"Sake has never tasted this good" Miryu said, when she was drinking with Kenshin at the night of her birthday. She was fifteen now, counted as a full-grown woman in the ranks of the Samurai. Her sapphire eyes glinted happily as she downed her cup in one gulp. The silk fabric of her kimono was dyed ruby, decorated with motifs of eagles and butterflies at the hems of the sleeves, the neckline and the obi itself. Her whips were tucked into the obi, whilst her the two katana that she owned were leaned against the table's legs.
"I still don't like its taste" Kenshin said, "I don't see why Shishou likes it so much"
"Have you forgotten what Shishou said just a year before you left?" Miryu asked, "The one about Sake?"
Kenshin nodded. Yes, he knew what Miryu was talking about. "Sakura blossoms in spring, stars in summer" Hiko Seijurou said one night. "The autumn's full moon and the snow in winter, all elements that add to the good taste of Sake. If it tastes bad, there's something wrong with you"
As they reminisced the days of their training, two men came into a bar. Their boisterous voices and bodies increased the din of the restaurant. Miryu watched them as one of them slammed their Sake bottle on a table where a girl of about eighteen years of age. She was a beauty, with ebony eyes and hair, but she emitted an aura of coldness that even the ice from Antarctica could compare.
"Hey, you" said one of them, "Drink with us"
"Yeah, we Aizu patriots fought bravely to save all of you weaklings" said the other. "The best you can do to thank us is to drink with us"
"Baka" Miryu said, in a gruff voice, as though impersonating a man. "Aizu is on the side of the Bakufu. Everyone knows this"
Kenshin kicked her shin below the table. "What do you think you're doing, do you want our identities to be exposed?"
"I know what am I doing, Kenshin, trust me" she told him. "Now, I need you to…" She whispered a plan of hers into his ear.
It took quite a long time for the two large men to register what Miryu said. But finally, "What was that?" asked the one holding the Sake bottle loudly. Releasing his hold on his katana "That's what I thought, you better stay out of this"
"It most certainly was" Kenshin said, "If you unsheathed that katana, you would've been fighting me"
The other was enraged, and wanted to charge and engage Kenshin in battle, but felt a sudden sharp pain at his chest. Five seconds later, he felt the same pain on his back and legs.
"Then they'll have to face me" Miryu said, proudly, her amber eyes glowing like wildfire. "Go home; there is no place for frauds like you"
"Why you..." said the one whom was beaten up by Miryu. "I'll teach you, girl"
Miryu kept her silence, and cracked her whips high in the air, before he could even touch her. She knew he could sense her Ki, and revealed even more of it. There was no doubt that he was deathly afraid of her by that time.
Kenshin then jumped between them, and said, "Violence only begets violence, Kyoto is not a place for country-born frauds like you"
The pair left, with the other customers roaring in agreement with Kenshin and Miryu. The latter paid the proprietor some coins and left with Kenshin. "Sorry for the trouble" she said, smiling cutely. Her childish charm came back, which shocked the man to no end.
"Thank you" he said in reply. She looks so much like the Iron Wolf-Maiden, Reiyama Ryumiko.
On the way back to the Choushu headquarters, Kenshin sensed an overwhelming Ki tailing them. Miryu signaled him to keep calm as soon as she saw him hold the sheath of his katana. All in a sudden, one of the men who challenged them ran to them from a dark alleyway. "Help me…" he pleaded, before he was killed by a katana that was threw into his mouth.
"Hitokiri Battousai… Hitokiri Battouryu, we finally meet" said the killer, holding a pair of katana linked by a chain.
"Who are you talking about?" Miryu asked, using her small-girl charms again.
"Do not play coy with me, Battouryu" said the assassin. "Prepare for your death"
"Kenshin, watch out!" Miryu shouted as the assassin dove for Kenshin. She cracked her whips in hope that they could bind his feet, but he was too fast. In haste, she drew her mother's katana, and sliced him in from the sides while Kenshin did so vertically.
The blood of the assassin splattered everywhere, on Miryu's kimono, Kenshin's gi and… the girl whom they saved twenty minutes before. She was Tomoe, who'd arrived in Kyoto just three hours ago.
"I've heard in plays saying that 'it rained blood'" she said, "You two really made it rain blood…"