"Honey, you're familiar.
Like my mirror, years ago."
"From Eden" Hozier
"What's your name?"
Kaoru's eyes blinked open. On the other side of the river was a doll-sized village. A dozen little stone houses had been built into the side of the river bank. Dwellings for any spirits living nearby.
"I asked you what your name is?"
Her back was propped up among the vast roots of an ancient tree covered in centuries worth of moss. The moss was as thick and soft as a futon and Kaoru would have been happy to sink in and never get up.
"Did you not hear me?" The man kneeling beside her removed a bamboo water bottle strapped to his back. Kaoru's parched throat ached. She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a weak croak. "Or have you lost your voice?"
The man…Battousai…her rescuer held the bottle to her lips. She gulped down water until she started to cough. "My name is Kamiya Kaoru," she managed to say once she caught her breath.
"So you've found your voice again?" Battousai put the bottle down.
"My father is Lord Kamiya Koshijiro." She needed to tell him that she was an honorable damsel from a high-ranking family and mustn't be harmed. "My uncle is General Saito of Mibu." Now he knew who and where to send her body after she was dead.
"Her life is now mine," Battousai had said.
Perhaps she was fortunate to have fallen into Battousai's hands? He was known for his quick, efficient kills and his victims didn't suffer more than necessary. Their bodies received a proper burial.
Kaoru opened her ruined kimono. The beautiful wisteria-colored silk was torn and stained with blood. It slid down her shoulders, bearing her neck and chest to Battousai's blade.
He just blinked at her. "Oro?" The avenging instrument of death was gone, and the oro-ing half-wit from the temple gate had returned.
"What are you looking at?" Kaoru said. He was trying not to look at her immodest state of disarray. His cheeks were the color of a boiled crab. "What are you waiting for?"
Why didn't he draw his sword? Why was she still alive?
Battousai removed his haori and wrapped it around Kaoru to preserve her modesty. The fabric was scratchy and smelt of dust and smoke. It smelt like him. His amber-eyed gaze remained fixed on Kaoru.
He was young, perhaps about Sano's age, but those eyes had seen lifetimes.
Kaoru fidgeted underneath his haori. "Why are you staring at me?" She shrugged the garment off. Why did he try to act like a gentleman when he was about to kill her? The haori would just be her shroud. "Just get it over with." She threw her arms around her knees and wept.
Battousai put a hand on her shoulder. "Kamiya-dono?"
"Don't touch me!" Kaoru pushed him away. She didn't want his pity. She just wanted this to be over.
Her throat and chest tightened and forced her sobs to fight their way out. The noises that escaped made it sound like she was giving birth.
He took her hands in his. "Take a deep breath." Those ancient, amber eyes drew Kaoru in. "Breathe in... breathe out..." She followed his lead for some reason she couldn't grasp. "Well done." He put the haori back around her shoulders.
Up close, his features were sharp, delicate, and almost feminine. If he were part of a Kabuki troupe, they would probably cast him in the female roles. Not conventionally handsome but there was a tragic beauty etched into every line of his face. Kaoru could see him playing the suicidal courtesan in some melodrama with white Kabuki makeup covering the crossed scars on his cheek and his red hair hidden under a black wig.
She had to admit, he was the strangest-looking man she'd ever seen, but he wasn't a demon.
"Himura," he said. He gave Kaoru the water bottle as the second part of his peace offering. "Himura Kenshin."
Kaoru drank until the water bottle was empty. Battousai…Himura… went to the river and refilled it. "I'm sorry for attacking you earlier, Himura-san," Kaoru said.
Himura turned around and smiled at her. "This one has crossed swords with you before, Kamiya-dono."
Kaoru blinked at him. She would remember having seen such an odd-looking person.
"Five years ago... Lord Takeda's estate... Sejiro Hiko's pupil."
Kaoru furrowed her brow. Sejiro Hiko was one of the most prominent daimyo in the Kansai Region, among Japan's most renowned swordsmen, and an old associate of her father. She met him five years earlier, when she spent the summer at Lord Takeda's estate. Had he brought a pupil with him?
"A great lady such as yourself would be forgiven for not remembering someone as lowly as this one." Himura returned to her side with a full water bottle. His ears pricked up, and he quickly overviewed their surroundings.
"Is someone coming?" Kaoru said. Before she could get an answer, Himura picked her up and carried her off into the forest. The haori covering Kaoru's indecent state of dress billowed around her like a sail. She held onto it for dear life.
Her eyes grew heavy and blurry, and her chin dropped. She'd reached the part of the legend where the demon carries his bride-sacrifice back to his lair, from where she never returns.
"Kamiya-dono..." Kaoru awoke when someone gave her a gentle tap on the shoulder. Battousai... Himura... was kneeling over her. "Kamiya-dono."
Kaoru rubbed her eyes and sat up on a plump futon. "Ugh?"
She must have been asleep for several hours. It was now perhaps dusk.
Himura brought a small table closer to the futon. "We're at an inn on the main road to Edo." He poured a cup of chilled saké for Kaoru and one for himself.
Kaoru took a sip to steady her nerves. She'd never been alone with a man she wasn't related to before, and certainly never alone with a man she wasn't related to inside a bedroom.
Himura rose to answer a knock at the door. "I thought you would be hungry?" he said. "So I took the liberty of having dinner brought up." A maidservant offered Himura a tray of food and then bowed.
The savory aroma of miso soup wafted over to Kaoru. Her stomach was as hollow as a drum. Who knew how long it had been since she last ate?
"Is Lady Himura feeling better?" said the maidservant. She peeked over at Kaoru on the futon.
"Much better, thank you?"
The maidservant bowed and left, and Himura brought the tray to the bedside table.
Kaoru raised an eyebrow. "Lady Himura?" He better not have...
"I told them that you're this one's wife." Himura's cheeks were as red as his hair. "For propriety's sake."
Kaoru pouted. That was precisely what she was afraid of. If he thought she would be his wife in more than just name, he had another thing coming.
Kami-sama, she needed more saké to deal with this and took another sip. "And how long will Lady Himura be staying here?" She lifted a spoonful of miso soup to her lips and savored it.
Saké and miso soup: the two medicines that treat everything.
Himura stirred his soup with a spoon. "This one leaves for Edo in two days. There, I will send a report to Katsura-sama and await his orders."
Kogoro Katsura was the head of the Choshu Inshin-shishi and was reputed to be an honorable man. Even Otou-san spoke well of him despite being on opposite sides. But, Kaoru doubted he would show much compassion toward a murderess.
"There are clean yukata in the clothespress." Himura stirred his soup with a spoon. "And a hot spring downstairs if you wish to take a bath." He bowed to Kaoru and left.
When he was gone, Kaoru finished her meal and changed out of her ruined clothes into one of the clean yukata Himura had mentioned. Few things sounded better now than sinking her aching body into the boiling waters of a hot spring.
"Don't break me down (Don't break me down)
I been traveling too long (I been traveling too long)
I been tryin' too hard (I been tryin' too hard)
With one pretty song (With one pretty song)"
("Ride," Lana Del Rey)
"Now I remember you," Kaoru said the following afternoon. She and Himura were sitting on the engawa outside their room and watching steam waft up from the hot springs below. "The red-haired boy I knocked to the ground five years ago."
Most of the other young people at Lord Takeda's estate that summer had been boys, who were too proud to spar with a girl. Especially Enishi, the one Kaoru wanted most to impress. Enishi had nothing but contempt for the female sex, except for his precious sister Tomoe, and particularly loathed sweaty tomboys with messy hair and scraped knees like Kaoru. His cruelty often drove her to run off to some hidden spot so no one would see her cry. One afternoon, a red-haired boy came across her in her hiding place. Kaoru raised her bokken, expecting him to tease her but he offered to spar with her. The red-haired boy was slight and delicate, hardly taller and broader than Kaoru herself, so it wasn't difficult for her to beat him.
Now that Kaoru had seen Himura in action, she suspected that he'd let her win.
Himura took a sip of barley tea. "You were a formidable warrior even then," he said.
"I'm surprised you remembered me." Kaoru folded her arms. That summer must have been when Himura met Tomoe. Why would he remember a scruffy duckling when a graceful swan had been present?
"How could this one have forgotten?"
Kaoru scoffed. "I'd bet you would have preferred to." What man would look upon being beaten by a little girl with a large blue bow in her hair with fondness.
Himura bowed to a tiny young girl who was passing through the engawa. Kaoru shifted her position to give the girl more room.
"Himura-san," the girl said. She removed the scarf that was wrapped around her head and the lower half of her face.
"Misao-dono." Himura smiled at the girl. "Where have you been keeping yourself?"
Misao pouted. "I was rounded up by the Inshin-shishi. It's a long story, but I'd be happy to share it over a cup of tea."
Kaoru's jaw dropped. Misao must be little more than a child. How could she have fallen afoul of the Inshin-shishi?
"By all means." Himura poured Misao a drink and she knelt down to join them. Introductions were made. He presented Kaoru to Misao as his new wife, prompting Misao to tease him until his face matched his hair. Misao, Himura explained, was the granddaughter of a Kyoto innkeeper, who Himura sometimes did business with.
A million questions filled Kaoru's mind. What was an innkeeper's granddaughter from Kyoto doing so far from home? And alone too? And why did the Inshin Shishi arrest her? But she held her tongue. Being nosy about people you meet in an inn was the height of bad manners.
While the three of them sipped their tea, Misao chattered on about the adventures she'd had the night before. Her long braid wagged behind her like a puppy's tail. "Six shinsengumi apprehended - eight inshin shishi injured- a gang of Mibu men from Wolf's Castle- attacked every Inshin shishi they came across- smoke grenades- the leader rode a demon in the shape of a black horse."
A demon in the shape of a black horse. Kaoru nearly dropped her tea cup.
Sano's mount was a black stallion called Enma, after the king of Hell. The beast was as ferocious as a tsunami and only Sano ever had the guts to try to ride him.
"What provoked the attack?" Kaoru asked Misao.
"From what I heard…" Misao said. "Their lord's niece, Lady Kamiya, was captured by men from Choshu. But it was all a bust. They didn't find the girl."
It took every scrap of dignity Kaoru possessed not to throw her arms around Misao and tell her, "I'm Lady Kamiya. Your friend Himura is bringing me to Edo against my will. If you bring word of my whereabouts to my family, they'll give you more money than your grandfather could make in a year." But she shouldn't drag Misao into this mess.
Himura picked at a mochi with his chopsticks. "And how did you get involved, Misao-dono?"
"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time." Misao shrugged. "With smoke grenades in my pack…" Kaoru gasped. Kami-sama, what had little Misao been doing with smoke grenades. "…But thankfully, the Mibu wolves were gentlemen. When their lord sent the ransom, they said I was with them and the Inshin Shishi let me go."
"I imagine their lord really let them have it when they got back." Kaoru giggled. Uncle Saito probably slapped sense into each man after they'd returned to Wolf's Castle. Sano no doubt got it the worst, poor rooster head.
But at least he'd tried.
Himura suggested that Misao join him and Kaoru for dinner that evening. When Kaoru saw Misao again at the inn's restaurant, she had changed out of her dusty jacket and leggings and into a light pink yukata. Her hands fiddled with jade obi brooch shaped like a butterfly.
"Over here!" Misao said. She waved to Himura and Kaoru.
Kaoru bowed to Misao. "Thank you for lending me something to wear." She and Misao were more or less the same size (though Kaoru was an inch or two taller and fuller in the bust and hips) and Misao sent over one of her yukata for Kaoru to wear to dinner. The yukata was a bit too short and tight but beggars couldn't be choosers.
"I'll buy you some clothes in Edo," Himura whispered to Kaoru.
Over dinner, Misao regaled them with her adventures on the road from Kyoto to Edo and the "missions" her grandfather had sent her on.
"Her family's inn, the Aoiya, is the headquarters for the Oniwabanshu," Kenshin explained to Kaoru as they walked back to their room. "Master Okina, her grandfather, is their boss."
"And Master Okina is the one you do business why?" Kaoru said. Of course a Hitoriki would cross paths with ninja.
Himura nodded.
"So the Oniwabanshu sided with the Inshin Shishi?"
Himura shrugged. "The Oniwabanshu side with whoever pays them enough." He bid goodnight to Kaoru at the door of their room. "Get some sleep, we leave for Edo in the morning."