Part VI: Fog

     Kenshin struggled to assimilate the day's events as he walked slowly back.  As the dojo came into view, he was far more numb and confused than he'd been when he'd started out.
     "Tomoe..."  He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he almost tripped over something lying on the path outside the gate.
     What was Megumidono's smock doing here, lying out on the ground?  He picked it up and the scent of blood coursed through him as he charged into the dojo.
     "Kenshin!"   Kaoru threw herself at him, hysterical, but not before he noticed the large bruises on her face and arms.  Sanosuke lay on the floor, in worse shape than he'd ever been before with the possible exception of the day Saitoh Hajime had gone after Kenshin.
     Megumi herself was nowhere in sight.
     "Megumisan... They got her.  Kenshin, they got her and we couldn't stop them!"
     "Who's got her?"  Kenshin forced the days events to the back of his mind.
     "I -- I think it's Kanryu."  The younger girl said.   "I heard something about opium, and making it again, they wanted her to make it again and they knocked her out and carried her away!"
     Kenshin nodded.  "Where's Yahiko?"
     "He went to get Genzaisensei.  He got smart for once and played dead once he realized how bad it was, Sano's in bad shape and they've got Megumisan!"
     Kenshin's eyes narrowed.  "Kaorudono, go start water boiling.  The doctor will need it when he gets here.  I'm going to find Megumidono."  He ran back outside, his own worries all but forgotten in his wrath.  It had become so easy, almost too easy to think of the young and beautiful doctor as his sister.  Even if it hadn't, there was no way he could let her be taken again.
     But how had Kanryu broken loose?  It wasn't possible.  But then, in light of recent events, nothing was truly impossible, after all...
     He chased through the night down a road he had not traveled in a long time.  The path to Kanryu Takeda's old manor house was only slightly overgrown and obviously had been trampled recently.
     He spotted something by the side of the road.  A small leather kit lay half hidden under a bush, so that he'd almost missed it.
     Megumi's surgical kit.
     Kenshin tucked it into his sleeve and ran on.
     A shadow loomed ahead.   The X shaped slashes he'd made in the gate were still there.
     He barely noticed the guards his sakabattou knocked aside as he fairly flew up the stairs to the ballroom on the second floor.  It was a little sad to see such bad guardianship.  He'd expected better, even of a man like Kanryu.
     But the lone man who stood in the room, at the rear doors, was not Kanryu.
     "You must be the Hitokiri Battousai.  I was warned about you."  The slick looking man appeared unarmed and poorly clothed for combat in a business suit.
     Kenshin did not bother to dignify that with a proper response.  His patience was at an end with games like the one this man obviously wanted to play.  "Where's Megumidono?"
     "So you care for the doctor, do you?  Yes, Kanryu had mentioned you might.  He said you were quite a fighter, you and your friends.  Only you seem to be alone this time, don't you.  I think you look a little bit on the scrawny side, myself."  The man tossed shoulder length grey hair and stared at Kenshin out of pale brown eyes.
     "Let her go."
     "What?  Why, where are your manners?  I expected better of the Battousai."
     "My name is Himura Kenshin.  I am a rurouni.  And you have my friend.  If you've hurt her..."  The former assassin's eyes did not waver.  Threats were not his line, but after what this creature had done to his friends at the dojo...
     "A pleasure to met you, Himura.  I am Kuzuyama Tatewaki.  Kanryu was an associate of mine.  I hear you are the one who put him in prison.  That wasn't a very nice thing to do.  Kanryu is quite put out about being put away, you know."  The "businessman" shook his head while snickering as his own pathetic pun.  "He doesn't like prison very much."
     "He did seem very fond of your little girlfriend, though.  I wonder how far I can push her to make me the opium before she dies?"  The man smiled evenly, darkly at the redheaded rurouni.  He was clearly as sick as Kanryu had been, and even less afraid of his own mentality.
     "Oh yes!  And I have another little present for you, Battousai."  He clapped his hands and a guard emerged, dragging two figures out into the room with another's help.  The first shook her captor off with pride and rage.
     "Megumidono!"
     "I'm all right, Kensan.  It's --"
     She was cut off by a slap from the guard, as the other woman fell into the room.  She was older than Megumi but still quite beautiful.  The two women might even have been sisters...
     "I'm afraid she's not quite as useful as your doctor friend, but there's no doubt in my mind you'd fight as hard for her as any stray cat we found."  The man's eyes all but glowed with sadism.  Kenshin's own gaze was locked on the downcast figure.
     "Tomoe!"
     She looked up at him, pleading silently with her eyes.
     This was not the quiet night at the dojo he'd originally hoped for.  This was certainly not the way he'd hoped to meet Tomoe again.  And Kuzuyama chose that moment to make things even more exciting.
     "Choose which one dies."