The police whistles were coming closer. Kaoru wandered out into the street and peered toward the commotion. There was a sudden flash of pink and scarlet at the end of the road, and then a flailing horde of policemen rounded the corner panting and looked around. Further down the road, a child giggled and pointed... up. Nine heads -- apparently they'd lost a few somewhere -- nine heads slowly pivoted skyward.

Kenshin, perched on top of a light post, smiled and waved down at them. Tanaka waved back helplessly, then grabbed a broom from a shop owner and stalked over and swatted up at him. Kenshin twisted through a few precarious contortions trying to keep his balance and stay out of swat range; he balanced on one foot, jumped over a lucky high swing, landed on the other and wobbled-- Tanaka stopped swinging to watch and see whether he could catch himself; when everyone realized he wasn't going to fall after all, Kenshin wasn't the only one to sigh in relief. Tanaka was leaning on the broom, staring up; Kenshin offered a rueful shrug.

"Aren't you going to try to hit me again?"

"I need to be three feet taller," Tanaka said. "Himura-san, who in the world would be hiding out on top of a light post?"

"A light post? Nobody. But a tree in the forest, or a tall rock... you see? What are you going to do about me now?"

Tanaka conferred for a moment with the other eight heads. "...Hoshino, you get Sato, then I'll give him the broom..." The tallest policeman leaned on the bottom of the lightpost; the shortest one climbed up onto his back for a piggyback ride, and took the broom from Tanaka with a grin.

"En garde, Himura-san!" He swung; Kenshin hopped.

"En garde de gozaru ka?"

"French!" Sato said proudly, and swung again. "En garde junior--" Tanaka ran a hand down his face.

"Sato. Don't swing, just poke; you'll get better recovery time, and he can't stay midair forever."

"Want to bet?" Hoshino muttered, grinning.

Behind Kaoru, Ayano giggled enthusiastically. "Gambatte, Foxtail-san!"

"Yare yare," Saitou muttered, taking a drag on the cigarette.

Kenshin waved toward them. "Konbanwa, minna... just a minute..." Sato was calculating and balancing the broom in his hands; he thrust straight for Kenshin's ribs, except that Kenshin wasn't there anymore. He landed on the canopy of a nearby stall, flailed for balance on the shifting canvas, and leapt again just before one of the policemen could catch his ankle. The next stall had a wooden roof; it creaked a little, but held, and Kenshin hung upside-down over the edge to call to the irate basketweaver, "Sumanai de gozaru yo -- I'll be gone in a minute," and he was. He landed on the roof of the building behind the basketweaver's stall; Hoshino looked at the basketweaver's roof appraisingly, and got swatted by the basketweaver.

"No way! Not on my roof! The little acrobat kid's one thing; not you, you big lout..."

On the roof, Kenshin fell over flat. "...I'm thirty years old!" he wailed.

The basketweaver leaned out of the front of his stall, craned his head to look up, considered for a moment, and hollered back, "Pull the other leg, there's bells on it! -- Anyway. All of you. Keep off my roof!"

Hoshino looked at Tanaka. "Can't we say that's obstruction of justice?"

"It's better not to have to," Tanaka said grudgingly, looking up at Kenshin, who was sitting crosslegged on the roof patiently waiting for them to decide on their next move. "Not to mention there's not a chance in hell that roof'd hold any of us but Sato... and maybe not even him."

"Now what?" another policeman asked gloomily.

Tanaka spat on his palms, took three steps backward, and charged the building; he jumped and actually caught the roof... then started to slide. Kenshin sprinted down the slope and caught his wrist... but his weight started to pull them both off the edge.

"Let me fall, you crazy little--" Tanaka managed to catch a foot on a window frame and stop the slide, and sat panting for a minute. "Sorry, Himura-san. Sorry. Um. Thanks anyway. But you're absolutely mad, you know that?"

Kenshin gave him his best silly smile. "Maa, maa... daijoubu de gozaru ka?"

"Er..." He tested the windowsill; it didn't crack under him, but it also didn't give him any leverage. "I think so."

Still clinging to Tanaka's wrist, Kenshin called down, "Hoshino-dono, you might want to come push..."

"The second I can let go of this roof, I'm grabbing for you," Tanaka told him, wearing a fair imitation of Saitou's wolf-grin.

"Hai, hai. --Hoshino-dono, onegai...!"

"Chotto," Hoshino said, getting Sato balanced on his shoulders before picking his way through the market stalls to the building. Sato was high enough to be able to catch Tanaka's other foot and push; Tanaka scrambled to get the other foot from the windowsill to the gutter, and Kenshin pulled hard -- strength was one thing, but limited traction and a disadvantage in terms of body mass was something else, and on a slope the mass made a difference. Sato gave one last desperate shove, then ducked to keep from getting kicked in the head as Tanaka half rolled, half flailed his way onto the roof.

"Daijoubu ka?" Kenshin asked again, then jumped back from Tanaka's lunge.

"I warned you--"

"Hai, hai." He took a few steps away to be out of range while Tanaka was still learning how to stand, then looked back anxiously. "Sato-dono..."

Sato had discovered how to stand on Hoshino's shoulders to get his elbows onto the roof, and was trying to swing a foot up. "En garde!" he called cheerfully.

"Oro?"

Tanaka blinked back at his comrade. "...Sato, what do you think you're doing?" He sat carefully on the edge of the roof to reach down and catch Sato's belt, then hauled him up like a sack of grain. Then both of them looked up the roof toward Kenshin, wearing identical toothy grins. Kenshin took a half-step back.

"...oro...?"

They scrabbled and slid and flailed and finally, grimly, crawled towards him; he walked sideways along the ridgepole, watching, then called, "It's easier at the top de gozaru."

"Now he tells us..." Sato sighed. Kenshin walked backwards along the ridgepole to be able to watch them, and stopped neatly five paces from the end; Tanaka choked on the breath he'd taken to shout a warning, and spent a while caught between coughing and laughing. When they were all safely on the ridgepole, Tanaka looked over his shoulder at Sato, then sighed and began carefully walking toward Kenshin.

"Good!" Kenshin said, without the slightest evidence of condescension in his happy smile. "Good. So--" he pivoted, and abruptly they found out why he'd left himself five steps.

Tanaka and Sato stared across the gap between their building and its neighbor behind Miya's stall. It wasn't impossibly far... he'd just done it... but when they weren't entirely sure they could balance enough to run...

"Iie, dame de gozaru," Kenshin said hastily. "You two stay right there." He slid down his roof to the gutter, leaned over, and called down to the faces staring up at him, "Now's your chance to trap me, ne? I'm sure you can run faster along the ground than clumsy little me up here on this roof, so if you get someone ahead of me..."

"You should have been doing that five minutes ago, you idiots," Saitou called ever-so-helpfully from Miya's stall. "While he was standing around shooting the breeze with them, you should have gotten yourselves onto the next roof over -- if you'd got the brains God gave a rock, that is."

"We were... um... watching," one of the policemen offered lamely.

"I know that, ahou."

"Maa, maa..." Kenshin beckoned to Hoshino. "Sato-dono's the smallest of you. So if the tallest stands on your shoulders, he'll have an easier time reaching -- someone else can brace him from the ground --" He winced as they started lining up to determine who was tallest. "Never mind. Daijoubu de gozaru. Anyway, so you've got me surrounded..."

Saitou's cynical snort wasn't much of a morale-booster for the demoralized troops; Kaoru turned and glared at him.

"Hush, you. They're trying, aren't they?"

"--Well, you're going to have me surrounded," Kenshin said, determinedly polite. "So. I can't go forward, I can't go back--" he bowed slightly to Tanaka and Sato, who bowed back reflexively, then clutched at each other to keep their balance. "And I can't fly very much..."

"Very much?" Hoshino echoed incredulously. "Is he joking?"

"I don't think so," his neighbor muttered.

"...So where do you think I'm going next?" Kenshin asked them.

After a minute's stymied silence from the troops, Saitou drawled, "I suppose hell in a handbasket is too much to hope for."

Kenshin offered an excruciatingly ironic bow in his direction, then smiled up at Tanaka and Sato and stepped sideways... off the edge of the roof.

Kaoru had honestly forgotten about Shiro behind the stall, until he screamed and lunged for Kenshin.

"AHOU--" Saitou roared.

Kenshin's eyes widened in panic, but there was nothing he could do midair to change the angle; all he could do was curl into a ball to try to minimize the impact on any one bone--

Shiro hit him flying, and then the ground hit them both.

After a heartbeat's stunned silence, Tanaka slid down the roof, caught the gutter, and swung down; Saitou still beat him there. The only sound was the rasp of terrified breathing; then, hoarsely, one guilt-wracked whisper: "Sessha..."

Kaoru's heart started beating again.

Shiro had actually managed to catch him, but hadn't quite managed to shield him. He didn't know how to fall; he'd tried to twist midair to put himself on the bottom, came down shoulder-first and bounced with the impact, and cracked his head against the ground. There was blood trickling from the corner of his mouth...

Kenshin, ash-white, slowly lifted his head. "Sessha..." He touched the pulse-point in Shiro's throat.

"No, he's not dead," Saitou snapped, "no thanks to either of you idiots. Probably just knocked himself silly. But... Obata-kun, go get Gensai-sensei or Takani-sensei from the clinic." One of the policemen bowed, and took off at a dead run.

Now the shock was setting in, and the guilt; Kenshin was shivering with it, pupils dilated. "Naze...? Naze... de gozaru ka...?"

Tanaka sat on his heels beside Kenshin. "He wasn't thinking, Himura-san."

"That's the understatement of the decade," Saitou muttered, lighting another cigarette.

"But... why did he...?"

"So at least one of us could say we'd caught you?" Hoshino offered with a guilty chuckle.

"No," Kenshin murmured. "No... I'd have expected it if he was..."

Saitou's eyebrows made a startled dart for his hairline. "He surprised you?"

"He wasn't watching with hunter's eyes," Kenshin said miserably. "He was watching... like Kaoru was. Watching, not targeting... I thought he wouldn't move until... --why did he...?"

Tanaka sighed, and said, "He probably thought you were going to hurt yourself. And after all, you'd just been setting an example for tomfool heroic rescues..."

"Yes, but I knew what I was doing--" He stopped, and bent his head. "Sumanai. Gomen nasai de go--"

"That's the first intelligent thing you've said all day," Saitou sighed. "Of course you're going to apologize for it, aren't you."

"Frank, harsh, and accurate," Tanaka said, "both of you. Like I said, Himura-san, he wasn't thinking... I don't think we should move him until the doctor gets here. What about you? Are you all right?"

"Fine," Kenshin said, still staring down at Shiro's face.

Kaoru said with a groan, "He's said that with blood pouring out of him, ribs cracked, bones broken..."

"I'm fine," Kenshin said softly. "He took the worst of it... and he doesn't even know how to fall..."

"Oh, gods, stop it," Saitou said impatiently. "That half-witted, impulsive little ass got himself into this. You'd have been fine if he'd left you alone; you'd both be fine. For once in your life, let someone else do the guilt-fits." Kenshin didn't reply; Saitou flicked the cigarette to the street and ground it out savagely. "You're pathetic. I can't believe you were ever a hitokiri. --You, tanuki-girl, get him out of here before I do something you'll regret."

Kenshin looked up at him with something set and fixed in his eyes. Hastily, Kaoru stepped between them.

"Kenshin. Onegai."

He bent his head, and stood stiffly, and turned to follow Kaoru.

They walked in silence, shoulder to shoulder, all the way back to the dojo; for once she didn't need to ask him to slow down for her. Half the time she found herself stopping to wait until he remembered to walk. She looked at him sideways, but couldn't find the nerve to intrude on his thoughts. He opened the gate for her silently, still with his eyes lowered; she hesitated, groping for some word or gesture that might help. Then his head snapped up; his left hand fisted reflexively at his side, where the sakabatou would have been, although he'd never worn it to a foxhunt. A minute later, Kaoru could hear it too: running feet, coming closer.

It was Tanaka; he skidded around the corner, panting, and called, "Wait! Wait -- you..." he stopped, and came closer. "You were a hitokiri?"

Silently, Kenshin lifted his face and met the boy's eyes evenly. Tanaka caught his breath sharply, one hand creeping to his own left cheek in a mirroring reflex.

"Scars... crossed scars...? Masaka..."

Kenshin's voice was low, husky with grief. "Don't be frightened. It doesn't matter now, anyway. That was the last of the foxhunts."

"No," Tanaka yelped. "No. You-- if you were Himura the Battousai..." He stopped, and tilted his his head to one side, and said dazedly, "Somehow I always thought the Hitokiri Battousai was taller than that."

Hastily, Kaoru clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle giggles. Kenshin didn't even blink.

"Saitou is right," Kenshin said. "The Battousai is long since dead. And I'm glad to have buried him. If that was all you wanted..."

"No," Tanaka said. "Please. Because you were the Battousai. You have to teach us."

Kenshin caught his breath, a sharp hiss through his teeth -- then, too calmly, he said, "Never."

"I know," Tanaka said desperately. "I'm sorry, I'm stupid, that's not what I mean. I mean... listen. If you -- you of all people -- if you can teach yourself how not to kill... then you have to teach us. And it has to be you, and us. Because we -- the twelve of us, the ones who know you-- we'll listen. The sword squad... half of them still think the only power is blood. We have to learn how not to kill."

"All I know is Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu," Kenshin said. "All I know of non-killing is in my sakabatou. And I don't teach. If you want to know how not to kill, come back in the spring and ask Kaoru-dono to teach you Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu." He stepped through the gate.

"Please," Tanaka said. "You don't understand. It has to be you, because if not, it's going to be him. And all he knows -- Himura-san, you know him. All Saitou-san knows is how to hunt and how to kill. Even if we never see you touch a sword... please. He's still living the Bakumatsu no Doran, all by himself. He has to. He can't live any other way. But you... you made Meiji."

"Yes," Kenshin agreed softly. "I made Meiji. I carved Meiji from the living flesh of hundreds of men."

After a moment, Tanaka swallowed hard, and replied, "Yes. And then you learned how to live with it-- in it, not despite it."

Kenshin stood silently, with his hand on the gate.

"Please," Tanaka said. "You know I'm right. Wasn't this your idea in the first place? Saitou doesn't think like this..." He struggled for another way to drive the point home. "Shiro woke up. He's going to be fine. And the first thing he asked was where you were -- he wanted to apologize for being such an idiot. And he said to remind you... you owe him. Your promise, remember?"

"My promise...?"

"You'd take him somewhere and pour some sake into him and tell him how you learned. And forgive him for hurting you."

"He didn't."

"No," Tanaka agreed. "So won't it be even easier to forgive him for hurting himself?"

After a moment, Kenshin chuckled despite himself. "Would you like to come in for dinner?"

"Sir, is that a yes?"

Kenshin smiled, and Tanaka relaxed immediately.

"Thank you, sir. Thank you. --I don't want to impose..."

"It's no trouble; I can always make more onigiri. Come in. You said Shiro's all right?"

Tanaka nodded, and obediently followed them up the path to the house. Kaoru tried to put on formal manners; some of the bowing was awkward, but both of them smiled at her with understanding eyes, and Kenshin put a determined hand on her shoulder when she tried to move toward the kitchen.

"Stay here. Rest. I'll bring everything back and we can talk, all right?" He stood and quietly padded into the kitchen.

"He's very thoughtful," Tanaka said quietly, and Kaoru squirmed.

"Yes, he is, but actually it's mostly that I'm... well, he's a much better cook than I am. So don't let him fool you."

They chatted about the garden and the weather and the winter and everything but the foxhunt until Kenshin came back with his hands full of bowls; he sat everything down and began quietly shaping rice balls, but didn't seem inclined to contribute to the conversation. So Kaoru asked about Tanaka's family, and the weather in their part of the country, and anything else she could think of. Finally, though, Tanaka gave Kenshin one uncomfortable glance too many.

"Whatever it is," Kenshin said, looking down at the rice ball in his hands, "I promise, I won't be offended."

Tanaka said, staring fixedly out at the garden, "You... really were...?"

Kenshin hesitated, and put the rice ball on the plate with the others, and smiled as he gathered another handful of rice. "I suppose it is rather a contrast: the Ishin hitokiri fixing dinner..."

"It's not that," Tanaka said. "I mean, it's good of you to let Kaoru-san rest, and, well, hitokiri have to eat too, right? It's just..." He stopped, then said all in a rush, "You're so little. I always thought the Battousai was some big, scary, tall man who... who... um..."

Kenshin watched Tanaka squirm for a moment, then offered the tray with a helpful expression. "Would you like some onigiri?"

Tanaka took one and bit into it, then gave him another startled look. "Hey, these are good... --er..." He let out a slightly hysterical giggle. "I think I'm lucky you took that vow."

Kenshin finished another rice ball and put it on the plate, and said dryly, "I never swore anything about pain, or blood loss, or broken bones."

Tanaka swallowed hard to get the rice ball dislodged from a suddenly-dry mouth; Kenshin added, "Relax. If I wanted to hurt you, I've had a dozen opportunities."

Tanaka laughed more loudly than he meant, and took another rice ball. But all through dinner he kept looking sideways at Kenshin as though he didn't quite believe his eyes; several times, Kaoru stifled giggles with a quick sip of tea. Finally even Kenshin's patience began to wear thin, as he gathered up the dishes and stacked them neatly on the tray in the corner.

"You can't be that surprised by my height."

"Huh?.... oh. I'm sorry. Just..." he hesitated, struggled with himself, and finally said haltingly, "I don't know why, but... --well, yes, I do know why I don't believe it. I mean... it would explain a lot; the things you do are absolutely unreal, and you're faster than any human's got a right to be, but... still. No. It doesn't fit. The Battousai was... cold. As cold as Saitou-san is. And you..." He stopped, and bent his head to stare down at the hands fisted on his knees. "There's so much compassion in you. And that's not something you could fake... not like that. I mean, I hold Ayano-chan's Foxtail in one hand and the hitokiri in the other, and every single thing I've ever seen of you has only one conclusion. --I guess I mean... what happened to you, that made you become the Battousai?"

Kenshin closed his eyes. "...Compassion."

Tanaka said, "I'm sorry. --I should go. I'm sorry..."

"No," Kenshin murmured. "No, it's all right." He looked up to meet the boy's eyes earnestly. "You were right. What happened to me was... compassion. --People were suffering. People were dying, senselessly, people who couldn't possibly defend themselves... and I had to make it stop. And all I had was my sword. And I tried to make it stop." He stood and moved to the door, to stare out at the garden. "I tried and I tried... every night, every death, every frantic plea and every last heartbeat... trying to make it stop. Until I did... I did make it stop... the night the world stopped..."

"What happened?" Tanaka whispered.

"I killed..." Kenshin murmured, and his voice broke. "I... killed... I..." He stopped, drew a ragged breath, and said, "At the end... when it ended for me... I killed one more than my world could bear to lose. And everything stopped then. Everything. For ten years I did nothing at all... I never killed, and I never lived. --Not until I met a girl on the street who called me 'Battousai' and challenged me with nothing but a bit of wood in her hands."

"Oh," Kaoru whispered. "Oh, Kenshin..."

"You really should come back in the spring and ask Kaoru-dono for lessons," he told Tanaka gently, still staring out at the evening. "She's an excellent teacher. She taught me... not how, but why to live. Why life is more than not dying. When I thought... --When I thought I had lost her, when I thought that it would be easiest just to die..." He laughed a little, tiredly. "It would have been easiest. But it would have been wrong. I've spent so much of my life being wrong. Wrong as the hitokiri, who saw salvation in murder; wrong as the rurouni, who did nothing but run away..."

"Iie! Yamete!" Kaoru cried. "Anata ga... anata... --iie..."

Her protest actually startled him; he looked at her for a moment, and then added quickly, with a good imitation of his usual smile, "Demo... if running away is your approach to life, it does help to be very, very fast!"

"But..." Tanaka swallowed hard. "But never fast enough to outrun yourself."

"Never fast enough," he agreed quietly. "Never quite fast enough... Tanaka-dono, will you do me one favor?"

"Anything," the boy said immediately. "What is it?"

"The others... don't let them make this into something it's not. Don't let them bring back the Battousai in their minds. He's dead. I need him to stay dead. Because this afternoon, the Battousai would have tried to take Saitou's head off in the middle of the street. Do you see? I never left a wounded man behind me-- I made certain: either he lived, or he died, and I chose. And for Mibu's Wolf to order me out as though he had some kind of auth-" Kenshin stopped short, and shook his head sharply. "Sumanai. Sumanai de gozaru. But... this is why the Battousai must stay dead. Do you understand?"

Tanaka was staring at him, wide-eyed; Kaoru suspected she must have looked the same.

"...Nan de gozaru ka?"

"I wasn't thinking," Tanaka breathed. "You and he... He was Shinsengumi. You were... not. And you don't even bring a sword to the foxhunts! Why not?"

"He has his own honor," Kenshin said. "He has no excuse to challenge me, and as long as I don't give him one, the balance holds."

"But not even to bring it--"

"Tanaka-dono," Kenshin said, with a wry, resigned patience, "I'm walking into the Tokyo Prefecture police headquarters. Carrying a sword -- even a sakabatou -- is still illegal."

"...oh!" Tanaka smacked the heel of his hand into his forehead. "Gomen ne, Himura-san, I keep forgetting you're not really one of us..."

Kaoru could see how Kenshin was taken aback -- and, shyly, pleased-- by that; she burst into giggles despite herself. "I'm sorry, but... the look on your faces... both of you..."

"I should go," Tanaka said ruefully, "before I find some other way to make a fool of myself today."

"Tanaka-dono... this is not a story I tell."

Tanaka bowed his head. "No, sir. I won't say a word..."

"I'm not quite sure you understand," Kenshin murmured. "I do not tell this to people. Look at me. Tell me why I told you this."

Tanaka looked at him for a moment, then couldn't bear Kenshin's gaze; he averted his eyes guiltily. "Because... because I pushed you, I suppose...? And because someone has to make sure they don't take your name and start making legends again..."

"Tanaka-dono," Kenshin said with a sigh, "it takes more than that to push me. Try again." He walked back to the table and knelt, facing the boy steadily.

After a long, embarrassed moment, Tanaka shrugged, helpless.

"You told me what you saw in me," Kenshin murmured. "What do you think I see in you?"

Tanaka looked up at him with the face of a rabbit in a snare meeting the gaze of the hunter. "Himura-san... Himura-san, I don't know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... --I shouldn't have forced you, I should have listened when--"

Kenshin held up a hand quietly, and Tanaka stopped so fast he forgot to let go of the rest of the breath.

"Do you want to know?"

After an agonized moment, the boy found the nerve to nod.

"Did you hear yourself?" Kenshin asked, almost curious. "'Because you were the Battousai, you have to teach us. And it has to be you, and us... because we have to know how not to kill.' Because otherwise it would have been Saitou, the wolf of Mibu, whose world divides along the sword's edge into power or death..."

Tanaka stared at him in something like despair, all but convinced he was going to die.

"You," Kenshin murmured, "are the best recruit Saitou has ever found, and he knows it. You and Shiro. But Shiro thinks only with his heart; Saitou will never give that the respect it deserves. You balance your heart and your mind, and you take a group of directionless half-trained boys and focus them without even realizing what you're doing. You're going to be the next prefectural police commissioner, if not a minister of state. Because you have the kind of vision that shapes the world to its own measure. You look at me and you hold my life in your mind and you will accept what you know to be fact, but you won't believe it. Not in your heart. You look at the police and you see men who must know how not to kill, men who must live to protect, and you'll dedicate your very soul to shaping the world to that vision... and if you had been born ten years earlier, you would have become hitokiri."

Tanaka pulled back as though he'd been slapped.

"Vision is dangerous," Kenshin said, calmly. "Vision balances the flaws in the world against your own strength, and changes the world. You were born to Meiji; your imperative is 'we must protect; we must know how not to kill.' I was born to the Bakumatsu; mine was 'in order to protect, I must kill.' And I made Meiji. I know exactly how fragile the world is. If it breaks again... I wanted you to know that there is always a choice. Always. And..." he bent his head a little. "And because... 'We're the police. We have to learn how not to kill.' That was my vision... the Meiji I saw. That was the Meiji I killed for. Make it happen."

"Himura-san..."

"I can't," Kenshin said. "I was the death of an era, not the birth of it. I have too much blood on my hands, too many scars... in my body and in my soul. Saitou would have said that he and I had only death in common... he's wrong, of course. He sees it too, to let me train you at all. He and I are both relics of Edo, relics of the past; and we know you and your friends are being tested against a different measure. He thinks you are less for it. I think you're going to be more. You have to be..."

"Open your eyes, mister relic," Kaoru said indignantly. "Tanaka-san had it right, more than you know. The difference between you and Saitou is that he's enduring Meiji; he'll never surrender to it. Not to a world where swords aren't the only power... not to a world you made. And you... koishii, you didn't just start Meiji and walk away; you're still shaping it. Every step you take in the world, every life you touch... mine, Megumi's, Sano's, Yahiko's... those boys who chase you up lamp-posts every week... it's your vision we're seeing. It's your world we want to live in. Not Saitou's. And Tanaka-san's going to make your world happen, not because you're a decrepit old grandfather of thirty who can't bend over to pick up his own sandals but because he isn't walking around with your guilt on his shoulders! So will you stop talking nonsense about 'the last foxhunt'?"

Kenshin blinked, startled. "I thought you didn't like them."

Tanaka blinked, just as startled. "But you agreed..."

"I've seen him 'agree' like that before," Kaoru said. "Sano knocked him flat on his rump for it. And he deserved it too. This time I'm wringing a promise out of you, you little wily-fox--"

"But..."

"No, I don't like it at all," Kaoru said. "You scared me today. But he's right. You're both right. This is important. And I didn't know why until Shiro half killed himself."

"But that's why I can't do this anymore," Kenshin murmured.

"That's why you have to!" Kaoru leaned over and poked him in the ribs. "That boy was running on sheer gut-level instinct, despite the fact that his head said you were 'prey.' He thinks enough of you that he'd risk his own neck to help you... and it's not his fault he doesn't know how; you haven't taught him enough yet."

"But I don't teach--"

"--Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, we know already! Nobody's asking you to! And if you think that's the only thing you've got to teach, you've got a thicker skull than Sano! Do you honestly mean to tell me you don't know why he tried to save your stupid hide?"

"I know," Kenshin murmured unhappily. "I just don't understand."

"Himura-san," Tanaka said, "it's not that hard. He knows you'd have done the same for him."

"Yes, but..."

"Quit it with that word already," Kaoru said, and poked him again. "All his heart knows is he can't let you get hurt. That's got nothing to do with whether his brain knows how to keep himself from getting hurt while he's at it-- and, let me remind you, that's your job. Or Sano's! Good heavens, a job Sano's actually qualified for--"

"Yamete de gozaru yo!" Kenshin said hastily. "Sano and Saitou. Please. Don't do that to me again."

Grudgingly, Kaoru admitted, "You've got a point. But so do we. Promise already."

"...He could have killed himself."

Kaoru said primly, "So you tone down the aerial stunts until the rest of them can go roof-hopping and converse with passing birds right next to you."

"I'm teaching them what unexpected things prey can do--"

"Himura-san," Tanaka said, "that's what you're showing us, but that's not what you're teaching us. You're teaching us... another way to think. Another way to hunt that isn't hunting. Saitou-san set it up to be almost combat-- and you made it a game. The trouble isn't that Shiro's slow-- the trouble is he's too quick. Every time you stop to make sure we're all right, every time you turn around and give us advice, every time you make us laugh with you, what do you think we're learning? It's not hunting. We're learning your kind of care."

"But... if he thought... --I didn't mean to..."

"Of course not," Kaoru said, smiling. "It's as normal to you as breathing... and just as important. You don't even think about it anymore, do you?" Noting his bemused expression, she added, "You never thought about it at all?"

"I..." He stopped, looked down at his hands, and said, "I couldn't do anything else. I couldn't forgive myself if..."

Kaoru leaned over and smacked him in the head lightly. "Let's stop at the first sentence there. That one I'll give you. The second one we'll be arguing until dawn, because, love, you can't take responsibility for everyone's mistakes."

"But..."

"Trying to take responsibility for your 'mistake' was what gave Shiro his concussion," she pointed out, with cruel but well-aimed logic. "You don't want to leave off teaching them at that point, do you?"

He bowed his head. "Gomen nasai de gozaru... Tanaka-dono, gomen na-"

Kaoru's fist came down on the top of his head and snapped his mouth shut against his chest. "Better," she said cheerfully, and patted his hair as though he were some overgrown and very shaggy puppy. "Here's Kaoru-shihondai's lesson number one: If you blame yourself for anything else this year, I hurt you. Ne?"

"...oro...!"

"You said I was a good teacher. So learn something already!"

Tanaka was very carefully looking at the ceiling or the door or anywhere at all except at the two of them; Kenshin blinked, lifted his head carefully to be sure his neck still worked, and said in a very small voice, "Do I get to blame myself next year?"

"We'll negotiate."

Tanaka said in a strangled voice, "I should go now..."

"He hasn't promised yet." Kaoru groped under the table and came up with her bokken. "Promise."

"Ororooo..."

She lined up joudan with the top of his head. "Promise."

"Kaoru-san, you... I mean... he..."

"I'm not going to hurt him much. He's got a thick head. We found that out today, didn't we, Tanaka-san? --Promise!" She swung.

Despite the fact that his knees were under the table when she started, he wasn't there when the bokken stopped, parallel to the table. Kaoru looked around indignantly. "Where on earth...?"

One sheepish hand came up from below the table and waved at her. He'd thrown himself backwards, flat to the floor, despite having the tops of his feet against the tatami mat; Tanaka winced as he looked around the table.

"Ano... is it safe to sit up yet, Tanaka-dono?"

"Tell him yes," Kaoru said, gleefully bringing the bokken up again.

There were, apparently, limits on what even Saitou's best recruit could bear in one evening. The sight of the greatest legend among the hitokiri cowering behind a table to avoid maiming from his stick-brandishing, heavily pregnant young wife was somewhere beyond them.

"I have got to go now..."

"Let me walk you to the gate," Kenshin offered from flat on the floor, with a good deal too much enthusiasm.

"The minute you move, your head is mine!"

Kenshin chuckled, which, Kaoru thought sourly, shouldn't have been physically possible with his ribcage in that arch. "If Sano were here... how much do you want to bet?"

"Mou! Even you can't move that fast with your feet like that and the table in the way--"

"Hai de gozaru, which is why..."

Tanaka barely saw his hands move, but he had the sense to throw himself backwards just in case. When Kenshin came off the floor, he took the near edge of the table up with him, and the bokken cracked against it.

"MOU!"

Kenshin looked over the edge of the table, smiling. "Well, my head would have been there, anyway--"

Unsteadily, Tanaka pulled himself to his feet, crept to the door, and tried to get his feet into his shoes without shaking so much he dropped them. "O-oyasumi-i..."

"Can I put the table down now?" Kenshin asked her wistfully.

You're not helping him, you know, Kaoru thought. You... Yes, you DO know. You are possibly the sweetest evil man I've ever met... Aloud, she said, "Fine. All you have to do is make your promise."

"Hai, hai."

She blinked at him, startled. "...You mean it?"

Behind the silly smile, his eyes were gentle. "Well... I can't disappoint Ayano-dono, can I? And I did promise Shiro-dono already..."

Kaoru smiled back at him, her heart full. "So that makes four of us you've promised now. Don't forget." It's your world we're making, love... we need you to help us see it.

"Hai." He took a step backwards carefully.

"Kenshin."

"Hmm?"

"Put the table down, Kenshin."

"...Hai."

At the gate, Tanaka had gotten over the worst of his bemusement; Kaoru smiled at him. Poor boy. More scared of Kenshin now than when he was just the Battousai; now he's the Battousai living with the crazy woman and he needs furniture for household weaponry...

"Tanaka-dono," Kenshin said, "I've made my promise; will you?"

"Beg pardon?"

"The others. To make sure they won't..."

Tanaka bowed deeply. "Hai. O-wakari itashimashita, Himura-san."

"You shouldn't-- please, you shouldn't--"

"Wakarimashita," Tanaka repeated, quietly. "As you said. The hitokiri is gone... the one I honor is the one who had the courage to bury him, ne?" He saluted them both, and turned to walk back the way he'd come.

Watching him go, Kenshin gave a shaking sigh. "Ten years more..."

"Ten years," Kaoru told him, "is enough. Ten years from now, we'll be watching this one play with Yahiko... and you'll be forty, you old relic, you. --And you'll still be younger than your master is now, so don't even start that argument."

"Whatever you say, Kaoru-shihondai."

"Mm. How much were you trying to scandalize him?"

"Nani?"

"Kenshin," she said patiently, "look at it with his eyes. The Battousai and his wife dueling over the dinner table, like we do this all the time."

"You mean we don't?"

She hit him just on principle. "I mean... what must he think we're like when nobody's around? It's fairly obvious how I got this way, and... well... he could have gotten the wrong sort of impression..."

"But I am afraid to make you angry," Kenshin said, with suspiciously wide and innocent eyes.

Kaoru counted to ten. Then twenty. Then she rolled up her sleeve and swung; he ducked. "What did I say?... ano..." He dodged again. "Kaoru-dono, daijou--"

That swing she landed. Hard. "Don't call me that!"

"Ororooo..."

"It's one thing when we're being polite for visitors, but when they're gone..." She grabbed a handful of his ponytail and hauled him along with her as she stalked back toward the house.

"...ow ow ow ow OW ow..."

"Hush."

"Hai, Kaoru-dono... OW."

"Hush."

"...yare yare..."

Thank you to Tae-san for the title (from "Only You" by Pat Benatar), and for this chapter's song clip too!

Thank you to Tae-san, Sae-san, Raya-san, Mre-mre-san, and everyone who pre-read and helped me fix things -- am still missing some pieces of RK chronology but am trying to catch up fast! (If anyone can tell me a little bit about the filler eps where Yutarou comes back...? I kind of need him, kind of... as an excuse for someone else... no, not the big snarly toothy man with rabid beavers clinging to his shoulderpads...)

I haven't had a chance to ask Ardith-san about this one, so the Japanese may be even more whacked out than usual. Warning: I've been "studying" Japanese through osmosis (aka 5 hours every Saturday at the UIUC anime club), so my interpretations may be out of sync with reality.

Glossary:

anata -- you (from a wife to a husband, a form of endearment)

chotto, chotto matte -- wait, hold it a sec, just a minute

dame -- don't, that's useless, don't bother

konbanwa -- afternoon salutation

masaka -- incredible, impossible, I don't believe it

minna -- everybody

naze -- why

onegai -- please, I'm begging you

onigiri -- hand-formed variety of sushi with some sort of filling inside the rice ball

shihondai -- Kaoru's title (assistant instructor) -- thank you, Ardith-san!

And just for tradition's sake (tradition meaning two chapters in a row now)--

OMAKE THEATER

[Lights up backstage. Miss Piggy is straightening a ribbon in her hair. Kermit comes down the backstage steps... wearing a red wig.]

Kermit: Piggy, do I have to wear this?

Piggy: Hush, Kermie. The show must go on.

Kermit: Yes, but I can't see.

Piggy: That's "I can't see de gozaru."

Kermit: Right. Sorry. Well, I can't see -- de gozaru -- anyway...

Piggy: No, no, it comes at the end of the whole sentence!

Kermit: Thank you, Piggy, but the problem here is that I still can't--

[bump bump bump WHAM ...thud]

Kermit (from a heap at the bottom of the stairs): ...see. De gozaru.

Piggy (thoughtfully): I think that's a 'de gozaru yo.' (Turning around:) GAAAAH!

Kermit (thinking she's worried about him in a heap on the floor): I'm fine... I think...

Piggy: No, no, no, no, NO! They do NOT put MAGENTA on a FROG. It does appalling things to your complexion, Kermie...

Kermit (starting to get the hang of it): Ororoooo...

COMMERCIAL BREAK

The rest of the "script" is available from the Takeouts section of the Akabeko -- http://welcome.to/TheAkabeko/ -- arigatou gozaimasu, Tae-san! Everybody else, go look around! Get some sukiyaki! (And sign her guestbook too! ^__^)

--Risu-chan

(wondering if frog legs are going to make it onto the next menu and hoping not...)

Next time:

Chapter 5 -- The dividing line between dream, vision, and nightmare...

o-tanoshimi ni!

Risu-chan
May 12, 1999