A/N – As always, I bow down and give thanks to Wikipedia, the great 5min research site.

Disclaimer – I don't own Ruroken. Saigo-san is nearly 130 years dead.

An Honourable Death

23 September 1877

The night was dark, the wind high and gusty. Restless horses stamped and whinnied, and men on both sides gathered close, huddling round the fire's warmth as they peered uneasily into the darkness. Kenshin wondered if they sensed him, somehow, instincts older than reason reacting to the predator in their midst –

Ghosting through the camp, he crept from shadow to shadow, making his way towards the commander's tent. He slipped past the half-dozing guards without making a sound, until finally he parted the rear flaps and stepped silently in.

Saigo Takamori knelt in stone-faced meditation before a small, portable shrine. Bittersweet incense wreathed up to heaven in coils of blue-grey smoke, and a small brazier provided both light and warmth. "Hitokiri Battousai," he said neutrally, his eyes still closed. "Somehow, I knew I would see you again."

Kenshin had first heard the rumours in Kagoshima, in a rowdy, run-down waterfront tavern. Drunken Satsuma soldiers had exclaimed loudly against the Meiji government, abusing cowardly, avaricious Councillors and speaking with admiration of Saigo's opposition to their policies. Kenshin recognized some of these men, brave fighters who had fought with great courage to bring about the very government they derided.

It was no more than a handful of years since the Restoration, and already the cracks were showing. The first hint of dissent came in 1873, when Saigo publicly opposed the government's rapid restructuring and Westernisation, and criticised the increasingly commercial focus of the changes. In this, he spoke for most of the samurai who had been disadvantaged and alienated by the new laws – even Kenshin, who bore too much guilt to protest against the new era, could see that the government was drifting away from the original ideals of the Revolution. The results could be seen on every street and large town in Japan: dispossessed ronin, increased violence and crime, poverty and hunger –

Kenshin's dream of peace and prosperity was tempered by grim reality now.

When, in the same year, Saigo's proposal for a military invasion of Korea was vetoed due to budgetary concerns, he resigned from the Council in disgust and returned to Kagoshima. Around him, he gathered supporters and admirers: dispossessed samurai, former Ishin Shishi, and fiery, intelligent young men with their own grievances; with such potential for trouble, it was never going to be long before the government's reforms were too much for their pride and honour to stomach.

"Saigo-san," Kenshin murmured respectfully, drawing the sheathed sakabatou from his obi and kneeling on the damp, crushed grass. "It has been a long time."

The Satsuma leader had not changed much, in the past ten years. Other former revolutionaries cut their hair and aped Western dress and manners, but Saigo still clung to tradition: he was samurai, proud and honourable, and nothing, not the Westerners, not the government, not even the Emperor himself could ever take that away from him.

Not even death. Because death would set the final seal, and turn him into a legend.

"And are you still the government's dog, Himura? Has Okubo sent you to do what the whole Imperial army cannot?"

That deep, commanding voice had so often disapproved of Kenshin and the role he had played in the Bakumatsu. Katsura's campaign of assassination, Saigo had said, and often, was dishonourable and unworthy of a samurai. Katsura had replied that the results spoke for themselves: their messagewas spreading, and every day discontented samurai poured into their ranks, united in their desire to overthrow the Shogunate.

Tenchuu, he'd said, was the catalyst. And Battousai was its arbiter.

"I am no longer a hitokiri," he said calmly. "I left the Ishin Shishi after Toba Fushimi, when the war was all but won."

"So you say. But for a shadow killer, you did not hide yourself very well – you have made quite a noise, Battousai, in your wonderings. Bandits that local officials could not defeat. Die-hard Tokugawa loyalists. Former revolutionaries, disillusioned with the new regime: all of them neutralized and left alive to add to the legend and threat of hitokiri Battousai."

Kenshin stiffened. "If you are implying, Saigo-san –"

"I am not implying anything. You met with Katsura five years ago, on the Yokohama docks. Since then, you have been able to move about with absolute impunity."

Suddenly, Saigo seemed angry, his voice hard, cold and disapproving. "When I first met you, Himura, I thought you an honourable man. A naïve, innocent fool, but honourable nevertheless. How can you countenance this lie, this deception? You are simply another tool of lying, greedy power mongers, even less of a man than you were as the hitokiri. Then, you fought to bring down a corrupt government. And now you fight to keep it in power!"

Kenshin's hand clenched, hard, on the hilt of his sword. He glared at Saigo's back, at the perfect, easy posture of a seasoned warrior, the proud lift of his head. It was pride, arrogance, confidence, that allowed Saigo to sit with his back as an open target, while he levelled such accusations at the deadliest killer of the Bakumatsu.

"I am no longer an agent of the government," he repeated, his voice low and firm. "I came to speak to you."

"To join me?" Such scorn and contempt.

"No."

Months ago, before the rebellion broke out into outright war, he might have tried to dissuade Saigo from going down this route. But he had been laid up in the mountains with fever, unable to do anything as the peace he had fought so hard to secure was torn apart. Saigo was a stern man, honourable, dutiful, but he was proud, and strong-willed; once he committed himself to a course of action, he would never turn aside.

He had gone too far to turn back, now.

"To see you," Kenshin murmured, "before the end. I would have come months ago –"

"No," Saigo said. "No, you wouldn't have. You are not samurai, to care if our stipends are cut and our way of life destroyed. You have no family, to grieve as they are sold into prostitution and thievery because the merchants strip us of everything they can. You have no pride, to bridle as the government whores itself to the foreigners and dismantles the very order of society to remake itself in their image."

Kenshin made a low, dismayed grunt, as if he had just been struck in the diaphragm.

"You will never rebel against your masters, Himura, because you feel the blood on your hands would not allow it. I say that you will only create more victims, stand aside and allow the government to create more misery –"

"No!" Kenshin snapped, rising to his feet before he could stop himself, his thumb automatically flicking the tang of his sword, freeing the blade the tiniest fraction –

Outside, the guards stirred restlessly. Kenshin subsided, settling back into seiza and sheathing his sakabatou.

"You do not believe me," he said, after he had regained his composure. "Very well. I assure you that I have not come to kill you; it does not mean there won't be others."

He had the astonishing impression, then, that Saigo was laughing… "You've surprised me, Battousai. You're not as naïve as I thought. Did you take them out?"

He said nothing.

"Go, then," Saigo said finally. "You have done your part, but you know it is too late: right will be decided on the field of battle. This is not something that can be settled in the shadows."

Kenshin bowed, sincerely respectful. "Sayonara," he murmured. It was all he could say: not good luck, nor any last appeals to reason or humanity. Only goodbye. He picked up his sword, rose to his feet, and slipped silently out of the tent.

When he was gone, Saigo closed his eyes once more and returned to his meditations with a whole heart and an undivided mind.

Tomorrow would come.

And he would meet it as befitted a samurai.

Later, he would hear the tale wherever he went: on the roads and in the taverns, in the fields and in the villages, they would tell of the battle of Shiroyama and the death of Saigo Takamori. They would speak of how, when the battle was lost, Saigo knelt on the field and ended it as a samurai should, committing seppuku with his trusted friend to act as a second –

An honourable death, they would say, their hearts and imaginations caught. And Saigo, with his death, would become a legend that would never die…

A/N – It's not entirely clear whether or not Saigo did commit seppuku, but the popular tales and legends all insist that he did. I suppose it sounds better that way.

I'm not entirely happy with Saigo's characterization in this, but as there are a lot of ideas and themes I wanted to explore, I decided to go with the way it developed. I might do another Saigo fic later, and see if I can achieve a better feel.