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Descent into Madness: Chapter 11

by Conspirator

The gash on Kenshin’s cheek was the talk of the inn. Someone had actually gotten close enough to the Hitokiri Battousai to draw blood! Kenshin just wished it would go away. He had washed it and tried to stop the bleeding, but the gash was stubborn—it refused to heal. Even after two days, it still dripped blood. He couldn’t avoid the realization that he could be touched by another’s sword. Now he had to admit that it was entirely possible that he himself could be killed. Theoretically, of course, he understood that, but it was something that happened to other people, not to him. If nothing else, the gash on his cheek was a vivid reminder that he was, indeed, mortal.

Then Iizuka, ever present with comforting conversation, had told him an old wives’ tale that had really gotten him in a funk. "They say that when a wound is inflicted with great hatred, it will never heal until revenge has been exacted," he had told Kenshin one day.

‘Just my luck,’ Kenshin had thought at the time.

Well, at least now people would see the gash and not assume that he was just some 12-year-old, although Okami was very upset by it all. "You’re too young to have battle scars!" she had cried when she first saw it. Didn’t she realize that whatever child had existed in him before, that child was long gone by now?

And there were other problems as well. It seemed that almost daily, now, he had to hide himself when he was out during the day in order to avoid roaming squads of the government’s favorite police force, the Shinsengumi. Police? Hoodlums was more like it, he thought ruefully. If they stopped to question someone and didn’t like the answers, they would just kill the poor soul on the spot. Even he didn’t do anything like that! And recently, he began to feel like he was being followed. He could just barely sense the presence of a ki that was trying to mask itself. He made sure it was never around when he actually returned to the inn, but it had caused him more than once to have to take evasive action, and it was really getting on his nerves. So, when Okami came up to him one day while he was doing his laundry out in the inn’s courtyard and told him Katsura was coming, he was glad. Katsura hadn’t been to Kyoto since before the snows had set in—political problems to attend to in Chousu, he had heard.

"It says here he should be arriving tonight, thankfully with only two or three other men," Okami said, waving the letter in her hand. "And he specifically says something here about you."

"About me?" Kenshin repeated without looking up from his washing.

"Aah," Okami responded. "It says right here, ‘I hope you have taken good care of young Himura. I’ve gotten reports on his work, of course, and I will want to meet with him when I am there, but I am concerned about his overall welfare.’ I don’t think he’s going to be very happy with me."

She leaned down to touch the still dripping gash on Kenshin’s cheek. Involuntarily, he flinched—he wasn’t used to being touched by anyone anymore. She pulled away, startled by his reaction. Kenshin forced himself to relax.

"I’m sorry, Okami-san," he apologized. "I guess I’m just on edge. And you have taken good care of me—you make sure I eat, you give me a roof over my head…."

"There’s more to taking care of someone than just feeding them, you know!" she replied in an exasperated tone.

He looked at her, perplexed.

"Oh, Himura-chan, you don’t understand anything, do you," she sighed. She risked giving him a quick hug, and this time, he did not pull away.

He watched Okami walk back to the kitchen, the lingering warmth of her hug melting the edges of the ice he had tried to put around his heart. Yes, he understood what she meant, but his hands were covered with blood—his soul was covered with blood. How could he let anyone get close to him? And even as she worried over him and hugged him, he knew there was more killing to be done, for he had received yet another of the hated black envelopes just that afternoon. After Yoshida had been wounded and didn’t come back, Kenshin had often taken to stopping by a local bar for several shots of sake before going out on a mission. It certainly helped to deaden the anguish, if nothing else. Now he decided he would definitely do that after dinner tonight before searching out his target.

As luck would have it, it had started to rain cats and dogs after dinner, so he grabbed an umbrella before going off to fortify himself for the night’s job. The bar was surprisingly crowded, considering the weather, and most surprising of all, there was a young woman there, drinking alone. He knocked back the first cup of sake, then the second. For weeks the sake had not tasted good, and this night was no exception.

On top of that, ever since he had killed that man who was about to get married, the voice of Hiko had started intruding into his mind. He thought he had managed to squelch that months ago, right after he had killed that samurai from Aizu and his six bodyguards. His mental Hiko had given him a real tongue-lashing that time. Now Hiko’s voice once again invaded his mental space. "If sake doesn’t taste good," he remembered Hiko saying one starry night, "then there’s something wrong with you."

‘Well, Hiko, there is,’ Kenshin thought bitterly. ‘Everything I drink, everything I eat—it all tastes like blood to me now.’ He knocked back another two cups.

He was about to leave when he heard some of the men start to taunt and tease the woman. He had been around soldiers long enough to know what men were capable of. Hell, he had seen it with his own eyes when that Bakufu soldier had tried to rape Yuka back when he first arrived in Kyoto. And these idiots were trying to justify what they wanted to do by claiming to be patriots from Aizu! Bad enough to tar the Ishin Shishi with such behavior, but from Aizu? The strongest of the strongest supporters of the Shogunate? Who were they trying to kid? He couldn’t stand it anymore

"Aizu is on the Bakufu side, baka," he said loudly, but without turning around.

"What was that?" one of the men shouted angrily, but no one answered, and no one looked his way.

"Whew, that was a close one," his companion muttered.

"It certainly was," Kenshin retorted. "If you had drawn that sword, you would have been fighting me."

Now the men looked at who had spoken. They were stupefied—a shrimpy little redhead? Then they noticed the eyes and heard the ice in the voice.

"Let me give you some advice," Kenshin continued, his voice deadly calm. "Kyoto is no place for false patriots. If you value your lives, you’ll run back to the countryside."

The men wisely decided to leave as fast as possible, falling over themselves in their haste. As soon as they were gone, Kenshin paid for his drinks and left as well. He had only walked a little way down the street when he suddenly heard a deep voice.

"Hitokiri Battousai," the voice growled. "I have been waiting for you. I’ll have your life."

In the blink of an eye, two swords went flying out at Kenshin. That ki! It was the ki he had sensed following him these past few weeks! The attacker’s swords were on chains, and the man behind them was huge. Kenshin immediately whipped out his katana, sending the swords flying back towards their owner. Kenshin had fought fierce opponents before, but never had he encountered such ferocity, and the man’s eyes glowed with a hatred that bordered on blood lust. This, he knew instinctively, was no mere samurai—this was an assassin like himself. He swung with all his might, deflecting each slashing attack from his opponent until, suddenly, the man jumped to the roof. Kenshin was himself about to do likewise but before he could, his attacker sent down one of his swords so that the chain wrapped completely around Kenshin’s neck and body.

Now his arms were trapped at his side, and as the man pulled on the chain, Kenshin found he couldn’t breathe, let alone move. His sword dropped uselessly at his side. For a split second he feared he would be strangled, if nothing else, but with a superhuman effort, he flexed every muscle in his body outward until he could at least reach his hand out to grab the chain. Then, with all the strength he possessed, he pulled on the chain until he managed to bring the man’s second sword hurtling down next to him. The man’s grip on the chains now loosened as he jumped down to confront Kenshin. Kenshin grabbed the second sword and with all the strength left in him, he swung and cut the man in two. As he saw his attacker crumple to the ground, he, too, crumpled, gasping for breath after the near strangulation.

It was then that he smelled it—the scent of white plum. Amidst the smell of the blood and the gore, to smell such a sweet scent….

‘I must be going crazy,’ he thought, but the smell didn’t go away.

Then he became aware of a sound nearby. He looked up and was startled to see a woman standing before him. It was the woman from the bar. She was holding an umbrella, and she was covered in blood from head to toe.

"In the plays they always say, ‘You made the bloody rain fall,’" she said softly, ‘but you really did make it rain blood."

Kenshin dropped his sword. A woman! She had seen what he had done! Leave no witnesses, he had always been told. She was a witness! Suddenly, she started to pitch forward. Instantly, Kenshin was on his feet; he caught her before she could hit the ground. No, he could not kill her, but he couldn’t leave her here, either. They were only a few blocks from the inn, and no one else had seen them. In an instant, he knew what he had to do—he picked her up and started carrying her back to the inn.

There was not much that could rattle Kenshin. Behead a man? No problem. Slaughter an entire squad of swordsmen? Done that. But a woman fainting in his arms? What should he do now?! His thoughts raced a mile a minute as he took off through the deserted back alleys. She had been a witness! He would just have to tell her in the morning to forget everything she saw. But what about Iizuka? And Katsura was supposed to return tonight—what would he tell them? He’d be damned if they expected him to kill her now! And he still had his assignment to do tonight! It only took about five minutes to get back to the inn, but with his thoughts in such turmoil, it seemed like forever.

It was not very late—perhaps 10 p.m.—and there were several men milling around the front door. The last thing Kenshin wanted was for any of them to see him with a bloodied woman in his arms, so he quickly went around back to the kitchen door. Okami was still awake, finishing up some bookkeeping before turning in for the night.

"Himura-chan, you’re home late tonight…," she started, but then she saw what was in his arms. "Himura-chan, what are you doing?!"

Kenshin felt totally tongue-tied. "No, um, there was a fight, see, and she fainted, and…"

"Oh, you Chousu men!" Okami muttered in an exasperated tone. "You fight all day and then bring home the women at night."

"No, Okami-san, that’s not it!" Kenshin said, turning bright red. "There was a fight…!"

"Well, just this once," Okami continued. "I’ll help clean her up and change her clothes, but we have no room for her right now—Katsura-san has arrived, and we’re full up. She’ll have to stay in your room."

"My room?!"

Okami gave him a look that said he’d better not question her decision, so he bit his tongue. But now what was he going to do? There was going to be a woman sleeping in his room! Then he remembered he still had to complete his night’s work. He said a quick thank-you to Okami and ran back off into the night.

Just as he left, Iizuka stuck his head in the kitchen.

"What’s all the commotion?" he asked as he looked around. His eyes widened at what he saw.

"Oh, it’s just Himura-chan," Okami replied nonchalantly as she went about getting some water and a washrag. "He’s brought someone home."

"What?! Ba—I mean, Himura brought home a girl?" He rubbed his eyes as if he hadn’t seen quite right, but then he saw Okami shaking her head ‘yes.’ "Well, I’ll be damned," he muttered as he went back to his room.

Luckily for Kenshin, the night’s job was a simple one, for his mind was in a whirl. All he had to do was find a particular outdoor party in Gion, locate the man, and kill him. It wasn’t hard to find the party—it was being held on one of the porches overhanging the river. All he had to do was watch from below until his quarry came to lean against the rail at the edge of the porch. He only had to wait about ten minutes before the man did just that. Normally, ten minutes would have seemed like nothing to Kenshin, who knew how to wait patiently for hours if he had to, but tonight all he could think was that he needed to get back to the inn and that woman he had carried there.

He dragged his mind back to the work at hand, however, and as soon as the man was at the rail, he lightly jumped up onto the porch, landing as quietly as a cat. Now he waited until there was no one near his target. Then he walked up behind him and said softly, "I have come to bring Heaven’s Justice." Before the startled man could even utter a sound, Kenshin had unsheathed his wakizashi and reached around to slash the man’s jugular. Then, still standing behind, he reached lower and slashed the man across the stomach and belly, spilling the man’s intestines. It was all very quick and quiet. Then, as the man fell, Kenshin jumped down to the riverbank below.

Now screams were coming from the porch as the partygoers noticed what had happened. Lanterns were being held over the edge of the porch as they searched for whoever had committed this deed, but they saw nothing, not even footprints. Within seconds, a dozen men had spilled into the streets and onto the riverbank searching for the assassin. Kenshin, however, had done his usual advance planning and was hiding in one of the secret passageways his friend Kumiko had shown him when he had first met her. It was another 15 minutes or so before all the noise died down and he sensed that no one was around. He checked his clothes to see whether he had gotten them bloody and was relieved to see he had not. That would make his escape that much easier. So, quietly, he followed the passageway to the street, and after making sure everything was clear, he strode out, looking for all intents and purposes like just another young man out for a good time in Gion.

He couldn’t get back to the inn fast enough. He immediately headed for the washroom off the kitchen to clean his hands. He even poured a bucket of water over his head because he didn’t want to take the time to use the bathhouse. He was worried about this woman, alone, in an inn full of lecherous men. He raced up to his room, not sure what to expect. There, lying on his futon, was the woman, asleep, her hair laid out neatly and the blanket pulled up to her chin. He sat down beside her and just stared.

God, she was beautiful—he had never seen anything like it! She appeared to be about Yuka and Kishi’s age, which was just a few years older than himself, and she was now wearing what looked like one of Yuka’s kimonos. Maybe she had heard him, maybe not, but she mumbled something and then turned over onto her side. Kenshin just kept staring. He didn’t know what to make of it.

He was tired, however, and wanted desperately to go to sleep, but he didn’t feel right sleeping right there next to her, so he went out into the hall and sat against the doorway, sword propped up against his shoulder. He managed to drift off a bit but was awakened when Okami briefly stuck her head up the stairway.

"Just checking," she said softly when she saw Kenshin sitting outside his room.

He had just nodded off again when a couple of men came back, singing drunkenly. They were surprised to see him sitting outside the room, but they weren’t about to say anything to the person they most feared in the entire world. Finally, he decided to sleep in the shed near the kitchen. He slept so soundly that he didn’t awaken until morning, when he heard someone rooting around in the woodpile nearby. As he slowly roused himself and recognized where he was, he suddenly remembered the woman in his room.

‘I’ve got to find her right away!’ he thought urgently. ‘I’ve got to tell her to forget everything she saw and get her away from here!’

He ran back into the inn and up the stairs to his room as fast as he could, only to find that the futon had been folded neatly and placed against the wall. The woman herself was nowhere to be found. Kenshin started to panic. He raced downstairs again and ran to the kitchen, practically knocking Kishi down in his haste. As he looked ahead, he saw Okami calmly handing the woman a tall pile of trays.

"Oh, good morning, Himura-chan," Okami said brightly. "Well, despite appearances, your girlfriend here is a very good worker!"

Girlfriend?! Kishi and Yuka started tittering behind their hands. He glared at them and hurried ahead to catch up to the woman, then realized he didn’t know what to say.

"Um, what’s your name?" he finally managed.

The woman seemed surprised by his shyness, but answered, "Tomoe." Then she started walking again towards the dining room.

‘What do I do now?’ Kenshin thought. He hurried up behind her again. "Um, Tomoe-san, um, what are you doing?"

She turned to him with a strange look of apprehension and condescension. "Can’t you tell what I’m doing?"

"Helping in the kitchen…?" Kenshin answered, totally flustered.

"So you do know!" she chuckled. This was a strange boy, Tomoe thought. She opened the door to the dining room, only to find that the men had lined up to get a good look at her.

"So, this is Himura’s woman!" one of them said. "Cute!" Tomoe cast her eyes demurely at the floor.

"Hey…!" Kenshin shouted, but too late.

"Hmm, an older woman," said another, "and just as unfriendly as Himura!"

Kenshin was about to push Tomoe aside to get at the men, but she now took matters into her own hands by bowing as much as she could while holding a stack of trays and saying, "I’m Tomoe. How nice to meet you."

The men hadn’t expected such politeness from the new serving girl, and they fumbled about trying to bow back politely before scurrying back to their seats. The only place left for Kenshin to sit was next to Iizuka, so he slid in, glaring at the men around him.

"Oho, embarrassed, lover boy?" Iizuka laughed, his mouth full of food.

"Iizuka…!!" said an exasperated Kenshin.

"So, how was she?" Iizuka went on with a leer. "I heard she stayed in your room last night…."

At this point, Kenshin had had enough. His hand went to the hilt of his sword, causing Iizuka to practically choke on his food.

"Jeez, I was just joking," Iizuka sputtered. Then, to the other men he said, "Just teasing him is taking your life in your hands!"

After this, everyone remained stiffly polite to the new serving girl and silent about their own, mostly lewd, thoughts regarding her and Kenshin. Kenshin now decided he’d better have a talk with her right after breakfast before anything else happened, but when he went to find her after breakfast, she was nowhere in sight. So, he sought out Okami instead.

"Well, Himura-chan, I must say that something good has come out of the surprise you brought home with you last night," she said with a smile.

Kenshin just stared, his mouth hanging open.

"Your young woman turns out to have experience working at an inn…."

Kenshin cut her off. "She’s not my young woman!" he said heatedly. "It’s like I told you last night—I was attacked, and she saw what happened and fainted. I couldn’t just leave her there on the street! And now you’re going to keep her here?"

"Himura-chan, do you have any idea how much food you men eat?" Okami asked. "Do you have any idea how much work it takes to care for such a large number of men? I can use all the help I can get!"

"But… but…."

"And since we have no extra rooms here, and the girls’ room is too small for another person to share, she’ll just have to share your room," Okami finished with a curious smile on her face. Then she turned to go.

Kenshin was at a total loss for words, a state that seemed to be overtaking him rather frequently right now. Okami had obviously made up her mind and was not about to change it. As he stood in the kitchen doorway contemplating this strange turn of events, Katagai came up behind him.

"Himura," he began. Kenshin jumped at his name, causing the older man to chuckle. "The fair sex got you down?"

Kenshin whirled around, his hand on his sword before he realized who was behind him. "Katagai-san! So sorry! Um, no…. Wait, what did you say?"

Katagai chuckled again. Then he put a hand on Kenshin’s shoulder and said, with a broad smile, "Calm down, calm down! She’s quite beautiful, ne? Beautiful women tend to have that effect on men—makes us lose our senses. You’ll be okay, though, don’t worry! Come with me—Katsura wants to meet with you."

Kenshin relaxed. "Yeah, um, thanks…," he muttered. Then he suddenly straightened up. "Katsura-san—yes! I need to speak with him. It’s quite urgent!"

Katagai ushered him into Okami’s private room, where Katsura had set up his temporary office. Iizuka was there as well. Kenshin bowed formally to Katsura.

"Ah, Himura, good to see you again!" Katsura said with obvious pleasure. "Looks like you’ve grown again, and this time quite a lot, I see!"

Kenshin blushed slightly, but he had a lot on his mind, so he quickly said, "Katsura-san, things have been getting more difficult for me recently."

"Yes, I heard something about your encounter last night. Is it true?"

"Yes," Kenshin answered. "I was ambushed by a shogunate assassin."

"An assassin? Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," Kenshin said.

Katsura’s face darkened as he digested this information.

"That’s not all," Kenshin went on. "You should know that for the past few weeks, I had sensed a masked ki following me. I had to take evasive action, because I didn’t want to lead this person back to the inn. When I was attacked, I realized it was the ki of this assassin."

Katsura sat in thought for several seconds, then said, "Information from the Chousu is leaking out, even about our top-secret battousai. There must be a traitor in our midst!"

Kenshin felt a strange flare of ki at those words. His eyes whipped around to the direction he felt it come from, but it was only Iizuka, who looked as concerned as Katsura. ‘Strange,’ Kenshin thought.

"And that woman who was helping out today, she witnessed it all…," Kenshin continued, but Katsura cut him off.

"Don’t worry about that. Katagai, Iizuka, we need to investigate this attack immediately," Katsura commanded. "There are too many important matters in the works right now to have a traitor on the loose among us!" Then, turning to Kenshin, he said, "Himura, I need to talk to you again later, but I think I’d better deal with this situation right away. Oh, and before I forget…"

He reached into his travel bag and handed Kenshin a letter.

"This is for you, from your friend Yoshida," he said, smiling. "He’s alive and well and made me promise to deliver this to you personally."

Yoshida? Alive? Kenshin took the letter and stared at it, once again feeling speechless. "Thank you, Katsura-san!" he said with more enthusiasm than Katsura had ever heard from him before. "Thank you very much!" And he bowed and left the room.

Yoshida was alive! He couldn’t wait to read the letter! First, though, he needed to talk to that woman he had brought back last night, Tomoe. He started looking down the hall for her, then saw her heading out the front door, a grocery basket on her arm.

"Tomoe-san!" he called out as he caught up to her.

"Himura-san," she said quietly, bowing. When she saw a look of surprise on his face, she added, "Okami-san told me your name."

"Yes, well, um, I need to talk to you about last night….," he started, but she cut him off.

"Okami-san told me all about what happened," Tomoe said. "She told me how you brought me back here, and that it was her, not you, who changed my clothes…."

"Oh, no, I wouldn’t have done that!" a horrified Kenshin interjected.

Tomoe’s mouth turned up in the tiniest hint of a smile. "…and she told me she had nowhere else to put me but your room…"

"Yes, well, I need to talk to…." Kenshin tried again, but she continued talking.

"…and she assured me that you were totally honorable the entire night, for which I thank you…"

"Of course! I would never…!"

Tomoe’s eyes looked bemused. She had figured out by now that this boy was, indeed, a hitokiri—in fact, the feared Hitokiri Battousai—but he was as tongue-tied as any teenage boy she had ever met. "I owe you a great debt for all you have done for me," she finished, bowing once again.

"Yes, well, that’s what we need to talk about," Kenshin said hurriedly, before she could cut him off again. "I really need to talk to you about what you saw last night…"

Suddenly, he felt a flash of something coming from her—what it was, he couldn’t tell. And it was as if a mask had come over her face. Now her eyes were unreadable.

"I’m sorry, Himura-san," she said, her voice sounding the same but somehow feeling quite different. "I must go to the markets. I promised Okami-san I would do the food shopping before lunch." And with that, she left.

How many hours, days, years, had Hiko spent teaching Kenshin to read ki?—but it was a swordsman’s ki, a warrior’s ki he had taught him to read. Never had he said anything about a woman’s ki, and yet Kenshin had felt a flash of something. But what was it? Hatred? Fear? Fear he could understand—after all, she had seen him do what a hitokiri does. But hatred? He was positive he had never met her before, so that couldn’t be it, could it? It felt so strange to feel so clueless!

With his thoughts as confused as they had ever been, he started back towards the stairs to go to his room. Slowly, he realized he was still holding a paper in his hand. Yoshida’s letter! Now he bounded up the stairs two-by-two and settled down in his room to read the letter from his friend.

"Himura," it read, "I’m alive and well. Actually, not all that well—my left arm is pretty much useless for fighting now. I’m right-handed, though, so it’s not so bad. But the good news is that I’m in love! Her name is Eiko. She helped nurse me through everything, and now we’re getting married. They wanted to send me back to Chousu, since I can’t fight anymore, but I didn’t want to go back. So, I’m staying here in the mountains to help at the waystation the Ishin Shishi set up last fall. The only bad part is that Hamada’s here, and now I have to put up with that idiot! Take good care of yourself. —Yoshida"

At the bottom of the letter was one of Yoshida’s caricatures. It was a pine tree with a broken branch, and around the tree’s trunk was a flowering vine. He had written a haiku to go with it:

A branch is broken

But the trunk is whole, unbowed.

Love has healed the tree.

Then he wrote, "I recommend that therapy highly!"

Yoshida—how much Kenshin missed his friendship! There was really no one left at the inn, other than Katagai and the women, who had known Kenshin when he first came, before he became a hitokiri. And Yoshida had stuck by him through thick and thin. It all served to remind him of his loneliness. Still, it was a great relief to know his friend was alive, and he was glad Yoshida had found happiness. ‘Maybe you’re the one who will live to see his grandchildren after all,’ Kenshin mused.

Then he remembered that Yoshida still had a friend at the inn—the man who had told Kenshin about Yoshida’s injuries after that fateful battle. He decided to find him and show him the letter. The man was out on the porch, leaning against a post and whittling.

"Matsuo," Kenshin said, bowing politely to the older man.

"Battousai," Matsuo replied, bowing back. An involuntary feeling of fear starting crawling over Matsuo. What did this killer want with him, he wondered?

"I received a letter today from Yoshida," Kenshin said, trying to ignore Matsuo’s poorly disguised fear. "He’s alive and well. I thought you might like to read it."

Matsuo took the letter from Kenshin with shaking hands.

As Matsuo read the letter, Kenshin couldn’t help thinking about Tomoe. He still couldn’t figure out the signals he seemed to be getting from her ki. Kenshin didn’t know Matsuo very well—hell, nobody wanted to have anything to do with him, so how could he know anyone well?—but Matsuo had been a friend of Yoshida. He decided he had nothing to lose by seeing if this man could give him any insights.

"Yoshida’s a good man," Matsuo said when he finished the letter. "I’m glad he made it." Then he handed the letter back to Kenshin.

"Matsuo," Kenshin now said, "would you mind if I asked you a question?"

Matsuo looked startled. "Me?" his voice croaked. "You want to ask me a question? Whatever about, Battousai?"

Kenshin winced. He really hated that name, Battousai.

"Himura," he corrected. "My name is Himura."

Matsuo gulped. "H-Himura, then," Matsuo repeated. The shaking got worse.

It took Kenshin a moment or two to gather his courage to ask—only a speck of time, really, but to Matsuo it felt like an eternity. Finally Kenshin, said, "Do you know how to understand a woman’s ki?"

"A woman’s ki?!" You could have knocked Matsuo over with a feather—this was about the last thing he ever expected to be asked by this boy! "I didn’t know women had a ki!"

"They don’t?" Kenshin said.

"Frankly," Matsuo replied, "women are a total mystery to me. If you want my opinion, those crazy gaijin are probably easier to figure out than a woman!"

"Oh," Kenshin said. "Well, thanks all the same…." and he walked off.

Matsuo just stared after him. Was it his imagination, or did he just have a heart to heart with a hitokiri?! He grabbed the post behind him as his legs finally gave way.