Sorry this took so long. You know how I said I had the next few chapters planned out, well, I forgot what I was going to do. So, this took longer to write.
So, I didn't like the first version of this that I posted (for those of you that read it) this is my second attempt. If there was something if the other version that you liked and I didn't include, please let me know.
Also, the first section of this is written a little differently so please let me know if it is hard to follow.
Hope you enjoy
The Deaths
She opened her eyes and for a few blissful seconds, she thought the events of the past week had all been a dream. That he was still alive. Then her mind fully awoke, and reality kicked in. He was gone. The woman and her friends had done everything they could to find him, but, as she had predicted, they had failed. Disposed of meant death. She knew that, but she had still hoped the woman's friends would find him alive. They had found what was left of him three days after he had vanished.
She wanted to blame the woman with every fiber of her being, but she couldn't. She knew she would have failed too. This was a game that had been playing for far longer than anyone expected. A game few could recognize and even fewer could win. The woman had revealed just how long this game had been going when she mentioned her families murder being part of it. It was hard to imagine that a ten-year-old had planned all this.
Pulling herself out of bed, she got dressed and went to the kitchen to start breakfast. The intimidating man was there, drinking coffee like always. He grunted a greeting to her and went back to staring out the window.
"Morning Kusanagi," The woman said, walking in with the ever-growing bags under her eyes. What the woman was up to was a mystery, not even the intimidating man knew what the woman was up to. Since his disappearance, the woman had closed herself off.
"Did you get any sleep last night?" The intimidating mas asked the woman.
"No, but I'm almost done."
"Care to fill us in?"
"Soon. It was safer to not tell anyone until everything is in place," the woman said yawning.
"Megumi, you need to get some sleep."
The woman just sent him an exasperated look, "Do you have any idea how many all-nighters I have had to pull when working at the hospital? I'm fine."
"What are you doing that is taking so long?" She asked the woman.
The woman looked at her, "I'm making a move that will hopefully be the last move we have to make."
Sometimes the woman's way of talking could be confusing. She just nodded and assumed someone would tell her what was going on eventually.
"Sano, I'm gonna need to send a message to the others later today. Is that possible?"
The intimidating man just grumbled and ambled into the adjacent room where he had a computer set up.
"Do you have any plans today that I should know about?" She asked.
"Nothing involving you," the woman said. She had been saying that all week and it was getting annoying.
"I don't blame you," she said.
"You should," the woman said, looking down at her feet. "I should have seen it. I should have known."
"I've been watching their twisted thinking for a few years and I didn't see it. I am a slave and I didn't even know how much that woman was involved. I don't think anyone could have known."
"Your too nice Kusanagi."
"I want to blame you," she said, returning to the food she was preparing. "You have no idea how much I want to blame you. But I can't. You are trying everything in your power to end this. We knew the risks when we stayed. He wouldn't blame you."
The woman just nodded and left the room, leaving her to her thoughts. She wanted to blame the woman, because then she wouldn't be blaming herself. She knew it was foolish to be angry at herself for something no one saw coming, but she couldn't help but think there might have been something she could have done. He had saved her life and yet she did nothing to protect him when he needed it.
He had managed to be there the moment her training had failed and her concept of free will had returned. Almost like he had a sixth sense. If he hadn't been there to cover for her in that moment, she would have been killed. But he had been there, and she had lived. He had known the exact moment she would need help, why hadn't she been able to do the same thing? Why hadn't she sensed what he had sensed? Why?
She felt a tear roll down her cheek and shook her head, wiping the tear away. Tears would do no good here. Crying would not help them win this war.
It turned out, Raku's taunt was going to be her undoing. She had spent the last week following her gut, now all she needed was to get Raku to confirm what she thought.
When looking for the leaders of the slave trade, she had initially been looking for the people who engaged readily in it. After finding out Raku's involvement, she had looked at the people close to Raku. She should have been looking at the people close to her family. There was no way a ten-year-old could pull off what Raku had done. She would have had help from others. Those others would have placed themselves close to her family to make sure everything went to plan. Once she had figured that out, it was fairly easy to figure out who the actual people involved were. They were the ones who acted like Raku did about slaves. Accepting but not overly engaged, at least on the outside.
What had driven them to sacrifice her family was a question she was going to get answered when this was all over. She had no doubt Raku's love of slaves grew from her parents. They were odd people. Raku's father stayed inside almost all the time, she had never met him. It was rumored that he was scared from some accident when he was younger and that was why he didn't go out. Raku's mother was a queen manipulator, something her daughter had obviously inherited.
Now she knew just what Raku was, she saw manipulation in every word. It gave her a headache trying to figure out what Raku was up to. There were just too many possibilities as to what Raku's end goal is. She just had to make her move and hope Raku didn't see it coming. If she did, the city would burn for it.
They had most of the police force on their side, most of the city, and a leader to take over once they broke everything. It was time to move, before Raku managed to kidnap or kill anyone else, she cared about. All she could do was hope that she wasn't about to start a blood bath.
The hospital was uneventful, and she was able to deliver the papers to Tae without anyone noticing. It was now up to Tae to get the papers to Karou. Now she was off to visit her parents' graves with the woman who had planned their murder.
Raku had asked to go with her for the anniversary of her parent's death. She didn't know what raku was thinking, but she allowed her to come. She didn't have a good reason as to why Raku couldn't come, and it posed a unique opportunity.
The upper class had been trying to use fear to get the lower class back to how things use to be. It had started when the number of people they were grabbing to make into slaves drastically decreased. They were being deprived of something they say necessary for life. The problem was, the scare tactics were working. Kenshin and his friends were losing the momentum they had been gaining.
Raku gave her the ability to regain some of that momentum. Why? Because Raku always took her slave where ever she went. Most of the lower class had no real concept of what happened to the people who were taken. It was hard to convince them to fight against something they didn't fully understand. The upper class was careful that the slaves weren't seen by the lower class. Raku's pride would change that. Raku thought that seeing the slaves would either instill more fear or make people want to be slaves. Neither of which would actually happen.
Her family's graves were in a graveyard in the lower city. They would have to walk through part of the lower city to get there. A residential part. The people there would see first hand just what the slave industry was. Word would spread quickly of what they saw and that would hopefully get people to move past their fears. She would use Raku just like Raku was using her.
They got to the graves and she started cleaning them before placing flowers and incents. Then they both prayed silently. She asked for their forgiveness for bring Raku there. All she could do was hope they understood why she had done it.
"Do you miss them?" Raku asked.
"Every day."
"They were good people."
"They were, and my brother was so young, he didn't deserve this," she said, struggling to keep the anger from her voice.
"That's why they shouldn't have free will, the people down here are vial creatures," Raku said with more venom in her voice than she had ever heard before.
"Why do you hate them so much?" She asked. It was a question she had been wanting to ask. She hadnt intended on asking it now, it had just slipped out.
"They killed my brother," Raku said angrily.
"You mean Sojiro?" She asked. Raku was an only child and Sojiro was the only person she could think of that Raku would see as a sibling. He was a young protégé that Raku's father had taken in. The thing was, he wasn't dead. He had left to explore the world.
"Raku, he's not dead."
"Yes, he is. They took him from me," Raku said angrily. She was all the sudden reminded of Eichi. There was a surprising amount of similarities between the actions of the two. "Saying they went traveling is just what parents tell their kids when they don't want tell them someone died."
She stared at Raku, that was the reason behind what she had done. All these games were because a child had misunderstood.
"You killed my family because you thought Sojiro was dead?" She hadn't meant to ask that; her anger just got the better of her. It was a stupid move and she knew it, but Karou and the others had the plans, and everything was being put into place. Even if Raku knew she knew, there wouldn't be much time for a counter move.
Raku stared at her for a few seconds, "When did you figure that out?" Raku said softly.
"The day your other slave went missing. I figured out why you had asked about my family all the sudden and why you were annoyed when I didn't react to him," she gestured at the slave.
"You're a better actor than I thought you would be Meggie," Raku said with a smile. "I killed your parents because no one else could see the rot down here. After your parents died, everyone listened to me. Everyone saw what I saw."
"The rot that killed my parents is the rot inside of you, not the people here."
"They took my brother from me, they don't deserve to have anything," Raku spit, her calm mask falling away.
"They took nothing from you and you took everything from them," she said. Raku was a mastermind, but she was still a child.
"Going to try and stop me Meggie? You couldn't stop me when I killed your parents."
"We will stop you," Both women turned in shock towards the man who had just spoken. Kusanagi said the slave wasn't like her, yet here he was, speaking out against his master. "You are outnumbered, and we have a strong will. You might kill some of us, but you cannot defeat us."