Kenshin."

An arm went around his shoulders, urging him away from the rail. He let go his purchase, relenting. Sano took a step sideways to keep his footing when the ship dipped precariously into a deep swell. Oh, a storm was most definitely coming, if the mood of the ocean was any indication.

"It may hit sooner, the storm." Kenshin said, his shoulder to the wall of the deckhouse where they'd both caught their balance, Sano's arm having slid down his back in a pointless attempt to steady him. Kenshin's sea legs had developed within minutes of stepping onto the ship. It was only his stomach that refused to always adjust to the undulating environment.

"Sano?" a question, warily asked, since Sano neglected to disengage the arm, since Sano's body was a warm, hard presense against his own. Too close for propriety. Too close for comfort, if the racing of his heart and the goosepimples all along his skin were any indication.

"I've never rode a storm out at sea." Sano admitted. "It was always smooth sailing before. Cramped and miserable - - but smooth."

"San - -" Another pitch of the deck and Sano splayed his legs, pressing Kenshin's back to the deckhouse wall, the one arm still wrapped about his back, the other flat against the wall.

"You okay," Sano whispered, his breath a warm touch against Kenshin's pallid temple. "You're trembling . . ."

He wasn't. He did not broadcast his failings so blatantly. He had more control of his body than that. But he couldn't gather his thoughts. They scattered like foam on the waves and all he could focus on was Sano's hand pressed against the small of his back and Sano's lean body weighing against his own with as much intimacy as a man might press against a woman. But it was Sano - - and Sano probably didn't mean anything by it - - it was the pitch of the ship and the threat of going over the rail at the increasing roll of the deck that had Sano foolishly believing that Kenshin needed his hands on him to help with balance, when Kenshin could have walked that rail, pitch or no pitch and kept his footing.

"Sano - - I'm fine." He twisted a little and slipped out from under Sano's arm. Got himself a step or two away - - far enough to breath and to collect his wits - - it was Sano. Sano. Sano. And no reason to find offense or upset in what was offered in all good faith as friendly support. "We'll go and play your game - - if they still are with a storm coming in."

Sano shrugged, face a neutral mask in the shadows. "They're sailors. The storm is no big deal to them - - not until it hits at any rate."

The storm spilled over them a few hours before dawn. A squall of great magnitude that had the decks awash with churning sea and the hatches battered down tight as drums.

One of the lesser masts cracked from the force of it. They heard it all the way belowdecks, braced in their small cabin and a man couldn't help but wonder if the ship had split asunder and would drag them down with it to a dark and watery grave. But it hadn't and come morning the storm subsided and the sailors swarmed the deck to take account of the damage.

"That split mast will keep us in port a few days longer than planned." Saitou had come from talking with the first mate. Saitou spoke Dutch almost flawlessly. He spoke English passingly well and a spattering of French.

"Well, that's not a bad thing." Sano was thinking of the gambling and the rumors of a reckless and wild port town.

"Its not a good thing." Kenshin thought of what might happen to innocent lives with two more days between him and them.

"Idiot." Saitou commented before lighting up, and one wondered who the comment was directed at. Sano took immediate offense, glaring, so Kenshin decided to let the insult lay at his feet.

"What, just because I want to see a bit of the world? When's the last time you got out of the same old pasture, you narrow-eyed fuck?"

Saitou took a drag of smoke and commented to Kenshin. "If you don't feel it absolutely necessary, keep the sword here. I've heard tell that the Spanish authorities are a bit touchy about such things. Even more so with the Americans sniffing around, trying to get their hooks into the islands."

"I asked you a question." Sano was not to be ignored. Saitou gave him a look , eyes conveying just how little concern he had for questions posed to him by Sano.

"It would be a waste of breath for me to name all the places I've been that you haven't, stupid boy."

"I am not a boy - - and you have no idea how many places I've been."

"Nor do I care." Saitou flicked ash over the rail and proceeded to walk away.

"Sano - - let it be. Please." Kenshin put a hand to his chest when he would have pursued the bickering.

It was not so startling a thing, fingertips and palm on the smooth skin of Sano's chest, here in the gray light of day, as it had been covered in solitary darkness. He hardly flinched at all, at the touch. Sano didn't, distracted by his ire. Kenshin pulled his hand back when Sano stopped pushing against it, and let it fall to his side, wiping his palm on the side of his hakama to chase away the tingling.

"That bastard - -" Sano muttered, casting dark looks down the debris littered deck in Saitou's wake. "He's always such an ass."

"It's his nature."

"What? To be an ass. Is that like an inborn trait - - or is it learned?"

"Learned, I think." Kenshin almost smiled, the first one since he'd boarded this ship. "But, I've never met his parents - - so I could not say for sure."

"You mean he wasn't spawned by demons? Oh, that's news."

He did smile then and Sano did, drawn out of his irritation.

It was a gray morning when the ship sailed into the port of Manila. Mist and low lying clouds made a milky soup of the harbor. Only the indistinct forms of ships and jutting masts could be discerned through the fog. Clothes became damp and heavy from the moisture in the air. Closer to dock, and hundreds of small, canvas covered houseboats could be seen, crowded together around wooden pylons, about the edges of the dock where there was no room for bigger vessels. Perhaps it was the fog, with soaked into every surface, bringing out the worst of ingrained odors, but the harbor smelled of rotting wood and machine oils, fish and human refuse. It made a body used to clean sea air, curl his lip in distaste. Sano made a few vocal complaints with which Kenshin silently concurred.

The city was under Spanish control, though it was a tentative one, what with American interest in the islands. The Spanish port authority took stock of the ship when she pulled into dock, assessing the cargo and what taxes to levy on it. The captain contracted for repairs on the mast and chased the paying passengers off board for the duration.

So they were confined to the dubious pleasures of the city for the estimated two days it would take for the mast to be replaced and cargo to be offloaded and sold and new cargo bought to fill the ship's empty belly. Saitou stepped off the gangplank dressed very much like a moderately well to do businessman, in a western cut suit and jacket with a stiff white shirt collar and a narrow, loosened tie about his neck. He looked the part. Of a corporate shark out to maneuver some tedious business arrangement. He had a small satchel in hand, but like he'd advised Kenshin, he was apparently unarmed. Or as unarmed as Hajime Saitou ever was - - weapons not withstanding.

"I'm told," he said to Kenshin. "That there are adequate inns a few streets in from the docks that don't smell so completely of the harbor."

"Oh, please don't tell me I have to share another room with you." Sano complained. "I've got more smoke in my clothes than you have in your lungs."

Saitou lifted a narrow brow, hand hesitating just a touch in lighting a cigarette. He finished the action and the thready hint of a smile almost touched his lips. "I'd rather you sleep in an alley, quite honestly, than put up with another night of your snoring, Sagara. I leave it up to you to find your own lodging. Just remember that the ship leaves in two days. If you're not on it - - I'll hold no regrets."

Sano bristled, glowering. Kenshin gave him a warning look and said.

"We'll be on it."

Saitou left them without a backwards look, weeding his way into the crowded docks and disappearing like so much smoke in the fog. Sano muttered a few disparaging remarks at his back, but was soon distracted by the clamor of the harbor.

It made sense to find lodging first and foremost, but Sano was not much for sense when there were taverns at hand and the pull of a new city. They had to stop at a loud and blustery bar one street in from the harbor - - Sano having - - just having to wet his thirst with the local brew. Kenshin dragged him away after the mug was drained and Sano's eyes began to drift towards the back where a great many men gathered cheering on some sort of animal fight. Whether it was cocks or dogs, was uncertain through the bulk of the crowd and the loudness of the human onlookers.

"We'll go back.' Sano said, following Kenshin reluctantly.

"You can if you want, once we both know where we're staying."

"You won't?"

Kenshin shrugged. "I don't like betting on blood, be it animal or human. I'd rather not."

"Prude." Sano snorted and Kenshin slanted him a sharp look from under his hair.

"I'm not."

Sano's lips curved up in a grin. "Oh, I imagine you are. In so many things."

Demanding what Sano meant by that, would open up avenues of conversation Kenshin was not comfortable walking down. So he snapped his mouth shut and stared studiously at the street to cover the very slight blush burning his cheeks. Which left Sano very happy with himself, striding down the street with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

They found an inn that seemed suitable. The Philippino desk clerk was more fluent in Spanish than Japanese, which he spoke only a spattering of, and understood even less. They managed to contract a room for two nights. It was an inn apparently that catered a great deal to the island's Spanish populace, more so than the native one. The room was small and stifling, until Sano threw open the slatted shutters and let in some small portion of fresh air and breeze. Patched, faded curtains ruffled slightly, as did the mosquito netting on the European style bed. The room seemed only minimally infested with bugs. It was not so clean as a good old fashioned Japanese inn. Nor so accommodating. There were no baths available, though Kenshin, after a grueling attempt at conversation with the clerk, did learn of a bathhouse a few streets up that might suit his needs. He very much wanted a bath in something other than seawater. He very much wanted to launder his clothes and - - gods, gods, gods, find something lighter and airier to wear than kimono and hakama, in the insufferable humidity and heat. It was never so bad at home, even during the worst stretch of summer months.

"So you're not going with me?" Sano surmised.

"Bath and laundry." Kenshin said. "Perhaps not in that order. I'm not sure. If you loose all your money, that's it, Sano. What I have is to buy lodging and food and I'd prefer not to have to beg coin from Saitou. I'd very much prefer not. So unless you wish to grovel for him, use common sense."

"When do I not?" Sano's brows beetled. Sano's memory very honestly relapsed on very frequent occasions. Kenshin sighed and waved a hand at him to let the issue drop.

"Supper, perhaps? We could meet back here at dusk and go and sample some local cuisine?"

"We could do that." Sano relented, shaking off the offense.

"It wouldn't hurt if you found the baths, smelling of Saitou's smoke and all." Kenshin suggested tentatively. One had to be careful of Sano's sensibilities if one didn't want a brawl.

"Are you saying I stink?"

"I would never say such a thing." Kenshin effected his most innocent expression and Sano's lips twitched, not buying it, but amused by it regardless.

So they went their separate ways. The bathhouse consisted of several private rooms with large wooden tubs, filled with warm water by a gaggle of scrawny native boys. It was not as comfortable, nor as cleanly as a Japanese bathhouse, but it was better than seawater drawn up by a pail. He washed his hair, scrubbed his skin and soaked until the water became tepid. He dressed in the very light trousers and tunic that a man might use to work in the garden or about the house and rolled his travel worn hakama and gi into a bundle to take to the laundry. There was a laundry run by the little Chinese woman and her daughters that sat next to the bathhouse and they took his clothing graciously, promising to have it cleaned and ready for him in a few hours time. Which left nothing for him to do, but go back to the inn and wait, or wonder about the city and absorb what he could of the foreign port in a few hours time.

Restless and agitated by the heat, he chose the later.

Sano had a pocket full of native coins. A few Spanish ones littered the mix. It was in no wise a great haul. The games in which he'd participated had not been for high stakes, but it was enough to encourage him and put him in a good mood. Enough to buy him all the beer and food and imported Spanish wines. Oh, he liked those. They were mellow and sweet and had a kick that took a body all unaware. If he hadn't eaten such a satisfying lunch, he might have found himself passed out on the floor of some bar or another. But he'd always had a head for drink and a zeal for trying new forms of it. He spent a fine day prowling the local haunts, and dusk came about far too quickly for his tastes. He had a list of places to go, given to him by a little Japanese whore who'd come to the islands years ago. He'd talked to her about home and she'd told him about the islands and what elicit pleasures were to be had here. She'd wanted more than talk and he'd persuaded her to be satisfied with drinks, having the suspicion that a man might take more away from an encounter with her than fond memories. She went to the bathhouse with him though, and scrubbed his back and spilled some of her cheap perfume in the water with him, which ended in a splashing match filled with much laughter and almost - - almost more - - but he had other considerations on his mind, despite the longing between his legs - - that made him deny her. He had a focus that was no in wise presently shakable, that had nothing to do with feminine curves and demure facade. In the back of his mind all day was the thought of that broad, mosquito net draped bed and himself alone in it with Kenshin, with no bandits or weather or ghost-riddled monastery or dojo or slant-eyed policeman to intrude upon them. A far-fetched notion at best. A wild fantasy that had crept up on him numerous times during his day, causing a slight stiffness between his legs and a pounding behind his eyes - - but not one he'd dispelled too forcefully. He enjoyed the contemplation, whereas a month ago, he'd have cursed his backwards thoughts and stridently sought to banish them.

He gave the girl some of his not-so-hard won coin and left her to stroll back towards the inn. He was late, dusk having fallen almost an hour past, but Kenshin was ever patient and sat on the covered porch in the company of a pair of little Philippino girls who were babbling incoherently and quite happily at him. It hardly mattered the language, Kenshin attracted children. He smiled when he saw Sano and stood up and Sano had to blink twice at the look of him, as slender as a boy in simple peasant's trousers and tunic that hung loose about his hips. The folds of the hakama and the gi gave him so much more bulk, lent him so much more command in his appearance that a body might not even recognize him at first glance without, save for the shining beacon of his hair. Without the trappings of a samurai, of a man of some status - - he was nothing but a slip of a thing.

"Did the heat make you shrink? "He couldn't think of anything wittier to say.

Kenshin lifted a brow, raised one fine-boned hand and waved absently towards the inn. "My hakama is still damp. It takes longer to dry in this humidity. This is cooler."

"Humm. I'd guess." Sano kept staring. Blatantly, until Kenshin snapped two fingers under his nose and remarked with a hint of annoyance.

"You're late. Its long past dusk."

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, well, I had to take my bath."

Kenshin tilted his head, brows drawn in question. He leaned just a little closer and sniffed. "Sano - - is that - - lavender? - - I smell? And something else - - something fruity? Where did you take your bath? A geisha house?"

"Oh, just shut the fuck up." Sano blushed, silently cursing the little whore for her sport during his bath. "Do you want to go and get something to eat, or what?"

They had fresh seafood for dinner and an abundance of island fruit. Shrimp stewed in coconut milk and steamed lapu-lapu and a sweat dish called ginataang mial which consisted of sweet corn and rice covered in a sweetened coconut milk. They drank sweet basi - - a sugarcane wine that was as smooth as anything Sano had ever consumed and left full and content.

With supper behind them, the night life of Manila beckoned. Sano was eager to answer the call and dragged Kenshin in his wake. There was a festival of some sort on the beach outside the city and past the stench of the harbor. Sano had heard rumor of it during the day and was reminded by a laughing group of native girls who were toting armfuls of flower garlands towards the lantern lit stretch of clean beach.

It was apparently some sort of local celebration, though it was open to one and all for Spanish merchants and their ladies mixed with the natives, as well as lighter skinned foreign traders and seamen who had been lured by the commotion.

Sano was in heaven. The women were friendly, the wine was free and the sounds of local music rhythmic and exotic. He lost track of Kenshin. Lost track of quite a lot, after glass after glass of basi and locally brewed rum and Spanish wine. Found him again, sitting on a little bluff over looking the beach, at the outskirts of the festivities, silent and slim and unobtrusive.

"Why are you sitting here all by yourself? Come and play." Sano grinned lazily, flopping down next to Kenshin, putting the fresh mug of rum he'd acquired into Kenshin's hand. "These women - - oh, they're nothing like quiet, demure little Japanese girls. Look how they dance."

"Not all Japanese girls are quiet and demure." Kenshin offered and Sano's grin widened.

"Well, not the one you married - - but comparatively. Are you sitting here feeling sorry for yourself again?'

"No. Perhaps. It feels - - wrong - - to enjoy myself while they're in peril."

"So you should mope and be miserable, until we find them?"

Kenshin shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. If only there were something to do - - other than wait."

"There is. Drink." Sano put a hand under the mug and urged it up to Kenshin's lips. Kenshin took an obligatory sip and made a face.

"It's strong."

"It burns on the way down." Sano agreed. "But it warms the belly afterwards."

"It's warm enough without." Kenshin complained, but took another tentative sip. And another. And Sano lay there, with his elbows propped in the sand, content enough to keep Kenshin company and watch the happy undulations of the people on the beach. Kenshin finished the rum and Sano dragged him up and down onto the beach thereafter. He had an easier time of it, the rum having made Kenshin considerably less morose and considerably more open to suggestion.

One of the Phillippino girls slipped a garland over his head and a kiss on the side of his lips, which he smiled at, giving Sano a baffled, amused look afterwards. Sano acquired more rum, since Kenshin seemed to have developed a like for it, and made a nuisance of himself at the food laden buffet.

He glanced down at the brush of heavy skirts against his leg. A lovely, dark eyed Spanish lady smiled up at him, red lips curved and moist from the rum spiked fruit drink she was sipping. Sano leered back - - wondering if it were merely all the drink he'd had tonight - - or if she truly did ooze sex. She spoke to him in a lilting indiscernible language. He shrugged and kept staring at the riveting amount of cleavage her gown revealed. One did not ignore such bounty. He discovered, of a sudden, a great like for European style gowns.

She tried again, this time in a poor attempt at the Phillippino tongue, which Sano only vaguely understood himself.

"Sorry. I'm Japanese. Don't speak the language."

She sighed and leaned against his arm as she bent to retrieve a chunk of fruit. She was very drunk, he decided, and very much interested in initiating some sort of dialogue with him, which he didn't so much mind, intrigued by her exotic features and impressive cleavage.

"I think - -" Kenshin said at his shoulder, a somewhat offended, somewhat wary sounding Kenshin. " - - that your hands on this woman are going to cause trouble."

Sano glanced down. The woman, who was pressed against him did, lifting one black brow in question at Kenshin.

"What? Why? She likes me."

"I don't believe her husband does." Kenshin inclined his head towards a Spaniard in military uniform, shouldering his way through the crowd of revelers, his eyes locked upon Sano and the woman.

"Yeah - - Yeah, well just let him start something - - I didn't know. She came on to me."

Sano got his balance, untangling himself from the woman, glaring defiantly at the oncoming officer. The man had one gloved hand on the hilt of what looked to be a rapier, hanging at his hip.

"No. Absolutely not!" Kenshin's fingers dug into his arm, dragging him backwards. He was too inebriated not to stumble in Kenshin's wake. "I will not have a brawl that lands us in jail when that ship leaves. I will thrash you myself, before I let that happen.'

"You wish!" Sano exclaimed, struggling to free himself from Kenshin's death grip. He did and staggered, one knee going to the sand. An angry foreign voice barked at them from behind. Sano managed to flip himself over in time to see the Spanish officer lunging at him with the thin, straight rapier. He blinked, not equating the action with the no doubt mortal effects it would have. Blinked again and the hand was standing there, empty handed, staring upwards along with at least a half dozen sets of other eyes as the rapier sailed skyward. It came back down in a lazy spin and Kenshin caught it by its ridiculously ornate hilt.

"Sano. Please get up and walk away from here." Kenshin said pleasantly. His face was a mask of neutrality.

"Are you serious?"

"You do not want to know how serious I am, Sanosuke. Go." The good nature drained momentarily from his voice. Sano scowled and rose, brushing sand off his trousers.

"I am very sorry." Kenshin said and whether the man understood or not was anyone's guess. "But we wish no trouble." He flipped the rapier and extended it back towards the man, hilt first. The Spaniard hesitated, then took it, undecided whether to pursue the issue. The woman eased herself against the side of her husband, purring something in his ear that made him flush, but took his attention from Sano and Kenshin.

Sano didn't wait to see. He turned his back and stalked up the path from the beach towards the dirt road leading back to the city. Kenshin caught up with him in short order, angry and silent for the duration of the walk up the tree lined road to the outskirts of town. Finally, he could hold his tongue no longer.

"You have no sense! None at all. Though she acted it, she was obviously no whore and these European's are protective to the point of idiocy over their women."

"I knew she wasn't. It was just fun."

"Fun? It was shameful, her with her hands all over you - - perhaps she thought you were the one for hire."

"Fuck you." Sano snarled, lashing out, one hard palm catching Kenshin square in the chest and shoving him backwards.

Kenshin staggered, at a loss for balance, and sprawled against a wall, a testament to just how drunk he was. Just how much grace the liquor had stolen from him. He'd hidden it quite well when adrenaline and need had asserted themselves. Now it crept back up, making him have to try twice to push himself back up. His eyes were narrow and glittering. Angry.

"Don't - -"

"Don't you!" Sano cut him off. "You're not my fucking conscience and you're not my set of morals no matter how hard you try to be. You think you know so much? You think you're so much fucking better than me because you've got all these fucking high standards? Well, fuck you, Kenshin."

Sano lifted his fist, wanting to hit something again. Kenshin just stared at him, eyes gone large and surprised, the anger shaken out of him. Sano snarled and curbed the urge, stalking away instead.

He slowed eventually, himself in a maze of streets that held no familiarity - - wondering where the hell he was going and how he was supposed to get there, in the dark and drunk.

"You're going the wrong way." Kenshin murmured, a quiet presence a dozen strides behind him. Sano glared over his shoulder. Kenshin had stopped at an intersection, hesitating at the right path. "This is the way."

"You think I'm lost"

Kenshin shrugged. "Its been - - known to happen - - on occasion."

Sano's scowl deepened. It took a great deal of will to turn on his heel and march back the way Kenshin indicated.

"You're afraid I'm such an idiot I'll make you miss the damned ship? Then why bring me along at all?" He finally asked, still angry.

A long pause, while Kenshin padded along just in his wake, shorter legs covering less ground. Or perhaps it was the care in which he placed his feet, eyes very carefully on the ground, as if in his vision it swayed unpredictably under him. It might have. Kenshin never had been able to hold his liquor.

"Did I have a choice? Would you have stayed if I'd asked?"

"Fuck no!"

Silence then. And finally. "Yes. I was afraid you'd get us thrown in jail. You're not always - - reliable - - when it comes to matters of pride."

"You don't trust me?"

"I do." Immediate response to that. Offended one.

"Then act like it!" He was hurt. It was damned - - painful - - to know he was so little appreciated, so little trusted, no matter what words spilled out of Kenshin's mouth. He saw it clearer when his head was buzzing on rum and wine than he did when he was stone sober. He imagined Saitou and Kenshin laughed about him and his incompetence behind his back - - imagined a great many things - - - and those thoughts burned - - irate and blaring and insidious.

"Do you talk about me," he spun, shoving Kenshin again, hard up against the wall of a building. "You and Saitou?"

"Wha - -?" Kenshin blinked owlishly up at him, baffled. Or pretending it. Kenshin could hide so many things behind that innocent look. A body forgot what he was sometimes. A body forgot what he was capable of.

"You heard me. You and that narrow-eyed bastard - - when the two of you would rather sit in the cabin all day, than move about like normal folk."

"Of course we don't talk about you. We hardly talk at all - - you think I enjoy his company?"

"I don't know. How should I know? You always shut up when I come back."

"I don't - - there was never talk to begin with - - nothing to shut up from - - gods, you make my head hurt, Sano." Kenshin pressed his palm against his forehead, digging his fingers into his hair, tugging at it in frustration.

"Good." Sano said, leaning close. Close enough to make threat out of it - - trying to make Kenshin flinch away - - trying to prove something. To himself. To Kenshin. He didn't know. All he knew was that it irked him always playing second best. It irked that Kenshin was sharper and faster and better - - and probably always would be no matter how hard Sano tried.

Close enough that he scented the rum on Kenshin's breath and felt that same warm breath on his face - - shallow, rapid breaths - - but not retreating.

Not doing anything but leaning there, with his fingers pressed against the wall, not quite looking at Sano - - not quite not looking, from behind the half lowered fringe of his lashes.

It crept up on him, the tightening between his legs - - the heat that spread through his lower belly, more potent than rum. He had to physically control the urge to lower a hand to assuage the aching need that grown in his pants. To do so would have drawn attention down and damned if he wanted Kenshin to actually see what the loose material of his trousers no doubt only marginally concealed.

Sano spun of a sudden, thankful of the dark that covered any number of embarrassments. The blush on his face for instance. He started walking, thinking of anything to take his mind away from the need between his legs. But it was damned hard, when all the blood was pooling down there and draining away from his head. Damned hard not to think about how bad - - how devastatingly bad - - he'd wanted to slam Kenshin into that wall and - - and - -

- - oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.

And didn't that just say it eloquently enough.

He needed another drink. Absolutely needed to get more smashed than he already was if he was going to survive what was left of the night - - or the morning - - in that room, in that bed, with Kenshin presence to torment him.

Maybe if he passed out - - -