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Law	By : Artemick Category: Rurouni Kenshin > Het - Male/Female Views: 6553 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin and make no money writing about it.

Chapter List
- 1-Police
- 2-Regret
- 3-Wonder
- 4-Satire
- 5-Heal
- 6-Promises
- 7-Overseer
- 3
- 4
- 5
Kenshin and Kaoru sat out that night, drinking tea. She patted Kenshin's hand. "I've missed you. You could do better."
"I like him, Kaoru. He suits me."
"Oh, him too, but I meant here! Us, me. Working at the dojo."
"I love it here. Kaoru, I love it. It's peaceful. It's so warm here, with friends and the garden. I don't have some big ambition. I'm really happy just living. I need to sort out what I mean to the world, what I have to offer."
Kaoru smiled. "Plenty. You're always welcome here. And I was thinking – even if…I would consider moving the goof in here. If it kept you here. Honest."
"Huh?"
"Sanosuke. Your idiot. If you absolutely have to date him, I can tolerate you two kipping up in the shed until we buy one of the houses around here. And then you could both work here and use our rooms, and I'll come in to work. We need more room for the kid anyway."
Kenshin lowered his cup. "I'd like to teach. Not to kill…I want to teach a new style. Do you think anyone would learn?"
Kaoru grinned.
Just then, Kenshin heard steps and pointed. "Speak of the devil."
Sano burst in. Kenshin stood, taking up his sword – Sano's face was red with anger, and his lip was bleeding.
"You gotta come see. Your shit exboyfriend and his wife are fucking up everything."
Kenshin started. "Could you…be more specific?"
"Just c'mon."
He dragged them both out and down the street.
"Are you drunk?" Kaoru whined.
"This is a little far to be walking so late," Kenshin said.
"It's worth it," Sano growled.
They came to a theatre, a rather pretty old one. Kenshin smiled at the old paint. It looked like theatres he'd stayed at as a child. He'd always liked the gilt paint and bright colors.
Some men groaned by the door until Sano glared their way.
Kaoru grimaced. "Why are we here?"
"I think it's nice – " Kenshin said.
"Just go in!"
They did, without paying – the man in the booth scuttled away, grabbing his coat and running out into the street.
Sano hustled them inside. The seats were dark and the stage was lit. It was simple, really nothing there except the actors.
Then Kenshin saw, with a bright pang of shame, that it was her, Saito's wife. More than that. Saito's wife playing him – pretending to be Kenshin. Onstage. She had her hair bleached and hennaed, her bangs loose and ugly around her face. She wore almost exactly the clothes Kenshin had on at that moment, down to his red tabi.
"It's fine," Kenshin whispered, even though his blood was pounding so hard he missed what the other two were saying to him. "Let's leave. This isn't important."
"This is a bordello!" Kaoru hissed.
"It's not hurting anyone. I don't care. We didn't create a new world to – to punish people for satire," Kenshin murmured.
"That's not what this is and you know it," Sano growled.
"Agreed," Kaoru said. "That's slander. Saito's a little bitch to let her do this in public, after all we helped him with."
Kenshin turned to hide his smile. It felt good to hear them defend him. "I think we should go. It'll be embarrassing if anyone sees us."
"Kenshin!" Kaoru insisted. "This could hurt your reputation – "
"I don't have a reputation. None worth protecting."
The little figure on the stage was suddenly accompanied by a retinue in cheap police costumes. A chill crept over Kenshin's skin. He shuddered, as the soldiers drew weapons, and the fake version of himself was disarmed. A false captain and emperor came out.
"We should go, please," Kenshin said, his mouth dry. "I want to go."
There were pronouncements from the stage, jokes lost in the audience.
'No more vigilante thugs' – the audience shouted. Then the fake Kenshin made some joke about samurai being for rent. 'My body is for the highest bidder.' She flirted with the emperor. 'But you have your own sword. Very ample.'
Kenshin bit his lip. It was a little strange – why him? Why imitate him, of all people? They liked to see a pretty girl onstage, bending over, sure – but there was something viciously demeaning in how the cheers of the audience attacked the emperor and samurai characters, but encouraged the actors. They venerated her as an actress; they hated the starving pathetic mercenary she played.
The police chief ordered the fake Kenshin captured, and she joked, 'I love an audience. I could take ten men at a time – "
The chief ordered her to bow, and she did, baring her ass to him. The emperor shuddered with orgasm at the chance, and the police chief groaned that he'd have to take care of this mess too and pretended to take out a comically fake phallus.
There was a roar in the audience.
But under the tone of bawdy, tired workers, who'd laugh at anything – there was a silence. A malice Kenshin recognized. A malice he'd had once, the kind that negated values, the kind that men once and still used to rationalizing silencing others in the most permanent way possible.
"These people aren't loyal to the government," Kenshin said, ignoring the play to state the nail on which the humor hung. "We can't be caught in here when the lights come up."
He left, and the other two followed at his heels.
Kenshin stalked off into the dark as the other two fumed. He didn't want to become involved in this. But it was his world, the world he'd helped make. Whoever made the play, they were threatening revolution, threatening war without knowing the cost. He could see it, like a farmer sowing seed. The harvest would come.
"They can't do this! That's defamation – that's obviously supposed to be Kenshin – not to mention the emperor."
"The play is performed for the opposition," Kenshin snapped. "The emperor's opponents. They don't hate me; they hate people in power. They're joking that samurai are whores to politicians now. That they use my image is incidental, it does not matter. I'm just local. Recognizable. I'm an obvious choice but not the important target. The people in that room are politicians, but ones disloyal to the country. To order. It's a large, very powerful group of people. Keep walking. We don't have the subtlety to fight them. Politically, they could destroy us. And I refuse to kill a person for that. So we do nothing."
"Kenshin."
He softened, letting them catch up to him. "Nothing but say the truth to the right people."
Kenshin prepared a letter to Yamagata. But it was clear from the next day that there was more than a satire at the theatre. People were gathering – but not leaving. The shows continued, always starring in there as some nameless impression of Kenshin adventuring through a string of corruption. And she began doing comic interludes, which were simply loose lies about fights Kenshin had been won, insinuating Kenshin had been raped or coerced. They were cleverly written, like fables explaining how such a small person won all the fights.
"It doesn't bother me," Kenshin said again, as he knelt in the garden, folding soil over the roots of kale that had been exposed by the torrential rains.
"A lot of people are going to the theatre. A lot of rough men. Like your dumbass boyfriend," Kaoru said.
Kenshin patted the earth. "No accounting for taste."
"It's good you like a ruffian like Sano, I guess, if you're going to keep getting into fights."
"I'm staying out of fights."
Sanosuke was watching every performance, some combination of arousal and protectiveness driving him. He brought back details that he hoped would annoy Kenshin enough to start a fight.
And it did disturb Kenshin. There were violent elements in the city, politicians who treated people like commodities. He knew someone had pushed that woman into performing, and paid for the plays, and did want to smear the emperor, and as a side, the police and anyone who cooperated with the law. Someone smarter than Saito. Some people might get a kick from seeing Kenshin lose a fight, and enjoy watching some funny sex, but it was the politicians who paid to see corrupt police putting a local hero on her knees.
There were people who loved Kenshin, people Kenshin had helped, and the playwrights wanted to make them angry at the city, the nation. There were two games here, being played at once.
Kenshin sat back, looking over the plants. It was very smart.
One night, Sano was silent on return and went straight to bed. He didn't dare touch Kenshin after the plays.
Kenshin sat watching the candle burn. Saito slept turned away. Kenshin stared into the flame, and began to feel hideous, mutilated, stolen.
Kenshin went out alone that night to see the play what Sanosuke saw, the one he couldn’t talk about.
Kenshin settled into the shadow of a pillar, leaning. Saito was onstage that night, the real one. His wife was there, dressed in the red gi and a traveling bamboo sedge hat. Saito was harassing her, and she was answering in naïve double entendres, and Saito finally began ordering her to strip. His wife, as Kenshin, begged for him not to make her, but gave in. Saito slapped and groped her. She finally understood and, acting sly, offered to fuck him for a handful of rice.
"That's all? What a humble slut!" Saito announced.
The audience laughed as his wife wailed, "I haven't eaten since the last war."
Pain shot through Kenshin's guts.
Kenshin raced outside to vomit into the gutter. He emptied his stomach and then, too like the character, made himself stop because it was a waste.
He trembled, wiping his face. All the blood was going from his hands. His fingers felt like ice.
Some men nearby were staring. "Is that…"
Kenshin got up and walked quickly into the dark around the corner. Walking, he wept. His stomach still burned.
It wasn't funny. Women trading the integrity of their bodies for food, it wasn't funny.
He stopped, leaning against a tree. He sunk down and meditated until he caught his breath, and stood until his eyes weren't stinging.
"Chiza," he said to himself, remembering the name one of his caretakers. He said their names in a row, and began to walk. They didn't save his life so that he could throw up and forget to walk home when he had a warm room and friends waiting.
Kenshin walked, because they couldn't walk, and they would want him to.
When he go home, he found Kaoru was up with her child, bouncing her on her lap, eyes tired.
"Please Kenshin, could you make that rice pudding? For both of us. We're just hungry."
Kenshin nodded, and he went into the kitchen, grateful to know what to do.
"I don't want to talk about it," Kenshin barked over the noise of the restaurant.
"That's the third person who's mistaken you two," Sano snarled.
"You just need a new jacket," Megumi explained. "I'll dye your hair. It'll never happen again. And Kenshin is right – it's a fad and it will blow over."
"Shit – look."
Saito and his wife walked in. They said hello to some officers and sat down at the table with them.
"They can't eat here!" Sano threw down his chopsticks. "Assholes. This is our restaurant. What do they think, they can act like that and still go anywhere?"
"I'll tell the owner not to serve them," Kaoru said.
Megumi shushed them.
Kenshin stood, his eyes locked on Saito. "I'm going to talk to them."
"Good," Sanosuke shouted.
Kenshin did not hear the rest, but went over and knelt behind them. "Excuse me, please."
The table quieted and they turned, before one officer whispered, "I've been wishing for a twin scene!" and they broke out in laughter.
Kenshin glanced to the side, keeping his gaze low. "Hello, Keiko."
"Uh, hi…" She was still in costume. Full makeup.
"I don't have any problem with what you do. We all need to earn a living. But please give the playwrights a message. Tell them that they have more power than they know to do harm." He caught her eyes. "Please Keiko. Tell them that. And for yourself, consider about whether their words are worthy of you speaking them. Do you understand?"
She nodded.
Kenshin started to stand. He stopped as she touched his sleeve, and she whispered, "Sorry."
Kenshin smiled, taking her hand for a moment. "It's fine."
Though he was immediately beside her, Saito would not look up. He stared at his bowl. Not moving.
Kenshin's lip curled and he walked back to his own table. He sat down and stared into his sake. The others bent near, but he barely heard them.
After a minute of feeling like he were drowning, the warmth of Sanosuke's arm crossed his back.
Kenshin smiled and put his hand on Sanosuke's thigh, and the colors in the room came back into focus.
"What did you tell her?" Yahiko was asking.
"She can make her own choices," Kenshin said. Some part of him knew this was likely to change nothing, and fearing that was like hearing a storm blow in. He clasped Sano's hand.
Sanosuke was especially attentive that night, and Kenshin was grateful.
He tried to explain the politics underpinning the plays to Sano, but it didn't do any good.
He was still explaining some days later to Kaoru when Megumi knocked.
Megumi took them both into a corner of the garden and held up a packet of powder. "Men are asking me for this. I handed it out once before asking. The second admitted he'd heard it could be used to drug women. It's for surgeons as a prep drug before they knock out patients. Stronger than alcohol. You stop making choices, you lose control over yourself…sometimes you lose memory."
"I've seen thieves use that," Kenshin said. "They'll drug someone before they steal from them to avoid a fight."
"Kenshin. I asked how he knew to ask for this. He said he'd heard it in a play, at the theatre. I lied, told him the drug was made up. But eleven people came after him with the same question. One was fifteen years old." Megumi turned. "Kaoru, this drug is cheap. It's easy to make. Other people have it. Other people will sell it."
Kenshin snarled and got his sabako.
Kenshin knocked hard until Saito opened the door.
"Battousai, if you break this, we will cross blades."
"I should have – at the station -- " Kenshin shook his head.
"What? Threaten a police officer? Try it."
"That is why your plays are popular, Saito, because they want to paint you as corrupt, Chief Yamagata as a sly baby sitter, and the emperor as a preteen idiot."
Saito lit a cigarette. "Did you just defame the chief and emperor in the same breath?"
"Don't act like you'd lie and get me killed. You might be a wretched lover, but you're not a false witness. You're not a monster."
"A wretched lover, me? I think I remember you begging me on your knees at the door. 'I want you to be my first!'" Saito simpered. "What about you, slut?"
Kenshin was quiet for a moment, peering at his face. "Men are coming by the pharmacy to buy sedatives they saw portrayed in your play."
"What?"
"You're the detective. You know with her talent and my – conspicuousness, apparently – that character is a stand in for the discarded samurai. The sheltered politicians' sons are terrified of us – and of you. Anyone with the skill to farm or fight or make something besides empty promises intimidates landed gentry. They're children, they're rich, and it's dangerous to encourage. And in the meantime, they're poisoning women to rape."
"Why would you think that?"
"Because that's what it was used for in your play," Kenshin shook. "I attended. The one with the soldiers. At the station. The raped prisoner. The placard titled it, Her First Night."
"So?"
"Saito."
"Money is money, Kenshin. I need it. She's pregnant. She can only do this so long and – "
"I don't – I don't need to know anything. Not about you, or your wife, nothing about your life. I came to tell you to please, please tell the police chief that there's about to be an epidemic of attempts to use these drugs to subdue and assault citizens. Tell your men that they should be on guard in the streets. Warn hotel owners and servers in the restaurants. If you had any damn dignity left as an officer."
Saito stared.
Kenshin scoffed. "Or did you write it?"
Saito lifted a hand and struck him across the face.
Kenshin spat onto the grass and straightened, wiping his mouth. "That isn't going to make me go away."
"Like we said. You're the draw for the scenes. A hot commodity." He pulled the glove off carefully with his other gloved hand, and dropped it. "And we need the money."
Kenshin felt moisture on his face. He reached up and touched it, coming away with a slimy oil. Suddenly he felt – strange. A loss of balance. A dissociation like dreaming.
"I don't need to warn restaurants, Kenshin. The sedatives are not in the food. It's a salve. You put it on another person's skin, and they turn a bit like a doll. Not that we'd treat you like one. That would be wrong." He chucked Kenshin under the chin.
Kenshin tried to move and fell sideways off the walk. He grabbed at the wall, but his balance failed. He went down on his shoulder.
"Goodnight, doll."
Kenshin blinked. He pressed a hand to the ground. Tried to focus the spinning world. He got to his knees, going by sense of touch, muscle memory. Everything felt prickly; his ears rang; there was a smell of smoke.
Saito whistled. "Here he is."
Kenshin touched the hilt of his sword and considered slicing him in half, but did not. Better to die than to murder.
Then everything went colorless.
Kenshin fell onto his knee.
Saito took the sabako, and Kenshin let him. Better than to murder again…in this madness….
Men came out.
At first they didn't touch him. Then they did.
At first it didn't hurt. Then it did.
Kenshin's thoughts began to align again. He first noticed laughter and an aching body split with fire. It was still night. They were still outside. He couldn't get his hands down.
The old taste of Saito's cigarettes was on his tongue.
He saw faces. He was terribly cold. His body was bare.
"Advertisement?" Some people were saying, and, "But that's not Keiko. Is it?"
Kenshin's eyes focused. He felt metal against his back. The lamp post. And the crowd of the street. And Saito was in his door, watching. All around him were police, lounging.
Kenshin stared at Saito. Finally the man came down, carrying Kenshin's sword. He pushed to the front. "I thought you liked being the center of attention."
Kenshin swallowed.
Saito pushed Kenshin's sword loose a hands-width and struck him down. Kenshin's arms dropped. He snatched the sword back and held his torn clothes shut.
Saito offered him a wad of bills.
Kenshin thought for a moment about Kaoru's children. To send them to school. To buy food, to pay the property taxes. He turned away.
"Take it."
Kenshin set his jaw. "You're being very rude."
He took a step. Pain shot through his groin. Raw nerve endings, torn flesh. He limped, inches, and was surrounded by a burst of laughter.
"Mind your own business, Battousai! Man slayer. Body like that, you should be on stage."
Kenshin heard very little of it. The pain blocked his ears. His steps were small, so he just watched the ground, using the sheathed sword as a cane.
"Please. Just sit with me." Kenshin said, "Don't let Sano see. I don't want him to. I'll tell him later, I just…don't want him to make me feel weak."
Kaoru coaxed her into the bath, and sat near for a bit, as water boiled.
Kenshin bent over her knees, curling her arms over her head. "I was never this afraid before. If Saito hadn't learned I was a woman, I'd have been safe. If he'd never found out, they would have attacked me as a man or not at all. I could have defended myself. I'd have been safe."
"I know. Kenshin, just rest." Kaoru brought the hot water to the bath and mixed it in. "You said the police chief was honest?"
"He's not in control of his people. I should talk to him, directly. If they get away with it once, they'll do it again. At least I can be a nuisance." Kenshin held the side of the basin. "That might not be true of other women they drug."
"Hey! It's okay, go slow."
"I thought he was sincere. He apologized – what did he want from me?" Kenshin pressed a hand to his head, trying to remember Saito, when he came. "He was sincere…I'm not worth lying to…"
Kaoru held him hard. "You need to stop. You're trembling."
Kenshin stared down. "I thought he meant it."
"What?"
"My whole life is nothing but regret. What will I say to the police chief? I allowed it. I can say nothing, I allowed it. Perhaps it was coerced, but then I slept with Saito willingly for weeks. Then he attacked me, but I don't remember. What can I say?"
"People saw."
"Maybe. That may be of some use." Kenshin sighed. "Thank you for being here – "
"Here. Wash."
Kenshin wiped at his skin.
Kaoru pet his shoulder. "I'm going to get the good soap and new clothes."
Kenshin nodded.
When she returned, Kenshin got out and took the heavy new cloth. "But this is yours."
"Just wear it tonight. It's softer than your crap."
"But I like mine."
"Take it!"
Kenshin smiled, dressing. "Help me?"
Kaoru helped him into their room, onto an extra mat. Kenshin was ashamed, but glad to be able to hear another person's breath.
"Kaoru," he whispered, reaching out to clutch her hand after they'd settled in. "You're my best friend."
"Not your dog, Sano?" She poked his face, her eyes already shut.
"He's my lover. I mean, he and I are friends besides that. If we stopped fucking, we'd still be friends. But you and I – you're my best friend, Kaoru."
She wiped at his bangs. "You're my strangest."
"I love you. Thanks."
"Don't cry. You've gotten over worse things. This is like when my father died, and that murderer defamed us. It's petty, typical, and political. And it passes. You stand up for what's true and it passes. Don't be afraid. Heal and rest. In two days, we'll tell you what we know and you can move then. Now, hold my hand and sleep."
Her husband put his hand on her, dreaming. She chuckled and held Kenshin's hands. Kenshin shut her eyes and slept.

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