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Recovery: Chapter 10 - Reckoning

by Haku Baikou ::: 11.Apr.2003

The cold air sizzled with motion.

Walls shattered, the cacophony of splintering wood clashing with the shrill howl of the wind, the sibilant hiss of the rain. Terrified, Megumi buried her face in her sleeve, senses assaulted by the deafening echoes and the acrid tang of gunpowder. She flinched and stifled a scream as a nearby barrel burst in an explosion of water. Shredded bits of roofing rained down as she huddled against the building behind her.

She sensed movement behind from her friends, but as she turned her head to look, Sanosuke yelled for her to keep down. She gladly complied. She vaguely heard Ken-san calling for Kaoru and Yahiko, and to her relief, both of them replied from somewhere up ahead, or what she thought was ahead. It was difficult to tell. Her sense of direction was jumbled, her bearings in question as she suffered the onslaught of the enemy's guns.

She'd never seen combat before, had never in her wildest nightmares imagined what it would be like. Her battles had all been on a much simpler playing field, had been contests of will, games of deceit fought with intellect and subterfuge. This devastating physical assault, lacking in subtlety, was something she was utterly unprepared to face. As she winced from yet another projectile from gods-knew-where, she mentally berated herself for thinking she could handle this, for refusing to be left behind by her friends. She really wished she were with Sae right now. Megumi didn't belong here. As Sanosuke had said. She was a burden.

She yelped at a light touch on her shoulder and looked up to see Yahiko beside her, mouthing inaudible words through the din and signaling for her to follow. Kaoru was just behind him, crouched low, moving quickly behind a pile of crates. How had they managed to move to where she was? How had they made it without being shredded to pieces? Megumi reached out a trembling arm and the boy grasped her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

She forced herself to move despite instincts that screamed at her to hunker down, to make herself as small as possible behind the stand of barrels and try to disappear. She bit her lip and willed her feet to move as the boy led her, pulling her along, traveling in spurts from one sheltering spot to another. As she moved she realized that Okina and Goro were behind her. She had no idea where they'd appeared from, but she was grateful for their presence. She felt less exposed.

It was most likely less than a minute before they reached the doorway of the abandoned building Sanosuke had selected, but it seemed like an age, a lifetime. How they had found the entrance was beyond Megumi, but she stumbled in after the boy, and with a final burst of energy, followed him in a flat run as they entered and crossed an empty courtyard to the building deeper within the complex. She finally collapsed in a miserable heap when they'd passed a second, inner entrance, and the boy motioned that it was safe for her to stop. Megumi buried her face in her hands, trying to still her shaking shoulders and to slow her gasping breaths.

The sound of gunfire was blessedly muffled, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, her surroundings began to take form. They were in an abandoned warehouse of some kind. The stagnant air was musty and damp. The floorboards creaked. Tables, chairs, rows of empty shelves, scattered crates spilling moldy straw. The shapes slowly became apparent, dimly illuminated by the nearby lights of adjacent buildings that filtered through rows of high windows lining the warehouse walls.

All of her friends were present, to Megumi's great relief. Sanosuke crouched by the doorway, intently looking across the courtyard to the outer entrance. Ken-san sat propped against the wall beside him. Okina and Goro were on the opposite side, likewise keeping watch. And Yahiko and Kaoru were further back with Megumi, huddled behind a fallen table. She couldn't see any of their features clearly, but they seemed unhurt for the most part.

"Was anybody hit?" asked Okina softly, mirroring her own concerns.

Megumi was thankful to hear only negative replies.

"Megumi, are you all right?" asked Kaoru softly in concern. Megumi looked up at the girl and realized that she alone had not replied to Okina's question.

"Hai, I'm fine." She said, surprised that her voice was fairly steady. She looked at the girl before her in newfound respect. Kaoru--frivolous, silly little Kaoru--was utterly composed and calm, while Megumi, who was normally unruffled by matters, struggled to keep from falling apart. "How do you do it?" asked Megumi quietly. "Aren't you frightened at all?"

"Terrified," answered the girl. "Scared out of my mind." From the tone of her voice, Megumi could tell that Kaoru was smiling.

Megumi made a desperate little sound that passed for a laugh and hugged her knees close.

"Is there anything we can use in here?" asked Sanosuke.

It took Megumi a moment to realize he was talking about weapons. She looked around and heard a soft shuffling as Kaoru and Yahiko quietly explored the room.

The girl's voice was obviously disappointed. "I'm afraid there's nothing here. Maybe a few table legs for--"

"Battousai!" A voice hailed them from beyond the external set of doors.

They tensed, waiting apprehensively for whatever would come next. The guns had stopped, Megumi finally realized, and an eerie silence descended upon the courtyard. The high walls of the adjacent buildings, and a line of giant trees behind the warehouse served to keep the small courtyard relatively sheltered from the wind that raged through the streets outside. However, those structures served nothing in diminishing the rain. The continuous patter of large droplets on muddied stone was all that could be heard from the courtyard.

Megumi squinted, trying to see out into the darkness beyond the doorframe.

"Battousai!" the call repeated.

Her heartbeat quickened as she made out dozens of shadowed figures entering the outer doorway and spreading along both sides of the raised porch surrounding the courtyard. They stopped about half way across, hiding behind support beams and crouching behind piles of crates.

"What do you want with Himura-san?" Okina called from the doorway.

"We want to speak to Battousai! We will not shoot if he comes out!"

"Bullshit!" came Sanosuke's heated retort. "What the fuck was all that back there then? Gion Festival fireworks? You're a month early!"

"Sano...." Ken-san's voice held a hint of gentle reproach.

Muffled orders were barked, and a sense of shuffling and unease was obvious as the enemy soldiers--to Megumi's amazed disbelief--abruptly lowered their guns. Among the men under the shelter of the porch awnings, lamps were lit and set on high poles, the flame light flickering from the damp air and the little bit of wind that still made it through to the yard. Amid the half-circle of light, a lone figure emerged, standing quietly in the center of the courtyard, silhouetted by the glare of the light surrounding him. He carried no gun and seemed to be armed only with a sword.

"That was to keep you from running away," said the figure. Megumi recognized it as Komagata Yoshi's voice. "Do you truly think you'd all have escaped unscathed if we were aiming to kill? We want Battousai." The voice was cold and hard. "The rest of you are irrelevant. If he comes out here, I promise you, the rest of you will not be harmed."

In the darkness of their room, Ken-san stirred.

"Kenshin, what the hell are you doing?" whispered the street fighter fiercely as the rurouni began to get up, leaning on the wall for support.

"Sessha must--"

"Iya! Kenshin! Are you crazy? Don't you even think of going out there," the street fighter cut him off. He grabbed the rurouni by the arm.

"Let go, Sano." Kenshin pointedly pried the street fighters fingers away, and ignoring the younger man's muttered curses, managed to stand on his own and take a step towards the door. He halted when Kaoru--moving faster than Megumi had ever seen her--suddenly interposed herself between the rurouni and the doorway.

"Don't, Kenshin..." she said, placing her hands lightly on his chest.

"Kaoru-dono. Sessha must speak with Komagata-dono." His voice was gentle, but the certainty in his tone would tolerate no argument.

"If you must, then we're all coming with you, Ken-san!" Megumi blinked. The words were out of her mouth before she'd even realized she what she would do. But once she had said them, her course was perfectly clear to her, and she'd stood up and moved now to join Kaoru in blocking Ken-san's way.

"Yeah," chimed in Yahiko. "We're all going, and you can't stop us."

Kenshin looked at them, his expression unreadable in the darkness. But the set of his shoulders changed subtly, and Megumi knew they had won. As Yahiko had said, the rurouni was in no condition to stop them all from coming along.

They filed cautiously out the door then, standing uneasily along the main porch of the warehouse, facing the ring of shadowed men who surrounded them. At some unseen signal, several of the torch bearers came towards them, lighting the remaining half of the courtyard so that finally, features could be determined in the golden light.

Komagata Yoshi regarded them silently from where he stood. He studied them for a long time, his eyes dipping briefly from their faces to waist level. Megumi followed the man's line of vision downward. She tensed and looked quickly up at the rurouni in concern.

Kenshin was bleeding. A deep ruby stain from the unhealed wound in his side darkened the rain-soaked fabric of his blue gi and seeped into the grey of his hakama. A low hiss from Sanosuke and a quiet gasp from Kaoru told Megumi that they too had noticed Ken-san's condition. Kenshin, seemingly ignorant of his friends' concern, stepped away from them to slowly walk into the ring of torchlight and stand before Komagata. He remained silent, allowing the younger man to speak first.

"A reckoning is in order, Battousai," said the young man quietly. "We," he indicated his fellow comrades in a broad sweep of his arm, "are what remains of Lord Shishio's army. We seek vengeance for a crime, Battousai. In our eyes, your life is forfeit."

No, Megumi thought, helpless to do anything but watch. When would it ever end, she wondered. Over and over again, Ken-san had been forced to deal with ghosts from his past. And now, so soon after his last battle, before he even had a chance to recover, it was already starting again. Once again, someone from Ken-san's past was out for revenge, and once again, the rurouni was forced to figure out a way to deal with the challenger without killing the challenger or allowing himself to be killed.

"Shishio Makoto had to be stopped," said Kenshin softly. "Sessha had hoped it could be done without his death."

Komagata Yoshi arched an eyebrow.

"Whoever said anything about Lord Shishio's death? My men and I are here for my sister. Komagata Yumi."

Ken-san blinked. And for the first time, Megumi saw that his composure wavered. "What?" he asked faintly.

"You killed my sister, you heartless fiend," said the young man, his tone deceptively matter-of-fact. "And you will answer for it, Battousai, with your life."

Megumi stared. They had been wrong. They had all been so very wrong. All this time, when they thought the enemy was out for vengeance in the name of their Lord Shishio, the true source of their fury was the death of a single woman, this Komagata Yumi that Kenshin had spoken of. But Ken-san hadn't killed the woman, thought Megumi in confusion. Lord Shishio had.

"Komagata-dono, sessha did not kill your sister," the rurouni said, frowning.

"Don't bother lying, Battousai. It won't help you now," said the young man in disgust. His eyes narrowed. "For years, we dreamed of Lord Shishio's new Japan. For months, we trained at breakneck pace to make that dream a reality. You took all of that away from us, Battousai, in the span of one afternoon.

"You took away my dreams. Strange as it may seem, I can accept that. It is a painful and difficult truth, but I can accept it as part of Lord Shishio's teachings. If you're strong you live. If you're weak, you die. Acceptable consequences in your fight with Lord Shishio. He lost. Therefore, as much as I dislike thinking it, he must have been the weaker man."

Yoshi drew his sword.

"But you also took away my family that day. And that, I cannot accept. My sister's death was not necessary in determining the final outcome of the battle. What use was there in killing her? She was an innocent bystander! You couldn't even have used her death as 'food' as Lord Shishio so often put it. Her death was meaningless!"

The young man's voice shook with emotion. "For that reason. For that reason alone... In the last twenty-one days, I have thought of nothing but destroying you!"

"Wait a minute! You've got it all wrong!" Sanosuke clenched his fists in outrage. "Kenshin didn't kill Yumi! He would never kill a defenseless woman!"

"No? He's done it in the past," the young man retorted.

Megumi gasped. Sanosuke blinked at that and looked over to the rurouni. From the corner of her eye, Megumi could see that Kaoru too was looking at Kenshin in shocked disbelief. Ken-san's head was lowered, and he made no sign of denying Komagata's claim. A part of Megumi knew that it was highly likely Ken-san had killed women in his past as hitokiri, and that she should not be surprised by such a revelation, but to hear it proclaimed publicly made her blood run cold.

"That doesn't matter," resumed Sanosuke quietly. His voice was subdued, but he still retained the stubborn set of his jaw that spoke volumes: There was no way the street fighter would back down.

"All I know is I was there. I saw the fight. And your very own Lord Shishio was the one who killed Yumi, not Kenshin!"

Yoshi's eyes blazed at those words. There was an angered muttering among the men behind him.

"Shishio? Shishio killed my sister, the woman he loved more than anything." He said flatly in disbelief, his voice low and dangerous. "You expect me to believe that."

"Yeah, I do! And if you don't believe me, I'll say it again. With this!" Sanosuke's hand clenched into a fist.

"Baka!" whispered Megumi fiercely to the street fighter. "You're only making them more angry. And you can't use that hand yet!"

But Sanosuke wasn't listening. The street fighter was already pushing back his sleeves, preparing for a fight.

"Stay out of this, boy," warned a new voice. "This has nothing to do with you."

"You're threatening my friend. It has everything to do with me!" said the street fighter, as a stern, grey-haired man approached and stepped into the light, stopping a few paces back from Komagata.

All eyes turned to the newcomer as he lifted his gun and pointed it at the street fighter. Megumi hadn't noticed him before, but he must have been standing quietly in the shadows the whole time.

"We are not without honor," said the grey haired man. "Our fight is only with the Hitokiri Battousai. We do not wish any harm upon the rest of you. You fought us well at the Aoiya, and you won. We do not dispute that outcome, and we have no wish for another battle. Komagata-san will fight Battousai alone. One on one, in an honorable duel. We are not villains, despite what you believe. We are willing to be fair."

Sano bristled, barely restraining himself. "What's fair about it?" he growled. "Kenshin's bleeding and barely able to stand, and you're going to make him fight a duel?"

"Considering the hitokiri's reputation," said the old man grimly, "I'd say the odds are fairly even this way."

The members of Shishio's former army stirred restlessly behind Komagata and the newcomer. Megumi realized of a sudden, that despite Kenshin's condition, Shishio's men were afraid of him. Komagata's hand rested on his sword as he waited, allowing the older man to speak for him. Megumi noted that despite the young man's apparent confidence, his grip on the hilt of his weapon was unnecessarily tight. The young man's knuckles were white."

"Well, Battousai?" asked Yoshi. "Do you accept our terms?"

"No."

Everyone looked at the rurouni in surprise.

Komagata's expression hardened, his mouth thinning to a tight line. "Kitada-san," he said to the grey haired man.

The older man made a barely perceptible hand signal, and suddenly, all the men took up their guns once more, and pointed them at Megumi and her friends.

"Yoshi!" protested officer Goro. Megumi started. She had all but forgotten the other young policeman's presence behind her. "Yoshi, what are you doing?"

Yoshi looked at his friend and frowned with what seemed like true regret, but he made no move to explain his actions or to retract his order.

"You have no choice in the matter, Battousai," said the grey haired warrior, Kitada. "We were hoping you'd fight us of your own free will, but if this is what it takes for our revenge, then this is what it takes. You will fight us."

Kenshin bowed his head and drew the sakabatou.

The rurouni made one last appeal. "What Sanosuke said was true, Komagata-dono. There was a man, a follower of Lord Shishio, who witnessed the fight. He had brown hair and wore western clothing. Sessha suspects he survived the destruction of Shishio's lair. Have you not spoken with him? Did he not tell you what truly happened?"

"He's nowhere to be found," said Yoshi. "For all I know, he's in hell." He gripped his sword tightly before him. "And you can go join him, Battousai!"

With that, the young man launched himself at the rurouni. And their duel began.