Two days, it had been two days since Kenshin and Miryu had left Tokyo, and for two days, they had received a fair amount of hushed whispers and foreboding stares, all because they were wearing katana. However, it was not the last of Kenshin's concerns. It was the lack of money, for he had forgotten to pack a larger amount, and it did not help that the Kamiya Dojo had a substantial income.
But something caught his eye, and something very, very shiny, and something sharp, by the looks of it, but not that it would bring anyone any harm... It was Miryu's hair-stick that held her flowing ebony hair in a simple hairstyle, and not only that, it was encrusted with many stones, and dangling from it, was a large red stone, which Kenshin judged to be very, very expensive.
Mrs. Algren did not need to think twice to even guess that Kenshin had an eye on her hair-stick, it was only natural, and she decided to have some fun with him. Moving close to him, she waited until she could sense his hand slowly reaching up to grab the ornament, only to turn her head in another direction. It was the most hilarious thing that she had ever seen, and she could not stop but harbor a little giggle when she saw him falling down.
"With our katana, no one will ever dare come close to us," Kenshin said, resuming a serious face. "Miryu?"
The woman's gaze was fixated on a rather plump policeman, who was blowing his whistle at them. Raising an eyebrow, she watched as he approached them, screaming, "Hey, you over there, you two!" he exclaimed when he walked towards them. "Do you know that the wearing of katana is illegal?"
The woman looked at the policeman and gave him a look at her ring. "I am Algren Miryu, the ward of the Emperor," she told him, with the most seductive smile that she could ever muster. The policeman inspected the ring closely, and immediately stood up straight, and gave her a deep bow.
"My apologies, Algren-dono!" he exclaimed profusely, before turning towards Kenshin. As it turned out, Kenshin did not have the proper "documentation", per se, and was chased around the paddy fields, and Miryu just followed them, occasionally prodding the policeman to chase Kenshin in the direction they were supposed to be heading to.
In the end, Kenshin was able to lose the policeman, and still able to keep up with Miryu, who swore that if she laughed more, her intestines would rupture on the spot. "You were supposed to help me de gozaru yo!" he screamed at her out of annoyance. "After all we have been through, it is not the way to treat me de gozaran!"
Miryu replied with only more laughter. In the days of their childhood, they would always find ways to get back at Hiko for his harsh training methods and verbal insults, and there would not be a time when Miryu refused to help him. Granted, she would be the first to defend him whenever their Shishou cracked down on them. "Kenshin, you were more than able to shake that policeman off," she chided him gently. "Besides, how was I to know that he would chase you around for so long?"
By this time, Kenshin had forgotten about being angry with Miryu, and had subconsciously returned to his task of removing her hair-stick when he saw that it was literally in his grasp. With the quickest of reflexes, he actually managed to remove it from her hair, and luckily, she had others to hold her hairstyle firmly in place. And throughout the rest of their journey, he began to look for pawnshops to sell the item, thinking that it would bring a small forture to say the least.
Night had begin to fall when Miryu and Kenshin arrived at Odawara city, their first stop before arriving at Kyoto. In the old days, this city was where travellers would stop for the night before continuing towards the former capital city of Japan, and although railroads were built from Shinbashi to Yokohama, the city still held much of its former clientele of travellers who went by foot.
"How much for a night's stay?" Miryu asked a woman who was promoting an inn called the Odaya. "My brother and I wish to rent a room for the night..." She did not care that the woman strove very, very hard to find any hint of family resemblance between her and Kenshin, what she did care was the exorbitant prices the woman had quoted did conclude that they would have to camp out for the night.
Kenshin, however, was crestfallen, and disappointed. As it turned out, the hair-stick he had stolen from Miryu was actually worthless. The stones were fake ones, and even if they could pay a night's rent for the inn, they would be broke throughout their journey. "And I thought you were very, very, rich..." Kenshin muttered under his breath when she proclaimed that they had no money to stay in an inn in Odawara.
Miryu just looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "And let little thieves like you steal my hair-sticks and pawn them, I don't think so," she replied. Kenshin stood where he was, absolutely shocked. "Please do not tell me that you actually have the audacity to say that you never thought that I would notice?"
Kenshin pulled the best puppy-dog eyes he could muster, and instead, got hit on the head by Miryu using her katana, causing him to fly quite a distance, screaming, "Orooooo!"
Away from Odawara city, deep in the heart of Kyoto, a woman looks around her and takes a sip of red wine, imported from France, or some other European country, not that she cared. Her eyes, they were of the coldest sapphire, almost ice-like in quality. Her skin, white like the snow in winter, her hair gold like the sun, yet it looked as if it had been mixed with silver.
They said that it was impossible for her to be Japanese, that she must have been some daughter of a Caucasian that had been left behind. But to her, it mattered not. She had never spoken a tongue other than Japanese, and she will not even try. Not very long ago, she was once held in high regard, even if she was a woman. She still held a sword, and it was her birthright. Men feared her, and respected her, because she was a samurai, just like they were. But now, it mattered little.
Her rich kimono were now filled with holes, eaten by moths, and the beautiful golden threads were now muddy and brown. The embroidery of phoenixes and soaring dragons now disappeared, for she had picked at the sticthes just to make ends meet. No one needed one to bear a sword to protect them any more. They just need someone to help them out with their business...
She had become a rusty sword in a world where only money ruled.
"They said the line of Dragons ran with the bloodline of samurai daughters bearing the word 'Ryu'," a voice interrupted her. It was familiar, that voice, like the feel of silk to her body, and the smell of blood to her dainty little nostrils. "And yet, the great Nagasaki Hiryuko sits in her dark boudoir, sipping European wine alone..."
She turned towards him, and found him to be covered completely in bandages, only his eyes were spared. Fire emanated from him, and it was not his body temperature. It was hatred, it was greed, and it was the idealist within him. She did not need telling twice that this man was the one she had found for the Choushu Ishin-Ishishi after her distant cousin and that so-called hitokiri Battousai became mobile attackers.
"Shishio Makoto, I should have known that you survived," she said. Her voice, it was as if it were a silver bell ringing in the mountains. "Knowing you, you would be hounding the government day and night already..." She knew him in the days of her youth, when they studied under the a great and influential philosopher, the same one, that influenced the startings of the Ishin-Ishishi. "The survival of the fittest, indeed."
Shishio smiled and said, "Of course, my dear Hiryuko, as nature intended," He still had his old charm, she mused, and gave him a glass of wine. "You are not going to ask how I found you?"
Hiryuko looked and him, a smirk visible on her fair features. "Like how you always do, Shishio," she whispered, appearing at his side almost instantly, as if in the speed of light. Wrapping her arms around his broad back, she whispered into his ear, "Magic..."
"You were always the great seductress," he told her, before unsheathing her katana, which gleamed brightly in the candlelight. "Yet you never had a taste for me, even in those days."
She released her hold over him and snatched her katana back. "You have your precious oiran, and soon, you will obtain my distant cousin," she said, "You do not need boring, old, Hiryuko..."
If Shishio Makoto still had any eyebrows, she could have seen him raising them. "Old, Hiryuko?" he asked, "You are barely even forty."
To that, she replied, "But I feel every part of me slowly decaying, Shishio, like a spring blossom when summer is near. No one needs dear Hiryuko any more, not since succulent, young little Miryu came to town. I heard that she was in her little rebellion of her own, and the Emperor married her off to a gaijin dog. Does she even know the shame she has brought to our line?"
Draining his glass, Shishio placed it so that her likness was trapped in the glass. True, Tsubasa... No, Algren Miryu was beautiful, and she did have a great fire in her heart, her cousin was elegantly cold. She was a mountain capped with ice, ancient and imposing, her wrath like an avalanche that would not be stopped by raging fires. "She seems to bask in her glory, that girl. She thinks that the ways of the West are far better than our own."
"Just like the rest of our politicians... My brothers have all become corrupt pieces of swine... They just wanted the power their ancestors never had..."
Ah, so she had some griviences with the Meiji government as well. This was Shishio's chance. With the famed Battousai and Battouryu fighting against him, it would be fitting that Nagasaki Hiryuko would be on his side. But there was one thing, she was proud, horribly so. She only fought for the Ishin-Ishish not because of the promise of position, but because she held principles similar to that of Miryu's. And she was crestfallen that her cousin did not wish to eradicate the corruption that was before her, choosing only to become a lapdog of the boy-emperor with no real power... From there, she even dared to accept a marriage to an American... She had sullied the Line of the Dragons' name for too long.
"Then join me," Shishio said, "And you shall have the chance to prune your family tree, and remove a deceased branch." With Hiryuko fighting Miryu, all he had left as an adversary was Battousai, and that would certainly make things easier for him. Holding out his hand, he waited for her to take it. "Together, we shall burn the corrupt Meiji into ashes, and we shall make a new one for ourselves."
In truth, Hiryuko never heard Shishio's words after he told her that he would leave Miryu to her. Smiling as best she could, she took his hand, with her katana in another. Yes, a new age would come, and that upstart little Battouryu will die along with the old one.