In the Aoiya
After taking two wrong turns on his way to the ninja inn, ambling about the afternoon crowds two-to-three heads taller than everyone else — uncomfortably visible and looking like confused livestock among a sea of pheasants — Hiko Seijuro the Thirteenth strut into the Aoiya with completely unwarranted triumph. Barely a minute had passed when the girl whom Hiko recognised as the one who burst into his house unannounced all those years ago scouted him out of all the people coming to the inn, and she turned on him like fish to chum. She dropped the young kid's hand she was holding with enthusiasm, nearly bowling him over in the process.
"Good afternoon Sir! Welcome to the Aoiya Inn! You've just missed the music hours, today we had Nana and Tachibana on the shamisen — they'd probably be back tomorrow but—"
As she unleashed upon Hiko all the amenities of the inn, including what was on tonight's dinner menu, (funny thing, we have a slight rice shortage right now — I know that sounds bad! But that's on us, total misfortune — so we're limiting it to two bowls per guest. Which is heaps! Who needs three bowls of rice? We have other food—) Hiko combed his mind to place her name. Was it…Misa? Misuo?
While the girl continued on with her lengthy welcome speech, Hiko pointedly tried not to lock eyes with the kid who'd finally waddled back to her side. A tiny, brown-haired boy with deep mahogany for eyes and a bird's nest for hair. He stared at Hiko with big, wide eyes. He seemed vaguely familiar, but Hiko didn't care to place his face. Before long, the kid's stare shifted from Hiko to what Hiko was wearing. Staring and staring. Hiko felt sized up. In his experience, kids were just easily distracted by people in long cloaks; but it looked as if it was giving this boy physical pain to not tug the cloak. Hiko backed away slowly.
"And we offer discounts for the onsen — it's just a street away. One week stay, baths for cheap, how's that?" the girl finished with a flourish.
"Kunoichi," Hiko said weakly, "Do you not remember me?"
The kunoichi straightened. Rather than continuing being the graceful host, she looked a little affronted her facade had been pierced so easily. She put her hands on her hips, leaning to one side as she looked Hiko up and down.
"Wh— you're Himura's master!" She all but shouted to the world, "Hiko Shi…Sen…Hiko Senburo!"
With that, she brazenly pulled his arm to lead him inside. Hiko briefly let her before whipping his arm back to himself like a burn victim. "Hiko Seijuro. Thirteenth of my name," he corrected, a brow twitching once, twice. "I'm here to see—"
"—Himura!" she said sunnily. She leaned in. "It's Makimachi Misao, you remember me, clearly! Come right inside Hiko-san, I'll put on a pot of tea. Must be tired, all that walking up and down your mountain, right?" she said, as if Hiko was at an age where his legs were starting to fail him.
As Misao turned, she almost bowled over the kid again, but the kid rabbited out of the way in the last second. Misao tripped. Hiko whipped out one hand, grabbing her by the scruff of her collar. A knee-jerk response. She regained balance in a quick breath. Hiko withdrew just as fast.
"Ahh! You little tyke!" Misao said to the kid. "Almost killed me again!"
"Haha — ha!" the kid giggled. His eyes darted between them curiously.
Misao bent, rubbing the boy on the head so hard the tangles would take hours to undo. Hiko looked away so he wouldn't feel the physical pain of having to watch.
"Ahh, almost forgot. Lil' tyke, say hi to Hiko Seijuro. Be polite!" she snapped.
The kid's head came angling to Hiko again. Hiko acknowledged him with a brief wave. Obviously at the end of his self control, the kid came tentatively forward, looked up — and then curled a little hand around the hem of Hiko's cloak. Hiko felt the pin-prick tug before his head shot down in his direction. The kid's head vaulted up. He pursed his lips, testing Hiko's give, and Hiko didn't even frown or move, but mercifully, the kid let go of his cloak. Hiko nodded a silent 'thanks' for leaving him alone.
"Kunoichi," Hiko started. "There's no need to announce me. I do not need to see the owner of the house."
"That's fine." Misao manoeuvred the kid between her legs so he wouldn't pounce on Hiko's cloak again. "Grandpa Okina is busy with another guest," she said, spewing out unnecessary things like there was no tomorrow. "We get all sorts of people around here — he's way too busy entertaining his new best friend. The resident woman samurai. Well, you know — she still regards herself as one."
"An onna-bugeisha," Hiko said. A strange feeling came over him, that such a relic could still exist. "…How trifling. That there are people in this world who still stubbornly cling to the title of samurai years after it has been abolished." He scoffed. "Pitiful."
And what about the people who went back to their old ways after the era had changed?
Hiko shook the thought away.
"Kenshin," he said. "Summon me my former disciple, Kunoichi," Hiko said tersely, "I need to speak with him immediately."
Misao nodded. "C'mon." She gestured. "I'll set you up with a room first. Big Himura's not here right now."
Big? Misao and the kid led Hiko to a lightly furnished room, where they both promptly made themselves at home. Misao sat across the tea table, grabbed the restless kid, and started bouncing him on her lap. Hiko sat opposite.
"Big Himura went out a while ago and hasn't come back, right, lil' tyke?" Misao said in a high pitched voice. "Said something about 'going up the mountain.' What other mountain can they be talking about other than yours?" She chuckled as if she'd shared a joke. "Looks like you just missed each other. Like a kabuki act! You're welcome to wait here, he'll probably be back soon."
Hiko's mind blanked.
Kenshin went to find him? Why?
The last time he went up Mount Atago was to petition Hiko to teach him Mitsurugi ryu's succession technique. A technique so fast, so godlike; if perfection existed it reared its head in the name of Amakakeru ryu no Hirameki. The ultimate stroke in an art of death. Even if by some miracle it was evaded, one could not escape its maw of physical air displacement. If performed right.
His deshi — former deshi — learned the technique without ever wanting to kill with it.
Hiko shut his eyes.
But Kenshin had killed. That much was clear.
If hearsay was anything accurate, he'd killed over twenty times in the space of a few months. He'd killed ordinary people: shopkeepers. Teachers. Paper men. Dango sellers and such. If Kenshin hadn't the resolve to kill the likes of Shishio the crazed man with the flame sword and plot to bring down the government or what have you, surely the person who got his order wrong at the food stall deserved to live.
Hiko sighed, put a hand to his face. These thoughts, incoming waves of nausea, washed over him like knives to the back, and he felt himself not wanting to go against the current, to just slump with it. Maybe go to sleep and leave it all alone. Let whatever morbid curiosity that had poked its snout of its hole die. Retreat into the mountains and shut his door. Unknow these inconvenient truths, unmeet Kamiya Kaoru at the market, undisappoint himself with the endless wheel of woe that was reality; one he was far too well acquainted with, and would do well to leave him be. But alas. He could not. Hiko blocked out the sound of the kunoichi's neighbourly chatter, blocked out the sound of the kid's babbling, and entered into a half-meditative state with his eyes open.
Time to think.
Kenshin was not his deshi. Not anymore. He frankly didn't owe a thing to Hiko, and didn't have to take Hiko's opinions on his sloppy murders. But Hiko, so long as he lived, was the Thirteenth of his name.
The conundrum:
Hiten Mitsurugi ryu is passed down for masters to wield their expertise in the name of their fellow man. There is a duty to this, to never kill under political flags; to never kill indiscriminately, for personal pleasure, for personal gain; to realise good and evil were never absolute; and you, the master, have the power — the ultimate power — to make that arbitrary judgment.
If nothing is true, if nothing matters, then only principles do.
Your duty, unto which your name is bestowed, is to safeguard the principles of Hiten Mitsurugi ryu.
Kenshin had told Hiko: he had taken an oath. Now he had broken it. He had broken it over and over, not just dirtying himself and throwing ten years of repentance down the drain — ten long years of a lesson learned the hard way, as Hiko did — but soiling Hiten Mitsurugi ryu. And that, unfortunately, made it Hiko's problem.
As Hiko sat, dead like a statue, watching the kunoichi entertain the kid, with nowhere to avert his eyes — a thing in him registered that something didn't make sense. If Kenshin had killed, why come looking for Hiko? Why come looking for someone who will be your adversary? Did Kenshin come up his mountain looking for guidance — or an end? As these questions walked into his head unannounced, like each of the baka's little friends into his house, Hiko thought. If Kenshin had soiled Mitsurugi ryu. If Kenshin had come for absolution. If Kenshin were in front of him right now. Could he, Thirteenth of his name, do his duty? Could he, Seijuro, honour his own oath?
This is what I'm training you for. This is the entire point. If you can't do this, then why did I make you my deshi.
Hiko wanted to burst out laughing. All this internal juggling, this circus of philosophical nothings, and all he really needed to ask himself was if he could kill Kenshin or not. That was easy. Of course he could. Of course he could.
"OW! — ow, ow — oh this was a bad idea." Misao, mid-bounce, lifted the kid off of her and plodded him down to the side. "Oh, that was a bad idea, my stomach…sorry kiddo, I'll order Omime to bounce you later."
Hiko cleared his throat. The lights blinked on behind his eyes, the physical world coming back into abject focus. "I thank you for your hospitality. I will stay until Himura arrives." Resigned, he raised his cup to take a sip of tea. "It's important you send him to me the moment he is back. Can you do that, Kunoichi?"
"I can do that." Misao grinned to the kid. "Isn't that right, Lil' Himura?"
Hiko's thoughts came to a halt.
This was not ideal, as he was still in the middle of drinking his tea. He choked on it, spluttered involuntarily, and ended up with water dribbling down his chin and a large wet patch on the front of his gi.
"Woah— Hiko-san, are you ok? Gosh, drink slowly!"
Hiko looked at the boy. A beam of sun sloped across the room, the day outside changing, and for the first time Hiko noticed how red the boy's hair was in this light. Suddenly, it all made stark sense. The round, pudgy face, the red-brown hair, the big, knowing eyes. He looked familiar because he looked like a boy he'd met in a massacre. Digging graves no one else would. Doing katas until he bled. Shouting at him in the snow. Occupying a space in his mind, with the blasted audacity to remain there wedged like a nail in wood, hammered into his makeup until his stupid baka ways infected Hiko as well, getting under his skin until he couldn't get it out.
He looked like Kenshin younger than Hiko had ever known him.
"Wh—" Hiko coughed once, twice, clamouring to speak. "What's — what did you call the boy?"
Misao was so concerned with him choking on water she'd flown up before realising she couldn't help him unchoke on water; and while she was looking worried the kid stared at Hiko as if scandalised by his table manners. The kid crawled defensively back to Misao.
"…Lil'...Himura?" Misao squinted at the boy as if something might be wrong with him. "What's wrong? Kenji looks fine to me."
It was Hiko's turn to stare. He stared and stared. Like an animal paralysed from fear. An insect caught in a web. Like a kid riveted at people in cloaks — his world tilting slightly on an axis while his interworks realigned itself, and he scrambled to do math in his head.
"…How old is he?" Hiko inquired, politely, as if his world view were not tectonic plates shifting.
"Hey, Kenji, how old are you? Don't act so shy, you were such a chatterbox before. Go on, tell Hiko-san."
Kenji slid out of Misao's lap. With a formal bow, he said, "I'm gonna be four, Hiko-san."
Misao twisted her nose in thought. "Kenji, shouldn't you call him Hiko-sama? I mean, he's your pop's master."
The boy twisted in her direction. "But you call him -san."
"I call him -san cos he's not my master."
"Well he's not mine either."
"Ahh, Kenji! That's so rude! Gosh, you spend way too much time with Yahiko." Misao dove to mess up his hair again, and this time it did give Hiko a physical shiver as she fashioned it into a messy stack. All the muscle memory of attempting to tame Kenshin's hair with a tiny wooden comb came rushing back to Hiko all at once—
"Stop it!"
Hiko balked at himself as the words slipped past him.
Misao and Kenji turned to him with their brows raised.
"…It'll take hours to undo the tangles," he had to finish saying.
In the awkward pause, one of the other kunoichi burst into the room without announcing, eyes scanning for Misao. "Misao-sama!"
They noticed Hiko at the table and bowed jerkily. They hesitated to speak further.
"Omasu. Speak openly," Misao said. "Hiko-san's a friend. He's helped defend the Aoiya before."
"—It's our informant. We've been given new details," the ninja blurted. "Not a telegram this time. Detailed sources. With this, we can cross reference the information upon the police telegrams we've received…"
The air of the room changed as Misao got up. Kenji mirrored her, climbing to his feet. "Ah no, Lil' Himura. Big Sis' got work now."
"But Aun' Misao!" Kenji pouted.
She brushed four fingers through Kenji's hair, then gently pushed him back.
"Hiko-san," Misao said, "Look after Lil' Himura for a bit, okay? I won't be long. I'll come pick him up before Big Himura gets back! Whatever you do, don't let him outside. —Himura — the big one — said not to let him outside."
"…Wait. Kunoichi," Hiko strained, but Misao was already out the door. "Misao!"
The door shut behind her. Hiko turned back.
Kenji sat on the floor across the table from him, his eyes drifting hungrily to his cloak. Then back up to Hiko.
Hiko could not take his eyes off his red-brown hair. The unblemished left cheek. The air in the room went completely still, and it got so silent he thought he could hear a pin drop a mile away; Hiko was soon uncomfortably aware of the sound of his own heartbeat and the knowledge that he was stuck in a room with Himura Kenji. The knowledge that this boy was just as aware of his presence as he his. Strangers trapped in a train compartment, going nowhere.
Then Kenji's eyes flickered back to the cloak.
Kyoto Police Headquarters
As Eiji opened the door to the station, the talk and commotion inside crested up a moment before a large gust of wind upturned every loose piece of paper, sending everyone into a frenzy. Officers scrambled to catch case reports and witness statements out of the air. Meanwhile, the lieutenant Kagehisa and two others were occupied with dragging a man to the holding cells through the small crowd of bereaved citizens. Kamoda, who had made it back first, was calming down a crying man.
No one was paying attention to the woman currently half-over the reception desk, hollering, "Can anyone help me?! I know my children have only been missing for a few days — I know — I know others have it much worse — but please! I just want some information! Doa! Rin! Their names are Isaku Doa and Rin! Who's the officer on the case? I want to speak with them. Please just let me—"
Eiji stiffened at the sight of her. Discreetly, he pulled Saito's attention and made a quick hand sign towards the floor. Saito breathed out smoke. The family of the victim. What perfect timing.
Saito approached her. "Ma'am. I understand that you are here regarding a missing persons case?"
"What do you think you're doing?!" An officer grabbed Saito's shoulder, forcing him back to face them. "We don't just give…"
As soon as they saw who it was they'd just grabbed, they trailed off. The officer backed away slowly. "Commissioner…excuse me."
This prompted the woman to turn to Saito with renewed vigour. "Yes. Help me. I'm Isaku Iriya. My two daughters went missing at the memorial park…I left them alone for a second and they…" She cut herself off. "Isaku Doa. Isaku Rin. I know you're busy, I know, I know, but I want—"
"You require information on your children's case. I understand. Please, if you'll wait a while, I will be with you presently. There is urgent news you must know." Saito bowed politely.
Iriya did the same, calming down greatly. "I…Yes…of course. Yes."
"I will be with you as soon as I can. Excuse me."
As soon as Saito rounded the corner he took a puff of his cigarette. No one bothered to rip their eyes from their work, allowing Saito to walk almost twenty steps down the corridor before a slew of men realised, and jumped on him like flies to decay. They careened in front, viciously blocking the path.
"Commissioner!"
"Fujita-sama, listen…"
Saito smoked. "I am listening," he looked between the three of them. "I should like to listen to why you are blocking my way to my office, Kagehisa, Sou, Takano."
"Commissioner," Lieutenant Kagehisa gestured largely, blinking and unblinking as if he were afraid Saito would disappear from right in front of him. "Wh—Where were you all morning?! We sent Mishima looking for you! —Your meeting with Yamagata-sama!"
"My meeting with Yamagata is none of your concern. Why don't you stick to your schedule and keep your nose out of mine." He tipped his cigarette in the air. "Out of the way, Sou."
Officer Sou pointedly did not get out of the way. "Fujita-sama…Sir Yamagata ain't happy with you…"
"Any new developments?" He angled his head a little so as to not blow smoke in their faces. "Now get out of my way. Or I'll get Mishima to do it for me."
Saito pushed past Officer Sou. Kagehisa actually reached out, attempting to stop him again, "Wait, Commissioner!—You don't want to go in there!" but this caused Eiji to step in, pushing him back with a stony face that said this was the last thing he wanted to do right now.
"Fujita-sama—"
"Don't go in there, Commissioner!"
At the end of the corridor, Officer Takano gave Saito an apologetic look. "Just be careful." Takano opened the double doors.
Inside Saito's office, behind Saito's desk, was Yamagata Arimoto. He scrunched at the morning paper splayed out in front of him, squinting slightly. Yamagata didn't look up when Saito stepped into the room. He seemed to be tracing the small print with one monocled eye, completely engrossed in the side columns.
Saito's eyes flickered to the side. His documents had been moved. A few books seemed to have been reshelved to precision. The pile of paperwork from the desk had been shifted onto the floor to make space, and his trash bin was suspiciously empty. Even his ashtray had been cleaned out. Saito took a long, hard drag. He stood still while Yamagata sat.
After a while, Yamagata spoke.
"Forgive me for not announcing my arrival." His voice was polite and level. "I did not wish to intrude upon your work. You are busy. I thought, instead of you coming to my office, I should simply accommodate and meet you in yours."
"How generous of you." After another drag, Saito took one of the guest seats. "What do you want?"
"Fujita, please. Not even a greeting?"
So that was how he wanted to play it. Saito removed his sword from his belt, set it leaning on the desk. He dragged his ashtray across the table, lightly tipping his cigarette. Then he placed his gloved hands upon the table, and bowed his head. "Good afternoon, Sir Yamagata. Kindly, what has you so incensed you had to grace me with your ire directly."
"Good of you to ask, Fujita." With that, Yamagata flipped up his newspaper, revealing the scrunched up title. Battousai Kills Again. Pulpy. Saito narrowed his eyes to read the fine print. He hadn't seen this one yet. Maybe they had finally come up with something new to say about Battousai that was worth lying about. Two more dead in one night — sources describe "complete dismemberment" — violent death and abduction attributed to the Hitokiri Battousai — claims of cannibalism are vin—
"What do you say to this?" Yamagata inquired.
Saito stewed in his thought. "Does it matter what I have to say? You have already decided whether to renew or dismiss me. Your verdict will not change, no matter what I have to say about the false Battousais."
"False Battousai?" Yamagata repeated. The colour in his face rose steadily as he leaned across the desk. "You were the one who identified Battousai's work the first time. Have you forgotten? You were the one who swore your life upon it!" he snapped. "Why has that song changed?"
Saito shook his head. Yamagata, as stiff as he was, was still under the impression the two separate killings were the same.
"Not Battousai's work," Saito said. "Just his sword style. That, I swore." His eyes flickered up. "The case has progressed. There is a difference. Not many can tell."
"And you are the only one who can?" Yamagata leaned back, sighing gravely. "That is no longer good enough, Fujita. We cannot rely on the musings of one man. Even if they come from the likes of you."
Saito laughed shortly. "The likes of me. Quaint of you to put it that way…" he said, and Yamagata bristled. "Rest assured, Yamagata-san. I have leads to the killers. One will pan out fairly soon, once I outline a course of action." He regarded him earnestly. "The killers will be caught."
"Yes. He will be." Yamagata folded his hands in front of him with an air of finality. "You have contacted Himura Battousai. He is in the city as we speak. I am aware."
Saito rose in his seat. His face set like flint. How did Yamagata know? Who was his source? Which of the men had barked? —But no, none of them knew Himura as the true Battousai...this truth could not be relayed through flittings of orders. Caught red-handed, and owning up to it without so much as a flinch, Saito removed his cigarette to speak — but Yamagata put up his hand, flickering away whatever half hearted explanation he had yet to come up with. He was apparently not here to chide him. Things were beyond that now.
"The time has come…Battousai was always a loose thread to the Choshu. And now look. There is no one else who can be responsible for this than he."
"Answer my question," Saito said. "What. Do you want."
"I want you to arrest him."
Saito stared at Yamagata as if he had spoken gibberish. In his mind the cogs were turning backwards, ticking at high speed, and Saito caught himself wondering if Yamagata had been this much a moron the entire time, or he'd simply slipped into it the more cosy he got behind a desk all these years. It alarmed him greatly, if perhaps he had been this much a moron all this time, and Saito was equally as thick to have failed to see the full extent of it. Of all the Ishin-Shishi-turned politicians he could have lost a war to align himself with, why did it have to be this one? Sometimes, in deep, dark moments, when Yamagata wanted him to arrest the wrong fool, Saito wished Okubo didn't get stabbed thirty eight times.
"…I'm not arresting…" he enunciated, as if to a child, "…a man for murder…if they did not…do the murders," he finished with some trouble.
Yamagata beat a fist onto the table, causing the ashtray, and every pen on Saito's desk, to jump. A thin layer of ash powdered the air. "This is an order. Will you arrest him or not?"
"Will I facilitate a miscarriage of justice? No."
A muscle in Yamagata's lip leaped, and he quivered with the slighted indignance of fledgling new age aristocracy. "You are forgetting yourself. Let me remind you, you are not Saito Hajime anymore; you are not a dog of Mibu. You are Fujita Goro and you work for the Meiji government. I bid you understand what I am saying, Fujita. You are right in that circumstances have changed. These serial killings each day are breaking down society. People are in fear, hysteria. The government must be seen to be doing something, or civil society will collapse. As it has before in this city. We — cannot afford that. An arrest must be made in order to quell the hysteria."
Yamagata spoke feverishly-quick. As if he were voicing every thought that was arriving in his head, trying so dutifully to convince himself in the process.
"Himura Battousai remains the prime suspect — you will do well to arrest him."
"So what you did to Shishio...you would do now to Himura?" Saito said lightly.
Yamagata reddened even more. "That is not what I meant. Those were not my words, do not twist it."
"I know nothing," Saito said. "Like your reminder, I don't exist beyond this uniform, this post." Taking another puff of his cigarette, Saito sighed. "All I know is that Himura Battousai was not physically in the city. And has a thousand and one alibis in Tokyo ready to be taken. All it takes is a letter to their Metropolitan Police and—" Saito trailed off. Cigarette smoke rose up in a single straight line as he paused, stock-still. "…The letter. That's how you know. You intercepted my letter. Ah."
Three years ago, Saito had been pulled from his post in Sapporo, Hokkaido. It was his last undercover mission, tracing a line of illegal weapons manufacture deep into the mountains. Before then, it was Nagoya, hunting down particularly dangerous death row prisoners. Before then, Sendai, slipping between the ranks of a terrorist militia. Each time, he disappeared into the bushes for long months, leaving a dapple of bodies in his wake. But the illegal weapons were found, the death row prisoners dealt with, the terrorist militia destroyed.
Each time, his new handler Yamagata worried not that he would fail the mission, but that he would fail to resurface. Saito's methods had been too much of a loose canon for him, who wanted complete control. Ever afraid to produce another Shishio, Fujita Goro's name was officially written into existence, placed into the general force as Commissioner in Kyoto. There, they could keep him in the light. Puppet him as they so wished. Plant him at a desk.
Saito understood this. Saito understood all of this flagrantly; his own government did not trust him, a traitorous dog, a venomous snake, working for the winners of the war he lost.
He did not care. Aku, Soku, Zan. So long as he could continue exacting justice, his justice — the only justice he knew — he did not care what uses Yamagata and the others found for him.
Saito straightened up, took one last drag of cigarette, then stubbed it out. There was really no point flitting around corners with Yamagata. He no longer felt the need to explain anything. So he wanted a stage trial, an arrest for the sake of appearances…even more crass than Saito would have imagined. Bowing to the slightest bit of pressure for an arrest — any arrest — was why the government could be so laughable.
Saito sat openly, regarding Yamagata in a casual manner. He was no longer invested in this conversation. "So you want to arrest Himura. I understand. I'll put out the warrant. —Kagehisa!"
The lieutenant, who burst through the doors and reacted far too quickly to the command, came to attention. He bowed to Yamagata then Saito respectively.
"Lift the suspension on Hitokiri Battousai's arrest warrant. 'Himura Kenshin. To be arrested on sight.'"
Lieutenant Kagehisa's brows furrowed. He looked between Saito and Yamagata, then blanked his face. "Understood, Commissioner Fujita. Sir Yamagata." He left as quickly as he came.
Saito turned to Yamagata. "There. Wishes fulfilled," he said. As if his order were a child's whim, and he, as ever, was happy to indulge.
Yamagata soured. "Do not try to stall. You know what must be done. I command you to apprehend Himura now."
"And how am I supposed to do that?" he said flatly. "You think Himura would let me know his whereabouts? What are we, good chums?" Saito ran a hand through his hair, slicking back a few loose bangs, smiling serenely all the while. "Am I to voodoo his whereabouts? Am I to consult a shaman? Perhaps I should pen another letter, post an invitation in the papers, then wait for Battousai to take the bait."
"Enough, Saito!"
"On the contrary," Saito said, getting up. "Saito doesn't exist."
Saito watched Yamagata loudly get up, rustling the newspapers and documents. He looked at Saito with narrowed, angry eyes. Then he stormed out of his office.
Saito resumed his seat at his desk, surveying how his things and files and trash had been messed with. After a minute, Kagehisa, Sou, Takano and Eiji wormed their way to his door.
"Fujita-sama?"
"…Just get in."
Sou went up to his desk and leaned over the guest seat. "…We really putting out the warrant for that Himura guy?"
"Yes."
Sou grinned wryly, shrugging like these politics were beyond him. " 'Kay."
"…It doesn't matter. The police force sorely lacks that which makes it possible to 'arrest' Himura. Just expect to give medical leave for anyone who actually tries."
As his own words sunk in, absurd and alien, Saito sighed and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. All this ludicrous nonsense, these empty, bureaucratic rituals that would only get in the way of the real investigation. And for what? The police play-acting at catching killers?
"Dismissed," he said, and everyone cleared out. But as everyone left Eiji stayed behind.
Eiji, looking dissatisfied, said nothing.
Right. The whetstone. Saito didn't even remember where he put it…never mind. Never mind.
"You can go back to the house today," Saito said. "My work isn't over."
Eiji looked down. "No, Commissioner. It never is."
Saito moved his pile of confiscated pistols into a cabinet, removed sketches and photographs of bloody bodies lying out in the open. Then he moved the newspaper out of sight —vindicated? — joint candlelight vigil for children and victims deemed illegal, no council permission given — talks of curfew arise — last city-wide curfew reportedly occurred during Bakumatsu for, quote, "the exact same reasons."
Saito wiped a sleeve over the powder of ash on the tabletop. He buttoned up his uniform, glancing at his reflection in the window. His hair was getting a bit long. Nothing he could do about that now. He ran another hand in to slick it back. One hand on his hip, Saito spun around the room, scanning for anything else that might be upsetting.
"Send in Isaku Iriya on your way out."
Notes
Thank you to Ankesenpaaten on discord who helped me remove a mention of radio that was not accurate to this time. Telegrams which were relayed through telegraph lines was the main mode of communication. Radio only became widespread around 1920s. Under Misao's leadership, the Aoiya has tapped into the telegraph system. Technology is advancing. They have adapted their espionage. The use of informants is also a thing.
Also thanks to FrostyEmma who beta read this chapter :)
Saito's 'Commissioner' rank means he's the boss of Prefectural Police Headquarters. He's the top cop of an entire prefecture: Kyoto. Above him is Commissioner General, the boss of national police - I had Yamagata Arimoto step in as the face of the state after that. You might remember Yamagata as the statesman who had been trying to track Kenshin and briefly asked him to join the Meiji government's military (since he was the chief of the military). In the first live action RK movie, Yamagata was the man who holds Kenshin's hands in his his and goes, "use the strength in these hands again for us." He was also portrayed as Saito's boss in that one. (I suspect that Saito also has a hard time working with him because...Yamagata was Choshu. His former Meiji superiors Okubo and Kawaji were Satsuma...)
Clicks fingers*
Now to do everything I can to thwart ffnet link ban to show you guys visuals I drew for Hiko 12 and Hiko 13. If you cannot copy paste on computer/laptop, you can on phone.
First one: (put the link together)
earl-of-221b (fullstop) tumblr (fullstop) com
/post/617708702296899584/time-to-draw-my-twelfth-knight-rk-fanfic-oc
Second one:
earl-of-221b (fullstop) tumblr (fullstop) com
/post/619357025320730624/the-two-hikos
Third one:
earl-of-221b (fullstop) tumblr (fullstop) com
/post/621056688048504833/hiko-13
Or search up 'Twelfth Knight' in the tags of my tumblr: earl-of-221b.
Thank you for all your kind comments. I love to hear what you have to say about the fic and talk back at you. We're going to be in the Aoiya for one more chapter before things start to heat up and the groups can start colliding.