Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ The Crooked Path Series ❯ V. Lodestone ( Chapter 5 )
Anime/Manga: Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Drama / Hentai / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 09.15.2002 | Pages: 1 | Words: 756 | Visits: 650 | Status: Completed
Don't you love the smell of anticipation early in the morning? ^_^ Well, I love the sight of C&C, so... you know the drill. It's a short one, this time.
Rating: PG. Yeah, that lucky bastard Saitou gets all the action.
"I'll get Himura-san and the others." A kiss on his cheek, light as the caress of a feather. "You go after them."
He obeyed her, accepting the kodachi she pressed into his hands without question, impatient to be on his way. What else, after all, could he have done?
The wolf was calling him, rage and agony in every note.
Sanosuke pulled back his lips in a grimace, flattening his body against the damp wall of a rickety warehouse. His kimono and hakama's dark colours blended perfectly into the shadows, and he sent a brief prayer of thanks to Ryouko.
He remembered, vaguely, the older woman looking over her shoulder just before they parted. She flashed him an enigmatic smile, murmuring something about nature sending itself after a thing it loves before running off towards the Kamiya dojo.
A drop of sweat made a wet trail down his spine, joining his brothers in a pool at the small of his back. He'd been tracking the little group just ahead of him for nearly an hour, and the desire to spread their bloody intestines all over town was snarling deep in his chest.
It said, very simply: "Kill."
The snarl had been a deafening scream when he'd chanced upon the five men, hauling Saitou like a sack of rice into a cart. It was only the calm presence of Fujiwara Ryouko that stopped him from challenging them then at there, and even her influence was strained when he caught sight of that bastard Koga.
He could almost feel the bruises he saw on that beloved, angular face, and the pain fed his blistering anger.
Koga was going to die.
Sano watched as the cart rolled to a stop near one of the piers, no doubt where a boat would be waiting. He felt a pang of anguish, remembering the night he and Saitou parted. If they hadn't... maybe if they could've worked out something...
His hand tightened around the hilt of the kodachi. Perhaps Saitou would have been captured anyway, and the old Sano sure as hell didn't have a chance of pulling off a rescue. It was still a gamble, but right now he had more than blind luck.
And he wouldn't have met Ryouko.
The morning sun warmed his face, giving an illusion of gold in his dark hair. People flitted across his vision, each one intent on going to work or shop. Birds circled overhead, occasionally gliding down to feast on offal from the fish market. Sano briefly wondered why Saitou's captors chose a busy hour to move their prey, then decided that unloading a wrapped bundle in daylight was a lot less suspicious that doing it at night.
He smiled grimly. Too bad -- for the kidnappers -- Ryouko had decided to take a leisurely walk after dropping off Hana at the dojo, and dragged him along. He'd have to thank her for that as well, later.
But first...
Sano pushed the kodachi into his obi. His fists were still his best weapons, though the sword might turn out to be a much-needed advantage. A kodachi, no matter its new trappings, was still essentially a sword. And he was still the Sanosuke his amber-eyed lover knew, deep inside.
He hoped that both of them would survive long enough to know each other again. One way or another, for an end or another beginning, he was going to settle things with Saitou.
The young man took off his trademark red bandanna, tucking it inside his kimono. It wouldn't do for them to recognize him, especially Koga. Slipping on a pleasant expression, he sauntered casually towards the men. Two were dragging out a bulky form, wrapped in sackcloth. One of them carelessly let his end drop, and another wave of pain lashed against Sano's thoughts.
In his eyes, a wolf howled.
It helps if you imagine Sano carving Koga into itty- bitty pieces. ^_^ By the way, Ryouko was quoting a few lines from Hamlet:
"Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves."
(IV.v.161-163)