Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ True Love ❯ Rescue ( Chapter 3 )

-Rurouni Kenshin: True Love-

Chapter Three - Rescue

His emerald eyes watched the flame from the lantern closely as if it was his only lifeline to patience left before he glanced down at the two children sleeping on his lap. A small smile fell on his lips as he brushed a stray strand of hair away from each of their faces. When he looked back up at the flame again, the smile disappeared - replaced with a tiny frown of worry.

She was late.

It wasn't an unusual occurrence for Yumiko to come home at a late hour from her temporary job at the Akabeko, but she typically would tell Enishi beforehand when she left and usually came back only a few hours after dusk. This time, however, didn't feel right.

Enishi looked down at Rin and Ran again, both whom had desperately tried to stay awake with him as they waited for their mother to return only to have sleep overcome their small bodies, and looked back at the flame.

Blowing out a sigh of frustration and resolve, the white-haired fugitive quietly shifted the children to a more comfortable position and carried them out of the home, taking them to Ruri.

(Tokyo - at the Akabeko)

The woman in front of her took a deep bow as she was getting ready to leave.

"Thank you so much, Yumiko-san!" she said to her before straightening back to her full height. "I'm not sure what I could have done without you."

Yumiko gave the woman a tired smile. "Happy to help out anytime, Tae-san."

"Are you sure you don't want the extra pay?"

She shook her head, adjusting the strap on her pouch and tucking it inside her kimono. "No, it's all right. I'm just happy that I was able to help out."

The owner smiled sadly, understanding the meaning beneath her words. "All right…are you sure you don't want Yahiko-kun to take you home?"

The younger woman couldn't help but chuckle at Tae's insistence of repayment as she shook her head. She was sure that the boy would do a good job in escorting her back home, but her friend was too concerned for her well-being. They only knew each other for about a year and a half, but Yumiko already regarded the sukiyaki owner as an older sister to her though Sekihara Tae was merely only a few years older.

"I'll be fine," she reassured Tae. "You know that I can take care of myself, Tae-san. Plus, Yahiko-kun lives on the opposite side where I'm from and I don't want his guardians to worry."

"But I've heard that there have been some murders lately and the police still haven't found the murderer…"

"Then, if someone tries to sneak up on me, I'll pop them on the head really hard," she replied with a smile, exaggerating her comment by connecting her fist with the palm of her other hand. Her smile soon faded soon afterwards, replaced with one of understanding. Besides Ruri and her brother Gen, Tae was also the only other person who knew what truly happened to her in the past. A stinging feeling fell to the pit of her stomach when the thought came across her - she needed to tell Enishi as well but couldn't find the right timing or words to.

"I'll be fine, Tae-san, so don't worry."

The owner nodded a bit reluctantly. "All right. Please take care."

Yumiko gave her another smile and bowed before she stepped outside. As soon as she slid the door shut, she finally let her weariness show and sighed.

Why do I do this to myself? she wondered as she began to take the familiar path home, unaware that two pairs of eyes were watching her.

(Half and hour later…)

Enishi purposefully slowed his steps as he came closer to the restaurant where Yumiko worked temporarily. It had been quickly rebuilt after its sudden attack six months before, but the white-haired man could still remember the day he initiated Jinchuu with Kujiranami Hyougo's cannon fire. It had been a devastating warning sign to Battousai of the things to come, but now it stood as a warning sign for him to get tipped off to the authorities.

Of course, the owner and many of her employees did not know who he was but if he remembered his extensive research correctly, there was the boy who lived with Battousai who worked here. If he saw Enishi, then there definitely would be some trouble in the future. And Enishi didn't want that, not now.

He stopped in front of the Akabeko's entrance, noting that the door was closed but there was still light inside. Some relief came to him, hoping that Yumiko was inside since he didn't see her on his way here.

Mustering up the resolve to knock, Enishi kept an air of informality around him even though when deep inside - the part of him he stubbornly ignored - he was a bit hesitant if not frightened to find the reasons to explain to Yumiko about his complete past.

A few seconds passed before the door slid open, revealing a woman not much older than himself with velvet brown eyes that barely peeked out underneath her lashes and her hair of the same color tied in a bun.

"Ah, I'm very sorry, but we're closed now," she politely said to him. "We will be open tomo-"

Enishi waved his hand, shaking his head. "Oh no, I'm not a customer. I…was wondering if Yumiko was still here." The woman's face lightened up in surprise.

"Yumiko-san? She already left a little while ago…"

He inwardly frowned at her words as his relief diminished and returned back to worry. Something in the back of his mind told him that something was definitely wrong. Giving the woman a slight smile, he bowed goodbye before running off to find the woman who had given him a second chance at life, unaware of the very person he hesitated to meet again had already seen him.

Myojin Yahiko, son of a samurai, student of the Kamiya Kasshin, and admirer of Himura Kenshin, made a dash for the door, only to find that the white-haired man he'd seen to have seemingly disappeared.

"Yahiko-kun, what's wrong?" the woman next to him asked, startled at his actions.

The boy looked frantically around the empty street, desperately trying to prove his eyes wrong that who he had seen wasn't real. With one final glance, he turned back to the owner.

"Oi, Tae-san, who was that guy?" he demanded, wide-eyed.

"He didn't say," Tae replied. "I thought he was one of Yumiko-san's friends since he asked for her."

"Yumiko-san?" Yahiko repeated, his fear ebbing down slightly. "Oh…"

"Was that why you looked like you were in a hurry?"

The boy shook his head, both to her and himself. He must have been mistaken; there was no way that the beautiful and kind woman who often helped out at the Akabeko could be acquainted with such a person. Yumiko was very much a second sister to him, and it didn't seem possible for her to be acquainted with someone as deranged and broken as Yukishiro Enishi.

"Just mistook him for someone…" he murmured, mentally repeating to himself that he probably was being paranoid.

Yet the fact that the man who had been so bent on destroying Kenshin still hadn't been caught nor even attempted to find nagged at the back of the boy's mind.

She decided to take a much different but faster way home than usual. The thought of walking alone in the wide, empty streets of Tokyo felt a bit unsettling to her. It reminded Yumiko too much of her own insecurities, despite her words to Tae, and she felt much safer within the confines of crowded buildings and homes where there would be enough ears to hear any scuffle at this time of night.

Or so she thought.

Yumiko paused in mid-walk and turned around, eyes wary of the darkened buildings around her. She hadn't been in a physical fight for years, but the sixth sense inside her still remained sharp. Her ears weren't lying to her; she had heard footsteps following her in an off-beat pattern a few minutes ago.

Eyes narrowed at the darkness behind her. Almost everyone at this hour was asleep or back at their home in some other part of the city and there was little light to actually see anything. Yet she could feel the person or persons nearby. Her heart pounded in her ears. It wasn't surprising to her that she was being followed, having been in these situations before, but she was still a bit frightened at the prospect of being in that situation again - only with someone that she didn't know.

Taking one last look behind her, Yumiko turned back around and did the most logical thing she could do: run.

A small yelp of pain caught his sensitive hearing and Enishi's head snapped in the direction where he heard it from. He had been retracing back his steps, hoping that he would run into her on his way back.

He paused again and began to walk towards the direction of the faint sound when he heard a much louder shout. Without thinking, his body automatically set itself on a sprint, his eyes frantically searching around for any sign of her in the maze of alleyways when they locked onto a faint, familiar figure of a woman and the scent of white plums.

He felt as if his heart had literally stopped at the sight of her. It couldn't be possible; he hadn't seen her in what felt like an eternity.

"…'Neesan?"

Her ghostly figure dressed in the same kimono he had always seen her in looked up, telling him something that he couldn't quite hear. Enishi rushed towards the figure with as much speed his legs would give him as she faded away, once again lost from his grasp. He skidded to a stop when he reached the wall where she once was, his mind frantically scrambling for reasons unknown to him when a scream shoved him back to reality.

"NOOOOOO!!!"

Her run didn't prove to be fast enough, especially when her kimono constricted her movements to move faster. Her assailant had tried to slow her progress when he caught up to her by grabbing her arm. Yumiko instinctively twisted her arm back rather than tug it back, which what her assailant wasn't expecting. He yelped at the pain of his arm twisting in the wrong way, and Yumiko used this chance of an opening to use her free arm. Her fist connected her assailant square in the chin and what reach she could make with her right leg, she aimed at his shin. The masked man reeled back in pain and let her go.

Now free, Yumiko took a second to hastily unbutton the piece that held her kimono tightly together at her legs and made another run. Her heart was wildly pounding in her ears now; she needed to get to the open street and fast. Fleeting memories of her past came back to her, the familiar panic rising in her body again as she began to think back to those times. She knew how to take care of herself - her mother had made sure that every child in the family did - but those years of training were far overrun by the memories of the mistake she had made four years ago. By thinking that the man then had loved her, needed her, only to be forced into something that she didn't want and then thrown away like the useless daughter she was.

Yumiko gave a shout of surprise and pain as she suddenly fell forward, hitting the ground hard. She scrambled to stand up only to wince at the pain she felt on her right knee. Her eyes, so adjusted to the darkness, saw not far from her a decent sized wooden boomerang lying nearby.

"Hmph, didn't think you'd be that hard for my partner to catch," she heard a deep voice say. With the help of the moonlight, she saw another figure not far from her. Like the previous assailant, he too was all in black and masked, but she could tell that this man had a much larger build to him.

Yumiko turned on her back, trying to scoot away from this new assailant with her good left leg and keeping an eye on the man. The taller, more largely built man just chuckled at her efforts, coming closer.

"You won't be getting up after that hit, ojouchan," he said to her through the mask that muffled his voice. "My weapon aimed for your knee, and it has probably been dislocated."

Her eyes frantically looked around for an escape route. Dislocated right knee or no, she had to get up.

Yet the unknown man seemed to sense her thoughts as he quickly overpowered her and took advantage of his strength over hers, restraining her movements. Yumiko struggled beneath the man, trying to knee him in the groin with her good leg and scream for help, but he immediately stopped her efforts by putting his full weight on top of her and covering her mouth with one hand. One of her hands in the struggle managed to full free, but she was only capable of tearing off the mask.

"You're a feisty one, aren't you?" the man whispered in her ear. "But that might be your downfall, ojouchan. I'll finish this quickly for you."

Yumiko's eyes widened in horror, feeling the man's free hand wander over her body, its intention clear. She did not want the nightmare to happen again and struggled with all her might against the much stronger man. Violently shaking her head from side to side to wrench the hand over her mouth free, Yumiko finally managed to scream one plea for help.

"NOOOOO!!!!"

As soon as she managed to sneak out the word and painfully trying to ignore the sound of her kimono about to be ripped off, the weight on top of her suddenly lifted. She opened her eyes, trying to decipher her rescuer as the man and the newcomer struggled for control. She numbly recognized the even taller man with white hair who held her assailant in a chokehold. Her attacker struggled for air and control, but Enishi's strength proved to be too strong for him as they continued to move back in the alley and out of the moonlight's presence. Not soon afterwards, Yumiko could hear the sickening crack of a neck being broken.

"Aniki!"

Enishi acted quickly, catching up to the second man behind him before anything could be done. His fist connected with the man's gut, and he could hear a few ribs of the other man crack at the impact and he furthered the damage by giving a roundhouse kick in the same area. The man went flying against the wall, another crack could be heard when his head hit the concrete.

Enishi breathed quickly, the adrenaline rush he felt was unlike any other he had before.

Slowly, taking one last look to where the other man lay, Enishi regained control of himself. Killing wasn't new to him, but killing in order to protect someone was something entirely different. He turned around and rushed to Yumiko who was still sitting dumbfounded where he left her.

He met her stunned eyes, gently grabbing hold of her shoulders. "Yumiko…are you all right?"

He at first thought he had done something to make her look so frightened and was taken by surprise when she embraced him tightly. He didn't know what to think until he realized that she was shaking.

"…Yumiko?"

Her response was to only hold him tighter as if he was her only lifeline left.

"If I had met you earlier, would things still be like this? Sitting here together, watching the children play, finally feeling a sense of normality and not tricked into thinking that the only way out of a traditional household was to become someone's play toy."

"As you can see, they don't have a father."

"…I'd rather not have them know who he is."

The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place as he slowly, hesitantly, wrapped his arms around her small frame. Her tears were dripping down his shirt, but he didn't care as he continued to console her in the best way that he could, threading his fingers into her ruffled but silk hair. He didn't say anything; there was no need to. All she needed right now was for him to be there and that was all.

Now he had an idea of the reasons why she was thrown out, why she never wanted to mention Rin and Ran's father, why she was so frightened now.

She had been used, lured and then tossed out like trash. The thought sparked a flame of anger inside him, even it had been in her past - in a place where he hadn't existed yet.

Enishi looked around them, noting the handiwork he had done and set his mind back to the present task at hand. He didn't mind waiting for her to calm down, but her scream and the mess he created probably alerted some of the inhabitants of the homes. That fact didn't bode too well with him. Enishi never liked public attention, and if he was discovered now, he didn't know if he would ever come back. He looked back down at Yumiko who looked to have calmed a bit, her breathing steady against the crook of his neck.

"Let's go," he murmured in her ear. "Before the police come."

She nodded against him and he stood up, helping her up as well. He saw her wince, though, and noted how she gingerly held most of her weight on her left leg. He knew that she was trying her best to hide the pain.

"What's wrong?"

She shook her head, slowly trying to straighten out her right leg but only winced again when she couldn't. "Nothing."

He frowned at her, suspicion rising. He held her balance, noting again that she was carefully trying to not use him for support. Enishi stepped closer and took her hand firmly in his, looking at her in the eye as the anger in him rose again. She was injured on her right leg somewhere, and the reasoning in him was angry at himself for not finding her sooner.

If it hadn't been for his sister…

Enishi froze at the memory. His sister Tomoe had definitely appeared to him earlier. Was she guiding him to Yumiko?

He brushed the thought aside to save it for a later time. "What did that bastard to do you?"

Yumiko blinked at the tone in his voice. She had never seen him so calmly angered, but then again - a reluctant voice told her - she still didn't see all sides of him yet. The look in his eyes said that this wasn't the time to be stubborn. That this was the time to trust him.

She tore her gaze away from his intense one, looking down at her injury. Now that she had calmed down, she couldn't believe that she let herself break down like that. Yet with Enishi, it felt…right. Because she knew that somewhere deep inside her, she could trust him.

"I…um, my knee," she whispered. "He hit me with a boomerang on my knee and…I fell."

He looked at her and then at where she was looking at. He knew that she probably wanted to walk beside him, but they would have to go at an extremely slow pace, which wasn't what he could give - not now.

She yelped in surprise when he lifted her off her feet and then cradled her in his arms. "Enishi!"

"It'll be faster this way," he pointed out to her, glad that the night hid his face. He felt his cheeks burning, but he blamed it from his little exercise.

Yumiko complied without a word as they left the scene. He carefully made his way out of the maze through her direction and when they reached the familiar streets back to Rakuninmura, they fell in a mutual silence, each lost in their own thoughts. He reconsidered the option of telling her how dangerous of a fugitive he was, how he had seen Tomoe; she remembered back to four years ago where she had been a much different woman then, reconsidering the choice to speak of her past to him.

Yet neither spoke nor did they attempt to ask the other. They were just content with the silence for now and in each other's company.

It wasn't until Yumiko began to notice that Enishi was not walking back to her home when she spoke. "Enishi, where -"

"I left Rin and Ran with Ruri," he explained to her, trying not to smile. "So, I guess it's a good thing that you got injured."

The humor in his voice made Yumiko chuckle and she turned her head into the crook of his neck once again. "Very funny, Enishi."

She contemplated on telling him again as their silence resumed. A different kind of fear gripped her, mainly because she didn't know how he would react. Would he be ashamed of her? Give her his sympathy? Nagasaki Yumiko didn't want any of it - she only wanted him to know…because she trusted him.

They were nearing her friend's clinic, and she made a note to herself to tell him when they were alone. But first…

"Enishi?"

Her warm breath tickled against his exposed skin, and Enishi forced the odd, stray thoughts from his mind. She wanted to say something to him and that was all that mattered right now. Yukishiro Enishi wanted to keep the peace she gave to his tortured soul, and he oddly didn't feel as afraid as he did earlier in telling his story. But first…

"Hm?"

The rumbling of his deep voice reverberated in her ear and she smiled and closed her eyes.

"Thank you."

But first, they had to know that their invisible bond of trust was enough for now.

"You're welcome."

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Agh, sorry for my delay! Since this chapter is entirely new from the original, it took me a while to write out...darn writer's block. Hopefully, the next chapter will come as scheduled (in another month!).

LIST OF UNKNOWN WORDS

(name)-kun: This ending is mainly used to address young men or boys, more or less a formality for "-san"

'neesan: short of "oneesan" which means "older sister"

ojouchan: "little miss", used to address young women

aniki: a derivitave of "ani", which also means "older brother"