A chapter before the year is out!
Glossary:
'Chazuke' - a typical homemade meal of rice soaked in green tea, with variable toppings.
'Oyabun' - the boss of the Yakuza in organised crime.
'Taiko' - a type of Japanese drum.
'Tathagata' - one of the names of the Buddha, or Gautama Buddha.
'Fasciotomy' - surgical procedure where flesh is cut to relieve pressure, treating the resulting loss of circulation to an area of tissue or muscle.
1878
A memory.
"Sacrificing yourself with the compassion of the Buddha will only sow sorrow in the people you fight for. Quietly laying down your life is insignificant in the ever-flowing passage of time," Hiko lectured. "There is nothing stronger than the will to live. Never forget that, and the Amakakeru ryu no Hirameki is yours."
Kenshin looked down. His hands were shaking. There was no blood.
He'd never hit Hiko like that before.
He looked up.
"Think nothing of it," Hiko said. "This is the fate of master and disciple when the secret is passed down. Don't think of it as—"
Hiko didn't look so good.
"—breaking your vow…"
He had known. All that counting and hounding and training, all the carved tops and balanced meal plans and late night poetry, all those years — those two decades — he had known, and like a lying, scheming, skulking megalomaniac, he had continued to play master to raise Kenshin up — fed him, clothed him, educated him, knowing all this time he was doing it to kill himself. To walk him closer to his preferred way of death. And he was somehow so committed to this, so fucking committed to this, devout as any zealot to a cause, that the second Kenshin came crawling back to him he, like some obfuscating Tengu that only spoke in riddles, taught Kenshin his final lesson. That his master, the man to whom he had knelt, was a charlatan who could not practice what he preached, who from the start had quietly conceded to his own death. Selfish, careless, narcissistic deadbeat. A hypocrite as the gods ever saw one. Kenshin never asked for this.
Kenshin never asked for this.
1885
Kyoto
Near deaf to the world, the sound of his own heartbeat hammered like taiko in his ears. Without that sense, stealth escaped him. His chest rose up and down, rabbitlike, as his lungs burned with fatigue. Aoshi knew this was it. He had managed to lose ten…perhaps fifteen men off his trail. But the remaining five stuck to him like hounds, rabid off his scent. He could not lose them. He was alone. There was nowhere to hide. And now he was exhausted.
Aoshi turned and waited.
He had only this short moment to collect himself.
One against five.
Laudable odds, usually.
Right now it was laughable. He wouldn't be able to take two of them if he could barely hear from overexertion, barely smell addled by fish, and barely see in the pitch dark. If they had guns…the odds certainly reflected that.
But Aoshi drew his kodachi, waiting calmly for the fight. Ten, fifteen men on his tail. He could outrun them. Five men, variably armed. He could fight them.
Could the average person take this abuse?
The new trainees with the Oniwabanshu? The asylum seekers flocking to the Aoiya?
How about Misao?
Aoshi understood keenly why Okina had gone back to old habits. Why Misao agreed to play shadow leader. Why Himura had returned. He had now seen firsthand the power and coordination of the Yakuza.
Focus. None of that mattered right now. Aoshi could not lose here. No matter how tired he was, how many blows he'd absorb, how much of a beating he'll take, he had to fight. Information control, espionage and information dissemination was his trade, and tonight, he had a message to deliver.
The false Battousai was not from this time.
He was the only one who could prove Himura Kenshin's innocence.
So when the men came at him Aoshi lunged, striking the first man in quick succession across his torso. But when he receded to take on the next one, he realised the man was alone — where were the others? — when something heavy struck him in the back, bringing searing pain. The others jumped him, each one pulling a limb behind his back, wrestling his kodachi from him. Aoshi rocketed forward, pulling the men forward in a last surge of power, and they pushed together in a roving deadlock — shoving, pushing, pulling, not even fighting — it couldn't be called that — just gnarled wrestling, limb from limb, before fatigue caught up and he was dragged behind by the arms and shoulders. Brutally manhandled. All the while Aoshi stayed silent, unable to call out. As if not knowing that was an option. He couldn't parse it, but his body did: the torture training triggered, and he wouldn't make a sound even if they gutted him, even as the Yakuza ringleader slapped some kind of message on his person, with a nail in hand — and it came piercing down, pinned to his chest—
Aoshi made no sound as the Yakuza cocked his Murata, moved to point it upon him.
He realised they weren't going to beat him. They were going to try to shoot him.
Ideal. Aoshi went slack, ready to use his one opening to dodge, get the man holding him down shot. The plan fired away in his head: long-range rifles could almost certainly be leveraged for friendly-fire in this situation—
But before the Yakuza could pull the trigger, he was bowled out of the way, tackled full force to the floor by another. When the man arose Aoshi read 'Evil' upon his back and felt an instant rush of confusion.
"Five against one?" The man lifted the rifle in the air, making a show of it before it came splintering apart on his knee, destroyed. "Real gutsy! Let's see you fight without this!"
Sagara Sanosuke. The former street brawler from Tokyo. What was he doing here?
Sagara came at the man at Aoshi's side with a flying kick. More confusion followed when suddenly one man was dragged off Aoshi's arm and another off his back, allowing him to get to one of his kodachi and be instantly flanked by two women: the Kamiya dojo instructor and the doctor. Out of nowhere the student also appeared, throwing Aoshi his other kodachi before he joined the fray. Aoshi had only ever heard Misao refer to him as 'Yahiko.'
The dojo instructor, Himura Kaoru, turned to him, locking eyes. "To Megumi," she said, tilting her head, "she's not a fighter."
That put the odds at four against four. Aoshi held out an arm, backing the doctor woman into a defensible corner. There, Aoshi fell to a knee, relying on the Kamiya dojo as he rested. Takani Megumi got to work, pulling the nail out of Aoshi's chest, stifling the blood, and scrunching the paper away — before her attention was drawn and she froze even in the midst of treating him.
"H—heaven's Justice," she read aloud. "By the hand of Himura Kenshin."
Aoshi's blood boiled.
Leaping from the corner, sustained by pure white rage, he grabbed the man who had pinned the calling card to his chest from Kaoru's fight. With one swoop, he sliced the man's vestments open. The man recoiled, bounding away in a back-handspring. Fluttering papers released from him. Dozens and dozens of them. The Kamiya dojo fighters froze, also struck by the sound of falling papers…
Beside him Kaoru took one of the papers and read it, and she, too, erupted in anger — her's a red, hot one, with tears springing to eyes and a throat full of bile as she bellowed out, "Who are you?!"
The calling card scrunched in her hand. "What are you doing — who are you to accuse him?! Why are you doing this?! Why?! —Why?!"
Aoshi pointed his kodachi to the man. "You heard her. Talk."
The man let out a curt breath, his face easing into a rather satisfied, bemused look. His eyes were inscrutable, but with a sleepy quality that made him appear far more relaxed than his tense figure and clenched fists beheld. Behind him, Sagara and Yahiko had his Yakuza compatriots unconscious on the floor.
"…I'm outnumbered. I can see that." The Yakuza put up his hands. He looked to Kaoru in particular, eyeing her up and down. "Accuse him?" the man's voice was venom. "It's not an accusation. It's an invitation." He shrugged. "He's answered, hasn't he?"
Kaoru didn't speak.
The man's lips quirked up, not quite a smile. "The calling cards have their purpose. Just not in the way you think. He's here. No one's forced him," the man chimed. "And if he's here, he's here to talk to us. Tell him the Oyaban's ready to see him."
He dropped his hands and twisted.
Kaoru rocked forward — but Aoshi backward, collecting her in his arms and throwing her back into the undergrowth. He meant to protect her, from firearms, or a projectile. But the man only threw his haori in the air, letting calling cards rain down. Through the fluttering cards, Aoshi managed to glimpse a bright, white symbol as the man turned to run. A flower kamon.
Instead Sagara jumped into the fray, punching and batting at them, trying to stop the man from running.
But it was too late. When the calling cards settled the man was gone.
"Don't chase," Yahiko said. "We got what we need. We can make the other two talk." He gestured to the unconscious bodies.
But when Yahiko approached one of them, his surety was replaced by horror.
The man had slit his compatriot's throats, before making off into the night.
The marketplace.
With one end of the linen in his teeth and the other in hand, Hiko Seijuro the Thirteenth wound the material tight around his right bicep. Constant daubing from his sword-cleaning cloth hadn't stopped the bleeding. Hiko had removed some material from his obi belt as dressings. While it was only a flesh wound and not a deep one at that, the Wolf had managed to nick his sword arm. Courtesy of his sharpshooter.
After a beat, Hiko sat back, relaxing and leaning back on the outdoor seating. He had plodded himself down at some…Western-style cafe, with its white wicker tables and chairs in the art noveau style. It was rather peaceful. Meditative. Even the police whistles crying in the distance, fading simply into white noise, was welcome to adorn the silence. There was a pleasant smell of incense in the air.
Something sandalwood…perhaps clove…
Yet Hiko's right hand shook ever so slightly. His mouth felt dry. He curled that hand into into a fist.
This always happened. He hadn't had enough to drink.
Before his mind could ache Hiko shut his eyes.
Thirst was not the issue. He was loathe to admit it but the feeling of…being unsettled had followed him from that banal victory. What was it about the boy that had struck him? He'd never met him. He was a young man, but one who'd entered the game if he could flaunt that officer's uniform. Not green enough to warrant being spared. What was it about the kunoichi, begging for the Wolf's life? How many times had Hiko killed while serfs begged him otherwise? While they cried and pleaded?
A sword did not hesitate. Only the man at its helm could.
He should have killed him.
Of course he should. He should have killed that blasted man right then, and forever protected Kenshin from any further bastardisation of the Battousai name that man so fondly spoke of. He should have killed that man, Kenshin's only worthy rival, and prevented any further police retaliation. Wiping one more samurai lackey from the world would make that difference. One less foolhardy man who knew Kenshin's identity, one less wronged person who could doggedly seek revenge.
Winter Moon, in that moment, had felt heavy in hand.
…It had simply never occurred to Hiko that the Wolf could have a deshi. That the Shinsengumi was a master like him. That he, too, had a fosterling, a child he trained and raised to fight with the sword in a world of war and decay. That he, also, had armed, this time with both sword and firearm in the changing times.
The only difference was that Saito, disdainful man as he was yet through no great effort at all, had done what Hiko could not manage to do.
Meditation bought back the moments at the Akako Area in startling, sudden clarity. Saito was on the ground. His face all red. The former great Third Unit Captain knelt on the ground in submission. But instead of satisfaction it made Hiko feel…strange. Ill at ease. Like he was seeing the bloodied and bruised Wolf — who only moments before had hungered for violence, near panting like he was mad for it — and somebody else at the same time. Somebody who wasn't ordinary flesh and blood, a turncoat who couldn't die with his men, a failed counter-revolutionary who cut his hair, and overeager policeman who overestimated his skill. He himself a master — but not like Hiko — he was a true master, the very definition of one, an undoubted paragon of the word. Saito hadn't simply bequeathed skill. Saito hadn't just taught the sword and passed down forms. He'd done something else, something secretive and exceptional and completely unknown to Hiko Seijuro. He had inspired love.
And through the tears in that young man's eyes, staring him down in the face of certain defeat…Hiko knew it was deserved.
Faced with that reality, he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill that man in front of his deshi.
Hiko's eyes shot open. He refitted his vambrace upon his forearm, again using his teeth to tighten the fastenings.
A ki approached.
A familiar ki.
A lone man walking down the isolated street during a blackout and curfew was not a sign of providence. Despite the calm Hiko was on guard. As the man approached, Hiko could hear two swords clacked at one side as he marched, one foot in front of the other. He walked a single straight line down the main street, going past the storefronts, banners and residencies with mechanical steps, as though sleepwalking. Hiko couldn't remember the last time he'd felt such a dense, rancid ball of ki — all caved inward like a baited, wounded animal…
Hiko stepped out into the open, pausing for a fraught moment before going towards the figure coming right at him — getting more and more harried, more and more worked up, as he became sure what he was seeing was Kenshin.
Hiko had rather had his fill of this day playing cat and mouse. What a gift the universe begat: the problem delivered right before him.
Kenshin didn't see Hiko marching towards him until he was only metres away.
Hiko stopped.
But Kenshin didn't react.
He only continued walking towards him, towards him…then went idly by, as though they were strangers passing in the street. It didn't immediately occur to Hiko to stop him. To ask what on earth he was doing this lovely night. To challenge who he thought he was.
Kenshin's hair was out. His white hakama no longer so white. Hiko could smell the fight on him, see with his own eyes the true sword latched next to his reverse blade.
He just…continued walking.
"There's blood on you," Hiko said.
"…I'm going to get help," Kenshin replied weakly. "Leave me."
"You've killed someone."
It was not a question. Hiko fluttered his cloak open, unsheathed his sword.
Kenshin reacted, moving to unsheathe his sakabatou.
But the instant he did, Hiko flickered behind him with the might of Hiten Mitsurugi ryu, clasping a heavy hand over his, clamping the sakabatou dead shut again. As the sheath clicked shut, Winter Moon was already tipped against Kenshin's neck.
Kenshin growled.
Hiko pulled a face of bewilderment. Then disgust. If he wanted to play an animal, then Hiko will treat him like one. Deadlocked, Kenshin raised his knee, ready to kick, counter, roll into judo, but Hiko nipped that in the bud. He stomped down on his raised foot, pinning him to the ground. No aerials from him.
"—Let go of me."
The tension held. Kenshin struggled to release sakabatou, pushing back. Hiko continued clamping down, in a vice grip, trapping it.
"Who did you kill?"
Kenshin only grunted in reply. Something was deeply wrong: beyond the lack of sense, the blood-soaked clothes, the deranged ki — Kenshin didn't appear to be…all there…present.
"What did you take? Are you on some kind of substance? Are you drunk?"
"I said —LET GO OF ME!"
The next moments happened very quickly. Holding the tension with his right hand, Kenshin pulled the sheath from the sakabatou that was locked in place with his left hand, and with the strongest back-hand blow he could muster — struck Hiko in the head with the sheath.
Hiko recoiled. Pain bloomed in his skull. Kenshin had used full strength. As he fell back only the thought of his sword remained. Hiko threw Winter Moon out from under Kenshin's chin in a wide arc, horrified that he may actually slit him.
He couldn't kill the Wolf, he couldn't kill his whelp, and he couldn't kill Battousai. In that moment, with Kenshin against him, Hiko learned exactly what a failure he was. He learned that he was no genius or prodigy. He was no maestro that everything came easily to. He could not admit it to himself before, but he could now: that he was a failure of a master. That Saito was better than him. That he was a failure of a hermit who continued to meddle in worldly affairs, a failure of a teacher who couldn't pass on his style's most basic teachings, and a failure of a father who didn't know how to bless a wedding.
Kenshin did not deign to wait for his opponent's recovery. He spun seamlessly into Ryukansen. The force met a wall of a counter in Hiko, as he parried and pushed.
The blow bought them suddenly face to face.
Suddenly, Kenshin's face contorted. Recognising Hiko at once.
"Fine," Hiko said. "High. Drunk. Whatever it is, you've lost your mind."
With one arm he flickered Kenshin out of their crossed blades. With the other he grasped his right shoulder, digging his fingers into it, trying to release the pain from his temple.
Hiko stood over Kenshin, waiting. When Kenshin remained speechless, the anger finally took over and Hiko breathed in and let it come seething out. But what came out was slow and methodical; a cold, humourless lecture.
"I don't know if you can hear me. But do not fear, I will make you. I will take you home right now and shackle you to the kiln. I will either walk you there calmly or drag you limb from limb, because you are a blight on society. I will take your sakabatou and break it in half, because you do not deserve it. I will remove you from the public, because you are not worthy of participating in it. And if you resist I will subdue you. If you fight, I will crush you. If you run, I will hunt you. Do not have any misconceptions of what I will or won't do to you. I will cut your tendons if I have to. I will break your wrists. Tathagata knows I will."
Hiko pointed to the air, to some indiscriminate place. "Your wife. Your child. They are here. They followed you here. And here you are, acting like a fool's bastard and paid for it — while your son waits for you to come home, and your kin cower from your marked face signposted in the market square. Why you make your wife lie next to an oath-breaking, sword-swinging, murderous churl is beyond me. Why you make that boy the son of an indiscriminate murderer I do not know. I do not know what exactly is wrong with you right now. But trust that I will discover it. If you had a sudden epiphany to return to your baka roots, such as engage in the world's most embarrassing mid-age crisis, or — or if you are reliving your most glorious days as a political assassin for politics that have failed or lapsed for seventeen years. I will find out. I may not have the power to fix you, no — I am a but a tradesman. A mortal peon. You need divine intervention." Hiko kept going. "But I can stop you. Hear me well, Himura Kenshin. You granted me heir of Hiten Mitsurugi ryu to my last. I will not thank you for that. Because I curse whatever buddha or demon let me live on this wretched life, just so I can make sure to see the fruits of my labour make a mockery of every pride I ever felt!"
Hiko unsheathed his sword — glinting blue, beautiful, glowing. "Answer me, Kenshin! Where is your wanderer's oath now?"
Kenshin just stood there. The sakabatou dropped from his hands, clanging on the ground.
"What?" Hiko spat. "You don't wish to fight me anymore?"
Kenshin opened his mouth. "…Shishou."
"Do not call me that," Hiko snapped. "Draw your second sword. Do not think I did not see that murderer's sword at your side. Draw it." A performative lilt came into his voice, an overeager plea. "I want to fight this Battousai that everyone speaks of."
But Kenshin dropped to his knees.
Hiko's eyes followed him apathetically.
"Y-…you're alive." He said nothing further. Only intermittent sobs.
Hiko's sword slowly, unwittingly lowered. "…What are you…" he murmured. "Are you…crying?"
The second Hiko said it, the floodgates gave way. Kenshin wept openly. He threw his head down, as if that could hide the fact that he was overcome with incontrollable sobs, leaking all the sorrows that he had held inside, bleating as if within an inch of his life. Completely bereft of control, Kenshin cried as Hiko watched.
A tight sensation wound in his chest, the world shifting again on its axis. Hiko's heartbeat quickened. His breath rose. Hurt and disgust battled in his ribcage, ceasing to yield to calm, to control, both rearing its head in Hiko's bones, in his chest—
"Get up."
Kenshin did. The sobs subsided.
Hiko's expression hardened. "Draw. That's an order."
Hiko came at him.
Kenshin drew. He had to. He was a prodigy, and even at his wit's end the fight came as natural as breath. His resolve to live shone through, strong as the day Hiko met him. Through his tears he met Hiko's battou-jutsu with the true sword, head-on. Hiko broke apart almost instantly, transitioning instantly into a second charge. Kenshin mirrored, but his movements came to a stuttering stop, as his sword grip failed him and his legs buckled, mid-charge towards the battou-jutsu Hiko was about level him with…
But Hiko did something he'd once done in his youth. Too late to slow the charge, he stuck his sword into the ground and pivoted. The action redirected the momentum — he dug a leg and knee into the dirt, skinning himself in the process, changing directions at an impossible speed—
—lunging to catch Kenshin before he fell and hit the ground.
Panting in Hiko's hold, Kenshin relaxed his weight into him. Like a child would. It was an asinine gesture, as accidental as it was, but he had no power left in him to abate it. Yet his hand hovered, inches from Hiko's white mantle…too afraid to grasp it. Hiko threw Winter Moon to the ground, cradled his neck, his head. Hiko placed a hand to his forehead, checking his temperature. Kenshin didn't dare to look at him. But suddenly Hiko grasped Kenshin's jaw, almost painfully, as he tilted Kenshin up and bowed until their foreheads met. Checking once more.
Hiko removed one hand from Kenshin's damp back. "…This is your own blood."
Then, without words, Hiko ripped Kenshin's gi open. With furious energy, he examined his chest, his ribs, disregarding his utter helplessness.
"Who did this to you?"
But Kenshin did not answer. His eyes were locked on — on Hiko's discarded sword, lain next to his own. Both of them glowing blue...Kenshin's eyes lowered, succumbing to unconsciousness. But even as he did, with the final tears loosening into Hiko's sleeve, Hiko kept interrogating him, commanding him, yelling louder and louder—
"Who managed to do this, Kenshin?
"Kenshin? Kenshin!
"No — stay with me—
"—If you know what's good for you you'll answer me—
"Himura Kenshin — tell me who did this to you!"
Kyoto
The first and only thing they could get Aoshi to say was where he was going: the marketplace.
He was dead set on going to the marketplace.
Nothing else could be gleaned from him for a whole ten minutes while the members of the Kamiya dojo followed him raggedly there — not what he was doing in the middle of the night, why he was dressed in his ninja vestments, or how he came to be running from Yakuza. He could not be persuaded otherwise.
Kaoru and the rest of them simply walked in silence towards the market place. Aoshi stomped three steps ahead, reticent to join them. Kaoru wasn't sure why. They had rallied to him because was a man of the Aoiya. In the letters she and Kenshin penned to Kyoto, his name always appeared in the opener. In the wedding picture back home, he stood tall and rather formal at the back of the guests. Yet the man seemed utterly confused and somewhat shocked she and the dojo had interrupted his aggravated assault. As Kaoru twisted the bokken in her hand, wondering what to say, Aoshi came by.
He started with an informal bow of the head. "Where is Himura? Why is he not with you?"
Kaoru didn't immediately reply. The silence between them seemed to scathe, because Aoshi retracted a little, realising he'd began without a greeting. Small talk. As though small talk could appropriately follow the violence from which they'd just been embroiled.
"…I was on a mission," Aoshi said, volunteering to talk. "In the Akako Area. I was on a mission to target a Yakuza storehouse. The Oniwabanshu have collected intelligence. We counted on the knowledge the Yakuza would be moving their cargo tonight. I was assigned to interfere. I followed the lead and disrupted the operations."
Sano glanced over. So did Megumi and Yahiko. Kaoru looked back to the road. She swallowed down dryly. "Those men who attacked you were after Kenshin. What does your mission have to do with him?"
Aoshi rested a little. Kaoru knew he was choosing his words carefully.
"I fought someone tonight." He pulled one of the calling cards he'd picked up, complete with the repeating gingko kamon. He studied it, splayed it in his hand for Kaoru to see. "Someone frames Himura. And someone…uses his style." Aoshi looked at Kaoru, then to the others. "You know Himura well. You all do. Tell me," Aoshi asked, "Himura's school. What do you know about it?"
"It's Hiten Mitsurugi ryu," Yahiko answered immediately. "You know that." He considered it. "It's an ancient style. Or something like that. From another century."
"It's Sengoku style swordsmanship," Megumi said. "From the latter half of the era."
"Yeah," Yahiko agreed. "Something-something about defence and offence both at the same time. It's battou-jutsu that he specialises in, but Mitsurugi ryu gives him speed. Other than katas and sword-fighting, there's a bit of judo." He kicked a stray stone out of his path, skipping it across the road. "He uses that sparingly though. His strength relies on his sword."
Aoshi appeared unplumbed. This was nothing he didn't know before. "How many practitioners of Hiten Mitsurugi ryu are masters of the art?"
"Well," Kaoru said after a beat, "Thirteen."
Aoshi stopped in his track. "Thirteen?"
"Well, no — not like that!" Kaoru fastened her bokken back at her obi. "There have been thirteen masters to date. Kenshin himself is an addition. But there's only ever been two practitioners of Hiten Mitsurugi ryu at a time. Kenshin…his school has a strict convention. The master passes down the succession technique — you've seen Amakakeru ryu no Hirameki — they pass down that technique to only one heir. And that person takes on the name of Hiko Seijuro."
Aoshi's head turned, as if examining something between the lines Kaoru couldn't. "Isshi Sōden."
He committed the new knowledge to mind. "A practice whereby a master's trade secrets are only passed down to one heir, and a single disciple trained exclusively." He murmured, deep in thought, "It's a very old tradition."
Kaoru paused for a moment. In her father's heyday, the Kamiya Kasshin ryu had two hundred practitioners. Kaoru's students in Tokyo, ranging from children to seasoned swordsmen in their older years, had climbed somewhere to the high sixties.
As soon as Kenji could walk, he'd gravitated towards the sword. Kaoru had offhandedly taught him how to hold it, and some days Yahiko performed basics for him all day. Kenshin, however, had never really…engaged in the matter…
Aoshi asked, "What do you mean that they 'take on a name?'"
"The name is…like a title, perhaps?" Kaoru explained. "'Hiko Seijuro' is the name of the style's founder. Ever since, each successor has taken the name and left behind their own marked technique…eventually adding to the arsenal of Hiten Mitsurugi ryu. As time went on, Mitsurugi ryu became what it is today. Currently, the heir is the thirteenth master."
"And so the one currently named 'Hiko Seijuro,'" Aoshi echoed her, "is Himura's master?"
Kaoru nodded. When she saw that Aoshi was focused on the road ahead, she cleared her throat. "Yes."
Aoshi shut his eyes, slowing down. "This master of his. Do they wear a red and white full length cloak?"
Kaoru's eyes widened. "Yes."
"And they carry a blade. A shirasaya style sheath. The hilt of it…" he paused, recalling the memory, "carved in the fashion of—"
"—A crescent moon," Kaoru finished. "You met Hiko Seijuro tonight?"
"Yes," Aoshi said. "I have." He faced Kaoru intently, delivering a grave message. "Himura's master is searching for him."
Kaoru did not like the implications of that. She didn't know what to say, because Aoshi wasn't aware — it was Kenshin that was searching for him.
All of a sudden, Aoshi's placid demeanour changed. His eyes went wide. His entire frame stiffened so violently that Sano also jumped into action, pulling in front of Megumi, while Kaoru did the same for Yahiko. Aoshi's panicked expression was something that would etch into Kaoru's eyes for some time, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was an ever-soft, "do you smell that?"
"Quit freaking us out!" Sano raised his voice. "You and Megumi and Kenshin are like dogs. Is it blood? Let's turn the corner if there's another dead body. I don't want Megumi to see it."
"Me?" Megumi rebutted. "I see more blood in my life than you will in several. I'm a doctor, Sano."
Sano and Megumi fell into another one of their incurable arguments. But the counters and sarcasm did nothing to temper the mood, nothing to pull Kaoru's focus or stop the hairs standing on the back of her neck, because Aoshi began pacing, eyes going wild and seeking, as though something was driving him on, circling the street as if possessed.
"Incense. Sandalwood. Clove." He breathed in deeply. "Camomile."
Then he ran off.
"What the hell?" Yahiko breathed. But he and Kaoru shared a look, before both of them broke into a run after him. Megumi and Sano followed.
Akako Area
Aoshi weaved through a series of narrow streets, running through signs and banners, hopping a fence, and even once bashing right through someone's backyard full of drying laundry. He went crashing around corners and bruising his shoulders. It was madness to follow. But when Kaoru and Yahiko also burst out of the laundry into a little cul de sac, even they could smell the incense.
The smell wafted from inside a small, rundown fisherman's temple.
A strong scent of sandalwood, clove…and a curious tinge of something sweet and herbal. What Aoshi had called 'camomile.' Only he could pinpoint it. A smoke signal only perceptible to ninja trained of the Oniwabanshu.
Kaoru understood what it was as they filed into the temple: a distress signal.
An Oniwaban ninja was in danger.
And seconds before seeing her, kneeling in a thin pool of blood, Kaoru braced herself for the sight of something gruesome as the candlelit room illuminated the bloody drag marks into the temple.
Misao, not even looking up from the body before her, only gave a half-wave over her shoulder as an acknowledgement of the interruption. She continued to wrap what looked like strips of an undershirt onto a bloodied-up man. Another serial killing victim. Eiji was there as well, shirtless, reaching for his gun—
"—I summoned them," Misao said. She put out the incense at her side with her bare fingers. "Male, 41 years. It's been…what? Twenty minutes? Thirty? Blunt force trauma is the worst of it. Contusions — all over. I don't know if he's broken anything. He's bleeding, internally. He needs a doctor. He was hit by—by Sōryūsen."
She looked up. All the stark professionalism wiped off her face. She went as wide-eyed and unsure as a child.
"A-Aoshi-sama?"
Aoshi was shaking. He half-dragged her away from the patient, both hands gripping her shoulders as though he would shake her. Instead he looked her up and down with concern. "Where are you injured?"
"I'm — I'm fine!"
"You're bleeding! Not him!" Aoshi asserted. "What have you done?!"
Kaoru started. It was involuntarily. She'd never heard Aoshi raise his voice before. He'd not even appeared bothered by the gun in his face only minutes ago. But the moment was over; Misao suddenly collected herself, viciously pushing Aoshi off of her. She stood, staring him down.
"Himura-san," she said, facing Kaoru. "The patient. Wrap him." She gestured to the other end of the room, where another unconscious man was propped up against the wall. His head was wrapped with bandages. "Both of 'em. We're leaving."
Kaoru just moved without quite understanding the situation. Immediately, she rolled up her sleeves, falling to her knees next to a disoriented Eiji, ripping rags and discarding used ones into a bloodied pail of water. Misao was right. Contusions all over the chest and torso, black and plum and blue. But the man was alive. Just barely.
A second later Megumi burst into the room. Kaoru could see Misao relax at the sight of her, as she rolled up her sleeves and bought a candle in close, eyes going steely and focused without saying a thing. The next few minutes went by in a blink of an eye — Megumi got to work, ripping apart a bandaged limb to clean as best she could.
"…Internal bleeding. High pressure in his limb, possibly preventing blood flow to parts of the right side of his body. I need to relieve the pressure right now. Kaoru, knife? Misao? Knife— Knife! I need a knife!"
Aoshi jumped from the corner he'd receded to, quickly handing over his kodachi. The rest of them watched, feeling a little useless, as Megumi put the knife under the candle flame before puncturing the man's right shoulder. There was an immediate spurt of blood. After a few more minutes of treating him as best she could, Megumi took off her violet haori and draped it over the man.
"Is he ok?" Eiji stammered. "Is he…"
"The fasciotomy will keep his right side. As for the rest of him. Well…that depends on how fast we can get him to the hospital."
"No!" Misao ran to the door, blocking the exit. "No hospital! No cops. Too high risk. We can't trust anyone in the public system with him."
The second she finished the announcement her knees buckled. Megumi grimaced, hurrying to her side and lifting her shirt. The men turned away as Megumi tore away her soaked-through bandages, starting anew. "Fine!" she said, as she stripped off her own obi material to treat, "Then back to the Aoiya! My treatment bag is there. Tools, medications."
"Aoshi-sama!" Misao finally called.
Aoshi nodded, and without further instruction begun hauling the body onto the makeshift stretcher Yahiko and Sano had tied together in the meantime, with Kaoru joining him at the other end. Eiji came to the support the side. Sano and Yahiko took to the second stretcher, hauling away the other victim with a rifle tucked at his side. Then, as frantic and disheveled as they came, the group of them carted the stretchers off into the night, jogging back the way they came with huffing urgency. Kaoru merely followed, a nervous automaton. But in the middle of the run, when her mind was plastered with the Yakuza's face the seconds before calling cards rained down between them, the victim in her stretcher came alive.
The man turned his head towards her, his eyes narrowed under all the bangs on his face, squinting hard. It was only then that Kaoru thought this man looked a bit familiar.
He sounded familiar too, when his eyes shut tight as he groaned out in pain.
"Kamiya girl."
How did he know I'm— Kaoru's head snapped down. In total disbelief, she reached forward and brushed the hair out of the man's face.
"Saito?!"
Mount Atago
Kenshin woke up to the sound of a fire crackling, lying on his front. It was bright all around, because the room he was in was lit with a dozen candles all propped up on upside-down pots or holders in a neat border, with him in the middle like a ritual sacrifice. Reddened rags, pottery equipment and other household items were cleared away to make space, carelessly swept into one corner of the place. The clutter cast long, trembling shadows on the walls, making Kenshin feel terribly uneasy. When he shifted to get up, the thin blanket covering him fell off, making him realise his red gi was gone.
Immediately, Kenshin startled, reaching around half-dazed for his sakabatou. It was nowhere to be found. Before the panic could fully rise, Kenshin realised that the blanket that had slipped off of him was not a blanket, but the great, white and red cloak of Hiten Mitsurugi ryu.
"Baka, it's here."
Near the hearth, Hiko sat on the ground in only his navy gi, busy mixing something in a small bowl. He paused long enough from his work to gesture vaguely. When he turned towards him Kenshin looked away.
"Which one are you looking for?"
Kenshin followed where Hiko had gestured. On the ground were two swords: the first, Kenshin's sakabatou; the second, the other Winter Moon. Hiko's own Winter Moon was strapped to his side.
"…My sakabatou."
Hiko obliged, tossing the sakabatou to him.
Kenshin caught it, unsheathed the sword and inspected it for damage. "You nicked it."
"You know where the whetstones are. Sharpen it with one."
"On the blunt side."
"Then blunt it some more, baka."
Kenshin scowled and fixed his sakabatou back safely at his side. He noticed the change in address but said nothing about it. He ignored the grinding sounds of Hiko's pestle and mortar behind him.
Kenshin couldn't bear to look at him.
Instead he peered around the Mount Atago hut, finding much of the shelves the same. However, he noticed a ring of disturbed dust, an odd vacant space.
…The san-san-kudo cups had disappeared.
Kenshin reached for his shoulder, testing the injury under the bandages.
"You're fine," Kenshin said. Deadpan. "Not hurt?"
"I'm alive, if that's what you're getting at." Hiko gave a final swirl of the concoction in his hand, adding a dollop of water. "You think a ghost carried you up the mountain? Bandaged your shoulder? I have better things to do than haunt you when I'm dead."
Hiko got up suddenly, going to Kenshin with the concoction. Kenshin recognised it as the medicinal remedy Hiko used to make for him when he injured himself. Where had he gotten the materials at this time of the night? Had he broken into an apothecary to find Kenshin medicine?
"So that's why you're helping this one?" Kenshin said, contempt slipping into his voice. "You don't have better things to do."
Hiko's voice remained level. "Turn around."
Kenshin sighed. He turned, letting Hiko see the cut on his back. Kenshin sat there in silence as Hiko poked and prodded him, daubing here and there with the medicine.
"…I've insomnia," Hiko replied late.
Insomnia. What a totally stupid admission to make. Six minutes after the insult. Seven years ago Hiko could string together a coherent comeback. This same night he'd let loose a tirade. Wasn't Kenshin an oath-breaking, sword-swinging, murderous churl? —Where did that all go?
Kenshin stared ahead, unable to look at him, even as Hiko came around to seize his arm to check the movement in it. Hiko worked with surprising gentleness, taking his time to make sure the bandages were comfortably snug, but not tight enough to cause restricted movement.
Kenshin blanched inwardly when he caught a glance of him.
Hiko had bled. Blood had rolled down from his hairline, drying at the temple.
He'd hit him. Why did Kenshin do that — use full force with the scabbard? Now the danger was over every muscle and tendon in him screamed in pain as survival instincts abated. He was feeling light-headed. Only a short while ago he was filled with rage, which the mere face of the man before him had thwarted so easily, stripped from him in a single breath. But the source of that rage was grief; and now it had come hurtling out, like a desperate exhale, all the compartmentalised, carefully forgotten truths about them; none of it could be squeezed back in again.
Hiko let out a heft of a sigh. Kenshin's shoulders went up to his ears, bracing for his chastisement.
"It's deepest near the nape of your neck. Still bleeding. I need to close the wound, Kenshin."
"Do it." Kenshin's shoulders relaxed.
Hiko pulled the sewing kit from the drawer.
"No," Kenshin said. "Not the needle and thread. This lowly one must be able to fight."
So the kit lay abandoned. Hiko grasped his Winter Moon, unsheathed it with that pleasant ring, before thrusting it into the open hearth.
"It's going to leave a mark," Hiko said. As if either of them cared about that.
After a while, the sword came out of the flames.
"Are you ready?"
From behind his back, Hiko produced his vambrace. Kenshin took it and inserted it between his teeth.
He nodded his consent.
Without delay, Hiko pressed the scalding hot sword to Kenshin's back, cauterising the wound instantly. Kenshin's mind went red in agony as he screamed through gritted teeth and vambrace; but he couldn't help it, he jerked forward instinctively to escape the roaring pain, but Hiko grasped his shoulder, a closed iron clamp of a grasp, and pulled him back against the scalding sword, until the room smoked and they both smelled burning flesh.
Then, with an unceremonious push, Hiko released Kenshin.
Kenshin fell forward into his arms and knees. He spat out the vambrace and heaved for air.
Hiko said nothing. Kenshin could feel his eyes on him, roving on his back. He felt a vague sense of embarrassment about it all. About everything Hiko had witnessed this night of him. But at the same time he couldn't quite drum up the mind or energy to care about it anymore. What could be more humiliating than crying like a child in front of Hiko Serijuro? What could be worse than Honoured Master, Unfilial Deshi?
Kenshin collapsed onto his side, laid his head on the ground, and stared up at Hiko. He stared and stared, brazenly. Just watching his face.
Kenshin never thought he'd see this man again. That was the choice he made. He thought: the world wasn't all bad if a saviour could walk the same path as he. He remembered every lesson, every bellow of frustration, every silent approval. He remembered counting his strokes, and the game made of it. All of it — being tossed in the dirt, retaliating, stories at the fireplace, poems under starlight, the punishments and triumphs — coursing over him as he made the leap, struck, made master of battou-jutsu. No matter how high he jumped, how fast he parried, Hiko pushed him higher, faster. He'd hated it then, but not all of it. But to have it all…taken away from him, stolen, as though none of it had ever happened, because not another soul knew — not another soul had remotely known this man — had made him feel grief beyond words that he was supposed to be heir to Hiten Mitsurugi ryu.
Hiko's eyes kept flickering from his task at hand to Kenshin, away and back again, changing uncomfortably. Finally, they landed on the sakabatou. Kenshin said nothing as Hiko took it from him.
Hiko lifted the blade up high, then towards his face, inspecting with an eye of appraisal. After preparing a whetstone Hiko began sharpening the blade. He was sure to smooth the slight notch on the blunt side.
Kenshin watched as he ignored him.
…In the darkened Kyoto streets, Kenshin couldn't do it. Even with the woman at his feet and his master's sword at hand, he could never do it. It was not even an option; the true sword in his hand felt as foreign as a firearm, and the idea of revenge as idiotic and farfetched as a fantasy. People lied to themselves all the time. He might have fooled himself for a moment, that he could be a filial disciple and kill that woman to avenge his master. Like a samurai, boasting of his gallantry until the cavalry arrived as quickly and opportunely as his cold feet. Take revenge? No. Hiko taught him better than that. Hiten Mitsurugi ryu will not be used for retribution.
He'd left the woman in the street.
By morning, Saito's men would find her if they haven't already.
Hiko turned boredly away, busying himself with the kitchenette and kettle. After a few minutes or so Hiko returned with two bowls of steaming rice and egg and tea. Smelled like chazuke.
"Hungry?" he said.
1878
A nightmare.
Hiko woke up. His chest was blazing, a red hollowed ditch where flesh was meant to be. Kenshin had fallen asleep. But the deed was done. The succession technique had passed.
…He wasn't supposed to wake up.
His first reaction to feeling the sun on his face and a breeze in his hair was disappointment. Trust Kenshin to muck up the succession rites. It felt like a joke: out of thirteen successions — thirteen continuous successions from the time of Sengoku — only the baka-deshi Hiko picked could botch it quite this spectacularly.
It went beyond disappointment. In his most private, inner thoughts, he felt…cheated. Like somehow Kenshin had done this — on purpose. Like the buddhas were looking down on him, exacting divine judgment. He had to blame Kenshin because there was no one else, and if there was no one else to blame it was his own fault for being a freak of nature so calamitous, he couldn't even do his duty and die right.
All these years he'd treated Kenshin that way, waiting for his demise at his hands. Now, Kenshin had no redress. Hiko had to live with what he'd done.
Today, and the next day and the next.
Notes.
That's a wrap for our friends and family fighting each other!
This chapter is a winding-down chapter - all our characters need to stop and regroup. Now the Kamiya dojo, Police Commissioner and deshi duo, and Oniwaban ninja are together, they must work together if they are to unravel the mystery. Because each one of them have a piece of the puzzle. Hiko and Kenshin, of course, are due for a long-belated talk. Perhaps even about their Feelings.
I could not manage to squeeze more exposition into this chapter, and it's not super integral to the story since readers sort of already know this, so I'll shoe-horn it in here. The Japanese term for what is going on with Hiten Mitsurugi ryu is Isshi Sōden (一子相伝 or Sole Succession). It's a practice that decrees a father (or master's) trade secrets can only be passed down to one son and heir. This ensures there can be only one successor for each generation. The successor then inherits the closely guarded secrets of the style. But those who don't succeed must renounce the art. In the strictest practices (popular in Eastern fiction), those who fail to succeed or transgress are stripped of what they've learned. So if it's a trade this might mean crippling the hands or removing them. Or ritual killing. When Kenshin left Hiko to become Battousai, that was a great taboo according to this tradition. Because Kenshin started using Hiten Mitsurugi ryu outside of legitimacy, against its principles, without the blessing of his school, and without being named successor. He would have been considered a rogue student. The only way to remedy this is for the master to take down the rogue student and then train a new, true successor.
But of course that never happened. Hiko let Kenshin take Hiten Mitsurugi ryu, and did nothing.
Like, sure. We can all pretend this is just about swordsmanship. That it's just about succession rights. To protect something as exceptional as Hiten Mitsurugi.
It's not. Because if it was, Hiko would have cut Kenshin down the second Kenshin said he was going to fight for the Isshin Shishi's Choshu cause. Then found a new kid to teach.
That man is his son. And Hiko Seijuro XIII violated Hiten Mitsurugi ryu just as Kenshin did.
I hope you enjoy. And all the best to you!