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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
- 4
- 5
- 6
***
The next day Kenshin slept deeply till the afternoon. He jerked sometimes, feeling hands close on him, wide nails scratch against his stomach, as if there were a person there. After the nightmares of the war, this was only more sand in a desert.
He dozed late, turning from the light until the sun was hot on his back. Then he moved into the garden and sat.
The summer had filled out the maples, and there were large patches of shade with warm wind. He smiled and thought of nothing, letting the light warm his skin.
Yahiko came out slowly. Kenshin could see that he knew.
"Good afternoon, Yahiko."
The boy was silent for a moment. It hurt Kenshin's heart. But Yahiko said, "I heard you might be taking on students. I can count on a spot, right?"
Kenshin grinned. "You do work very hard. I'll let Kaoru choose who advances though."
"Dammit, Kenshin! Come on!"
Kaoru came out of the practice room and clipped him. "Get back in here! Leave Kenshin alone. He's healing."
"She. She's healing," Yahiko said, cringing.
"Kenshin will be called whatever he pleases! He's an adult and you'll respect that."
"I don’t care," Kenshin said. "There's no need to fight."
Sano came in, bearing the groceries. Kenshin started to stand to help to help, in habit, but the pain inside him was sharp. He clutched the frame of the porch.
Sano dumped the groceries and wrapped an arm around him, then whispered in his ear. "This is nothing. We'll find out which cops and tear them up."
"Sano. I love you. We can't attack the police."
Sano snorted. "It's not like you're gonna kill em."
"You can kiss," Yahiko announced, walking back in with a bucket of mop water. "I know you're dating. I'm not a kid."
Kenshin smiled until he left, then looked at the ground.
"He doesn't know shit." Sano growled, stroking Kenshin through the borrowed robe.
Kenshin flinched. "Careful."
"I'm sorry!" There was a breathless silence between them, and then Sano said, "I'll kill them. Oh God. I'm going to kill all of them. And him."
"It's not about him. I have no idea how to stop this from happening to other people. He just touched me with it, Sano. It's absorbed through the skin, and it's incredibly strong. It's so easy to use. Megumi is right, this will escalate. Things like this. She's been around corruption like this before, she's seen it get worse. She's like me; you have a sense for how evil develops."
"We can still start with Saito."
Kenshin lifted a hand. "I'm not to do anything about it today. Kaoru's rules. Heal."
Kenshin lay out after dinner to watch the stars come out, her head in Sanosuke's lap. "I need to talk to her. The wife. Keiko."
"Bitch."
"Don't use that word, please."
"Why?"
"Because it implies you judge women on sexual behavior, and if that displeases you, you value them as useless except for sex."
"What? It does not!" He grunted. His fingers tangled in Kenshin's hair. "None of the women I know ever do anything I ask. Kaoru beating everybody, raising hell around the dojo. Megumi making big bucks with her poisons and doctoring, going after every man she wants. And you, the boss. Total peace. No killing, no fighting, no conflict of any kind…so many rules."
Kenshin smiled. "I must talk to Keiko. Would you please drop by and tell her to go to the restaurant?"
"Nope. I hate that bitch, I don’t want to talk to her."
"Sano."
Keiko entered like a theatre star, in a shiny black kimono and holding a western style cape and purse.
Kenshin wanted to raise a hand to wave, but felt made of wood. Still, Keiko saw him immediately and came over.
She sat. She put her things aside.
Kenshin offered her sake, and she took his hand.
"I did not know they were going to do that."
Kensin put the cup down quickly, before it spilled.
"I didn't know. I would never have let them if I had. I would have – they wouldn't have touched you. I didn't know."
Kenshin nodded, sweating. "I'm sure."
Keiko wrung her hands. "I swear."
"Thank you." Kenshin wanted to discuss the poison; he wanted only to forget the rape. The apology caught him unbalanced. He felt the iron of the lamp post against his back. He flexed his fingers to be sure he could feel them, and cleared his throat. "Ah, thank you for saying that. I don't know what happened. I don't remember. Saito drugged me. I wish… Could you tell me exactly what happened? That isn't why I came here…but if you know, I'd like to hear."
Keiko choked up.
"I'm sorry to upset you – "
"No! No, forget that, just – it's a hard thing to – but for you – all right." Keiko combed back her hair with her hands, thinking. She looked very like a kid. "I was upstairs, asleep, and I heard -- I thought a friend had come to the door. Maybe I just recognized your voice and that woke me? I didn't get up, I was still sort of asleep. Then Saito called the others, and it got loud. People had been on their way over to drink. I think Saito met them in the yard. When I went to the window, I didn't see you, I saw a crowd. Later I looked again, and I did see you, but…it didn't – I didn't recognize you, you know? Even though I saw your clothes and your hair. I saw, but I didn't understand what was happening. I don't think many people saw."
"I remember a crowd."
"I mean – " her voice fluttered. "There may have been. At the end."
They were silent for a moment.
"I talked to some people. Do you want to know?"
Kenshin shook himself and nodded, reaching out to fill her cup with sake. "Thank you. Yes, I would."
"They said it wasn't like a crowd at first. Saito –- " she stopped.
Kenshin, after a moment, said, "There is no reason to be embarrassed. We all love people who are human. And sometimes they commit evil. I – I was a mercenary in the war. What happened to me, what I choose to do, I survived to regret. I think it very likely your husband feels the same now. I love a man now who is a fool. He loves me though I am a murderer. You have no more reason to be embarrassed than we do."
"Sure. Um. Saito – it's not that, Kenshin. It's just hard to say." She stopped, turning her cup in circles. "He got someone to hold you. He was showing them your scars, I think. He was talking about the war. About you. I was at the window then. I couldn't see you, so I didn't understand then what was happening, I was just listening. I heard him talk about you mur – killing people. I was tired, I didn't understand. That sort of thing never happens. You have to believe me. I wouldn't stay there if it did. I didn't think it was a possibly, it didn't even occur to me that might be what was happening! Then two other officers came and – and then they tied you up..."
She stopped. Lifted her hand. That was the end of the story.
Kenshin held his cup, carefully closing his fingers on the sides. "Oh."
"I don't think that many people saw!" She edged forward, reaching for his arm. "All the theatre people still think it was me. So I – I said it was. Don't be angry. I just told them it was a stunt."
Kenshin look at her. "Why?"
"Because I – I thought you had a secret."
"It's not secret. Then integrity of my body is more important, and the reality of what your husband did."
"You – you just said sometimes people make mistakes."
"And in this world, you pay for them. You admit it and you repent. You don't care that this was your spouse, your partner, at your home? His colleagues. You could see from your window."
"I didn't know what I was looking at! And I tried to help you. I said it was me, doing a promotion, Kenshin. I said it was me so no one would think it was you!"
Kenshin bit his tongue. If she claimed that, if so many believed it already, he couldn’t report it.
Not that he could report it anyway. But this seemed to take any chance of the truth being public.
"I was trying to help."
"No. I know you meant to help."
"I was."
"I understand. Th…thank you. For your intentions. But I would rather your husband admit what he did and submit himself for arrest."
"I did it for him too." She smiled. "It doesn't matter for me. I have no virtue to protect. Everyone knows what my body looks like. It's a better story that I did something foolish, than you…I like you, Kenshin. I hope we can be friends."
Kenshin felt as if a shotgun had been opened into his chest. He cleared his throat and tried again.
"I didn't come here to talk about any of that, actually. I asked you here, Keiko, to talk about the content of your plays." Kenshin put his cup down. "You have a lot of power, Keiko. You're charming. People watch you."
"People watch me pretend to be you."
"I don't look like you do. I'm not attractive, not cute. Especially not naked. Please listen. When you do these plays, you put people in danger. Naming specific drugs to intoxicate a woman for rape – "
"That wasn't my idea!"
"Whose was it?"
Her eyes darted. "It wasn't Saito."
"I know that. Whose idea was it?"
"I don't know."
"Keiko, you taught a mob of ill-intentioned men with the wealth, strength, and will to harm how to incapacitate another person. You put it in the context of glorifying rape. You taught them to enjoy rape, and how to do it. I would rather – this is ridiculous to say, but I would much rather you be up there playing…me or whomever, as willing. Aa an enthusiastic partner who loves sex, rather than something desperate creature to be trapped and tortured for entertainment." Kenshin shut his eyes, feeling the lamp post at his back again, watching Saito walk forward to cut him down, the laughter. How he couldn't move. They thought it was funny. "People learn, Keiko. They imitate. You're making a frightening world. You have the power to teach them to be kind. Instead, you were tricked into training them to be monsters."
"Plenty of people like these stories! And half the soldiers who touched you, they don't even go to the plays!"
Kenshin stared. She knew. She knew exactly who they were. She wouldn’t tell. There was no reason to even ask.
Kenshin caught his breath and swallowed, nodding. "Please, Keiko. The men saw your play and learned about the poison, I have proof they tried to buy it. The doctor who told me did not sell it because she knew it could be used for assault – but it's a common, common drug, Keiko. How many men saw your play and were able to buy that poison from a less scrupulous pharmacist – and use it to do exactly what your husband did to me? To commit the rapes your troupe acted out onstage? When it's a real, it hurts Keiko – I imagine you might know that."
Keiko grabbed her things. She hit the table, and slapped the cup over into Kenshin's lap. "You think you know what the world is like? You took the coward's way out. You became a man."
She stood and walked out.
The waitress come over. "Kenshin, are you all right? I'll get you another – "
"No. Thank you." Kenshin offered the tray.
"I wish she wouldn't come in here."
"She's right. She has her freedom to guard," Kenshin said, standing.
"No one thinks it was you because they think you're a man…so they saw your body, female, and assumed it was just another play? And actor slutting it up for soldiers in the street?" Sanosuke sputtered. "I don't fucking care. I'll cut her head off."
"Calm down. Don't joke like that. This isn't funny." Kenshin clapped dirt off his hands.
"Who's joking."
"We have bigger problems. People use drug sales to buy weapons. They created a market for a drug; they must have anticipated that and benefited financially. Fast dirty large money is always war financing. People don't take that kind of risk to buy a horse. Those politicians' sons are writing plays from what they know. Drugs they're selling. People they want to defame or destroy. Perhaps they've mentioned more."
"You think?"
"Youth is incautious."
Sanosuke emptied the basket of weeds in the compost and returned. He kicked Kenshin's foot lightly. "You look really hot when you're gardening. I like your hair all around your face."
Kenshin sat up and smiled. "Pull more weeds, Sano."
"No." Sano scooted over and wrapped his arms around Kenshin.
"Hi, Sano."
"I know, I know. I just want you close."
"It's hot. But it's all right, stay there. Please." Kenshin folded his arms over Sano's.
Sano pressed his forehead to Kenshin's, outlining him with his knees. "You want a bath tonight? I'll get wood, heat it up. I want you feeling better. If we're gonna fight some rich kids, I mean…better to be healed up."
Kenshin pushed the earth back over the seeds he'd planted. "Yes please. That'd feel amazing."
After two days of sleeping half the day in the sun, and taking baths while Sano sat at the corner of the tub biting his fingers and rubbing his scalp and shoulders, Kenshin began stretching. He'd dreamed about the school and wandered in there. Yahiko and Kaoru were sparring inside, learning a new technique at half speed.
"Now, finish! Full speed – "
Yahiko twisted, throwing Kaoru over his hip.
Kenshin smiled as she caught herself, feet banging down into the floorboards. Twisting, she tossed Yahiko down, taking his sword. "That's the next move."
"Come on!" He banged his fist down. "That's not fair – "
"You're learning, Yahiko," Kenshin said, measuring the dimensions of the dojo by eye. "Be grateful. Kaoru is teaching you to anticipate the unexpected."
Yahiko growled, but submitted. "Thank you for the lesson – "
Kaoru threw out her hand. "What! How come he always listens to you? I told him that too."
"Yahiko, I'd like to talk to Kaoru for a minute." Kenshin said, drawing his sword. "Could you give us the floor?"
Kaoru readied her shinai.
"You said talk," Yahiko said.
"Yes, but we're thinking strategically," Kenshin said, setting his stance. "It's the right mindset."
"This is girl talk, Yahiko. Get off the floor."
"You can listen if you like, but please move back so you don't get hurt."
"She's got a shinai – "
"We practice with what we keep at hand, Yahiko."
"Well, she also says don't have a favorite sword," Yahiko protested, retreating.
"That is true."
Kenshin and Kaoru stood in opposition. Kenshin felt at peace then, aware of every particle of air in the room. He moved the sword with loose intention, and across the floor, Kaoru reacted.
"You're getting to be a master, sister," Kenshin said. He attacked then, with a fully imagined new technique – blunting the sword by turning it sideways to slow its passage until it tapped her throat.
Kaoru blinked. Her eyes shifted. Yahiko was laughing. Kaoru swallowed, moving back from the blade. "That's new. Is that what you want to teach?"
"That's what I want us to teach. A room this size, we can take three more students. I think four is a good cohort. They'll be friends. Plenty of attention from each of us."
"Four? My father and I had over fourteen – "
"This will take more aggressive training. We'll need more room. And no seniority. Merit. You learn it or don't."
"Four isn't financially sufficient."
"More than zero. Might make a name for ourselves."
Their blades twisted again. Kaoru grunted, as the blade tapped her side, "Then we can't take good students unless they're rich."
"We'll take who we want. Promise. I'll keep working."
"And?"
"And I'll make Sanosuke work too."
Their blades arced in the afternoon light.
That even, Kenshin ate like a tiger. It felt good to build something. He could pretend this nonsense with corruption and upheaval was only a small chore, worry instead about something grand, the evolution of a tradition, the excitement of training youth. He was exhausted, but feeling renewed.
Megumi and her girls visited, and after dark the adults stayed up with tea.
Sano lay out on the deck, finally bringing the subject back around. "Are you going to kill Saito?"
"Don't grin like that," Kenshin said.
Kaoru said, "We're glad to do it for you. But Sano's being stupid; we know you'd hate that. Still, Saito's a good a place to start."
Kenshin nodded, lowering his tea. "If young men have money, then they want power. Some will stay at a small scale, attacking individuals. But others will not. They'll buy mercenaries to fight their battles and arm them with new weapons. The police may feign corruption to catch them. But how many police remain with integrity is something we need to decide."
"Kenshin. Saito's not on a sting. He's a monster. He always has been. I know you and he have a bond, but he doesn't deserve it."
"Regardless of his morality, he will not accept a position in service to the corrupt. He prefers dominance. If anything, that explains his apology, as a way to secure control. The police give him that as well. I think he's only come into the plan recently, however; he doesn't seem to be guiding what's happening."
Sano crossed his arms, squinting. "Kenshin thinks the plays are a way of communicating. A single hidden message going openly to a crowd, understood by a few."
Kenshin nodded. "I think they might use the outbreak of poisonings to undermine the officials in place, even frame several key voting members."
"That sounds like a conspiracy, dear," Megumi crooned.
"If it is real, you can verify it with what you and your colleagues have sold. If that's accurate, we'll report it." Kenshin said.
"That's all?"
"This is a new world. Nothing needs to be personal." Kenshin drank.
"So we don't go to the house?" Megumi asked.
Kenshin looked at her. "I think we ought to for many reasons. To ask him what happened. To see if he lies. To see if he and his family attempt to hide anything."
Kaoru spoke. "I know you value your reputation at nothing, but if we start a school together, Kenshin, I want to defend it, and you. Our honor is the same now."
Kenshin waved a hand. "All Saito proved is that I am human and can be poisoned. No one ever was dishonored by that."
"Wait – y'all are starting a school?" Sanosuke sat up.
Kenshin grinned as Kaoru patted his back. "Yes. A new style. One of our own."
"Finally!"
Megumi kissed them both and poured more tea. "We can make our own luck in this nightmare, can't we."
Kenshin found the door open, and several men in the yard. They got up and came near, jeering, though Kaoru, Yahiko, and Sano followed him and guarded his back.
"Back for more? I'm surprised you can walk."
Kenshin pushed the door aside and went into the entrance hall. The smell of opium was dense. A dozen bodies sprawled on the floor.
A voice called his name from a smoky sitting room.
Kenshin held a hand out to keep Kaoru guarding the hall and went in.
Saito was standing at the window, out of uniform and silent.
The speaker, a handsome young man in Western dress, bellowed from the couch. "I thought we tore you up good. But you look ready for another round."
Kenshin's hand twitched. But this child was not worth a broken promise. "Saito. It is your house."
"I have nothing to say," Saito murmured.
"I am loved by better people than you could hope to become, so there is nothing I need from you. Any of you."
"Then why come?"
"With a question. Why are criminals and brats being given uniforms and pandered to by the police?"
There was the sound of a pistol cocking. A lax limbed youth in the corner had a long pipe mouthpiece in one hand and a pistol in the other. "Come here, girl."
Kenshin weighed the accuracy of the shot, the consequences of injury. "I am speaking to the only one here I briefly regarded as human."
"Put it down," Saito ordered the gunman, walking.
Kenshin saw Saito slip his hand into his pocket, and he backed out of the room into Kaoru. Kenshin whispered to her, "Keep a path to the road clear."
Saito stopped at the door of the parlor, leaning against the frame. Several of the young men followed, hanging back.
Kenshin waited.
Humiliation shaded Saito's face, and his eyes lit with alert shock. "You came here."
"I want to hear from your mouth."
"Go home."
"Saito, this is your chance. You only and last chance."
Saito was listening, every fiber in his body taut, and he heard. He understood. But he motioned with his eyes that he could not answer.
Still, he gave in and said, "I'm sorry. We should never have done that."
"That's meaningless. It happened."
Saito shrugged.
"We are our actions. You are a rapist, and always have been. Just as I am foolish with my trust, and always have been," Kenshin said quietly. "At least do not treat this government and the trust of the people as foully as you have treated me and my friendship."
"Kenshin."
Kenshin lifted his chin. "We know. But the details of the report will hinge on your next words."
"Let me burn."
Saito's head hung like a dead man. The eyes on him like a wolf.
Kenshin's heart softened. "You have a wife now. There is no need to martyr yourself. Please. Explain."
"Move, dog," one of the youths said, shoving under Saito's arms. He straightened, looking down at Kenshin. "Not as cute as Keiko. But I'd fuck you."
He reached for Kenshin, and Kenshin reached out, twisted his wrist until the bone splinted, then throwing him down into the wall.
Saito didn't lift a hand.
Another young man came around. "You bitch – "
Kaoru was back through the door in a moment. She jabbed the boy in the face with the shinai, cracking his nose with a thump and pop. Kaoru kept the tip up and ready for another shot. Kenshin's eyes were bright on Saito, but Saito didn't try and intervene except to straighten his hands out and gesture at Kaoru to hold.
Kenshin listed the names he suspected aloud.
Saito's eyes widened immediately and he bowed his head. But the boys around them shifted and tried to lie, responding to each voice with guilt or glee.
"Are these your targets?" Kenshin asked.
"Quiet," Saito said, as the boys jeered.
"I will report you then."
"How will you prove you didn't love it?" One of the young men said. "You seemed wet enough. You screamed, anyway,"
Kenshin motioned for Kaoru to get out. "There's no fight here, Kaoru."
She turned and left.
"Such an ugly woman! Show me your chest again," one of the young men said.
Kenshin looked at him, then spoke to Saito. "The report will detail what you plan to do. You will never pay for what you've done to me. You never could. Whether you try, that seems unlikely. Change your company if you want a future of consequence. Your wife is a decent person. She deserves to be married to the man you could be."
Kenshin received a letter the next day, handed to him by a child in the street he didn't know. It was a list of two politicians' names that Kenshin had not expected, plus several crossed out to which the youths had responded with glee on hearing them.
Kenshin corrected the report.
Arrests were made.
***
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