A/n: I am still working on this at a slow and steady pace. It will be finished. Eventually

Kenshin woke in darkness and swallowed panic.

It was dark. Dark and close and smelling vaguely of cleaning supplies and he clung to that, because that was the thing that wasn't right – the thing that meant that while it was dark it wasn't the dark, the deep black maw that yawned open in the stone, that swallowed men whole and spat out ghosts.

He fell forward on his hands nonetheless, his muscles remembering, his hindbrain screaming. Stay kneeling this long enough, and they'll open the door. Stay like this and that means you've been good and they'll open the door and there will be light and water and rice –

His throat was not dry. He was not thirsty. He'd eaten a solid breakfast at – at – he couldn't remember – it was bright and warm and spinning away, shattering. A dream. A memory, he told himself, a real thing. Real.

So hard to hold on to, here in the darkness.

It smelled of cleaning supplies, not filth. Cleaning supplies. That was the wrong thing and he needed to hold on to that, remember that the brightness, the warmth was not a dream, the children laughing, these were real things. The darkness was the dream.

Slowly, long-dormant instincts screaming into wakeful terror, he got to his feet and fumbled along the wall. His eyes were already adjusting. There was light, thin as cobwebs, and it was yellow and cheerful, not the smoky red of the braziers that sent the nightmare-smoke – the drug, he told himself sternly, Kanryu's drug, because he knew the proper words and he must use them – wafting towards the breaking-cells.

That was all the darkness was. Not a monster. A man, a technique, evil beyond description but not a demon. Human hands and human horror. And he had faced that man and overcome, had heard his name from that man's lips and chosen to spare his life – because he did not wish to kill again, and not because that man deserved it. That was a free choice. He was free. He was himself.

Remember, he chanted silently, his lips moving in the dark. Remember, remember, remember.

His head was starting to throb. Deep breaths, in and out, steady as the sea while he groped for the door. Found it – not the cell door, because he could dig his fingers into the edge, could slide it open. It had meant to be opened from both sides. It was not a prison.

It didn't open.

He tried again, his fingers numbing as panic welled up from the dark places behind his eyes. Failed. Clumsy fingers, heavy as lead and just as useless, just as helpless and it had been his fault, his fault. He deserved –

No, no, no. Lies. Lies from the darkness and the nightmare smoke.

Those were the wrong words.

What were the real ones?

He knew them, but couldn't grasp their shape. They whirled away as he tried again and again to open the door, growing less able each pass until he could try no longer and sank to his knees, shaking.

Of course. He'd forgotten.

There was never a way to open the door. He'd forgotten that and been sent back to the darkness. Because he had disobeyed. This was the way of things. The right way.

Slowly, in increments, he relaxed.

If he stayed like this long enough, they'd come and let him out. When he'd learned. When he'd proven that he was good.

They always let him out again, if he followed the rules.

Kaoru stepped forward into the ring, her sword held loose and confident in her right hand. Yahiko settled his breathing and watched. He knew – though he hoped that her opponent did not – that more than concentration creased her brow. Fear was there, also: she frowned when she was uncertain, and always gripped her sword-hilt a little too tightly. She was doing it now, her fingers straining with the effort not to clench down and render her grip entirely useless.

Relax, he tried to think at her. Relax, relax, relax…

Pointless. She could take care of herself – she knew how to compensate for her habits, he knew that, but he also saw the size of her opponent and the mad-dog glint in his eyes and knew that she would need to be at her best for him. But she knew it, too – she had to – and she was doing everything she could, he knew she was. Because she was the teacher, and he the student, and he had to trust her. Had to believe. Had to know that she would win, or else…

So he held his tongue and watched, his arms crossed over his chest to hide his shaking hands.

"Who will be the judge?" Kaoru asked coolly. Raijuta snorted, rolling back his shoulders.

"We won't need one. One stroke match. Prepare yourself!"

Yahiko bristled at the insult. But it didn't seem to worry Kaoru, so he only dug his heels into the matting to keep himself steady as she fell back on one foot, raising her sword in the traditional opening of their style. The Kamiya Kasshin preferred a neutral stance, trading focus for flexibility; she might not have the pure strength in defense or offense that another style would, but that was where the speed came in – she could react whatever way seemed best without restriction, and slide easily into stronger stances once she'd settled on a strategy. Provided that she was quick enough.

Raijuta leaned back on his rear heel, cranking down like a spring as Kaoru watched too-calmly. And then –

"Head!" he barked, lunging forward like an avalanche. His arm came down, striking at Kaoru's head hard enough to break her skull –

And missed. Kaoru slid back two full steps, barely evading the blow. It passed half an inch from the tip of her nose and she didn't stop there, moving again in anticipation of a swift follow-through. Raijuta launched himself at her and she dodged to one side, once more barely evading the blow. Again. Then again.

"Don't mock me, woman!" Raijuta snarled. "Fight!"

"I am fighting," Kaoru retorted, adjusting her grip. "It's not my fault that you can't hit me."

Raijuta bellowed rage and hurled himself at her again. Yahiko cursed silently and grabbed at the two kids watching, snagging their collars before they could rush the ring. Thank god everyone else was too far away to try anything stupid –

He risked a glance behind him, just in case. No. The crowd was standing stock-still, wide-eyed and watchful. He couldn't see Soujiro… he'd probably gone for help.

Kaoru dodged. Yahiko saw her dodge – and then –

The blow came down anyway, came down and hit her – !

No, he realized as she danced away. Her sword. She'd blocked it, somehow – there was a chip in the wood that went straight to its metal core, and the matting that had been below her feet was…

Torn. As though some terrible force had ripped it to shreds.

Yahiko's heart lurched in his chest. Get out of there! he wanted to scream – too late, as the blow came down again and there was no way she could dodge this time, so soon after the next one, not without a price –

Raijuta howled. It took Yahiko a moment to realize that it was in pain, not triumph. The big man clutched at his hand, his wooden sword falling to the floor, and snarled fury at somewhere beyond the ring.

Yahiko followed his gaze. There was a man standing there, a man which a short shock of white hair, dressed in Western clothing though he himself was Japanese. An elegant coat hung from his shoulders. Small, smoky-lensed glasses concealed his eyes. He pushed them up the bridge of his nose with one gloved hand, smirking.

In the other was a revolver, still smoking from that shot it had fired.

"Damn," the man said, his voice carrying in the stillness. "Still pulls to the left. Sorry," he added. "I was aiming for your head."

"This is a duel, Mr. Yukishiro," Kaoru snapped. "You have no right to interfere."

"And I apologize for cutting things short." He sketched a bow towards Kaoru even as he kept the revolver trained on Raijuta, a strange profundity in the motion. "If it had been a truly fair fight, I would never have interfered. But it occurred to me, watching, that you might not know exactly who you're up against. Master Kamiya, may I introduce Isurugi Raijuta, a former street thug of little merit who currently heads a middling-sized organization of losers calling themselves the Children of Truth. Quite the name for a bunch of petty mischief-makers whose greatest achievements to date are harassing honest shopkeepers for doing business with former slaves."

Raijuta made as if to step towards him. Yukishiro cocked the revolver.

"Careful," he said, smiling too pleasantly. "Wouldn't want any accidents, would we?"

Yukishiro. Yahiko frowned, trying to remember. The name was familiar…

"Which leads me to wonder," Yukishiro continued, the barrel of his gun still trained on Raijuta, "what on earth possessed a small-time bigot like you to try something this… grand? There must be a trick," he added. "Would you like to reveal it now? Or will you withdraw peacefully before the authorities arrive?"

"You're bluffing," Raijuta sneered, stepping forward. "You didn't have time to call them."

"Didn't I?" Yukishiro's smile hardened into a smirk. "How do you know I haven't had them waiting this entire time? Did you really think that your activities had gone unnoticed?"

Raijuts, who had been taking another step forward, hesitated. He and Yukishiro stared at each for a long time, long enough that Yahiko had to let out the breath that he hadn't know he'd been holding.

Then, suddenly, Raijuta snorted.

"Very well. Men!" he cried, turning deliberately away. "Our point is made. We do not serve the cause by lingering here."

His men looked at each other in obvious confusion, but left their posts and followed him, draining obediently from the hall like pus from a wound and taking the tension with them. A beat followed; then the crowd erupted into furious conversation, children rushing to their parents, adult chattering, teenagers boasting emptily to cover their terror.

And Yukishiro holstered his gun, walking over to Kaoru's side. He reached her before Yahiko did, taking her sword-arm gently by the elbow and examining her wrist.

"It's not deep," Yahiko heard him say as he drew nearer. "You should be fine, but you should at least have it disinfected, just to be sure."

Yahiko hadn't even realized she'd been injured. He stepped up, clearing his throat, and the two of them looked at him with odd, guilty expressions. Now that he had their attention, he found that there was nothing on his tongue.

"Where's Kenshin?" he said finally, knowing it for a weak sally. "And who was that guy?"

"Isurugi Raijuta," said Yukishiro, dropping Kaoru's wrist as though he'd just realized he was still holding it. "A small-time bigot, as I said. Leads a gang that claims to be working towards the restoration of the old, true ways – hence, Children of Truth – but they're largely ineffective. Someone must have put him up to this."

"And who are you?" Yahiko moved, without quite knowing why, to stand close to Kaoru's side. She was inspecting her sword and said nothing. He pretended not to notice her rubbing slowly at her wrist where Yukishiro had touched it.

"Enishi Yukishiro," the man said with a bow. "Ms. Kamiya invited me to attend the tournament."

"Oh." Yahiko crossed his arms to stop his fingers fidgeting. "All right. But where is Kenshin?" he asked, looking around. "He should have been here."

"I don't know," Kaoru said, sticking her sword in her belt. "I was busy. Ask the children?"

"Teacher! Teacher!" Ayame skidded up to them, panting. "Buntaro came back alone, Uncle Kenshin took him to the washroom and Buntaro says – he says – " she took a deep breath. "He says that Uncle Kenshin stopped to talk to some men and told him to go back to the seats, and I went looking but he's not where Buntaro said he was. Have you seen him?"

Shit. Yahiko and Kaoru exchanged glances, old instincts rising to the surface and he had to take a moment to remember that Kenshin was a grown man. It was hard, for a moment: Raijuta had woken up so many old memories.

"We should look for him." Kaoru said, finally. "He's probably fine, but… with what just happened…"

"Yeah. I'll do a headcount on the kids, you start looking for Kenshin."

Kaoru paused a moment.

"All right. Ayame, where did Buntaro say Kenshin left him?"

"This way!"

Ayame ran off. Kaoru followed, and Yahiko noticed – as he went to round up their students – that Yukishiro followed close behind.

Kaoru stood in the hall where Buntaro had last seen Kenshin, trying to think. There was no trace of struggle, no sign of a fight, and if Kenshin had fought then there would be something to mark it – broken floorboards, shattered doors, something. So he must have gone willingly… but why? And where?

Was it possible that he'd been taken by surprise?

"I doubt they kidnapped him," Enishi said from somewhere over his shoulder, echoing her thoughts. "He isn't important enough."

She turned. Enishi was loitering against the wall, studying the hallway as she was, his gaze downcast and inward.

"He's not a thing," she snapped, her gut churning. The air had cracked like a whip when Raijuta brought his sword down, and she had tasted death. Not for the first time – there had been moments during the war, especially in the Second Battle of Edo – but it had been so long that she had forgotten the bitter taste of it, the heavy way it sat, like rusty metal on her tongue. "Don't talk about him like he is."

Enishi blinked, and for a moment seemed inclined to argue; then something shifted in his face, not quite softening it.

"Of course. My apologies."

"If they didn't kidnap him, where is he?" She ran a hand through her hair, grateful that the dampness was sweat and not blood. It had been too near a thing. "They can't have gotten him by surprise…"

"Can't they?" Enishi asked, detached himself from the wall and sauntering over. "Anyone can be caught off-guard, in my experience, if you know what you're doing – but you're neglecting the obvious, I think. What if nothing happened? Could he have just left the hall?"

Kaoru hesitated.

"I don't think so…"

She wanted to say of course not, that Kenshin would never leave before the tournament was over, especially not under threat. But she couldn't be sure. If they had tricked him…

For the first time, she resented Buntaro's slowness. He'd been unable to tell them anything except that Kenshin had stopped to talk to a lot of big men, and told him to go on ahead.

"We don't know for a fact that the men he stopped to speak with were Raijuta's," Enishi pointed out.

"Now who's overcomplicating things?" she shot back. "Why would there be two groups involved?"

"Because Raijuta's Children of Truth are too small and frankly, too incompetent to have pulled this off without help. It's likely that there's a second person or persons involved, and this was a smokescreen. Unless I'm missing information, which is always a possibility." He seemed to sigh, in weariness rather than exasperation. "I'm looking at a couple of late nights, I think."

"None of that helps us figure out where Kenshin is," Kaoru said firmly, swallowing irritation at Yukishiro's flippancy. Snapping at him wouldn't find Kenshin. "There's no sign of a fight, so either he was taken by surprise or he went willingly. Either way, he could be anywhere."

"Let's assume, for the moment, that he's still on the grounds." Enishi took off his glasses, wiping idly at the smoky lenses with a cloth plucked from his breast pocket. "They would have wanted him out of the way and unable to interfere. Which means that he's likely locked up somewhere. I'd start with storage closets – they're small, easily overlooked, and generally fairly simple to keep shut. And they wouldn't have wanted to go far and miss the action in the main hall, so we should start here and move outwards. I'll take that end," he nodded towards the washrooms, "you take the other. Yes?"

Kaoru eyed him, uncertainty bubbling up through her lingering fear and the rush of combat.

"Why are you being so helpful?"

He flashed her a grin.

"Because I want answers, of course. Either Raijuta's bully-boys are a greater threat than we anticipated, or someone is puppeting them along for some purpose. And I doubt it's a beneficial one. Too much was lost in making this new world."

His voice was suddenly grim, and his eyes cold as ice. It was reassuring, oddly enough – more real, somehow, than his genial smiles. Like plunging through quicksand and suddenly reaching solid ground.

"I will not have those sacrifices go to waste."

She frowned, studying his face, and could see no lie.

"Fine," she said. "Let's hurry."

There were no memories in the darkness. The thing that huddled in the corner was not permitted them. Memories were for men, not weapons; for masters, not slaves.

The thing was disobedient. It knew that it was not permitted memory, and knowing was disobedience because how could it be forbidden something that it did not have, it did not have. It did not have memories. It did not. It did not.

Yet it did. And there in the darkness, it remembered. Could not help remembering. Soon they would come and they would see the memories behind his eyes and take them, and it would better to let them go no but it could not, would not –

It's all right, it heard someone say in the back of what could not be its mind because it did not have a mind, only ears that heeded and hands that obeyed. It's all right. Hold on. Don't let go.

He remembered. He remembered, and he did not let go.

He remembered that there had been sunlight and clean water, a scent of jasmine and sweat. He remembered clear blue eyes and a sad smile, bright silks and the strong edge of a carved wooden sword. He remembered small hands working next to his as savory-sweet steam rose from rice simmering over the stove. He had looked at the hands because that was what was permitted: they were scabbed and calloused and confident as they diced, onions and cabbage and squash turning into flavorful white chunks and crumpled greeny strips and long, proud columns of pale orange.

There had been a sense of tallness, and he'd never known how tall because he'd never looked up, because such things were not permitted. Tallness, loudness, brash rage igniting into explosive fury and somehow he had never been afraid; the anger had passed around him, over him. Sheltered him and the small hands, and the clear blue eyes with their sad, sad smile.

The smell of medicine, sharp and bitter, and firm hands that never passed into cruelty. He had recognized those hands, known their touch and stilled under it as he was meant to, knowing that afterwards the darkness would come – only it hadn't. Never again. Never ever again.

Instead there had been sunlight filtering soft and warm through rice paper, wooden floors rubbed brighter than sunlight on water and smooth as glass from generations of feet running, stepping, sliding in cotton socks across the polished boards. Rich earth, cool and grainy between his fingers, the stringy heartbeat of flower-roots before they were tucked away into their beds. Tatami mats smelling sweet and dusty, ridged under feet and hands. Little mountains.

He remembered these things.

He.

Remembered. Remembered. Remembered something that was not blood in the snow, was not black hair falling, falling in a cascade from jeweled pins and white silk ribbons. That was real but it was not the only real thing. There were others. There were others. There were others.

There had been darkness and mud and pain and the slow creep of the long cold and then a crack of flesh-on-wood and it had paid attention because it couldn't not and then.

Blue, blue eyes over him, blue as something it had forgotten long ago. Blue and bright with rage and tears and –

Kenshin! Kenshin, do you understand?

– Kenshin. Kenshin, Kenshin, Kenshin the eyes had called him Kenshin the small hands had called him Kenshin the anger had called him Kenshin the bittersweet medicine called him Kenshin his name was Kenshin and that was not a lie!

Kenshin surfaced, gasping. For a long moment he stayed exactly where he was, shaking, his arms clasped in a death grip around his knees.

Kaoru. Yahiko. Sano. Megumi. They had names and so did he, and he was he, not it, and that was true.

Slowly, he unfurled himself and clambered to his feet, fighting the sense of wrongness. Every limb was weighted with warning – musn't, don't dare, not told to rise – but they were fragile, echoing things and he was stronger than them. So he stood, and kept his breathing even.

It had been a long time since he'd lost himself like that. Years, he thought – not since his earliest days at the freedman's camp. Then again, he'd avoided anything that might bring the past back too strongly, sleeping with the door open and a candle burning always, carefully making sure there was air circulating in whatever room he was in. That there was always a clear exit, and he always knew where it was.

He worked outside, most days, on laundry and the garden, or in the kitchen where he knew he was safe. It had always been safe there.

His heart pounding hard but even behind his ribs, Kenshin pressed his hands up against the edge of the door and felt – calmly, with certainty, keeping his breath steady in his lungs – for leverage. Some angle to force the door open with.

There wasn't enough.

Panic curdled in his gut and this time he forced it down. It was weak, exhausted from its long fit, and gave way with a token protest. So he remembered – as he had not before, when he was drowning – that he had a sword. For leverage. And better yet, legs. For kicking. And the door was made of thin wood, not metal.

Kenshin made the very deliberate decision to smack his forehead in frustration. Because it was silly. A grown man panicking over being locked in a closet, forgetting that he was perfectly capable of forcing his way out. It was ridiculous. Even taking into account what had been done – Kanryu's foul medicine and the fetid squalor of the breaking-cells – there was a certain black humour to it.

A grown man, terrified of the dark. For pity's sake.

Annoyance was better than fear. More bubbly, less like an anchor in his belly. He embraced it, huffing irritably at himself in the darkness and nearly jumping out of his skin at the sound of his own voice. A chuckle welled in his throat, half-hysterical, and he shook his head as he laughed.

Then he set to the business of breaking down the door.

Kaoru kept the fear low in her belly, locking it away as it sought to rise and catch her lungs, choke her with helplessness and bitter root. Kenshin was in danger, and she had to help. There was no choice involved – he was her responsibility. He always had been, from that very first moment when she'd knelt in the mud and carried him home, when she'd looked him in the eye and called him by name, forced him to acknowledge his name…

When he'd looked up at her with eyes like a frightened horse, all rolling whites and pinpoint pupils, and called her mistress.

Her mistake. Her decisions. Her responsibility. She was Kaoru Kamiya, a master of the sword, and she would not shirk her duties. If they had taken Kenshin and locked him away, in the darkness, in a small room with no light or free air…

She remembered the cell. How could she ever forget? That small room, barely an alcove, stinking of blood and shit and piss. The scratches on the wall, the nails embedded there in the crumbling brick. The door gaping open, a formless maw of some mindless, consuming ogre, shimmering like a living thing, like the stone itself was breathing in the dim, flickering torchlight, breathing out the acrid sting of the drug into the fetid air of the bunker. Of the breaking-cells…

Kenshin always slept with a candle lit and the door propped open. On warm nights, he opened it on to the porch; on cool nights, to the inner hall.

She knew why, and never mentioned it. She just made sure that there were always enough candles.

Mouths, maws, gaping open to swallow her. She still dreamed of that dark, dead mansion, of the brick-built wings like grasping arms, the stairs and porches digging claws into the earth, twisting its skin and gnawing on its bones. A thousand shuttered eyes smirking down at her, promising her a long eternity in its shadow.

She had gone there willingly. Taken Kenshin as hers willingly. She had been willing – she had chosen, every step of the way and it didn't matter that the alternatives had been unthinkable because they had existed and she had chosen not to take them.

She had chosen.

The storm inside her did not show in her actions. The long years had taught her that much, at least: she was no little girl any longer, to cry and scream and rage and clench her fists, stamping her feet against the stone. She moved through the hall quickly and methodically, opening every door she found – they wouldn't need to lock him in, after all, not if it was dark and small enough. He would keep himself there, bound by the same thing that locked her into wakefulness night after night after night…

Her fault.

She should never have let him come back. Should never have taken him on in the first place, should have listened when Megumi told her to let him go that first time, so many years ago, in the past which is another country. Should have let him go and forgotten before the darkness of the cells and the stink of mud and broken flesh engraved itself inside her, sank into her bones.

And now – now she didn't know if she could be whole without it.

That was the sickness, the secret she kept locked tight below her heart. Who would she be without that pain, without the memory of the cells and the stench and Kanryu's mocking smile? Without the days, months, years of bloody bandages and refugees with hollow eyes? The sterile clinic packed with the wounded, the dead and the dying as cannon thundered just close enough that they could never sleep, not really. Children sobbing on streetcorners, beggars with empty bowls and faces that were already skulls.

The transition had not been a peaceful one. After the shock had worn off… every night there was some new disturbance. A riot, a beating, murders and mutilations with the bodies left to lie in the street as warning and revenge. How dare you, both sides had screamed, writing outrage in innocent blood for stolen lives and change forced down their unwilling throats.

Change. Yes. The city had revolted, forcing change upon itself and choking on the taste.

There had been no other way. She knew that. No other way, no other possible way; the rotting limb called for no remedy but amputation, the weeds had to be torn up by the root and burned but gods, gods, the blood and pus streaming from that punctured sore had drowned so many…

So many were drowning still.

And that for your false equality! His face had twisted like a demon-mask in a play, eyes bright with triumph as Master Maekawa lay crumpled at his feet, still and silent as a corpse.

He wasn't the only one, Kaoru knew. The undercurrent remained, bitter whispers and banked rage waiting for its moment to roar to life. Nothing seemed to quell it – nothing could, except a return to the old ways, a return that would never come.

And there were other voices, as well. Who said that it was not enough that the masters were cast down, not enough that the worst of them were dead, their empires shattered, their heirs left destitute. Not enough, could never be enough and the thing that frightened her most of all was that she agreed with them.

The fire should have raged longer, some guilty part of her whispered in the dark night, when the world slept and the moon's eye watched unblinking and without judgement. It should have consumed them all.

Even her.

She kept looking, and let the snake-nest in her belly writhe to its heart's content.

Enishi's mind wandered as he searched; the physical motions were reflexive enough that he didn't need to put much thought into them. There were only so many places they could have hidden a grown man, even if he was physically stunted. Or perhaps only naturally small…

He wondered, idly, what his sister had seen in him. If she had seen anything at all. Himura was mentioned in her diaries only in passing – the son of a friend of her father-in-law, young and passionate and no real part of her life. Her fiancée had occupied far more of her thoughts: she had written pages of his virtues, and pages more of worry when he fell ill.

And that single, final entry…

I know what mother-in-law and father-in-law did. I have to stop them. Please, whoever reads this, accept it as my dying testimony: the Kiyosato's have committed an unpardonable offense against the son of a samurai. I go now to pay the price for their infamy, and redeem my beloved's honor.

Son of a samurai. Ha. He had believed his sister's testimony when he'd first read it, not knowing any better; now he knew that Himura was no such thing. Adopted, yes, apprenticed to a man who was once of the appropriate caste (although Enishi couldn't be sure; the fellow had done an excellent job of hiding his past) but of no proper blood himself.

He'd hated that, for a little while. That Tomoe had sacrificed herself for a no-one, a nothing, someone whose life held no meaning.

If he was honest – and he rarely was – he would admit that he hated it still. A shallow, reflexive hate, like the lingering ache the day after a fight. The real fury had burned itself out years ago, smothered in shadow and stone.

Himura clearly didn't remember. He hadn't recognized him that day after all – no real surprise, Enishi supposed, given that he hadn't washed the dye out of his hair for days afterwards. There had been no time.

It had been his first truly important mission: to infiltrate one of the last of Kanryu's facilities and pave the way for the liberators. Learn the exits, the weak points; guard numbers and rotations, locations of weapons lockers. Information first, and sabotage if possible.

He hadn't known about the final set of orders. Hadn't thought to look. And technically speaking, it wasn't his responsibility. He was the most junior operative, after all. He had no reason to grieve.

But every time that he thought those things, his sister looked at him gravely and he knew them for a lie.

He had joined the rebels for hate's sake, because Kanryu had stolen his sister, had destroyed everything that he loved. Everything about the world that was worth preserving was gone, so why not tear it down? Why not let it all burn – why not feed the flames, and make all creation into his sister's pyre?

Hate had driven him, kept him alive and fighting. Hate and the promise of revenge.

After that mission, it was… something else. Hate still fueled him, he knew that; it was hate that the fire consumed, that nurtured it and built it up to new heights of strength. But…

There had been children. Boys and girls, barely younger than himself. A woman with long black hair and a serene face had died cradling as many as her arms could hold to her breast, and Enishi had stopped for a long moment with the breath snatched from his lungs.

He wondered if she had convinced them to drink the poison calmly or if the guards had had to force it down their throats, and she had cradled them in the aftermath. Idle curiosity, morbid, stunned into cold analysis by the sheer breadth of what had happened. That day lived in his memory as little more than pockets of sensation. Cold mud, cold wind. The reek of blood and shit and piss: the poison had caused the slaves to void their bowels. The young woman's body, rigid in death, bent around her armful of children with their faces frozen forever in terror and pain.

And red hair, red as fresh-spilled blood. A man perhaps a decade older than himself speaking quietly to the slaves pulled from the breaking-cells, slaves who did not answer him but only stared, mute and dying, at the slate-grey sky. Tears were streaming down his face, though he seemed not to notice it at all.

Enishi had recognized him, and turned away. It wasn't time, not yet. This wasn't the place to confront him, to take his long-overdue vengeance. Because it was Himura's fault as much as Kanryu's, it had to be. His fault. Tomoe had gone to protect him…

But the old mantra – so comforting and familiar, so easy on his voiceless lips – had felt like a suit that no longer fit. A few days later, he'd asked his handler a question. A few more days after that, he'd received a response.

Hating Himura had felt… pointless, after that. Not wrong, precisely, just without merit. He had wanted to put Himura through hell, but it seemed that Kanryu had gotten there first.

One more reason to hate the bastard, really.

…Where the hell had they stashed Himura? He was running out of closets, and there was still no sign of the man. Had they actually kidnapped him? Who could that possibly benefit? Himura's political use had always been limited, and now that the war was over it was almost nonexistent, particularly since Himura hadn't tried to keep himself relevant…

Only one closet left in this hall. It was the last one within any kind of reasonable distance from where Himura had last been seen – if he wasn't here, the possibility that he'd been kidnapped went up sharply –

The door was bulging outwards. About two seconds and a cloud of dust later, it lay on the floor in two pieces. Himura stood over it, sheathing his sword. He saw Enishi; for a moment his eyes widened, then shuttered themselves into mild and thoughtless courtesy

"Hello," he said blandly. "Where is Kaoru?"

"Down the other hall." Enishi jerked his thumb over his shoulder, matching Himura's blandness. If that was how the man wanted to play it... "Looking for you."

"There are some very rough men about," Himura commented, still perfectly composed. Eerily so. There was a deadness in his eyes, a carefulness – he placed his words like a man picking his way over rough ground, knowing that one wrong step would send him skidding down the mountain in a sea of crushing stone. "I hope they don't cause a disruption."

"They already did."

"Oh." A shadow of worry – guilt? – crossed his face, just for a moment. And terror below it – a reflexive, animal terror, and Enishi thought briefly of a dog that knew it had disobeyed. "Was anyone hurt?"

"An older gentleman who I'm not familiar with, and Kaoru took a hit to the wrist. She should be fine."

Enishi felt the vague urge to laugh. The whole thing was surreal – standing in the hall amidst shards of door, calmly discussing events with a man he'd hated and pitied in equal measure for so many years. And the man himself… he'd had his heart on his sleeve only an hour or so ago, and now he was as perfectly, icily blank as some of the best agents Enishi had ever seen. Both couldn't be natural: one of those faces had to be a lie. Only question was, which one? And what could it mean?

This was what he got for taking an interest.

Himura started down the hall and Enishi – against his better judgement – went with him.