Death and the Messenger

Disclaimer: Neither Texgal nor Tomas the Betrayer claim ownership of Rurouni Kenshin. However, Midori is the idea of Texgal, while Ekinosuke Retsuuo is the property of Tomas the Betrayer.

"I cannot do it," Himura breathed softly.

He sat there, giving off an impression of intense weariness. Seated across from him, Ekinosuke Retsuuo could not help but be affected by his longtime ally's mood. He steeled himself, however, reaching unconsciously for the prayer beads at his waist, and proceeded with his task. Only a messenger this time, as the name implied.

"I wish I did not have to be the one to tell you this, Kenshin-san. But we are neither of us above our duties in life." He reached out and retrieved the written order, which the Battousai had hardly deigned to look at, much less touch. "Neither of us."

"I cannot do it, Retsuuo-san."

"Zetsumei Kurohyou must die, my friend," he continued as if he had not heard. Dressed in a plain yukata, his gleaming black topknot coming slightly loose, Retsuuo did not resemble the master of men that he normally projected. This vulnerability was not unintentional. "This is no longer a matter of speculation. It will be done, and by sunset tomorrow."

It must be hard, to know that someone you consider your friend and nakama would be dead within twenty-four hours. The lord of the Japanese Rebellion tried not to make any parallels with his own life.

"Why… why can you not get someone else to…?"

He wasn't even trying to oppose it. Clearly the former Manslayer had been more deeply wounded by the events in his past than they had assumed. Small wonder a replacement had been needed. It was always good to have two hitokiri at hand, just in case one was needed to slay the other. And when one of those killers was a woman whose name translated to 'Death'…

"I felt, in some strange way, that it would be a kindness. For her. So that it would be a clean death, and nothing worse."

That barb clearly hit its mark, judging by the shudder that went up the slender youth's frame. Of course, it was still a lie. They would have used someone else. However, the only other person they could rely upon had declined the order. Two hitokiri is insurance, three is…

He could find nothing to complete that thought.

Himura's voice, when he spoke next, sounded weak and dead. "I cannot believe this is happening. She is one of us. She has fought for our cause for years. I never would have believed that she would betray us."

"But it's true, Kenshin-san."

Only it wasn't.

That had been his contribution to this evening's sordid escapade. His superiors had told Ekinosuke that a simple order would be enough. Clearly they hadn't learned anything from Shishio's reaction to orders. Himura Kenshin was a completely different animal from that one, to be sure, but those hard old men should have thought deeper, all the same. Maybe if they had bothered to get to know these two as he had; drink with them, talk to them, find out what it was that motivated them. A simple order would not be enough to encourage Himura to kill a woman he cherished. There had to be a reason.

There had to be a story.

And in his spare time, Ekinosuke Retsuuo liked to write stories.

"Zetsumei Kurohyou has turned to the side of the Shogunate. She did this not for money, or power, but for you, Kenshin-san."

"Me?" the mass murderer had gazed at him with that innocently childish face that seemed so incongruous for one in his profession.

"You know that men from our camp raped and tortured her two years ago. And our enemies know it too. This is what they played upon to get her attention. But to gain her allegiance, they offered up to her something she could not resist. Something only they could give her. The assurance that you would be spared. That she would be able to take your place in death."

"It can't be," Himura responded.

"She wants to die, Kenshin-san," the young lord had proceeded, allowing a gentle weariness to creep into his voice. "You know that. Death is the only thing in her life that she believes in. The one thing she can look forward to, so offering to spare her would have only caused Kurohyou to laugh in their faces. But you are something more to her. You are her one true friend. And with the fluid nature of the war at this point, with victory so close but not yet achieved, nothing can be left to chance. If we lose, you will be caught, and you will be killed, Himura-san. To ensure that this would never happen, she offered herself up, along with all her secrets."

The red-headed teenager had closed his eyes, perhaps to hide the tears building up in them. All that remained was to add the last fatal twist.

"'I will take his place in hell', that is what she said to them. Our informants were quite clear on this. Now your friend is nothing more than a sword pointed at the heart of everyone around her. And so Lord Katsura has given the command. You are to assassinate the 'Death Panther'."

Retsuuo had known quite well the fragile nature of Himura's psyche at this time. Still distraught over the betrayal and unintentional death of his wife, he would have been entirely susceptible to the idea of a woman turning traitor. And his sense of devotion to her, coupled with an overriding feeling of guilt at the thought that he might have contributed indirectly to her defection, would motivate him to perform his duties, regardless of the 'squeamishness' that had come upon him recently. There would be no talk of refusing to kill here. Of that, the revolutionary noble was certain.

He simply loves her too much to fail.

Blood, blood, there is blood everywhere. It hurts, she hurts, and everything is a mix of pain and blood and confusion –

She is only doing as ordered. Himura said that one of the generals wanted to meet her; that Katsura-sama had sanctioned the meeting. Himura had handed her orders to report to this unnamed general's tent just yesterday. She was supposed to be there at sunset today. Those are her orders.

She noticed at the time that Himura was very upset about something.

"Kabu," he had said to her, "promise me that you will not come. Flee; leave this place tonight and run. Please; run as far as you can, as fast as you can."

She had assumed that he was joking. Laughed it off and cuffed him affectionately for being silly.

"Orders are orders, Himura; whether you fight in an army or lurk in the shadows," she had teased. "I will see you tomorrow at sunset."

He had laughed with her, putting an arm around her shoulder since they were alone, and hugged her tightly. "Sunset."

It is sunset now; and she is in the unnamed general's camp, fighting an entire regiment of her own allies.

"Die, traitor!"

She ducks as a katana comes swinging at her head. Upward thrust, and her would-be executioner is impaled through the heart. She is past him before he hits the ground; others are swinging at her from all sides, that man just nicked her arm, and that one gets her on the calf, there's too many of them – why are they doing this again? –

"I am Zetsumei Kurohyou!" she screams into the melee. They pay her no mind; thrusting at her, superficial wounds rising in number, not even close to enough to kill her, barely even enough for her to notice under normal circumstances.

But this is anything but normal.

Why are they doing this? They know her; she knows that she is at least partially recognized by these men. She is their shadow assassin, the only female in the entire army, they are her allies! She has killed with them for three years! Why are they doing this?

"I am Zetsumei Kurohyou!" she shrieks again, dodging the blades of her comrades. "I am here on orders! Cease your attack immediately!"

Again they ignore her. Panic rises in her chest as she decapitates one man; cuts the arm of another off at the elbow. Left, right, in front, behind; there are just so many of them. All looking at her with hatred in their eyes; all attacking with a passionate fury that confounds her. Most of them are just faces to her. This one that just tried to gut her sat next to her last week during a meal. That man swinging wildly at her back brought her the black envelopes with the names of her weekly targets just two days ago.

"Die, traitor!"

'Traitor'? What the hell are they talking about? She is no traitor!

"I am not a traitor!" she shouts at them, blocking one attack as another skims her right hand. "There has been a mistake! You are attacking the wrong person! I am not a traitor!"

But they do not want to hear her words. They do not want to be told what is true; they are past caring what the truth might be. She looks into their eyes as they bay for her blood, sees the hatred there, and knows with a sickening certainty that these men do not care. They will kill her, or die trying.

They are grabbing at her now, pulling at her limbs. Those that still stand yank at her arms until she is forced to drop her katana; her arms are twisted at such an angle that her hands become numb, making it impossible for her to maintain her death grip on her weapon. Those that she has injured badly, but not killed, are grasping at her legs, holding her in place as she struggles against them.

"Release me at once!" she commands, still trying to reason with them. "I am to meet with your general, I was ordered to do so by Katsura-sama! You are interfering with orders! Release me!"

"Zetsumei Kurohyou."

She jerks her head up, eyes locking on the form approaching her. The man's red hair flies about in the wind; it looks as if he has suffered a massive head wound. Fierce golden eyes return her gaze, but they are closed to her; cold, unfeeling – the eyes of one who is dead to his soul.

Kenshin Himura stalks toward her with his blade drawn, and cold crippling fear freezes her in place.

"Zetsumei Kurohyou, for the sake of the new era your life must end."

No. Nonononono, this isn't real it's a dream Himura would never say those words to her nononono –

"Ninjin," she whimpers; something flashes in those dead eyes for the barest instant, and then the mask is back in place and he is coming towards her. "Ninjin, what are you doing?"

He stops before her. His hand, she sees, is wrapped so tightly around the hilt of his katana that his knuckles are snow white.

"You have been deemed a traitor of the Ishin Shishi and must pay for your crimes with your life." She has never heard that cold, cruel tone in his voice before.

"There has been a mistake!" she shouts again, real fear in her voice now; Himura is raising his blade, oh gods he is going to kill her – "I am not a traitor! Himura –"

The rest of what she wants to say is drowned out by the golden-eyed demon's own words.

"Reserve a place in hell for me, Zetsumei Kurohyou."

For the smallest moment as his blade comes down, the mask is off again. His eyes beg her to understand, beg for her forgiveness, and bleed with sorrow and pain and remorse –

But none of that matters to her, because in the next instant her shoulder is on fire, and she is screaming, and the world tilts before she is consumed by the blackness.

Something warm is brushing against her cheek, and a deep voice is rumbling somewhere above her.

"You're one strong bitch, I'll give you that. Stabbed practically through the heart and still not dead. Five days with a fever enough to make your blood boil, and you remain alive. Very impressive, little panther."

She tries to move, wanting to get away from that voice, but pain lances through her shoulder at the smallest movement. A low moan sounds from deep in her throat. The warmth on her cheek moves to her head, and she realizes it's a hand. Someone's hand is on her forehead.

"Can you hear me, little panther? I'm not a hallucination; I'm real. You're not dead. Are you finally awake? Open your eyes."

She struggles to do so. Her eyelids feel so heavy; the oblivion of sleep is calling to her like a siren. But she wants to see who is speaking to her. She needs to know what is going on. Slowly, she manages to open her eyes enough to see.

Makoto Shishio sits next to her, in what appears to be a dimly lit hut. He is dressed in a dark gi with deep grey hakama, his long spiky hair pulled high on his head. His face, as per usual, is lit with an arrogant smirk that makes her want to hit something.

She tries to speak, but her mouth is so dry that nothing but air issues. The grin widens, and Shishio holds up a water-skin. He sloshes it at her enticingly.

"Want some?" His voice drips with mockery.

She may be injured, on the very doorstep of death, but hell itself will freeze over before she begs this fucking bastard for anything. She'd rather commit seppuku. She settles for glaring weakly at him.

He is uncharacteristically gentle as he slides a hand under her head and lifts her slightly, trickling the cool sweet water into her parched mouth.

"I had a woman clean your wound and stitch it up," he tells her, moderating the amount of water he allows so as not to choke her. "You've been out for a week, little panther. You had one hell of a fever; it broke about two days ago. The woman said you should take it slow for another week or two."

She turns her head away from the water, and some of it dribbles down her cheek. A moment later something hot and moist is lapping at her skin; she flinches away from it and he laughs.

"Your skin tastes good," he tells her. She bares her teeth at him in a snarl, and he laughs harder. "But your blood would taste better."

She's not listening to him now. She is assailed by memories, images that set her eyes burning and her shoulder throbbing anew. Her comrades, slicing at her with hatred on their faces; their hands holding her down as they cut her; the dead look in Himura's eyes as he drives his blade through her chest.

"Why?"

She doesn't realize that she has spoken aloud until Shishio suddenly slides her into his lap. She hisses in pain, trying to move away from him; he simply wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her flush against his chest. She registers the feel of his gi against her bare skin, and realizes that she is wearing only her hakama and bandages that wrap around her breasts and shoulders, leaving her bare from her smallest rib to the top of her hips.

"Quit squirming, I'm not going to molest you, little panther. You want to know why you're dead?"

She stills. Her mouth opens, closes, hesitantly opens again. She doesn't know how to phrase it, doesn't know how to ask. Shishio doesn't seem to require the words; he answers them before she can speak them.

"You're an embarrassment, little panther. A little girl going down in history as the Ishin Shishi's top assassin? No warm-blooded man would ever let that happen. Didn't you ever wonder why the old bastards don't give you as many assignments as they give me? Or as many as they gave Himura when –"

"Don't speak to me of him."

There is silence. She can feel the amusement in the man behind her, and closes her eyes as the tears start to fall. At length he speaks again.

"So they decided that with the war coming to a close and most of the Shogunate's key leaders already maggot food, they don't need you anymore. You were put on the black list."

She is crying silently in this bastard's arms. He chuckles against her back, the sensation making her skin crawl.

"You know, originally I was given the order to take you out of commission." He lets her tense up, lets her think the worst, before deigning to continue. "But when they approached me with those orders that morning and told me they wanted your head at sunset, I told them no. Told them to go to hell, actually. Damned politicians thought I'd kill you just because you make them look bad. Even a bloodthirsty monster has some honor."

She is too overwhelmed with a thousand other emotions to be capable of feeling surprise.

"As far as I know, they did not reissue the orders. But I do know that somebody in the higher-ups had been circulating rumors that you were passing some information to the Shogunates you were supposed to be killing. He made everyone believe that you were a double-agent whore playing both sides. Same man that tried to make me your executioner, as a matter of fact."

Traitor! Die traitor! Traitor!

"You have been deemed a traitor of the Ishin Shishi and must pay for your crimes with your life."

"They wanted you dead, little panther." Shishio's nose is nuzzling against her neck, and she is too far out of herself to tell him to stop. "And as far as they are aware, they got what they wanted."

"Everyone thinks that I am dead," she whispered. It wasn't a question; all of the soldiers remaining alive in that regiment saw Himura impale her. Shishio must have waited until the area was clear to check her body over. Doubtlessly he had found a pulse and decided it would be good fun to see if he could keep her alive. No one else in the world would be aware that she lived, aside from the woman who had treated her wounds.

"The woman who tended to you is an acquaintance of mine. You don't need to worry about her running to the old bastards and selling you out. I dug through your victims at the battle field and found your katana. When you're healed, your blade will be waiting for you."

She says nothing, not when his lips brush the top of her shoulder, not when his hands begin massaging her skin.

"So what are you going to do, little panther?" he murmurs against her skin, tongue snaking out to taste her sensitive ear.

"Get well," she replies in a whisper through her tears.

He slides the tip of a well sharpened dagger under her bandages and cuts them away.

"Get revenge."

His hands pause at the ties of her hakama, and she feels his deranged grin against her shoulder. "I can help with that part."

One-handed, she pushes the dark blue gi off of his broad shoulders. Her fingers lightly caress his skin. She leans into him until her mouth is at his ear.

"And then disappear."

Outside the hut, rain begins to fall.

No more words are spoken between them that night. It is a confusing blur of bare skin and moans and teeth and sex that one doesn't want to think about and one doesn't want to end.

He will give her the information she needs in the morning and then leave her to continue killing; she will stay at the dank little hut for another week. He will come back in eight days to find the hut empty, all signs of her erased. It will be as if she were never there.

He will smirk and turn away, knowing that he will see her again someday.

And Zetsumei Kurohyou will vanish into the pages of history.

"My lord, a messenger has come for you."

Ekinosuke looked up in irritation. The armed guard did not flinch at his master's displeasure, and he stayed his wrath with an effort.

"Show them in, then."

To his dismay, the man came back with, "Sir, we have asked this messenger to wait in another wing of the manor. As per your instructions in such a situation."

Retsuuo felt his previous good mood vanish. He did not have to look to see the look of hurt on his young wife's face, seated as she was just to his side at the dinner table. They had spoken of this before, ever since that embarrassing incident when she came upon them together, and while he had explained the nature of this particular envoy clearly, a lingering suspicion had remained to color their relationship. It was never spoken. It was never even implied. But it was still there.

Laying his chopsticks down, the master of the manse arose. "Please excuse me, my wife. I will attend to this and return shortly."

He did not wait to see her lower her head in submission before he left the room, picking up his wakizashi as he left and sliding it into his obi. Walking through the halls of this heavily-guarded fort, Ekinosuke reflected upon the vagaries of humanity. And of demons. Damn that Makoto Shishio! Insisting on sending his personal whores to deliver correspondence, not even citing any reason for it other than, 'Don't worry, they can't read'. The war was fast being won now, it was true, but all the same, security was not to be taken so lightly. The man simply had no sense of inappropriate risk. I will have to see about looking into his 'retirement' very soon, the war leader pondered.

In no time his steps had brought him to the room reserved for such meetings. Sliding open the door, Retsuuo saw the concubine seated with her back to him. Her clothing was plain but specific, a concession to secrecy he had insisted upon. There was no cause to worry, really. She wore the kimono that was reserved for Shishio's women, and had given the current hitokiri's latest codeword to get past the gates. A full body search had been conducted afterwards. All the same, he was glad for the weapon at his side. One could never be too careful.

Shutting the screen slowly, never letting his eyes leave her, the wary nobleman said, "I understand you have a message for m…"

She stood.

She moved.

And while Ekinosuke was still only registering the first of these events, his short sword had already come out of its sheathe and buried itself to the hilt in his intestines.

A hand came over his mouth, and he found himself on the ground, limp with shock in a way he had never thought a man could be.

Green eyes stared down at him, gleaming in the moonlight falling through the open portal like a cat's.

No.

No, God in heaven, this can't be. She's dead. Killed a month ago. A hundred men testified they saw her fall with her heart split in two. The Battousai himself did the deed, they left her corpse to be eaten by dogs.

She's dead.

Dead.

There came a jerk of the blade, slicing his stomach even further. He tried to fight back then, but found all he could manage was to raise his hands feebly up to touch her arms. The knife twisted, and it was then that he finally felt the full pain of what was being done to his body, the violation! He tried to scream, not for help, but purely out of animal instinct. However all that managed to reach his ears was a muffled whimper.

The voice that came next, however, was very clear.

"I am dead, Ekinosuke-san," the woman who was disemboweling him said softly, almost like she had been reading his mind. "And now…"

There came the final downward pull, spilling open his belly in a flood of blood and chopped organs.

"So are you."

She left him there, lying in a puddle of warm sticky wetness.

I can't die, he thought, in spite of the obvious contradiction to that statement. There is so much I have left unaccomplished, that I am meant to do! The war effort needs me, Japan itself has need of me. I have so many stories left to write, to tell my children, my…

It came to him, as the blood kept gouting from his guts.

My family.

Through the halls of his home, Death herself was stalking, like a great black panther.

Retsuuo tried to scream out, but failed once again. Please God, he silently begged and prayed, fumbling for the rosary beads at his waist and not finding them. Please, show them mercy. Do not let her take them. It was my fault, my sin. I alone was the messenger of deceit. In your infinite grace and wisdom, I beg you, show mercy to the innocents.

He kept listening for the first screams, hoping that they wouldn't come.

Ekinosuke was still waiting, when he died.

FIN.