Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin or Samurai X Trust and Betrayal characters or plot.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Kenshin ran through a gully formed between two rice paddies, the higher one on the left terraced from the hillside, and the lower one to his right. The smell of new growth filled his nostrils, the shadow of the hill to his right throwing a cool welcoming shadow over the lower half of his body as he ran, the sun bathing and warming his upper half and head.
It was like running between two worlds, a hot and cold one.
A frog leaped from the dirt path in front of him to the lower rice paddy, landing with a splash in the water.
That was when Takahata struck.
The attack came from above, where the little man had been hiding between two gnarled persimmon trees, growing at the edge of the rice paddy. He swung his blade in a downward arc as he jumped.
It would have caught most men. It was virtually the same maneuver Kenshin used on the Bakufu soldier he’d caught skulking out of the village earlier, but Kenshin wasn’t most men. He pivoted on the ball of his foot, allowing Takahata to land in the space where he’d just been.
Takahata’s sword sunk into the cool dirt of the path, having missed Kenshin completely. Meanwhile, Kenshin continued his pivot, and gripping the hilt of his sword with his right hand, he drew it half way out, smashing the fuchi, the flat tip of the hilt, into Takahata’s side. He heard the man’s rib snap as he slammed his sword back in the sheath and stepped away.
Takahata stumbled, expelling his breath in a pained gasp.
Righting himself quickly, Takahata wrenched his sword from the ground and reeled around to face Kenshin, weapon held out in front of him in defensive stance.
Kenshin watched, noting impassively that Takahata’s right ankle was bandaged tightly, probably courtesy of the woman from the village. His enemy kept his weight on his left ankle, the right foot set lightly on the dirt path. The handicap would make it that much easier to kill him.
Pain, and an iron determination despite his fear, hardened Takahata’s features. His face was thinner than Kenshin remembered. The woman from the village was right. Takahata looked like a half starved mongrel.
Kenshin felt his mouth pull into a half smile.
Takahata saw it, and paled. Sweat began popping out on his forehead as Kenshin began to circle almost casually around the samurai, leaving his sword in his sheath.
The circling maneuver forced Takahata to use his right foot so that he could pivot as well to keep Kenshin from moving in back of him. He winced, and Kenshin’s smile widened.
This was going to be amusing. With a lightning quick draw, Kenshin pulled his katana up and out of the sheath, aiming at Takahata’s head and drawing blood before he could raise his sword to block it.
When the strike was done, Takahata was bleeding from the forehead, wounded the way Nakamura had been when he’d fought off Katsura’s would-be assassin at the rice merchant’s warehouse in Shimonoseki.
If Takahata pretended to admire Nakamura so much, Kenshin would show him what it had been like to be Nakamura.
A warm, angry glow began at the pit of Kenshin’s stomach. He tamped down on the anger, controlling it, but not dismissing it.
Takahata was blinking as the blood from his cut forehead began to drip into his eyes, yet both hands remained on his sword hilt.
Kenshin realized Takahata was afraid, too afraid to remove even his left hand to wipe the blood away.
Kenshin let his smile disappear. This coward had betrayed Katsura and destroyed Nakamura a little at a time, eating away at his sense of honor, driving him into the course of action that had ended him. Well then, Kenshin would destroy Takahata in the same way.
He danced around the small samurai, flicking his sword under, over, and behind whatever feeble blocks the man tried to put up. He played with him as a cat played with a mouse, leaving behind small shallow wounds on his neck, legs, arms, and chest.
With each new drop of blood, Kenshin’s anger grew to the point where wounding the man wasn’t enough.
On his next pass, he sliced lightly through Takahata’s left earlobe. Takahata instinctively moved back and stepped on his right ankle.
The ankle turned, and the man fell heavily to the ground. As he fell, Kenshin moved in and struck his blade against Takahata’s so hard that the sword was ripped loose from Takahata’s hands and went sailing away to land six feet away on the dirt path.
Kenshin smiled again, eyes narrowed, his chest filled with an unholy joy as he watched Takahata try to squirm away, only to be stopped by the earthen wall supporting the rice paddy at his back.
Behind Takahata’s head and shoulders the young rice crop swayed gently in the water, the peaceful village and brilliant blue sky rising above it incongruously beautiful in this place of death.
Kenshin raised his sword above his head and let Takahata see that his deathblow was about to come.
He stared into the eyes of his prey, pausing to savor the moment, to enjoy the terror in his eyes, Takahata’s knowledge that there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.
He wanted this, more than he’d wanted anything for a long time. Then Kenshin looked deeper into the man’s eyes and realized something.
Takahata was small in more ways than one. Beyond the terror was the knowledge that he deserved to die, a kernel of self-hatred.
Kenshin remembered, sharply, vividly, Takahata’s face on another occasion, that of his first kill. His words had been boastful, yet his eyes had been sick, terrified as he was now. Even though Kenshin now realized that Takahata had killed the bandit leader on purpose to prevent him from talking, it didn’t change the fact that Takahata was bothered by it.
It was probably his first real taste of the bloody-minded ruthlessness required of a bakufu spy, and Takahata hadn’t liked it.
Unlike Kenshin.
For the first time he would kill not because he was ordered to, or in the heat of battle, but because he wanted to.
Kenshin froze, sword poised above his head, ready to swing down in the classic men-giri cut that would cleave Takahata in two.
If he did this, if he murdered an unarmed defenseless man out of hatred and revenge, then he would lose everything that he’d begun to get back during his time with Tomoe.
Kenshin’s hands tightened on the sword’s hilt. He felt the wrapped design of the silk cords encircling its ray skin covered wood handle eat into his hands. His arm muscles clenched.
He battled with himself for several long moments, watching Takahata draw in what he thought was his last breath in a series of small gulps.
Kenshin stepped back and lowered his sword.
Takahata’s eyes widened, not comprehending, then he braced himself as Kenshin moved, but Kenshin simply reached into his kimono sleeve for rice paper and wiped his blade twice before letting the rice paper fall to the ground and sheathing his sword.
Takahata’s eyes followed the rice paper and stared at it.
“Go.” Kenshin ordered.
Takahata looked at him.
“Go now. If you love the Bakufu so much, go to them, and see how they treat failure.”
Takahata gaped for another second, then got to his hands and knees and pushed himself up, hobbling away down the path toward his fallen sword.
Kenshin deliberately turned his back. He remembered what Nakamura had done in a similar situation. If Takahata picked up his sword and attacked, he would meet the same fate Nakamura did. It would be just self-defense, not murder.
He waited, and heard the smaller man wheeze in pain from the numerous cuts along his body as he bent and lifted his sword. For a long moment, Takahata didn’t move.
Kenshin felt like a thrummed string on a moon guitar, every sense, every instinct quivering and at the ready, and still Takahata made no move.
Takahata’s voice came from behind Kenshin, low and defeated. “I don’t love the bakufu. I just wanted money. I wanted to return to my family rich and respected.”
He waited, and when Kenshin didn’t respond he went on. “It was just for the money, that’s all.” He gave a noise that could have been a laugh or a sob, then his limping footsteps receded down the path.
It wasn’t all, and Kenshin knew it. He’d seen in Takahata’s eyes the knowledge that he would always be the lesser man, always trying to prove something, and never quite measuring up. Perhaps being allowed to live was the crueler fate for him, but it was Kenshin’s salvation.
He touched his sheathed sword lightly, and made his way down the path. At the next junction he turned off it at a right angle to walk along a new path between two rice paddies, his way shaded by the leaves of flowering plum trees.
