Part I:  Stranger in the Night

    The darkness swallowed everything but her pale skin, yet even her face and hands were hard to see.  He couldn't quite make out her features, masked as they were by the long dark hair, but the woman's body had obviously been dumped here.
    He knelt at her side, thinking to bring her to the police station for identification and burial, but she was warm to his touch despite the chill in the air.
    She moaned faintly as  his hand brushed her arm, and he saw that her kimono was spattered with darker wet spots -- blood, perhaps?  He caught a half glimpse of her features and almost froze with the shock of recognition -- but no, it couldn't be her.
    "Please relax.  I'm going to get help for you."  Not knowing if she even heard him, he scooped her up carefully, gently, then quickly made his way back in  the direction from which he'd come.
    He's gone out for a walk at sunset to clear his head.  Things had been almost too quiet for a long time, and though he was happy for that, it still made him nervous -- and, he admitted to himself, restless.  The others may not like his bringing trouble quite literally to their own doorstep, but a sense of rightness and calm came over him alongside the urgency of the situation.  The woman needed help.
    He hadn't been paying attention to his route, letting his subconscious choose his path.  For this woman, it was exceptionally lucky, and he felt compelled to help her,  and brought her to the safest place he could think of.
    "Kaorudono! Sano!  Yahiko!"  He charged into the dojo, being as careful as he could with the unconscious woman.  Now he could indeed see the blood spattered on the abused fabric of her clothing.  "This woman needs medical attention immediately," Kenshin informed the other three as they looked up.
    "I can see that," Kaoru said dryly as the rurouni brought the woman inside.  "Yahiko, go get Genzaisensei.  Sano, towels and clean, warm water, please.  We can at least get her cleaned up.  Kenshin, will you bring out the extra futon?"
    "Hai."  Yahiko was already gone by the time she finished speaking, and Sano carried the bucket outside.
    "I thought we agreed, no more stray pets, ne?"  Kaoru looked at Kenshin, but seeing his own serious expression, she discarded all attempts at humor as she rolled up her sleeves.  "Where'd you find her?"  She started loosening the woman's clothing, evincing another faint groan.  "She's filthy, and badly hurt!"
    "Near the road to Kanryu's old mansion.."  Sano came back and Kaoru started cleaning the woman's face.  Kenshin continued.  "At first, I thought she was dead, but when I --"
    "Kenshin!"  Kaoru cut him off in shock.  "Look at this!"
    The woman looked very familiar, but that wasn't what had caught Kaoru's eye.  There, on the woman's right cheek was an X shaped scar.
    It was smaller than Kenshin's, and the angle and placement on her face were different, but there could be no mistake about its existence.
    "Kenshin, she's got a scar like yours."
    "Not exactly, but close.  And on the other side.  But Kenshin, Kaoru's right.  That woman's wearing your scar."
    "The question is, how?"
    "And why?"
    Kenshin remained silent.
    Though it was only a few minutes later, it seemed as if an eternity had passed before Yahiko returned with a tired but focused Genzaisensei.
    He shooed the other males out of the room, retaining Kaoru as an assistant.  she had cleaned up most of the bloody mud from the woman's face and hair, and as the old doctor loosened her torn kimono, they saw she was not much older than Sano -- but covered in myriad scars, some shaped like the one on her face, some were images or kanji.  Many were simply slashes.  The woman had clearly lived through hell; most of the scars were faded, but the single fresh wound on her abdomen bled heavily, and the stab wound in its center went deep.
    The young sensei cleaned and dressed the small scratches on the woman's arms and legs.  Her wrist was sprained in addition to the deliberate cuts and bruises, and Kaoru bound that carefully while the old doctor went to work on the fresh series of slashes and the deep puncture in silence.
    "It's a miracle she isn't dead, although I suspect had Kenshinsan even been a few minutes later, she would not have made it.  As it is, I can't be sure.  I've done what I can to ease her discomfort, but she needs rest and replenishment.  Whoever did this knew what he was doing," Genzaisensei said angrily, after the surgery was over.
    Kenshin related how he had found her.  "It seems like she was left for dead, almost as if she were supposed to be a warning to someone."
    The old doctor looked furious.  "She's covered in scars.  Some of them were clearly kanji."
    Kaoru had looked ill since she'd come out of the surgery with the doctor, and now Sano and Yahiko took in this information with hard expressions.
    "Whoever could do this to an innocent woman --"
    "Assuming she is innocent.  The sort of person to do that can only be scum, but even scum has a reason for things like this."
    "If you four can take care of her, I should get back to the girls."  The old doctor stepped outside with a troubled expression.
    "I'll walk with you," Sano offered as he followed.
    Kenshin stared at the supine woman's scarred cheek.  "That scar has been there for years.  I doubt she was much older than Yahiko when she got it."
    "How can you tell, Kenshin?"  Yahiko looked up in surprise.
    Kenshin blinked.  "Tell what?"
    "How old she was when she got that?"
    "Easy.  That scar has been healed for a long time, at least five years.  And if she's around Sano's age now, she must have been closer to your age then.  What puzzles me," he continued after a moment's pause, "is how she got it."  Kenshin lowered his head, sighing.
    "Sano's right, it's not identical.  But it is a very strange coincidence."  He moved the lantern closer.  "Now that she's clean, it's easy to see that it's smaller ad closer in on her face, and better healed."  Yahiko looked up at Kenshin.
    "I'll stay here with her until she wakes up, Kaorudono.  You should rest," the redheaded rurouni said quietly.
    "Yeah," Yahiko smirked.  "Even an ugly toad needs beauty sleep, and now you've got competition!"  He winced as a bokken collided with his head.
    "You really think I'm going to let you sit up with a woman who looks exactly like Megumisan?"  Kaoru seemed to have snapped out of her sickened reverie for the moment.
    Kenshin looked at Kaoru in surprise.  "She isn't Megumidono, no matter what she looks like.  That scar is proof of that.  And no matter what, in her condition, she's not going anywhere, nor is she going to try anything."
    "Exactly, so what do you have to watch over her for?"  Kaoru looked petulant.
    "Genzaisensei asked if we noticed that she looks just like Megumi, except for the scars," Sano said as he sauntered back in.
    "That's why I went for him and not her," Yahiko said.  "I didn't think it would be the kind of thing Megumisan would take easily."
    Kenshin nodded.  "You did well.  Now, you and Kaorudono get some rest."
    "Kennii..."  The woman moaned softly.
    The others froze.  "Oro?"  Kenshin's gaze lingered longest in the shocked stare they'd all fixed on the woman, his own expression unreadable.  He moved closer, but she remained unconscious.
    Sano shrugged after an eternal silence.  "Staring at her ain't gonna do any good.  I'm turning in."
    Yahiko yawned.  "Good idea."  He followed the taller man out tot he shed to get the spare futon Kenshin seemed to have neglected to retrieve.
    "Kaorudono..."
    The young woman looked up at him.  "I don't like this, Kenshin.   The whole thing gives me the creeps."
    "Daijoubu, Kaorudono.  We'll make sense of it in the morning."
    Kaoru went wordlessly to her own futon while Kenshin sat against the wall, studying the sleeping woman in the faint lamplight.
    "Kennii," he whispered to himself as the woman slept in silence.