I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. Bugger.
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Aoshi was tense. This in itself was not unusual; he was very often tense, but this time was different. He was strung as tight as a piano wire, and Megumi, observing him from across the breakfast table, suspected that any lesser man would have been shaking under the strain. Normally, as the resident healer, she would have administered something to calm him, but after receiving the telegram from Misao late last night, they needed him at his sharpest and drugs tending to affect his joint powers of thought and magic badly. The train was due to arrive in three hours time, and Misao (being her usual impetuous self) had demanded a few hours after that to obtain needed supplies. Hopefully the strain wouldn't kill their spymaster-general by then.
"Good morning, Megumi," a lazy baritone purred out behind her. She thought she contained her little start of surprise quite well, but apparently he thought otherwise. "You know, you really shouldn't sit with your back to doors if that's the reaction you're going to have,"
She chose to ignore this. After all, she didn't expect him to more about healing than how to apply a tourniquet, so why should she be his equal at detecting threats? Looking back over at Aoshi, she decided that it was her duty as a physician to at least try to break him out of his reverie.
"Aoshi? About the telegram—where exactly is the intercept point?" Her voice was light and unconcerned, but he looked up immediately, eyes as intense as always. Trust anything involving Misao to get his attention; he doted on his little protégée, and had missed her terribly these last three years. The occasional letter or telegram just didn't do her bubbly personality justice.
"I'm meeting up with her outside the Temple gates, she'll lead me to where she left Kaoru. Misao and I are the only ones necessary for the pick up, so we'll be the only ones going. I don't want to overwhelm this girl right away if we're supposed to undo years of programming. Can I count on your healing to make her more…receptive?"
The young spymaster spoke in what was almost a monotone, but Megumi thought she detected a spark of life that hadn't been in his eyes before today.
He really does shut down when Misao's not around, she thought, nodding in response to the second-in-command's question. "As much as I hate to use it, opium would be the best drug to send her into the trance that we'll need to undo the brainwashing," Her tone was dull as she thought of using that hated drug. "You promise me that you'll only be undoing the damage? I won't, I simply won't, allow you to do anything to that girl that would cloud her thoughts further. Her mind has been abused so badly that our duty is to heal it, not hurt it further," Her tone was sharp and her cinnamon eyes knife-edged as she defended her soon-to-be-patient. The spymaster remained emotionless, face schooled to an icy mask, inclining his head a fraction of an inch to show he had heard her.
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Kaoru stepped out onto the city street, her new high-heel boots sending up puffs of dist into the richly colored hem of her new dress. Summer-weight linen of royal blue hugged her gentle curves and the high neck brushed against her throat. She felt vaguely guilty about wasting money on such a dress; the Dean wouldn't approve of the expense, would he? But it satisfied a hunger for beautiful things that had been ignored through the long years of her schooling. Looking around for Misao, she was struck by the differences between this city and the capital. Here there were trees and plants everywhere, as if the forest had invaded and conquered the town. The capital was its opposite, all carven out of grand white stone. It's…rather nice, isn't it? With the trees and the nice green scent, you can really tell that it's sum—she banished that thought quickly. It wouldn't do to appreciate something like the change of seasons. Why, that was nearly heretical! Kaoru's breathing quickened imperceptibly in panic as she leaned against the whitewashed wall of the store. I can't commit heresies, not even in thought…not if I want to stay out of the Void when I die. She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the leafy boughs and flowerbed. The Doctrine sees all, the Doctrine knows all, the Doctrine made all. Praises be unto the Doctrine for the World and the Word, she repeated in her head, trying to find the comfort she knew there should be in the familiar phrases. Didn't the holy Speakers at the Academy always say to find comfort in the Doctrine? She was trying, she really was…She just wasn't good enough. Not yet, but she would be. She had to be, she didn't want to be suspended forever in the darkness and cold of the Void…
A hand touched her arm, gently and hesitantly, almost afraid to startle her out of her trance of self-loathing.
"Kaoru? Kaoru…I'm sorry…" Misao's voice was soft and full of grief, but the tall stranger beside her had no expression on his handsome face. Misao was still whispering, but she didn't understand at first. "…forgive me…" She was going to say 'forgive you for what?', but before she could get it out, before she could even wonder at the strange man beside her friend, something inside of her snapped shut, and her mouth wasn't her own anymore. She wanted her eyes to widen in surprise, her body to flinch away from the stranger, but they weren't hers anymore either. In fact, she found herself pulling forward and linking arms with the man. Her voice greeted him as if he were a long lost brother, and with long, swinging strides that matched his, she walked on his arm through the town and through the door of a nondescript wooden house. Her mind never stopped screaming and cursing both the man and the girl she had thought was her friend.
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Kenshin, at that moment, envied his spymaster. Both of them were men of action, as clichéd as it was, and while his second-in-command was out procuring...no. Might as well call it was it was. While his second-in-command was out kidnapping their new recruit, he had to sit at home and wait. He thought was going to crawl out of his skin, and if the dual pressures of needing to be alert soon and his aversion to drugs hadn't forced his hand, he would have seriously considered asking Megumi to dose him up with something. Instead, here he was, pacing the confines of his small room, his thoughts racing a mile a minute and going nowhere. The girl was going to arrive today; the girl they needed so badly. How was it exactly that they had managed to lose every last one of their effective Summer mages over the last few years? Hell, the most powerful two had died before Enishi had come on the scene. Dark shame clawed up out of his subconscious as he remembered the death of his compatriots. He was their commander, he should have sent them with more firepower, should have sent more people with them, shouldn't have sent them in the first place. Those women hadn't deserved to die on the front lines…
His dark thoughts were interrupted as he heard the door slam shut and felt the wards of silence Aoshi had put in place snap closed. By then he had raced out of his room as if trying to escape thoughts of the past and vaulted over the banister at the base of the stairs. He came face to face with an enchantingly beautiful girl. Her panicked breathing was doing interesting things to her chest, even within the confines of her modest dress, and her eyes, though wide with fear and flashing with anger were a spectacular shade of blue. While a thoroughly masculine part of him was sizing this all up (and liking what it saw), the calm detachment of a military commander was eyeing the power he felt pulsing through this chit of a girl. She was definitely a Summer, and so strong he would have sworn he felt the heat and humidity of August assaulting his skin. Her eyes blazed angrily up at his appraising expression, and though she had been frozen in place by the power of his Winter mage, it seemed as if she was instinctively struggling against the barriers that held her. His conscience fidgeted uncomfortably for a minute, but he quashed the feeling roughly. They needed this girl…and they were doing her a favor, really. No one should have to live with the fear and guilt that the Orthodoxy instilled into their followers.
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AN: Well, I think I'm doing pretty well with the whole "frequent updates" thing, but I'm still working on chapter length. Hopefully that'll pick up, because I'm sure working hard on it. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and, if you're feeling charitable, review!