The day had come for Katsumto, his men, Miryu and Algren to leave the village and head for Tokyo. It would be the first time Algren would ride through the mountains as a free man, and he relished the experience. "I grew up in the mountains not far from Kyoto, and I assure you, the sights are much fairer than this," Miryu said to Algren in Japanese, so that the others could hear her. Ever since he had somewhat mastered the language, she had subconsciously spoken to him in Japanese without even realizing what language she had been speaking in… Perhaps it was the complications of being a linguist?

Nakao just scoffed. "Just don't listen to her talk," he told Algren. "The Kyoto Mountains are exactly like these…" Well, technically both of them were correct, so he just watched them bicker with one another. Things got even funnier when Nobutada occasionally butted in, but was ignored by the two of them on purpose. The entire episode was enough to bring all the men to laughter, exempting no one.

"It is wondrous how a little youth brings to a group of old men," Katsumoto commented to Algren. To that, Ujio stated that he recalled that the only one who was old was his liege lord only. "Were your men like ours?"

The question made Algren look back into his memories for a moment, and he said, "No, there are the occasional jokes, but they're not like that all the time." If "occasional" meant every few years, then he would be speaking the truth, he thought to himself, but what Katsumoto did not need to know that, especially not in those times…

Once they entered the city of Tokyo, they created a huge ruckus. It was rare to see a group of samurai stride into the "modernized" capital on horseback, and the peasants immediately cleared the road for them to pass by. All the Westerners were ablaze with a mixture of awe and outrage, for they have not yet witnessed any such people with pride in their "backward" and "conservative" ways. And no doubt, Simon Graham would be among them, as well as a particular red-haired man of slight build with a cross on his left cheek… Unknown to one another, the two men followed the procession until they stopped at the quarters in which the foreign military-men were housed, where Miryu and Algren took their leave.

"May we see you again in times of peace," Miryu said to all of them before she and Algren bowed to them, a gesture which they all returned. Algren found no words to speak, but realized that some of the men were fixed upon something not far into the distance. And when Miryu turned to see who they were looking at, she realized that it was Graham and Kenshin. "Graham… Kenshin… its good to see you again!"

Kenshin smiled and replied, "It is good to see you again, de gozaru yo." With a bow, he turned to Katsumoto and his men. "It has been too long, Katsumoto-dono. Sessha hopes that we will meet each other de gozaran."

"We shall, Himura-san. Perhaps when our Miryu finally holds her wedding… She has a lot to talk to you about, I think," Katsumoto replied, his voice hiding the deep concerns in his heart. There was totally no reason to alert Battousai in what did not concern him, and he did not need the pure-hearted champion of the people fighting against him when the time came for it. "Please, excuse us, my men and I have important matters to deal with…"

Once the samurai left, Graham said, "Well, let's get inside for a nice long talk, shall we?"

Algren, for one, was astounded to finally meet the man known as Himura Battousai. He had expected a tall, fearsome warrior, a man of great stature, not this… scrawny-looking fellow. His katana, Algren learnt, was a special one, where the edges of the blade were reversed, due to his wish never to kill after the days of the Bakamatsu. Still, the power that emanated from him somewhat equaled that of Miryu's. They were students of the same philosophy, of the same style, and yet, they seemed so different from one another… This man, held as much shame of his own past as he did, and Algren could see it deeply in his amethyst eyes.

"Algren-dono, it pleases me to see that Miryu has found that special someone in you de gozaru yo," Kenshin said. "That way, Shishou and I would not need to worry about marrying her off de gozaran!" Miryu glared at him, and sent a pillow flying towards him, sending him falling towards the wall, of which he was a few feet away, in a surprising show of her mastery over her Ki. And the sound which he emitted, something that sounded like "OROOOOOOO…" was definitely strange to Algren indeed. Was this man really a bloodthirsty killer everyone claimed him to be?

Graham clicked his tongue, "Miryu, didn't your master teach you to play fair?" he asked while sipping some macha that the servants in the quarter had served them. "He would be so ashamed."

Kenshin merely said, "Graham-dono, our Shishou would just let us continue hitting one another until one of us got hurt…" Hiko Seijurou spared no quarter when the training of his two disciples were concerned, not even if Miryu had been a daughter to him. Heck, she had to partake in the "violent training methods" their Shishou would subject them to as much as he did even if she was a girl.

"So, Kenshin-san, why didn't you join the Emperor's service like Miryu?" Algren asked curiously. "Surely, one like you could have an important role in the current government?"

The red-haired man replied that he had no interest in any political power of any sort, and even if Miryu had turned down to become the Empress, becoming the Emperor's bodyguard instead, his place was still with those who could not defend themselves, who were the ones who truly needed his help. Algren had come to discover that he and Miryu applied the principles of the Hiten-Mitsurugi Ryuu differently: Kenshin took the philosophy a little more literally, swinging his sakabattou to defend those who could not, helping the poor, the defenseless against those who would oppress them physically. Miryu, on the other hand, took a more abstract approach. For example, if Katsumoto were to really raise a rebellion in the name of the samurai, she would fight by his side, as a voice that they did not have. During the Bakamatsu, she fought for the women and the children, who were all political victims and casualties of the old system…

The differences within them were stark, to those who knew them, but to the untrained eye, they were so much alike that one might have thought that somehow, they were siblings. The extreme politeness, their mild laughter and ready smiles… they were almost identical. And it seemed strange, that Kenshin had not caught wind of Katsumoto's uprising at all, or he did not mention anything about it… Was he purposely ignorant of it, or was he refusing to acknowledging it?

"He knows," Miryu said once Kenshin and Graham had left when they noticed how late the night actually was. "Kenshin is a clever man, Algren, he has been in the same circles as I have, and he does not want any part in this. So long as the general populace is unhurt, he would disregard everything he hears about this."

Algren nodded before turning to Miryu, saying, "So, he's more of a people person than you are… I get it."

She shook her head. "More than that, Captain, Kenshin is more than that. He thinks that he can save the world from everything, he asks of the impossible of himself. No one can stop war, disease and disaster, but he takes all of his abilities to try to stop almost everything… I fear one day that all that guilt of being unable to help will catch up to him if he goes on like this."

"But you'll be right beside him, won't you, even if you fight for things that are a little different?" he asked, holding her in his arms. She just confirmed his answer with a small kiss to his cheek, and bade him goodnight. "Is that all you can do, Tsubasa Battouryu?" he challenged her, unwilling to let go. As a response, she smirked, and kissed him fully.

Blushing at her sudden boldness, she rose from the couch they were in, only to have him pull her back once again. "What is it now, Captain Algren?" she asked, suppressing a groan as Algren moved to kiss the nape of her neck, once he lowered the collar of her uniform. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she managed to pull him closer, unable to resist him.

"Stay with me, just for this night," he pleaded, and carried her towards the bed. How he had waited for this to happen, where there would only be the two of them, and no one would know… Her house was just too close from Taka's in Nobutada's village, and anything that they might have done could be easily heard by the others, but there in the military quarters, it was totally different…