The child's scream was piercing if not horrendously heartbreaking. Miryu looked at Eiji and did nothing, for there was nothing she could have done. Was this how Enishi could have felt when he saw she and Kenshin kill Tomoe by mischance? She had never seen him ever since then, and she judged him to be dead for all that experience was worth. However, she was pulled back to the present when Kenshin started asking Eiji some questions, and to her surprise, those answers proved to be very valuable indeed.

With a deep breath, Eiji calmed himself down and said, "Shishio's followers came to our village two years ago, and killed all the police stationed here, no matter how many were sent… In the end, the government just abandoned us…" Miryu was sure that Kenshin looked at her, demanding a possible explanation, but she just shrugged, not that she would know of these matters anyways. Granted, she did not know that the village even existed.

"Nonsense, perhaps the police are biding their time to stage a war on Shishio's men!" Misao speculated, another hint of her sheer innocence. However, her words were interrupted by Eiji, who started to speak again with increased anger, incensed with grief.

"Look at this map!" he shouted, showing them said map, pointing to a spot in the forest that they were in. "This is the lastest map my brother got from Tokyo, but our village is not on it at all! When he saw this, he immediately came back to save us, but… but…"

Miryu put her hand on his shoulder and said, "Boy, we will avenge your brother and your village," her sapphire eyes, Eiji could see, was now rimmed with amber, cold and menacing as she looked towards the village. "We have… old scores to be settled with Shishio Makoto. Trust us," When she returned her gaze to him, the amber was gone, and there was only warmth, an unbelievable change in mere seconds.

Kenshin nodded, and said, "You do not need to swing your brother's katana, Eiji-dono, we will lend you ours de gozaru yo," And before he and Miryu left for the village, he turned to Misao and said, "Misao-dono, you will stay will Eiji here," and gave the young kunoichi no chance to protest.

Shingetsu village was the name of that village, and yet, it did not seem like one. It was empty, and not a soul was visible. There was no laughter there, and the air of death and sorrow was rank, filling the place like a dark cloud. And right at the center of the village, admist the short, wooden homes, were two corpses, hanged to death, by the looks of it, and before that, they received many cuts to their bodies. "A man and a woman…" Miryu commented softly after uttering a silent prayer. "Please, do not let it be…"

Before she could even speak his name, Eiji screamed once again. This time, it was his parents. And immediately, a group of men, clad in black, quickly surrounded Kenshin and Miryu, all holding weapons. "Outsiders shall not leave alive," their leader said, earning a scoff from Miryu, who did not speak any further. True, she was angered, but she could see that Kenshin was even more enraged. He had always been so.

"Why did you kill them?" Kenshin demanded. He even dropped using the "de gozaru" figure, which led Miryu to really feel the impact of his anger. "They did nothing…"

"Their sons escaped the village, and Senkaku-sama punished them as a warning. We hung them here as a lesson to all…" came the leader's reply. A wiser man would have not given such an answer, but if he were a wiser man, he would not be the head of some weakling thugs under Shishio. And to prove his stupidity, he even had the audacity to continue. "This village is a prize that Shishio-sama has won from the government pigs, by order of Shishio-sama, all outsiders must pay the price of death."

Miryu was standing back-to-back with Kenshin, and said, "I'd say we leave none standing. How many would you prefer alive, though, that is the question."

A cold smirk came with Kenshin's remark. "It is up to you, Miryu."

Ten years… It had been ten years since Kenshin and Miryu fought like this, close to one another, making short work of men larger and more in number than they were. It was ten years since blood rained when they were by each other's side, when the twin dragons of the Hiten-Mitsurugi Ryuu soared the battlefield together. Misao stood with Eiji not far from them and watched in awe. She knew that the two of them were good, but not that good! She did not know if Aoshi could even beat them, with their skills. But as she stared in awe, she did not notice the stray soldier that was charging towards herself and the other towards Eiji.

Although she relished of relieving the many battles past with Kenshin in real time, Miryu simply had no time to think after she had pulled her katana out of her last victim. She could feel the Ki of two more, but she could not judge where they were. When she looked up, she saw the two children cowering over each other, and the two men that were about to kill them. There was no time, even if her and Kenshin's speed easily outmatched the common human. They were simply too far away to be reached in time…

If she had realized before that they were in deep trouble, Misao would have defended herself, but for some reason, her feet could not be moved from the ground… She could have sworn that her life, however short, flashed through her eyes… Then, the sound of a gunshot was heard, followed by the pained scream of a man being cut in two was heard. And right before her, was a tall man, with eyes of gold, wielding a ninhontou, while Eiji saw another man, shorter in stature, a gaijin, by the looks of him. Yes, a gaijin, with a gun.

"What are you doing here, you two should be in Kyoto by now!" the tall man called towards Kenshin and Miryu, while the gaijin walked smoothly to her and kissed her just as she was cleaning her katana, leaving Kenshin to come out with some clever retort.

Heaving a slight sigh at his companion and her husband, he said, "I should be asking you the same question, Saito. Why are you and Algren-dono here?"

Saito scoffed. "Doing our job. We were in Kyoto when this gaijin came with Algren asking him to bring him here for photographs of the hot springs here."

"Is Graham here?" Miryu asked Algren, her sapphire eyes growing wide. "Do you not know that Shishio is here, or has Saito neglected to tell you that?"

Algren silenced her, putting a finger to her lips. "Well, our dear friend has found some interesting news about your dear friend that I thought we should share with you…" He then turned towards what seemed to be an alley and shouted, "Mister Graham, you can come out now."

Misao had seen a few gaijin in her lifetime, but to see two in one afternoon, and one of them kissing Miryu so openly… It was too much to take! "Wait! Miryu-san, Himura, who are these people?"

However, before Miryu or Kenshin could explain, Saito began to calculate in his brain, judging by his perceptions of the women around Kenshin, apart from his pseudo-niece, of course. "Who is this… itachi?" he asked, angering her to no end.

"Do not worry, Misao-chan, he is our ally, and I am afraid, he does not have any sunny disposition at all…" Miryu told her young friend, and introduced her to Algren and Graham. "And dear Graham, what information do you have for us."

Graham gave a nervous chuckle and looked around, gathering Kenshin, Algren, Miryu and Saito in a huddle, speaking in fluent Japanese. "I was in Shanghai when got wind of some triad leader selling a huge, expensive weapon… The underworld had news that it was for a rebellion in Japan…"

A weapon? What weapon would Shishio require? It was not time for questions, and the important thing was to get Eiji's parents down so that they could be buried and properly respected. Miryu was about the cut the ropes that hung Eiji's father when they were surrounded, once again. But this time, it was the other villagers.

"We cannot allow you to take those bodies down!" an elderly commanded. "Senkaku will kill us if they are set down before his permission!" She did not heed those words, and nor did Kenshin. Within seconds, the bodies were on the ground, despite the villager's protests. "You would have killed us all, you murderers!"

There was no other voice but those of the cursing villagers after that. A cart was quickly located, and the small company retreated to the hill before the entrance of the village. "Why wouldn't the government help the village, Miryu-san?" Misao asked the older woman. "Surely they would have sent more men…"

"No politician wishes to share Ohkubo's fate, nor would any other leader in the army… The politicians, after all, are only human… They are afraid that if they retaliate, Shishio would kill them. That is why they sent Kenshin, Saito and I in to do the job… Before other places like this village falls into the hands of Shishio."

Algren then said, "Not only that, the diplomats are beginning to worry about another revolt. They would pull their investments out of Japan…"

"Which would cripple the economy once more," Graham added. They were lucky, very, very lucky that Katsumoto's rebellion went without a sound. Before long, they began to dug graves for Eiji's family. "You know, this Shishio character is indeed a very shady one to start with, who knows what he has in his arsenal…"

"As you said, Graham, a weapon which could only be obtained from Shanghai's triads," Miryu summed. "That man will never cease to hound Japan and the politicians unless he is stopped… And somehow I feel that our troubles would not end, even after he is dead."

Algren wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulder and said, "Well, look on the bright side, Miryu, at least he right before us, on a silver platter." While on the way to Shingetsu from Kyoto, Saito had told him and Graham as much as his intelligence forces knew about Shishio, and although it came to almost nothing, in the very least, he knew more about this new enemy, like the fact that he was touted to be as good as Kenshin and Miryu were in terms of combat.

She looked at the children and said, "They were supposed to have known an age of peace, especially Eiji… Well, then, shall we seek out the sociopath? I am dying for some real exercise."

Saito nodded. "Yes, we should go. And Algren, I think you would find it interesting if you came with us. It would show you the psyche of a true madman," he told Algren, virtually ignoring Graham, Misao and Eiji, who wanted to follow as well.

"Misao-dono, Eiji needs someone at this moment, to calm him down de gozaru yo," Kenshin reasoned, while turning to Graham. "As for you, Graham-dono, you had better stay with them, in case we might need more information de gozaran."

At least Graham looked resigned to his fate. Heck, he witnessed an entirely bloody battle without moving an inch. There was more to fear than a simple person who blackmailing the most powerful people of Japan, right?

The three warriors were greeted by a boy when they approached Shishio Makoto's manor in Shingetsu village. "Welcome to Shishio-san's abode, Saito Hajime, Himura Battousai, Algren Battouryu and Nathan Algren, the gaijin. Shishio-san bids you welcome."