The first half of this chapter is a flashback regarding how Hiko the 12th lost her deshi. There's a bit of weird structure going on...I had to push the Kenshingumi stuff to next chapter - but only cos I added heaps more details in this one!

The 1848 flashback is inspired by SiriusFan13's In Due Time, the concepts of which were so amazing I incorporated into this fic with permission. You should totally go read In Due Time, cos it's so great! (And everything else SiriusFan13 wrote, tbh!) It'll probably spoil the 1848 flashback, but it really doesn't matter. I'm about to drop it all in the next chapter anyways.

1848

Lying upon the outskirts of what would later be defined as Kyoto Prefecture, there was a mountain.

Upon the mountain in the midst of a thick wood forrest was a clearing, and in the clearing stood a small hut. It was totally isolated from from the small, scattered villages at the mountain's foot, away from the whims and wars of men. The climate was harsh upon the mountain, with unbearable summer heats and dangerously cold, snowy winters, a hard and generally inhospitable place where rumours of large beasts and bandits kept people at bay. Many had made the trek up the mountain and never returned, causing stories of evil spirits and angered deities to circulate. Because of this, few maps of the mountain were ever drawn up, and for anyone who dared braving its slopes, the danger of getting lost and ending up in a forrest labyrinth was very real.

In other words, the isolated hut upon the mountain was the perfect place for a hunted boy to hide.

In the clearing, a young boy of twelve held up a sword. It was a training sword, many times the weight of a real one in order to install strength into his arms, but still meticulously sharpened to a point. The past week had been one of the worst in his life — that is, other than the one where his parents and elder brother had perished in a fire and he'd come to the mountain for refuge.

Lately, he'd had a fight with his master.

It started with a failed swordsmanship lesson. His Shishou had asked him to perform a battou-jutsu upon her. He'd begrudgingly obliged.

In moments, his Shishou had her sword in motion, ready to test his battou-jutsu. But his battou-jutsu faltered mid-strike — he stabbed his blade into the ground to swing his weight around the hilt to avoid her. He was thrown off any sense of direction, skidding fast for a few seconds before completely losing his footing and fumbling into the ground. At the speed they had been going at, there was no possible way to stop. His Shishou's battou-jutsu had flickered at full force and it took all her self control to divert it elsewhere. She'd jerked to the side, an instant, reactionary flinch that put her off her mark and changed the trajectory of the blow.

Never had she ever had to stop a battou-jutsu in the middle of doing it.

This was not something she was able to get over.

"Miki! Are you ok?" She bolted over to where her deshi lay in a heap.

The second she saw he hadn't any serious injuries, her demeanour changed.

"What the frack was that?!" Shishou had frowned, pulling back slightly so as to keep her cool. "Miki, I've seen you perform a standard battou-jutsu a million times! Why did you throw the match?!"

The boy, Miki, shrugged. His Shishou, Hiko Seijuro the Twelfth, swept her cloak behind her. Going at the Hiten Mitsurugi ryu's full speed to bash one's head into the ground was a spectacular way to narrowly die; both of them were distinctly aware of this.

Hiko Seijuro went up to him, bending to take his pulse and touch his forehead; but Miki would have none of it, batting her hand away. "Stop, Shishou! I'm fine."

"Fine?" she stood up, taken aback. "No. You're not. What kind of baka-deshi slams into the ground via a damned battou-jutsu! Huh? And it wasn't even a good one. Your form makes me want to cry." She crossed her arms, looking down at him with accusatory eyes. "You mastered this technique months ago. Why are you pretending you didn't?"

Miki didn't look up at her. He shrugged.

Hiko inhaled sharply, leaned back, cracked her neck. "Get up, Miki. We're trying again."

But Miki refused to move.

"I said, get up."

Miki shook his head. This time, he let go of his heavy sword, throwing it aside. Out in the real world, in the middle of a real fight, this gesture wouldn't be taken so simply as forfeiting the match. It would be taken as a surrender, a dishonourable, cowardly feat, one that wouldn't even warrant him the honour of a clean beheading. Hiko Seijuro saw this and did not accept it.

"Get up, Miki." Hiko gripped his shoulders and lifted him up. "Again."

All she cared about was the Hiten Mitsurugi ryu. This fact was becoming clear to Miki.

As she dragged him up with one strong arm, all of Miki's complicated, battling thoughts swam in his head. He swiped his black hair out of his eyes to stare up defiantly at her.

"No."

Finally, Hiko Seijuro stopped.

"…No?"

"No!" Miki dodged the hand coming to grasp him, weaved out of her range and openly stood his ground against his master.

When Miki was younger, and his parents and brother had died, she'd taken him up the mountain for the first time. He was so afraid, seeing shapes and shadows of men and enemies in every rock and tree, in the tightly packed forrest, in thin air, and heard sounds of assassins or traitors waiting in ambush, in every rustle of leaf and bush. The night was dark, and for the first time he was aware of how small it made him feel, how powerless, the stories and rumours of beats and angry spirits upon this place buzzing in his already overworked thoughts.

But Hiko Seijuro saw this. Hiko Seijuro sat him down on a log she'd cut down with graceful ease to impress him. He had been running from his family's enemies and had come to the mountain to hide in the darkness it provided him, but she lit a fire. It was a stupid, counterproductive move, a fool's errand to light a beacon to his whereabouts, a smoke signal rising in the sky, but Hiko Seijuro, Twelfth of her name — did not care. She lit the fire because he was frightened, and she could afford to light it because she was strong.

Hilo Seijuro sat him down at the campfire, seeming to say to him it didn't matter who would come looking, because she was here. No one had come looking. But Miki did not have a single doubt that if someone had, she'd have killed them easily — even more easily than she did cutting down a thick tree trunk with a lithe, heirloom sword — she'd have killed them one after the other like a kitchen knife through tofu, like lightning through cloud, a butcher through meat.

He had never been so afraid, but she praised him for his braveness as they sat in the light.

The dark didn't seem so bad then.

Right now Miki stood against her, his eyes set like flint, teeth crunched down so hard his jaw hurt. "I don't want to learn from you anymore."

"You don't want to learn from me anymore?" Hiko repeated, like she had trouble parsing it, and Miki resisted the temptation to stomp his feet like a child in tantrum or scream at her to take him seriously.

Sometimes, she still treated him like that same child sitting close to the campfire, shivering in spite of it. He was not cold, he'd just been plucked from the flames of a raging, voracious, estate-destroying fire, he'd just hiked uphill upon a treacherous, high mountain, sweat sticking his hair to his neck — but his shoulders were shaking, the hems of his charred clothes vibrating, fingers jumping, not a part of him able to keep calm about the fact that he'd just lost everything.

Sometimes, he hated how she treated him like he was still that breakable. That naive.

Finally, Hiko Seijuro's anger dissipated in the present. She seemed to bunch up and let it go. It seemed to all just slide out of her at once, a blanket pulled off her shoulders. Hiko never punished Miki with violence, never hit him like his father did. She sighed down at Miki who was staring daggers at her and just faced him as if she were humouring his little mood swing.

"…I don't understand," Hiko started. "All you ever wanted was this." She lifted an arm, holding up the great cloak, the mantel of the Hiten Mitsurugi ryu.

That night around the fire, Hiko saw Miki's shaking and sat next to him on the log. Then she extended her arm, and to his surprise, draped her great cloak around him.

"See this?" Hiko said. "This is a great treasure. White leather of the highest quality, making it last forever. Reinforced lining, making it as comfortable to wear as it is. Hidden weights on the shoulder pads, right here," she took his hand and led it to feel the bulk on her shoulders, "it acts as a training device, helping maintain my strength when not fighting, and keeping my true abilities under control when I am."

She smoothed it down, boasting. "See the red lapels? The red denotes strength and sacrifice. The weights denote control and duty."

In a moment of quiet, Miki let go of convention, forgetting his place, forgetting courtesy, and reached forward to tug on the cloak. He saw in it for the first time what Hiko described with calm, sure dignity.

"This cloak is over one hundred years old," Hiko continued. "It was worn by my master, Hiko Seijuro the Eleventh. And it was worn by his master, the Tenth, and his master, and his master, and his master. This cloak is the mantel of my line, the Hiten Mitsurugi ryu, Miki. As the heiress, I wear it with pride."

She smiled down at him, patting his arm contentedly. "This and Winter Moon are the only things that will be carried on after I die. I want you to be the one to carry it, Miki."

All Miki had ever wanted, when he was nine, ten and eleven, was that cloak on his shoulders. Hiko had told him from the start that he'd have to work for it, bleed for it, he'd have to want it more than anything else in the world; and he'd obeyed her, he'd worked himself to the bone for it, he'd trained until he bled and bruised, and he had wanted it; he had wanted it even more than he wanted his father's approval when he was still alive, he had wanted it more than he wanted to restore his own clan, and he had wanted it more than he wanted vengeance for what was done to his family.

And Hiko Seijuro the Twelfth in turn gave him everything: not just her time, her energy and her teachings, but her praise when he performed his first ryūshōsen, her applause when he mastered his first two-step battou-jutsu, she actually gave her disciple love and affection others had only ever withheld from him.

Miki did not just respect his master, Hiko Seijuro the Twelfth, he worshipped her — he wanted to be Hiko Seijuro more than he wanted to carry on his own clan name. He dreamed of being the Thirteenth of her line. He wanted to be exactly the kind of man she could be proud of.

But then his Shishou took him aside while hunting one day and casually let slip the truth.

The truth of mastering their exhaled style's crowning jewel. Their succession technique.

For days, she didn't know she'd made a mistake. Hiko carried on as always, complaining about the smallness of the fish in the stream, of how hard it was to light up wet wood, acting like everything was fine, all the while the sword in Miki's hands became heavier and heavier; and blood on the great, white cloak he'd yearned for — the blood of his master's master, and his master's, and his, and his — made it look heavier and heavier for him to shoulder. Soon after, he could barely eat or drink. Right now, he could barely stand to pick up a sword, or to use his barely trained Hiten Mitsurugi ryu knowing what happens at the end.

So when Hiko Seijuro flared her nose and said flatly, "What the hell is up with you then?" he told her—

"I don't want to carry your mantel." Miki grimaced, fists balling into heated, sweaty fists at his side. "I don't want to carry your sword! And I don't want your name either!"

"You don't mean that!" Hiko spat.

But he did, and Miki could see she Hiko knew it in her eyes, which were going cloudy with sudden, toiling, lightning anger, with just a microcosm of the shadow of shame and regret she'd feel if she knew she really wasted her time all these years.

Wasted her time training a weak-hearted coward like Miki.

"You said I had to want it," Miki said. "…Well, I don't anymore!"

"Miki, stop screaming."

"I don't want it! I don't want Hiten Mitsurugi ryu! I don't need it!"

"Miki, shut up."

"I don't—"

In a swift, deft flicker, Hiko appeared behind Miki, grasping his shoulder from behind, wrapping her forearm around his mouth, silencing him immediately. Miki barely had time to flinch. It occurred to him, belatedly, that he had never been outside his master's range at all, she could have crushed and silenced him at any time like this. He was completely powerless against her.

"Shh." Hiko loosened her arms, letting him breathe. "…There's someone here."

Out of the bushes came two lightly armoured samurai and one woman. The men were armed with two swords strapped to their sides while the woman carried a small dagger. Miki saw the insignia of his clan on their clothes and breathed in utter disbelief. His mind went spiralling.

His clan was dead. They burned to the ground. Hiko had told him.

"Who are you?" Hiko's voice easily carried over to the newcomers. "What are you doing here?

The woman, an old attendant of his family's, locked her eyes onto Miki and recognised him instantly.

"Young Master Himura! We've found you!"

1885

A thick, truly repugnant smell, bitter and sour all at once, wafted and filled the room. The decomposition made the air feel uncomfortably humid and rancid even though it had been aired and tended to, with measures to keep insects and vermin at bay. But the second Kenshin stepped foot into the morgue, a small wave of flies rose and resettled anyway. The smell of death quickly sunk into his red gi and up his nose until it was semi-bearable.

Then Saito and Kenshin both did their best to act like this didn't deter them. They stood amiably over the bodies, as if they were old friends perusing market stalls.

After examining all the bodies, Saito wordlessly peeled back the covers on the last one.

Kenshin peered over the wound.

Other than the healed, careless wound caused by wiping blood off the blade on the man's arm, all the other wounds were fresh. One slash in the shoulder. Bruises on the collar bone. One line running down the centre of his head. The man had died instantly. A hard lump had settled in Kenshin's throat, twisting about and making him dry and hoarse and speechless. He gotten used to the smell far too fast for a simple man of small standing and a former wanderer. He was eons too slow to get used it for a soldier from the revolution. Too slow. Kenshin swiped his fingers over the shoulder wound, seeing how deep it was.

He felt nauseous, but no part of him, from his gait to his breathing to his eyes, belied that. Himura Kenshin didn't have a gag reflex. That had died long ago along with his twenty-sixth kill. Kenshin didn't know why he remembered it was the twenty-sixth.

A memory:

It was broad daylight. Upon the steps of a temple, shaded slightly by the trees. There was a river nearby where he could hear water running.

On his very first kill, Kenshin had felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. He sliced the man — his name was Yakone Hamiyo, some mid-level man — and watched him bleed out on the floor, already dead. It was easy. Too easy, almost. After all the years he'd been put to practice and years of thinking he was a swordsmanship dunce — it was completely anticlimactic.

"This your first time?" Ishin Shishi agent Izuka had said, jogging up to him with a quick smile in his direction. "Wow. You did good. Hahah, I ask 'cos the first-timers usually throw up, you know."

Then, suddenly, and as unexpected as ever, on the twenty-sixth kill Kenshin watched a dead man bleed out again. The twenty-sixth was Rin Kisei. Rin Kisei was a nobody-messenger that had happened across something he ought not have. He died just like Yakone Hamiyo, sword through the head, down the collar, down the chest. But, then, a few minutes after, a half a kilometre or something away from the body, Kenshin had doubled over. His knees had gone weak and hit the floor, his hands had dug into the ground, and his stomach spasmed up-down, up-down.

He threw up.

He'd coughed up the contents of his stomach onto the ground and then gotten up. He immediately dusted himself off. Spat on the floor. And then continued on like nothing had ever happened. 'I didn't know,' he'd answered in his head too late, to the throw-away line Izuka had said to him. Kenshin didn't know why it was on the summer afternoon of his twenty-sixth murder that his gag reflex went into overdrive and his stomach turned against him. But it was then. Then, slowly, he bit the reflex down, began to train himself out of it so that he'd swallow it away and wouldn't have to flinch when he'd take another for dead. He was efficient in that way, in both body and mind.

It was a small, in all essentiality, trivial thing that no samurai would talk about. Though he was never a samurai, born to farmers, taught by a ronin. It was a flaw a soldier — no, he was neither a soldier — a useless flaw a hitokiri could not afford to have.

Small, sharp, and completely acclimatised; Hiktokiri Battousai had no gag reflex.

Kenshin swallowed, trying to shake away memories that kept flooding back, trying to bring the moisture back into his mouth. Back in the morgue, Saito was still waiting patiently for his analysis.

"This…this is Ryusuisen: Zan."

He traced a finger to the fatality, showing him. "One strike from above to the head. The same move I used to assassinate Shigekura Jubei."

And, perhaps, countless others. By then he'd lost count of how many he'd slaughtered. The official number recorded by the Ishin Shishi only took into account official assignments. The toll was in fact much higher as Battousai had to kill servants, bodyguards, witnesses as well as targets within his line of work. Names and faces loomed from his memories — a little fuzzy now, a little blurred. But they were there, as they'd lain there dormant for many years, never forgotten. Shigekura Jubei: sixty-one, greyed hair, a high ranking bakufu official. Shigekura Jubei was definitely above number eighty four, a number he knew because he'd stopped counting soon after. Kenshin knew why he remembered this one — it was the night he had gained his first scar, and the night he'd met Kiyosato Akira for the first time.

And the last.

"You see why I brought you?" Saito tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. It would have seemed like a nervous habit, if not coming from him. "If I recall correctly, it's a little favourite of yours. Your signature move."

It had been more than a decade since Kenshin had used the effortless power in him, the deft control in his form to make that move a lethal one. He felt his hand curl around the hilt of his sakabato. It was strange, then, had always been strange — that a former assassin would go to his weapon for reassurance. With practiced ease, Kenshin pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

"Zan. A term denoting 'immediate death,'" Saito continued, lips quirking up for a second. As if he were remembering a fond memory. He ambled around the last table, stopping and leaning back when he was opposite Kenshin, the two halves of the last body resting between them. "I'm right, aren't I?"

Kenshin finally pulled his eyes away from the butchered pieces of a man to Saito, nodding slowly. "You are right for certain. It is the Mitsurugi ryu."

"Your ryu," Saito affirmed.

"My ryu," Kenshin agreed.

"But it wasn't you."

"No, it wasn't me."

"And there are only two practitioners your style."

"…Yes."

Saito leaned back on the wall, folding his arms with a judgemental look. He seemed slightly annoyed that was all Kenshin had to say. In a less than humble tone, he sighed lengthily. "What a conundrum. I wonder who it could be."

Kenshin tried not to breath in too hard. He met Saito's wolfish eyes, dark and lined. "I'll talk to him, find out why he did this."

"Heh. 'Why' he did this hardly matters, when 'why' is applied to killing a gaggle of people. We call a murder a homicide now, Himura. Murders over ten, we call those 'serial killings.'" Saito bared his teeth in a way that was distinctly not a smile. "Your delightful master has waltzed through twenty-something."

"I know!" Kenshin bit back.

When he realised his own outburst, he turned away, looking vehemently back at the bodies and seeing nothing. He peered over them with a calm expression. "There must be a reason Hiko Seijuro did this. I may not like it, and it may not satisfy you — but I will find it, Saito."

He took a step back, lingered a moment, and then bowed stiffly. Short and efficient. But it seemed to give the opposite effect of a show of goodwill, as Saito's nose flared, and his ears went red, infuriated. He scrunched his nose and grimaced. "I don't want whatever pathetic gesture you're trying to convey, Himura. It's disgusting. I'm here to do my job and if that means we're on opposing sides again…" A smile crept across his lips. "Well, I suppose I should welcome that."

Himura managed a casual huff. "It was in lieu of Shishou. No matter why he did this, if the police want penance, then I will suffice."

Saito blinked. Visibly, he was put off by that remark. Like he forgot people did things for other people sometimes. Like he forgot people cared about other people sometimes. Like he thought Kenshin was more objective, more realistic than other people, normal people — he had thought he was better than this. Kenshin looked away, knowing he had disappointed Saito again.

Saito frowned. "Keep your idiotic notions to yourself. This is already enough paperwork for me to drown in. Don't complicate things. Give me an absolute."

"An absolute?"

Saito darkened. "Will Hiko Seijuro come quietly, or will he not."

"Saito," Kenshin stressed—

"Quietly."

"There has to be—"

"Or not."

Kenshin withdrew, his eyes downcast. "…I see…I understand. Alright."

Kenshin, all at once, remembered their differences and stopped his one-sided, bizarre feelings of camaraderie from clouding his judgement. It did not feel good, knowing distinctly that Saito was right, that Saito was the one being reasonable and rational right now, and Kenshin was only letting years of being fed, watered and clothed by said killer taint his point of view. If his master had truly turned and started killing left and right, this could be the greatest disaster to this city since the war itself. No one could stop him.

But Kenshin had to try.

Kenshin began heading briskly towards the door, keen to get away from Saito and his objective, uncompromising, downright accusing demeanour. "You can lay the bodies to rest now. Thank the coroner for me. Please give them a good burial."

"Himura," Saito said, rolling his head to the side. "Nearly all the ones your master has killed were linked to the Yakuza in one way or another."

Kenshin's eyes widened a fraction before settling. It was a subtle change that Saito caught. He got up to start pulling the covers back over the bodies. Their talk was not over.

"All that the police would eventually have dealt with — thieves, con-men, traffickers, street thugs and the such." Saito's eyes flickered up, a hollow glint in them. "If the police were half competent. You know, our missing children stats have been climbing ever since the Yakuza had set up shop here. Yet the authorities have been useless as usual."

Saito sneered inwardly. Such a small technically, but Kenshin's mouth quirked up at it: Saito didn't think himself as part of the police — they were a body unto themselves, and he was apart from them despite being their Commissioner. He couldn't control every aspect of their movements and competence, he certainly didn't give them the benefit of the doubt, and he would sooner trust Hitokiri Battousai himself than the hordes of underlings that swore they saw him appear and cannibalise someone last week.

Kenshin retraced his steps, heading back to help him, pulling the covers back over the bodies with great care. "Shishou has kept out of human affairs for more than ten years," he said. "I cannot vouch that he hasn't killed anyone within those years, or that he won't from now on. We don't…operate on the same values."

"He's a samurai. I don't expect any self-respecting swordsman to take an oath like you did."

"Hah. Yes. But times have changed. And for what it's worth — it's not like him. This is highly uncharacteristic of Shishou, to do what he did in the city."

"If it makes a difference — he's been getting rid of what the police can't. But Himura," Saito's voice came with an edge. "Death penalty is not a given. Besides, it's not something that master of yours can dole out as he pleases."

Kenshin nodded. "No, it isn't," he agreed.

A corner of Saito's mouth curled. "Are we on the same side, Himura?"

Kenshin lingered, saying nothing. The light outside seemed to be leaving fast. "I do not know the answer to that yet."

He turned to leave.

"Battousai. Wait."

Kenshin slowed to a stop, looking over his shoulder. Saito stuck his hand into his breast pocket, rummaging around to produce a crumpled piece of paper. He tossed it at Kenshin, who caught it and smoothed it out in his palms. He read out loud a familiar message: Tenchuu. Heaven's Justice. It was a revolutionary phrase employed by the agents of the Ishin Shishi, to call their goals part of Heaven's mandate, and to claim their government as one blessed by Heaven. Heaven's Justice became a calling card for the Ishin Shishi. Kenshin had penned this phrase many times before, it was part of his duties as the Ishin Shishi's assassin to scatter this message upon the bodies of those he'd disposed of.

Beneath the phrase on the strip of paper, the calling card, Kenshin read: "Heaven's Justice. By the hand of — Himura Battousai?" He looked up from the paper. "This was on the bodies?"

"No," Saito said. "These," Saito pulled another strip of calling card, and another, and another from his pockets, with the deadpan ease of a street-side magician. In any other context, the gesture would have been comical. Except there was no applause, because the audience was Kenshin, and his eyes did not appreciate the sleight of hand but actually widened in increasing horror.

"We have have buckets of these back at the station. The first murder apparently attributed to you occurred months ago. We found these calling cards — just like the ones the Ishin Shishi left during the revolution — upon the bodies. But those murders weren't like these latest ones. They were random. They were innocents. Shopkeepers. Teachers. Paper men. Dango sellers. Builders. All of them murdered in different fashions with only one similarity."

"The Tenchuu calling cards," Kenshin echoed. "…This one's old prerogative."

"Yes," Saito agreed. "But you're here now and not months ago because they called me to look at the blood and gore. There've been plenty of copy cats. Fakes. You're a big name, Himura, all the sick, repulsive human garbage wrong in the head adore you, want to please you, want to be you. In this city, your name means something."

The reasoning was simple — Battousai legends were intwined into the culture of Kyoto City and a favourite scapegoat of petty killers, thieves and townspeople. Kenshin did not forget the circumstances in which he'd come to meet Kaoru — when her life was being pulled apart by a false Battousai welding the Kamiya Kasshin ryu. His ghost seemed to part from him constantly, haunting so many places and people at once. Kenshin looked down. Awash with shame.

"But the people killed with these calling cards. They weren't murdered by Hiten Mitsurugi ryu, were they?" Kenshin asked.

"No," Saito agreed. "That's the confusing part. We know," Saito rolled his eyes to denote the rest of the police force, "we know that someone has been using your name to feel big and important while they sliced through a cross section of Kyoto. The killings have been sloppy, the styles unremarkable. The victims arrive singularly — one by one. I didn't need you to grace me with your exalted presence to know you didn't snap and start slaughtering innocents for the fun of it, exciting as that may be," Saito rasped. "The only notable thing is that—"

"My name," Kenshin cut in. He smoothed out the calling card, flipping it around to present it back to Saito, as if he hadn't spent days pouring over every detail of it. "Himura Battousai," he read again.

He paused. There were marks on the back of the slip.

"…People knew me as Hitokiri Battousai," Kenshin said, voice low. There was no sense of pride in him, only a tinge of discomfort in his voice as he said it. "People knew me as Manslayer, as Assassin, as Battou-jutsu master. How many people are still alive who knew me as 'Himura?'"

Saito nodded. Then he stood up, straightened his back until he towered over Kenshin again, and splayed his arms in jest. "That would make me one of your prime suspects."

Saito smiled jaggedly, hoping to get a rise out of him, but Kenshin wasn't in the mood. Saito might have been one of the only few left who knew his past as Himura, but the thought of him going around killing people under someone else's name, let alone Kenshin's, sounded preposterous. Aku, Soku, Zan; to slay evil immediately was Saito's creed. That aside, Kenshin simply knew it wasn't him the way Saito knew it wasn't Kenshin. After everything they had gone through being on opposite sides of a war, they held a startling, strange sort of clarity when it came to one another.

"Any other observations?" Saito inquired. He leaned in as if keen.

There was some kind of symbol on the back. Kenshin slowly brought the calling card closer, eyes squinting at two strange, even blotches with stems protruding from them. They didn't look like words…what were they?

"Hm. That was my exact reaction," Saito noted. He sounded sour. "You don't know what that is either, I take it?"

"…Some kind of symbol. Looks like…perhaps two fans, facing each other?"

"Or two shells, diagonally placed against each other."

If the imposters were truly targeting or using Hitokiri Battousai in some way, the symbol must have something to do with him. Kenshin's mind whirled away, trying to match the symbol…but to no avail. His mind came up empty. He put it down. "This lowly one doesn't know what this is."

Kenshin pocketed the calling card to think on later.

Saito went back to leaning coolly on the wall. But his expression seemed troubled, his hopes unceremoniously dashed. Saito had been sure Kenshin would somehow recognise the symbol. And he really didn't like being wrong.

Few could tell this was not an authentic recreation of the Ishin Shishi's calling cards, the two of them part of that ever thinning pool. But judging by Saito's reaction, Kenshin knew it had been the only thing the wolf had to go on.

"The ones with calling cards weren't murdered by Hiten Mitsurugi ryu," Saito said. "But the ones discovered last week, without calling cards, on the other hand, were. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I stumble upon a nice multiple homicide for once, without your stupid, fucking, mocking little Tenchuu calling card, only to discover that for the first fucking time — it is indeed the fruits of Hiten fucking Mitsurugi ryu."

At this point, Saito pulled off his gloves, threw them on the nearest covered body, and slapped his hands over his face. He wiped down tiredly.

His entire cool, amused facade seemed too much effort to keep up. He just slumped, hair bangs vibrating with gel and sweat, seeming tired beyond measure.

"So there are two killers," Kenshin confirmed. "One using my old calling card. And one using my style."

By process of elimination, they'd already established the one using Kenshin's style could only be Hiko Seijuro the Thirteenth. That left the other, using his old calling card. Who were they? And how did they know Hitokiri Battousai was Himura Kenshin, a closely guarded secret of the Ishin Shishi and the government to this day? Most of Kenshin's contemporaries had passed, including his commanding officer Katsura Kogoro, and other Shishi leaders such as Okubo. Saito was the only remaining Shinsengumi leader. Shishio and the rest were long gone.

"And," Saito gestured quaintly to the dead bodies, "what do you think the rest of the force and the people of this city think of these?"

Kenshin looked towards them again. "…They would not be able to see the difference. They would see the culprit as one and the same. They would take me as responsible for both."

Saito made a sound of approval.

"Keep your sword at your side," he snapped, turning on a dime. "I can't—won't offer you protection. The rest of the force want to put their claws into you and they haven't on my account. But I can't say the same for every idiot out there."

Kenshin sighed casually. Like being accused of doing the one thing he'd sworn off was just a minor embarrassing inconvenience.

"Himura," Saito called again. He seemed to struggle with getting his words out this time, with an uncomfortable look on his usually stern, placid face. "…If these fools arrest you, I'll break you out. We are going to catch the impersonators and your master." He stared at Kenshin with pensive eyes. Kenshin met them, knowing what Saito was asking of him, and knowing what he truly meant: that he would at a moment's notice give up everything he had in his reconstructed, post-revolution life to see the false Battousais get justice.

That was surprisingly candid of him.

Saito's eyes narrowed wolfishly. "You're going to fight. And you're going to mean it, aren't you?"

Kenshin nodded. He clutched the hilt of his sakabatou, lifting it, emphasising his equal devotion. "Consider this my responsibility."

Saito scoffed. It was a token effort to pretend to be disgusted by Kenshin as usual — but even Kenshin could see the relieving effect of being assured an ally in the upcoming fight. After all, who else could he have gone to? Who else could have understood him and the gravity of this situation?

Only another relic of the past.

The two of them, antiquated enemies, stood close.

Then Saito pulled himself off the wall, passing Kenshin to get back to work. He whistled to the two guards outside, commanding them to close the morgue. "Right. I've seen enough of you. Get back to your wife and the rest of the cavalry."

Kenshin, almost reflexively, put his hand up to wave before he realised what he was doing. He finally turned to leave.

"Goodbye, Saito."

Notes.

Thanks to SiriusFan13 for letting me use their Hiko Seijuro XIII backstory, like his name being Himura Miki. It's an awesome take on grumpy old Hiko 13 and I hope to reflect that here. Little Miki is actually 12 years old in 1848, but he's just been kinda malnourished so he seems smaller. More on this later!

It felt really weird to say that the cloak was white leather. But, what other material could have lasted that long? For 100-200 years? Only leather, right? Please imagine it as a kind of thin, pleasing kind of leather.

I really love Kenshin and Saito begrudgingly being friends. Frenemies. Whatever they are. It's compelling. They used to try kill one other every night, but now it's the future and it's like. Everyone else they know is dead but each other. Saito is actually personally offended these lowlives are impersonating his fav murderer to fight back in the war. There's a weird kind of kinship to them.