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Ikedaya: Part 3

by Mir ::: 22.May.2002

They left the building one before the other, stepping into the street like husband and wife. They needed no lantern to guide them, as the lights of the festival illuminated the road, and the air above the city of Kyoto was saturated with the sounds of music and laughter. He led the way slowly through the crowds of pilgrims, carefully maneuvering forward step by step, touching no one and drawing no attention to his presence. His shadow, in contrast, was a thin pillar of pale lavender with gaze downcast and smelling faintly of spring. She ignored the eyes that trailed across her figure and traced along curves of her back. After all, they were only men with lustful thoughts and blood-stained hands.

The one she followed had never turned to her with eyes lit with desire, never whispered softly to her in amorous tones. Never had he given any indication that his thoughts were anything but platonic. He appeared uninterested in the tumultuous emotions and cravings that so often captured the attention of his comrades. And as she once again studied him from behind, his apathy left her more perplexed than relieved. Perhaps the demon so often quoted by his enemies was not one born of passion but rather of indifference.....

"Here... let's stop." She paused at the sound of his voice, low and penetrating beneath the general clamor. They stood in the doorway of a small restaurant -- the same one, if memory served her correctly, where she'd first seen him -- the past weeks had flown by like deep breaths drawn steadily beneath the cloudless spring sky. At first she had denied the facts, denied the possibility that the slim boy staring pensively into the distance with unfocused eyes while quietly sipping tea in the far corner of the restaurant was, in fact... a murderer of the most ruthless sort. She'd been wrong... about a great many things.

Now, inside, most of the tables were unoccupied. Only a solitary old man tired of the festival's glittering lights and eager crowds rested by himself, half-dozing in the oppressive summer heat. He glanced up briefly as the young couple entered but soon slipped back into his own quiet world of contemplative nostalgia. So the red-haired hitokiri and the somber woman who trailed wordlessly behind him settled down across from each other underneath the window. At last she reached forward and poured sake first for him and then for herself. Their eyes met as the clear liquid disappeared -- it was he who first looked away.

"The sake, it tastes... good again," he muttered as she lifted the bottle once more. She nodded, and the barest hint of a smile tugged at her lips as she accepted the compliment without a word. But even thus removed from the intensity of the celebrations, their hearts beat in time with the heavy drums, and blood cycled through their veins like sand slipping endlessly between the fingers of Time.

"There is a meeting at the Ikedaya Inn tonight... at the hour of the dog." Even as a statement, the words murmured softly across the width of the table were correctly interpreted as a question by his companion. She nodded again, this time with resolve rather than agreement.

"Then I shall go with you... as your sheath." And where another woman might have turned her head aside, she stared at him with eyes suddenly bright with determination.

"... my sheath?" He echoed her words with his eyebrows drawn together in a rare moment of innocent confusion, fingers loosely balancing the flat ceramic dish in the air before him.

"Katsura-san said... " But now, initial excitement fading, she bowed her head with pale cheeks tinted pink in embarrassment. "...never mind; it's not important." She laced her fingers together, reproaching herself for her forwardness and shifting aimlessly through her mind for something, anything to say to the stranger who sat across from her. "Your wound seems to have finally healed."

"Well, at least the bleeding's stopped. I haven't thought about it in days." She couldn't stop herself from wondering what he thought about instead, what his mind dwelt upon during the long daylight hours. But she'd never asked. After all, it wasn't a woman's place to do so.

"When I look at it, I think the strangest thing... I can't help but wonder about the last thing your victims see, before you...." She heard her words float upward through the air, only half-registering that they were her own. "You kill men who may have wives and families, taking happiness from them every time you draw your sword, but... I don't see how this can bring you much happiness in return."

If he was surprised by her words, his expression remained impeccably calm and indifferent. "People die every day for no reason. I don't choose my victims at random," he insisted with unexpected conviction that bespoke of unwavering self-confidence, not the troubled sea of emotions that washed beseeching against his mind. He registered, without thinking, the entrance of two old women leaning on walking sticks and gossiping to each other about the latest news on the streets.

"Perhaps it's that you don't choose your victims at all. You trust the decisions of the Choushuu leaders. Every time you go out at night, you hold the lives of men in your hands, but you don't even know for yourself if those who you kill deserve to die." Her eyes dropped to the wooden table before her, and she bit her tongue to hold back the accusation she knew she had no right to say.

"It's best that I don't know why. They die for a reason; that's all I need to know... Everyone's life ends sooner or later." He spoke half to her, half to himself. "I don't expect to live a long life myself... but I live for those who died to save my life. It is in their memory that I work to create a better Japan."

His voice caught in his throat, and he hastily swallowed, embarrassed. "It's time. We should go now."

- - - - - - - - - -

With each step from the center of Kyoto, the sounds of the festival grew dimmer until at last the air was quiet, and the stars dozed languidly overhead. The dirt crunched beneath the feet of the two travelers as they wove in and out through narrow alleys without a word passing between them. The man's pace was brisk as if he were half-afraid of pursuit, half-afraid of his own shadow, and the woman at his heels almost had to run to keep up.

"It's him -- the assassin!" The men appeared from nowhere, their faces obscured by darkness but the pattern of their haori was clearly defined in the soft yellow glow of lanterns. Shinsengumi without a doubt.

Shifting his weight forward, the hitokiri thus addressed reached instinctively for his swords, and as he clenched his teeth together, a low growl escaped from his throat. But Tomoe was beside him, her hands on top of his and the scent of white plum surrounding him. He pulled himself away from the distraction. "You must leave this place now. Go --"

"I am your sheath. I am destined to stand beside you." It was a statement, not a question, an earnest profession of loyalty and devotion underneath the blood-red moon.

"You will die," he retorted sharply, tensing beneath her touch, and his eyes, trained on his adversaries, narrowed in anger and impatience. 'Why wouldn't she just run like any other woman?'

"...at your side, for I will have seem you kill. I will know."

Flashbacks of their first meeting flickered across his mind, of that night in the alley with the moist red mist settling upon them -- but even as his ears registered the reply, he jerked away from her grip, his attention directly solely upon Kondou Isumi and his men. "Armor won't save you. Lay down your weapons!" His voice, suddenly resounding from the narrow street, sliced through the night and reverberated from the flimsy wooden walls surrounding them. He slid his foot forward as he spoke, hands again reaching for his swords.

"We are trained in the tequnique of Tennen Rishin Ryuu..." If the speaker felt the icy grip of fear brush against his beating heart, he disguised it well, for his voice was unwavering and his tone confident as he proudly proclaimed the school of himself and his comrades.

"You're all dead --" The Hitokiri Battousai sprung forward as he shouted the interjection, and as he feet flew across the ground, his sword leapt from its sheath in the characteristic battoujutsu style from which he'd acquired his pseudonym. The leader threw himself to the ground at the last moment, only escaping certain death by a fingers width. He continued to roll, leaving a sticky trail of blood behind him.

Salvaging his momentum, Kenshin deftly sidestepped the falling obstacle and raised his blade to meet the next antagonist. The second man was unprepared for the swiftness with which the hitokiri's block became a strong slicing attack that cleaved through flesh and bone without resistance. His eyes stared wide in astonishment even as he doubled over and crumpled to the ground, his life running from him in warm red streams.

In less time than it took to draw a breath, the hitokiri closed the distance to the third man -- and slashed across his chest without breaking stride. And behind him, all the while, his shadow followed step by step, carefully maneuvering around the fallen bodies. She studied the spreading crimson pools dispassionately as she walked, deliberately averting her eyes from the bodies themselves and turning a deaf ear to the anguished moans.

He glanced up as he withdrew his sword from the fourth man's neck, his eyes scanning the road as the body slid down the wall to the ground. But the street was eerily quiet, and even the shadows were devoid of movement. 'The Shinsengumi know, and the meeting's in danger. I must warn Katsura-san.' He paused only long enough to flick the blood from his blade and resheath it. Then, grasping Tomoe's hand firmly in his, he took off once again across the darkness.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Are you the owner of the Inn?" Holding a lantern close to the man's face, "the devil" as his men sometimes called him, Hijikata Toshizou, second in command of the Shimsengumi, filled the door frame with his tall form draped in the identifying blue-stripped haori. "Step aside. We're going to search the premises." Startled by the identify of unexpected caller and his command that left no room for argument (save by the edge of a sword), the innkeeper stood as if his feet were rooted to the floor. Then, suddenly breaking out of his stupor, he turned and fled toward the back of the inn leaving the door wide open behind him.

"Look for Katsura and the assassin but let no one escape!" Hijikata shouted as he crossed the threshold in quick pursuit of the innkeeper who was halfway to the back door.

Okita Souji, leaping instead to the staircase, thrust his sword through the chest of the Ishin guard, then let the limp body fall to the ground beside him. "It's not the assassin!" They clamored single-file up the narrow stairway, one so old that it creaked with ever pounding footstep. Then all at once, naked blades gleaming in the pale moonlight, they were at the door of the meeting room.

Summer fireflies, attracted by the pale flickering light, took to the air as the men inside scrambled to draw their swords. "Someone's coming!" But even as the lanterns were extinguished and the wicks sliced from the burning candles, it was clear that the young men were no match for the squad of killers at their doorstep. Deep crimson splashed across walls and floor; dripping down curved steel blades and soaking into the soft tatami.

A blur of blue and silver, Okita charged though the thin shouji separating inside from the night, but as he landed on the balcony, the humidity fell upon him like a heavy cloak, and although his sword slashed through the air with deadly precision, it was more by instinct and luck than conscious effort. His breath caught in his throat, and he coughed, a persistent dry hack that tore though his chest like sandpaper.

Ahead the dark silhouette of a man escaping into the night was backlit by multi-colored festival lights hanging limply in the heat. 'Imperial coward... you're mine.' With practiced ease, he skidded across the tiled roof toward his target, and with the three-step thrust he was known for, Okita fell upon the man like a falcon diving in for the kill. He neither flinched nor turned away as warm drops of blood sprayed across his face, but despite his quiet smile of satisfaction, his mind was restless with questions. Where was Katsura, and where was the assassin?

*end of part 3*