The Sins of the Father

Chapter 2:

~Meiji Era~

Things were quiet - too quiet, Sano thought as he led Megumi back into town, the two of them returning from a trip to a neighboring township where Megumi had replenished some of her medical supplies. Even from the outskirts, he had been able to recognize the unmistakable scent of bodies burning. He looked behind him to his companion and saw that she was frowning, deep in thought.

"Sano-san? I smell death." Megumi simply said in a clinical tone that did not betray her own concern.

"Hai. It's probably nothing - some old geezers probably succumbed to age." he responded offhandedly, completely unconvinced of his own rationalization.

Megumi just raised a brow at the former fighter-for-hire, as she continued to frown. A lot could happen in a week.

As they continued to approach their destination - a small dojo on the outskirts of town - the smell of death became intermingled with the smell of dried blood.

"Sanosuke?" Megumi asked softly, her eyes wide and her normally stoic expression betraying a hint of concern. "What do you think has happened?"

Sano didn't want to think about it, didn't want to even consider how so much blood had been spilled so very near to the home of the Hitokiri Battousai.

"I don't know, kitsune. I don't know." he finally answered, as he picked up his pace, almost running toward the dojo that he was sure would hold the answers to his questions.

When the two finally reached their destination, they were appalled by the sight that met them. Megumi, who as a doctor and a former member of a seedy Opium ring, had seen death in many ways, but never had she been confronted with it like she was at that moment. She immediately felt queasy, and couldn't help but to fall to her knees and toss the contents of her stomach all over the blood soaked ground.
A look at Sano showed that he was not doing much better. He was pale and glistening with sweat, while the skin on his face held a definite green tint. For a moment Sano was forced to tear his eyes away, and his eyelids slammed down hard as he fought to gain control of himself long enough to process exactly what he was seeing.

"These people - they look as if they have been torn apart by an animal. What could do this?" he asked softly to himself. It was then that he felt a soft hand prodding him in the back.

"S..Sano?" Questioned a soft and bewildered voice from behind him. He whipped around to find a broken Yahiko, covered in blood. The young boy's face was dry at the moment, but he could see the smudges of dirt on his cheeks cleared through by tracks from what could only have been tears. If that hadn't been enough to tell him that the normally proud and self-assured boy had been crying, his swollen and bloodshot eyes definitely confirmed it.

"Yahiko. What has happened here? Where are Kenshin and Jou-chan?"

The young teen looked up at him with wide eyes, and Sano could see that the tears were threatening to fall again. Still, he needed answers, and right now Yahiko was the only one who could provide them.

"Jou-chan... Kaoru-sensei is dead," Yahiko finally said, in a voice thick with grief. "She... she... I found her dead, her throat slit. She... she had claw marks all over her, and... and... and..."

The boy's chest was shuddering throughout his explanation and Sano laid a hand on his shoulder, hoping to comfort him enough for him to continue.

"And... she had been...her kimono was... oh, Kaoru!"

And then Yahiko lost the marginal control he had over himself, and the tears poured down his young, tired face in a torrent as he fell to his knees, shuddering in grief.

Megumi was as pale as rice, silent tears falling from her eyes as she got to her feet. She forced herself to make her shaking body move enough to stumble forward and in a rare show of affection, she reached for the sobbing Yahiko and cradled him against her chest.

Sano was clutching his fists tightly, pain and disbelief etched in the lines of his face as he kept his eyes closed, fighting to turn his own grief into rage.

"Yahiko," he said through gritted teeth, his voice harsh and strained. "Where is Kenshin?"

Yahiko briefly raised his head, as he clung to Megumi like a drowning man clings to a straw.

"I... I... I wasn't here when it happened... I... I was with Tsubame. I... I came in the morning to find Kenshin, covered in blood, and... and... all that you see. I didn't.. I don't know what to think, but... but the police were already here, were surrounding him, calling him a... a murderer. A... a man came. At least, I thought he was a man. A small man, strong, red hair - he looked a lot like Kenshin, come to think of it."

Yahiko took a deep breath and steadied himself before continuing.

"Kenshin was... Kenshin was not himself, nor was he Battousai, I don't think... His eyes were red, Sano, red -- not gold, and he... he had claws..."

Megumi automatically pulled the shuddering boy closer to her, and it gave Yahiko the strength to continue.

"He... he looked straight at me, like he didn't know me. The man, the small man engaged him in a fight, and... they were like two whirlwinds. I did not see what happened, but... but when the air around them cleared, Kenshin was on his knees begging for death."

Sano gasped, he couldn't help it. It was as good as an admission of guilt from the rurouni.

"The other man growled. He growled, Sano. The police were pushing for him to turn Kenshin over to them, and... and he changed, Sano. Changed into a demon, right in front of me."

"Yahiko," Sano said, his voice rough as he tried desperately to control his growing rage, for it was not the boy that was at fault here. "There are no demons..."

"I know what I saw, Sano!" Yahiko said, a bit of anger in his impassioned defense. "He was a demon, Sano. A demon. His ears were pointed, and he had claws, fangs and a tail. A big red fox tail, Sano." .

Yahiko stared at him, hard, and Sano could see that the boy believed what he was saying to be true.

"Anyway, the small red-haired demon did something to Kenshin to knock him out, and then took him and ran, ran as fast as a horse if not faster, away from here. The... the police gave chase to him, one of them stopping to tell me to... to take care of the... bodies."

Sano looked at him, realizing that the boy had been so traumatized that his eyes had played tricks on him. Understandable. Still, he had a description of the stranger to go by, and as he apparently shared many of Kenshin's characteristics, he shouldn't be hard to find.

He blinked his eyes a couple of times, before the realization of how Yahiko came to be covered in blood hit him. He had been the one burning the bodies. He had been setting the funeral pyres. At least - at least for most, he thought as his eyes trailed over the grounds further and caught sight of one mound of fresh earth. A few sakura blossoms had been scattered over the newly dug grave, and Sano knew immediately who must be laid there.

His heart tightened painfully inside his chest.

"Which way did they go."

"What?"

"WHICH WAY DID THEY GO, YAHIKO?" He demanded, and in that one instant he was more terrifying than the Battousai in the midst of battle.

Yahiko released Megumi, and rose to his feet. He raised a shaky arm and pointed to the east.

Sano nodded his head, and turned to them, an icy and determined look in his eyes that sent shivers down both of their spines.

"Megumi, help Yahiko. I will go and get Kenshin. Kami help him when I find him."

~~~

~Tokyo, 2012~

Yuki hated her human phase -- she was so ordinary during the day. She much preferred the night, when her hanyou blood would take over. At night she was anything but ordinary, with her snow white hair, golden eyes and soft canine ears. At night she was a goddess.

She pulled her long black hair into a ponytail, and looked at her reflection in her mirror. She was cute, but not beautiful; not like her mother, who was in her eyes one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen. Her eyes were brown, not sapphire, and her cheekbones weren't quite as high. Her frame was tall and lithe, while her mother was petite and curvy. Her hair was thick and coarse, while her mothers’ was like ebony silk that hung in waves down to the middle of her back. No, she did not have the beauty that her mother had - beauty that was only marred by the depth of sadness in her mother's eyes.

The past few days had been the worst Yuki had seen her mother in some time. This morning, she found her mother in the bath, staring at the wall, when she should have been getting ready for her shift at the hospital. Yuki ended up having to help her out of the bath and into her uniform, making herself extremely late for school.

Her mother had been prone to depression in the past, and so she was quite familiar with the symptoms. Yuki could clearly remember going into her mother's room at night only to discover that she wasn't there. She remembered the panicked feeling she'd get as she searched the house, looking for her, only to find nothing. It was then that she’d really learned how to use her enhanced sense of smell, and only with her nose was she able to locate her errant mother who had taken to sleeping under the Goshinboku. She had done that many nights since. Such nights were almost always followed by several days where her mother was particularly melancholy, and not at all her usual talkative self.

Of course, Yuki knew the basics - her mother still grieved for her father, fourteen years past his death. That, Yuki knew. She also knew that her father was a hanyou, and he had died because of a 'misplaced sense of duty', or so her mother had always said. It was something she had always been very bitter about.

But where her father had come from, she had no idea.

In fact, if it wasn't for the very obvious evidence at night, she'd have thought her mother was crazy to even suggest that he had been a hanyou. Such beings were creatures of myths and fairy tales, after all.

Yet she could not deny the blood that burned through her veins at night, enhancing all her senses and giving her the strength of 20 men. That nightly burst of power told her exactly what she was, even if the canine ears and golden eyes didn't.

Nor could she deny the power that surged through her each time she grasped the hilt of the sword that had been her father's legacy. Even though the blade was old and rusted in places, and looked as if it couldn't cut butter, it was much, much more than it seemed. Often she had asked her mother how her father had come into possession of such a blade, the likes of which she had only seen in history books and museum exhibits, but her mother had always managed to avoid giving her a direct answer. This had only added to the mystery of the blade, and she had made it her goal to find out its secrets.
Lately she had taken to practicing with it at night, during her hanyou phase. The kendo classes she took during the day held much more weight for her at night, as she swung the old sword against imaginary opponents in front of the well house, all the while reveling in the hum of demonic energy in her hands. She instinctively knew that there was great power in the blade; power that only she could release, if she only knew how to.

She loved the sword; it called to her, sung to her, and she wanted to keep it with her always. Her mother would only let her practice with it at night, much to Yuki's dismay.

She turned to look at the clock by her nightstand. 6:40. The sun would be setting soon, she could feel it. Her senses were starting to sharpen already. She grabbed her father's sword and considered her situation for a moment. Her mother wouldn't be home for another hour or so. She could probably get in some practice time in her human phase without being lectured on how dangerous it was.

"Yuki, you are not strong enough to fully wield that sword during the day. You could quite possibly get hurt -- why don't you practice with your bokken instead?"

How many times had she heard those words, only to grimace with the reminder of how fragile she was during the day. Yuki snorted. Well, her mother wasn't home, and what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Besides, being as lost in her own little world of depression as she had been the past few days, she doubted her mother would even care. With that thought in mind, she tucked the sheath of the sword into her belt and closed the door of her room. Yuki wasted no time in bounding down the stairs and outside, and headed toward the well house, excited for the opportunity to get a few minutes of 'human time' practice in before the sun set beyond the horizon.

~~~


A/N: Thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews so far (for AFF ppl). I promise that the next chapter will have a shippo-kenshin-kagome scene :). Maybe. I have most of this story outlined, but I keep finding myself moving segments around, as events take place concurrently. The Sano/Yahiko/Megumi scene wasn't supposed to be until next chapter, but I felt the RK guys needed to make an appearance, since thus far all we've seen is Kenshin either unconscious or as a vegetable. Also, a minor warning: this fic will get very dark very fast. It takes place during a rather violent time in Japan's history, after all, and when you add demons to the mix - well, let's just say if you are squeamish about things like blood, death and rape, this fic is not for you.


New Japanese Words:

kitsune - fox
sensei - teacher
jou-chan - little woman
bokken - wooden sword