The Rurouni Years

Chapter 4- The Battousai Effect

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kenshin's blood ran cold. Shinsengumi? No, it couldn't be…

He cleared his vision through the smoke and wood fragments and groped his way to Midori's shaking form, shielding her with his body. Gripping his sword tightly, he unsheathed the unfamiliar-feeling sakabatou and held it up.

'No good…' he thought. 'I haven't even used it yet!'

But he had to try.

Satsuya stumbled into the room, fanning away the smoke with the fan he'd been using to stoke the fire. His face was contorted in rage.

"Kenshin-kun!" he yelled. "Shinsengumi! They're tearing apart the dojo! You have to help us!"

Midori got up from behind Kenshin, eyes fearful, but she found her sword from her rack and unsheathed it, ready to defend the dojo. Kenshin felt a surge of pride in little Midori-dono, somehow able to overcome her fear and fight…

The trio dashed out of the wrecked room, swords held ready, Kenshin still uncomfortable with the sakaba. He finally resigned his fate and flipped the blade, much more comfortable that way. It was still awkward, not at all like his thin katanas that were back at Shakku Arai's house, but he couldn't do a thing.

They arrived at the main courtyard, which was in shambles, spurred on by the gleeful yells emerging from the vicinity. There were five men dressed in what were unmistakably Shinsengumi uniform. How many times had he seen those clothes? How many times had he stained them with blood?

Kenshin cleared his head and stared at the men. He had never seen them before, which was almost impossible-the Shinsengumi had considered him a primary threat and had sent everyone they could against him. He was sure that in the course of the Bakumatsu, he had fought every Shinsen there was. Why didn't he recognize these?

There was no time to ponder the matter. The men were attacking, each emitting very un-Shinsengumi-like battle yells. Two of them set upon Kenshin, who was very ready.

"Rurouni now, Himura, rurouni." He said to himself, dashing to the left and throwing them off balance. "No casualties."

He flipped the blade and jumped right on the shoulders of one of the men, skyrocketing up with incredible speed. Raising his sword, he gave a battle cry of his own and brought it straight down on the man's right shoulder. He slashed his way through two more of the men, watching as Satsuya and Midori dispatched the last two.

"Hiten-" He caught himself. He had to shield his identity. Turning back to Satsuya and Midori, who were ganging up on the last one, he yelled his instructions, instincts sensing what common sense couldn't. "Satsuya! Midori! Get back, now, and get into the house! There'll be more coming!"

Not a second after the words departed his lips, about ten more men jumped down from the trees surrounding the dojo. Kenshin leapt toward what looked to be the leader of the pack, awkwardly swinging his re-reversed blade on the man's shoulder, attempting to mimic his earlier Ryu-Tsui Sen.

To his surprise, it worked well, if not better. The blunt end must have delivered a harder impact, because this man fell immediately. Slowly, as he worked his way through three of the men, Kenshin got the hang of using the sakaba's heavier connection point in his favor.

The former hitokiri slowly but surely adapted to his new battle style. All he had to do was be careful to use his sakaba as a blunt-force weapon rather than a slicing one. It was a tactic that he had been taught by Hiko-sama never, ever, in all his years of fighting, to use, but then again, Hiko-sama had never taught him to fight with a sakaba.

He spun into a neat left-and-right reversal, placing heavy blows on both sides of the man's juncture between neck and shoulders. As he spun around to meet the next one, a scream of pain shot through the air, turning Kenshin's head and causing the blow that landed on his shoulder.

"Kuso!" Kenshin flipped over and slammed his sakaba onto the offending man's stomach, giving a grunt of triumph as the man keeled over. He looked back towards the front of the house where Midori and Satsuya were, to be truthful, getting their butts kicked. Satsuya was up and fighting, but he sported a series of heavy bruises and seemed to be cursing everything, and as for Midori…

Kenshin finished with his five men and ran back toward the main tangle of bodies as Satsuya sent a man flying into the courtyard wall with a powerful punch to the stomach, having lost both his swords. Midori was on the ground, clutching her bloodied side and valiantly tried to defend against the two men double-teaming her, but she was hopelessly lost against the two very good swordsmen.

"You two fight dirty!" Kenshin furiously pounded the first man's midsection with a series of blunt-force blows, kicking the other away in the process. He bent down to where Midori was whimpering in pain, the beginnings of tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

Gently, he pulled her hand away, examining the wound. "What happened, Midori-dono?"

Teeth clenched, the wounded teenager eked out a few words. "Double-teamed me…dirty cowards…one snuck up behind me…" She winced as Kenshin gently lifted the torn material of her shirt off her stomach, examining the wound. "Hey! Hentai!"

Kenshin was too battle-focused to blush. He expertly tore the bottom of her thin shirt off and tied the wound, taking care to be gentle. "Get into the house. By the looks of it, you can't walk very far with that. Don't try to come out again. Satsuya-kun and I will take care of it."

Midori glared furiously, mouth opening and closing in astonishment. "You can't expect me to-"

"GO!"

The obstinate teenager reluctantly complied, stalking back into the damaged dojo. Kenshin whipped around in time to catch a man trying to attack him, brain working furiously-These weren't Shinsengumi. Shinsengumi did not resort to such desperate measures as double-teaming a girl. They were a relentless group of swordsmen, yes, but the Shinsen were honorable.

He and Satsuya worked their way through the last of the wave of attackers, leaving just one in the end to interrogate. The fighter was long-haired and shaking, seemingly suddenly aware that he was going to die.

Satsuya's eyes were merciless. "Let's just kill him." He said, picking up his swords from the ground. "The little-the little mercenary," he spat.

Kenshin shook his head. "No. We question him, ask him who sent him and his men. This is the wiser thing to do. Only if he does not comply do we…" The ex-assassin flipped his blade. "…kill him."

Satsuya sighed. "Fine. I'll go help Mi-chan. You ask him, and don't kill him before I can." The teenager disappeared inside.

The eyes that followed Satsuya on his walk back to the dojo were Kenshin's. The eyes that looked back at the prisoner were Battousai's. The hapless man gasped and quaked more under his merciless gaze, ten times more chilling than Satsuya's.

Battousai held the blade to the man's neck. "Who sent you?" His voice sent shivers down the prisoner's spine.

"I-I don't know—"

The blade pressed harder, just barely puncturing the skin.

"I don't! All I got from Mashima-sama was this!" He delved into his gi and pulled out-

"A black envelope." Battousai's voice shook, if only just a little. "Give it to me." He held out his hand, snatching the envelope from the man's shaking fingers. The stare returned, piercing deep into the mercenary's soul.

Battousai's voice was a deadly whisper. The man had no problem hearing it. "If you have just told me a lie, I will hunt you down and kill your family, leaving your eldest son's head spiked onto your door." They were words that Kogoro-sama had taught him to use to intimidate. "Then I will find you and torture you with needles and nails. You will not live to revoke your lies."

The man finally broke down and sobbed, a pitiful, moaning wail. "It was a man who met Mashima-sama at the Kiei Tavern yesterday! I was there, we were all there, we're supposed to be Mashima-sama's yojimbo—please, please, don't kill me, I'm telling the truth!"

Battousai's gaze revealed no pity. "And what did this man look like?"

"He was-he was-well, I don't know!" The man wailed. "All I know is his last name, Takamori or whatever-"

Kenshin's eyes widened. "Takamori Saigo."

The man looked up, chin wobbling. "What was that?"

"N-Nothing." Kenshin's eyes settled back into their hitokiri position. "Thank you for telling me. I will not kill your family. Rest in peace."

It was a tactic he had been taught many times. He had seen it happen so many times that he could predict the angle at which the blood would spurt. But it was still painful to watch it happen. Every time, he saw snow falling gently in the distance, and his nose filled with the scent of white plum…

'I swore not to kill again. I swore it, on her name. But I can't undo what years of pain did. I can't stop being a hitokiri, just like that.'

He was careful not to leave blood on the Sasaki dojo's courtyard tiles, choosing instead to leave the dead man on the body of two others. Just like Kogoro had taught him.

'After all she taught me, after all I told myself I would do…I guess this is what happens. I'm sorry…I can't be vigilant enough to stop myself-'

His throat choked.

'To stop myself like you.'

-------------------------------------------------

Spring, 1868. The Boshin War is over. The Bakumatsu has ended, and so closes a chapter in Japan's history. The book closes on the lives of hundreds of noble boys, changed by war into men, who until their dying day lived in the scent of blood, and died in it.

Himura Kenshin is simply one of the boys.

The difference is, he can repent.

Will he be strong enough to?

-------------------------------------------------

owari

-------------------------------------------------

A/N: Well. That took a bloody long time to write. - It turned out good, though. This is meant to be a turning point in the transformation of hitokiri to rurouni. With the return of Kenshin's murderous, chillingly methodical instinct and his failure to become a rurouni…well, this is the step-back part of his transformation.

Aside from that inner-conflict deal, we have some interesting things going on…Takamori Saigo ordered a strike on Kenshin. My mistake-at this point, historically, Takasugi Shinsaku is three years dead. - So Saigo is the traitor-or is he? With Misao7 at the helm, you just can't be sure. -

Please go back and reread the other chapters. I will be offering some analysis on how my brain happened to be working on my characters at the end of each chapter. Happy Holidays, and thanks again for reading The Rurouni Years.

-Misao7