Disclaimer: I don't own Kenshin or Jin-ei or Kaoru. If I did, I doubt I would be writing fanfics.
.::Chapter 5::.
Kaoru was going to kill him, if Jin-ei didn't get to him first.
He had quite literally torn the dojo to pieces searching for something, anything that he could take with him for the battle.
But no matter what portion of bathhouse, practice hall, kitchen, bedroom, wall, or vegetation he took with him, the dojo firmly kept him inside the grounds.
'I supremely dislike clingy dojo.'
This time, however, the feeling he got from the dojo was frantic, pleading, begging him to listen. Cocking his head, he closed his eyes and reached outwards with his ki, letting the dojo tell him where to go. Invisible strings pulled him towards the partially demolished practice hall, the building practically pulsating with the strong feelings the dojo projected at him. He strode towards the source confidently, his hand hovering above the intense aura, and he opened his eyes to see what the dojo felt was its core.
A sword.
Curiously, he picked up the sheathed sword and edged it out of its scabbard.
A sword with no sharp edges.
Interesting.
It was blunt on both sides, obviously meant to be used for disabling opponents rather than decapitating them. A slight smile curved his lips.
"The sword that protects life, hmm?"
He tucked the sword through his hakama ties and turned to leave, but the dojo's insistent pleas held him back.
The spot the strange sword had occupied looked frighteningly empty, and he could sense the dojo's distress. Slowly, he took the sword from his side and began to return it.
The dojo repelled him vehemently.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the spot, challenging the dojo. "What is it you want?"
A tugging on his senses brought his eyes to his side, where his pure sword rested.
"Oh, no. No. No, no, no, no, no."
Sometime later, a very ruffled red-headed spirit was flung from the dojo grounds, minus one sword and plus another.
'I supremely dislike clingy dojo.'
"Stop looking at me like that. It's not like I'm going to eat you."
Kaoru glowered at him from her seat on the ground, though she hardly inspired fear with her wrists and ankles bound tightly in front of her.
"Coward."
Her abductor hid his eyes beneath his hat and smiled, a flash of teeth that was entirely too manic.
"You don't understand, little girl. I didn't take you as insurance of my victory - I took you as insurance of Battousai's ability."
The crinkle that formed between her eyebrows was enough to urge him to continue.
"You know he's a Fallen, right? I'd wager he hasn't told you why he fell."
Her glower shifted into a confused stare, and his grin widened.
"Anger. Such an emotion was not allowed to Guardians, and his anger is so potent it scorches. He decimated an entire forest - an entire forest, girl - and when he fell through the void, that anger festered deep inside of him for an imagined eternity," Jin-ei's face contorted into an inhuman expression of utter glee. "His anger brings out his inner strength. Imagine, just imagine how angry he will be that his second ward was taken from under his nose and there was nothing he could do about it. Imagine his emotions right now. His first ward was murdered before his very eyes. He will be beyond anger now. His strength...his strength will be incomparable to any I have ever fought before. To fight that, to defeat that..." he pinned her with dancing green eyes, "...the ecstasy would be without equal."
Even as a growing sense of dread lodged itself in the pit of her stomach, a hatred for the man in front of her grew as well.
"You're sick," she spat, glaring at him.
"You will also soon be dead."
The calm, emotionless tone that the sentence was delivered in shocked her. Such inflection did not belong with that voice.
"So you came, Battousai," Jin-ei said, a cruel smile in his voice as he slowly rose from his perch on a stone and turned to face the amber-eyed specter of death.
"Ken-"
Her heart stopped as she felt the anger wash over her; crackling, lashing out, blazing, so incredibly heated...
"...shin."
Relying on anything that felt that evil would never help Kenshin heal. If he didn't calm down, if he killed Jin-ei while in a rage so potent that even she, in her inexperience with ki, could tell that it was corrupted...
"Look at those eyes; so full of anger."
She spared a pained glance at him, a moment that she would never forget.
The red flecks of pure rage in his intense gaze killed something inside of her.
Kenshin's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and the rasping of steel against its sheath rang through the clearing, even as the sword erupted into flames.
"Anger at you, for involving Kaoru in this mania of yours," he said quietly, his voice dangerous even without the volume, "and anger at me, for allowing it to happen."
Jin-ei's glee was almost palpable as he approached the scarlet-haired spirit, darkly glittering sword drawn.
"Then let us test that anger, Battousai! Let us see if your desire to protect this ward is as strong as it was for your previous one!"
"Shut up."
Katsura Kogoro leaned back in his chair as he considered the fire-based spirit in front of him.
He was strong.
That much was obvious even to the untrained eye. But Katsura could see deeper.
He was very strong. Even more so than Katsura himself.
Which shouldn't have been possible.
But, apparently, somehow it was possible, since the spirit in front of him was very much a reality.
Intriguing.
Returning his attention to the matter at hand, he eyed the spirit. He was sitting attentively in front of him, red hair cascading over his shoulders.
Fire-based spirits were touchy. They usually had very quick tempers and were most powerful when angered.
Too bad anger was one of the many emotions that Guardians were not allowed to feel.
Which was why it was such an intriguing suggestion.
"So, Himura-san, was it?"
The spirit gave a curt nod.
"Himura-san, tell me- why is it that you wish to become a Guardian?"
"To protect those who cannot protect themselves," the answer came quickly, as though practiced.
Either practiced, or believed in with his entire being.
Hn.
"I'll take you on for a trial period. If you do the job to my satisfaction for a month, I'll have you take the Vows and sign you on as a real member of my Guard. Is that reasonable?"
"Hai, Katsura-san."
Katsura smiled.
He was angry. It threatened to consume him, to steal rational thought from him and destroy him from the inside out.
Her eyes were hurt, pained, sad. She hurt for him.
His eyes were insane, gleeful, lustful. Lusting for blood; his blood, her blood, his own blood. It wouldn't matter. The sword the dark man was clutching thrived on blood, but had been starved lately. It pulsed with hunger.
It was dangerous to fight a starved bloodsword.
It was more dangerous to fight a raging hitokiri.
Kenshin smiled thinly.
Jin-ei smiled back.
And then they struck out at each other, their smiles grotesque and cold, their swords dark and bright, their ki sparking and flaring.
Their blades connected over and over again, flashing in the unnatural darkness as the swordsmen studied their opponents carefully, looking for weaknesses, searching for irregularities.
But they were masters in their craft, neither one giving the other anything to grasp onto.
Until the green eyes shrank to pinpricks and the amber ones widened as a chill ran down his spine and prickled the hairs on his neck.
"How conceited...!"
And the masters sprang away from each other as though burnt and shocked, the cold amber eyes narrowed in disgust and disdain and the laughing green ones dancing with glee.
"Your technique, the Shin no Ippou, will only work on those with lesser ki than yours. Do you honestly think me that weak?"
The question was cold and arrogant, not belonging to the one who asked it. It belonged to someone else; it had to. Her friend could never sound like that. He couldn't.
"It was just an experiment. There are better targets for my technique."
His eyes weren't laughing anymore; they sparked with promises of something twisted and wrong and she couldn't look away and it hurt and she's frozen...
"Ken...shi..."
"You bastard."
"Hm! Hm-hm! Hm-hm-hm-hm-wa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!"
His laughter was even colder than his eyes, and Kenshin's eyes were even colder than Jin-ei's laughter, but the raging inferno sealed beneath the spirit's ki was melting his control and he speared her with a look that said everything he couldn't find words for.
'You are under my protection.'
'I will not fail you.'
'I will not fail myself.'
'I promise to save you.'
'I do not promise to save myself.'
And then the seal around his flaming ki melted away and his aura blazed around him, his eyes no longer cold but hot and filled with the promise of death for the one who would dare harm his ward.
Jin-ei smiled.
Kenshin did not smile back.
And the battle began anew.
Auras flared from both spirits, one heated and fiery, the other fizzling and sparking with bolts of electricity.
Globes of flame streaked towards the dark fallen, but a wall of crackling ki dispersed the threat.
Blade and teeth and eyes gleamed in the light from the connection, but the fiery fallen was not where he was a moment ago. Keen green eyes glanced around the area warily, but even wary eyes could not follow the redhead's speed when his anger was so potent. His anger lent him strength, strength he used to attack the fallen mercilessly. She cried out brokenly- she was hurt, she was in danger, and she was pained...
His sword was poised above its target, the metal gleaming with orange light as his ki danced along the bladeless edges. Why couldn't he strike?
Because she was pained. Because she was pained with the thought of losing him.
'I do not promise to save myself.'
'...But I promise to save you. And you want me to save myself.'
His burning eyes were hidden beneath his ample bangs, and when he lifted his face again, the eyes weren't burning anymore.
Nor was his sword as it lowered slowly, sliding back into its sheath.
Her gaze met his, her chest heaving from the exertion of forcing the insane fallen out of her mind. The pain was gone from her eyes, but the sadness remained.
'Will you always come this close to losing yourself?'
'Yes.'
'Will I be able to stop you next time?'
'Perhaps.'
The bright blue eyes fluttered closed, and she was content with the answers she had now and would let the future worry about itself.
He was there to catch her when she fell, his eyes wide and no longer so hard and cold, her breathing easy with a smile on her lips.
"Ken...shin..."
And he smiled back.
So did Jin-ei. But his smile was twisted, less relieved and more morbid.
Kenshin knew what he wanted. Jin-ei knew too.
The bloodsword glittered in the night before burying itself into insubstantial wisps of nonexistent flesh.
And Jin-ei died, disintegrating as the sword that lusted for blood absorbed his ki and turned against itself.
The shrine was empty, still in the night, no evidence left of the midnight struggle for a human life.
No evidence except for a pile of ashes, soon carried away by the wind.
He had been silent the entire walk back to the dojo, clutching the hilt of the blade-less sword.
What had he almost done tonight?
Images of his final moments with Tomoe flashed through his mind, her hair, her blood, her smile-
That was what he had almost done tonight. One way or another, he had almost lost his second ward.
If he had not defeated Jin-ei, she would have died.
If he had, he would have been forced to abandon her.
Neither was a desirable option.
He wondered, though, how she had managed to break free of the Shin no Ippou. Only those with ki greater than or equal to the caster should be able to overcome it. He spared a glance at her, trudging beside him wearily.
'What secrets are you hiding?'
And suddenly, a look of horror crossed her face.
With trepidation, he turned his gaze to where she was staring fixedly.
'Oh, hell.'
The dojo was in ruins: the gate torn off its hinges, the walls splintering, the trees missing large branches...
With a shudder, he realized he could remember causing all this mayhem.
"Kenshin?"
Her voice was low, calm, trembling ever so slightly.
"What in the name of all things holy happened to my dojo?"
"Uh...bandits?" he offered helpfully.
"You're a terrible liar, Kenshin," she growled, rolling up her sleeves.
"...Oro," he whimpered before breaking into a mad dash for what was left of the roof of the dojo.
"Himura Kenshin, when I get my hands on you...!"
He sighed slightly.
So much for 'thank you'.
--
Glossary:
Dojo- A school for training in Japanese arts of self-defense. In this fic, kenjutsu
Ki- One's life energy, or aura
Hakama- Basically samurai pants
Battousai- Kenshin's alias, meaning something like "Master of lethal sword drawing"
Hitokiri- Assassin, Manslayer
Shin no Ippou- One-sided heart
Mou- Kaoru's favorite word of exasperation, kind of like "Geeze!"
Oro- Kenshin's ever-popular non-word, used in situations where he's either confused, surprised, or indignant. Kind of like a squeak. xD (Which Jupe's beta reader happens to say on a regular basis in real life. xD)
AN: Oh wow, that took waaaay too long.
I BLAME MY BETA.
Okay, I don't blame my beta. Real life interfered and we all know that real life combined with inherent laziness equals late fanfic chapters.
But at least it wasn't MY real life that made this take too long. -COUGH-
Anyway. About the chapter.
I frikkn' DIED writing this chapter.
Battle scenes plus Jupe equals no. Just no.
Though my beta/friends are all like "YAY IT'S GOOD" and I'm like "EWW IT SUCKS" so I just don't know anymore.
This chapter has been rewritten, like, 3 times. It used to be a near word-for-word copy of my icky manga translation combined with both dubbed and subbed versions of the anime.
But then I looked at it and said to myself, "Hey, self. Remember Doll's Blood? Remember how it was basically you retelling the Tomoe arc with dolls? Remember how much that sucked?"
And so then I rewrote it.
And it still sucked.
So I tried out some neato weirdo stylistic thing that I picked up from who knows where and, hey, guess what? It actually looked good.
Except that it kept wanting to be in present tense, so it took like a dozen re-readings to edit out all the present tense stuff and change it to past tense.
I actually like that style. It would make awesome crack!fics.
-SHOT-
…
-REPEATEDLY-
…Okay, I'm done now.
No, wait, I'm not.
You may have noticed the flashback I slipped in. I'm almost positive that I'm going to go back to the previous chapters and stick flashbacks into them, too. I wrote a bunch of them when plotbunnies attacked and I was waiting for chapter 5 to come back from Misaoshiru.
So… yeah. Now I'm done.
Almost.
I forgot to spazz out over the fact that Shockwaves has gotten 5.5k hits so far. -twitches-
You guys rock, seriously.
But you rock more when you review. -nudgenudgewinkwink-
Chapter 6: Frustrations coming soon to a monitor near you!
Well, if I haven't killed my beta, that is...