Work Text:
It wasn’t unusual, Kenshin was finding, for the people who wanted to kill him to simply let him walk in their front doors. Either he faced half an army or he didn’t see anyone for the last half hour of his approach.
By and large, he preferred it this way. The fight for every step was something Battousai enjoyed, but Kenshin preferred to be able to prepare himself for what came next. The physical battle, yes, but mostly the mental one, shoving Battousai aside with every step.
Right now, sprinting through the streets of Tokyo at some ungodly hour of the morning, Kenshin would have preferred someone to fight.
Because Kaoru had gone to visit a friend two days ago, and this morning Misao and Aoshi appeared—as ninjas are wont to do—out of nowhere. Aoshi carried a name, one Kenshin didn’t even recognize, and Misao carried a single ribbon in her hands. It had been pristine when they’d gotten it, Aoshi informed him, but had creased in Misao’s hands as she worried her fingers over it.
It had taken the Oniwabanshu the better part of the day to track down the compound where Kaoru was being kept. It was a warren of dead ends and empty buildings. They’d reported that she was still alive, but none of them had been able to get any closer look without risking being spotted.
Once he had the information, Kenshin sent everyone else out for the cavalry and set off to where he’d been directed. Sano went for Megumi in case Kaoru was hurt, Yahiko to the safety of the Akabeko with the warning that Kaoru would never forgive Kenshin if he let something happen to her ward, Misao to Saito’s house directly, Aoshi to the police. It would take them all time. Time Kenshin didn’t have, and time the Battousai wouldn’t have let him take even if he’d been offered it. So he’d run.
Inside the path was easy to follow. Hallway after hallway, each with one open door beckoning him forward. He could hear doors shutting behind him, but he could feel Kaoru in the distance now. He knew he was going in the right direction. He didn’t care what was behind him, only that Kaoru was in front of him, and she blazed as brightly as she ever had. He would deal with whatever they had to face on the way back once he had Kaoru with him.
Then finally, one last closed door.
Kenshin kicked it open.
A lifetime of training locked onto each detail in the room in a heartbeat. A needle plunging into Kaoru’s neck, some milky, viscous substance pumping directly into her artery. A man Kenshin completely didn’t recognize holding the syringe. A knife to Kaoru’s stomach. A woman behind them, a knife to her own neck.
“If you hurt her…” he growled. He wasn’t sure if it was his voice or Battousai’s. He didn’t care.
The man yanked the syringe out of Kaoru’s neck. Threw it on the ground. Kenshin tracked each shattered piece of glass. “That was a long, slow-acting poison, Battousai. Only one person alive knows how to make the antidote.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out he meant the woman behind him, but he gestured expansively back at her. Kenshin noted the sheen of sweat on her skin.
“She injected herself with a half dose an hour ago. Soon her body will be wracked with pain even you cannot imagine. Then the paralytic will take effect. Her body will freeze in place and she will slowly suffocate as she screams. Your woman got the full dose. I imagine it’ll start quicker, even if it won’t end any sooner.”
“What do you want?” Definitely more Battousai than Kenshin.
“I can’t hope to beat you in a fight. But there are ways to kill a man without ever touching him. That is what I will do to you.”
The dagger slashed down. For a moment, Kenshin saw blood spurting from her body, but his vision cleared and he was left with the sight of the man’s hand grabbing a fistful of fabric at the back of Kaoru’s neck and yanking. Her kimono slipped easily from her shoulders, leaving her standing only in her white juban with the colorful fabric pooled at her feet.
“If you touch her, I will kill you.” That was Battousai.
“Kenshin, no.”
The man Kenshin still didn’t know grinned. “You have two choices that let you both walk out of here alive.
“One: You stand there while I take her, knowing that if you move—if you kill me—Miyo here slits her own throat. If you stop her somehow, the poison will still take her, and you will watch your Kaoru die.
“Two: You take her. Leave your seed inside her. Stake your claim on her. If you don’t, or if your friends find their way here before you finish—Miyo here slits her throat.”
Kenshin ran the calculations. He was so far underground now, behind so many doors…but—but Kaoru. Both options were abhorrent. In one…in one he stood by and watched a man rape her. In the other, he raped her.
But at least he knew he wouldn’t hurt hurt her. He couldn’t make the same promise about the man. Kaoru’s eyes made the choice for him. Kenshin didn’t even know if she knew what she looked like, the impossible, nauseating decision he was being forced to make.
He would leave after this, once she was safe. He could protect her one last time before she would never want to see him again—and he understood. She would never feel safe with him after this. He wouldn’t feel that she was safe with him.
“Kaoru-dono?”
“Kenshin.” Strength in her voice, at least. Fear, yes, but a resolute strength that had been what made him love her in the beginning.
“Give her to me.” The Battousai slipped out again, and Kenshin hardly wanted to push him down. Everything he’d been—everything he’d done—and he’d never threatened a woman like this. He’d never laid a hand on a woman who hadn’t wanted him. Never would. Some of the men he’d served with had learned the hard way that Battousai would allow nobody to do this.
The man flung Kaoru toward him. Kenshin shot forward and caught her, enveloping her in his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin. She let out a quiet oof at the strength of his grip. The door slammed shut behind him. Bars slid into place.
“I will fight if you ask me to,” Kenshin said against Kaoru’s ear. “I will do everything I can to protect you, but you’ve already been hurt.” He let his hand hover over the tiny red dot on her neck. “And if he is telling the truth, you will die.”
She trembled in his arms, and he felt sick asking this of her.
“Just do it, Kenshin.”
The man behind them clapped his hands. “Don’t want to take too long now. If those friends of yours storm in, imagine what they’ll see just before Miyo sprays her blood all over the wall.”
Kenshin risked a glance back. The woman was determined. Her hand shook slightly, but the sheen of sweat on her face made him think it was from the poison rather than fear. She didn’t look afraid to take her own life.
He looked back down at Kaoru helplessly. This wasn’t what he wanted. As much as he’d come to love her, the thought of touching her before she’d wanted it, asked for it, made whatever was left of his soul crack.
“You gonna do it standing up, Battousai?”
Kenshin shut his eyes for a moment to strike down the urge to strangle the man to death anyway. When he managed it, he opened his eyes in time to see Kaoru take a small step back, then sink to her knees. She shifted until she was seated on the floor, legs pulled protectively up to her chest.
“We-we might as well.”
She was trying to sound so brave. Kenshin chose not to point out her fear to her.
“I’ll hide you from them the best I can,” he promised. With one hand, he eased her legs straight and then with the other supported her back as she lay down. He knew he was slipping back into the drawl. Battousai swimming up from the depths to protect Kenshin from what he was about to do. Kenshin didn’t fight it. Battousai brought Kaoru to no more in danger than Kenshin did now. He’d accepted that.
“Kenshin…does it hurt? I-I’ve heard…” Her voice was quiet, for his ears alone.
“It can, but if you’re relaxed and enjoying yourself, it doesn’t.” He sighed. “I’m going to try to make this as enjoyable for you as I can.” Partially because he wasn’t sure how exactly he was expected to perform knowing what he was doing to the woman he loved. He needed to trick himself somehow. “It won’t be like it should be, but I can try to make it as painless as possible. Is that okay?”
He pulled the sakabato free and pressed it into one of her hands. “Hold on to this for me.”
Kaoru nodded.
Kenshin knew he wouldn’t have the time he wanted to truly touch her, but he could still soothe her as much as possible. With one hand, he began working his own clothing off to buy himself time. He rested on his other elbow and pressed soft kisses to her throat, starting with the wound from the syringe. Gods, he could feel her swallowing beneath his lips.
He went no further than the line of her clothing, but she’d tilted her head back to allow him more access, and he thanked her by kissing beneath her jaw. He stayed away from her lips, wanting not to sully intimacy any more than he was already doing.
He’d managed to untie his own sash so he tossed it aside, tugging at his clothing until he’d removed as much as he had to for what he had to do. Kenshin was more careful with her. He undid only the ties on her juban that were absolutely necessary, leaving the rest of her as clothed as he could. She was breathing hard, but not the way he would have wanted if he’d been able to do this the right way. She was terrified, and he was the one doing this to her.
Kenshin closed his eyes for a few breaths. He hated that his body was responding to this farce, that kneeling between her thighs made his blood quicken. He hated everything that brought them to this place. He wished he’d never come to Tokyo, that he’d never put her in this danger.
“Please relax as much as you can.” Kenshin rested the palm of one hand low on her stomach. The warmth of her body seared him through her clothes. But he felt the tense line of her body ease just a bit. “Whatever happens, keep your eyes on me. Can you do that for me?”
A pause. A nod. Eyes locked on his.
He kissed her forehead once, then reached down to help guide himself inside her. He wasn’t fully hard yet, but he was close enough that the sensations alone should be enough, as long as he could divorce his mind from what his body felt.
He was so sickened by all this, and the man celebrating behind them didn’t help, that he had to fight back nausea as he slid inside her. She whimpered only once, catching her lower lip in her teeth. He could see a split in the skin where someone had hit her. He bent his forehead to hers as he eased himself fully in her.
Gods, she felt so good around him, he could only imagine what she would feel like if she’d wanted this. But by the same token, he couldn’t imagine it or he would break. He was breaking already to see her like this, forehead creased, lip bleeding again as her teeth tore open the scabbing wound.
“Keep breathing,” he whispered. “I’ll try to make this end for you as quickly as I can.”
She nodded once. Took a deep breath. Then another. Her eyes stayed locked on his.
So Kenshin did what he had to do. He separated himself from his body, letting the sensations there carry him. The opposite of what he had to do in battle, where he pushed aside the pains of a fight to focus. He didn’t want to focus. He didn’t want to know what it felt like to move inside her, the silken warmth of her body.
He hated himself more than he’d ever hated anything before. Hated himself more when he had to bite back a moan as she shifted in discomfort and he felt the pleasure of her movement burn through his body. Hated that as far as his body was concerned, this was okay—this was good.
One of her hands came to rest on his back, clutching the fabric with a hand that seemed both so strong and so small at the same time. “It’s okay, Kenshin. It’s okay.”
He hated that she was reassuring him. That he was the one doing this to her and she felt sorry for him. He hated that her touch, her voice, the heat of her stoked the heat building in him. He hated that she was in pain. He should have had all night to touch her, to awaken her own passions for him so that when he did finally press inside she cried out in pleasure.
He’d learned long ago that it wasn’t such a difficult trick to separate his mind from his body, so he was only dimly aware of his breath growing ragged, of the way his movements had grown sharper, of the way he stretched for any inch of sensation to tip him over the edge. His mind and soul screamed in agony, but his body didn’t betray him—or maybe it did. Maybe that he was able to do this at all was a betrayal of the deepest kind.
But wave after nauseating wave of pleasure washed through him as he spilled inside her. He stayed in place for only a second before withdrawing and covering her with her clothing again. Her shaking hands began doing up the ties as Kenshin straightened his own clothes. She offered him his sword, and he took it. He wished she’d run him through with it rather than holding it out like she’d fetched it from the other room for him.
Once she’d gotten herself sorted, he held out a hand to pull her to her feet. He prepared himself to see her flinch away, but she just put her hand in his and let him help her up. A flash of discomfort crossed her face.
Gods, Kenshin would gladly have died there on the spot to take this all away from her. He kept her hand in his and stayed between her and the laughing man at the head of the room.
Behind him, Kaoru doubled over, crying out in sudden pain and jerking her hand free of his. He looked back, startled. She was clutching her head. The poison, then, and not anything he’d done.
“I did what you asked,” Kenshin growled. “Give me the antidote.”
Miyo was already passing one syringe over and pressing a second one to her neck. Kenshin caught the syringe as though it were the most precious substance in the universe when the man threw it to him. He snatched it out of the air and spun back as Kaoru collapsed, curling in on herself while she shuddered in agony.
Kenshin paid only enough attention to the other two people in the room to note where they were and if either of them approached. The rest of his attention was fixated on Kaoru. He moved her hair aside to reveal the skin on her neck. Mottled bruising was already appearing near where the first injection had gone in.
Splinters of the door flew everywhere. Kenshin threw himself on top of Kaoru to shield her from the wood as Sano shoved his way in. Aoshi and Saito passed him, and a flood of police followed them in.
Kenshin slipped the needle into the vein in Kaoru’s neck where he could see her pulse fluttering faintly. He injected the antidote and pressed two fingers to the spot of blood that appeared when he pulled the needle back out. Kaoru’s hand covered his. Then Aoshi was there, asking him questions he couldn’t even hear. So Kenshin stood, stumbling backward into a wall. Best to let someone else look after Kaoru now.
The man was still laughing as police escorted the two people past. “Survive that, Battousai!”
Sano punched him in the face and he went limp. A few of the cops grumbled about carrying the bastard all the way back, but nobody seemed to really mind. No matter what their boss thought of Kaoru, she’d always been kind to them.
“Get her out of here,” Kenshin managed to Aoshi finally. Wiser than he ought to have been, Aoshi simply stood and lifted Kaoru. She was still in too much pain to fight, but her shaking seemed to have stopped. He watched until Aoshi was out the door, Sano hovering behind them like a mayfly.
Saito watched Kenshin, that damned cigarette hanging from his lip. He stayed silent while Kenshin let the rest of the police file out ahead of them except for the few who’d been ordered to stay back and report on what they’d found.
He even stayed silent as he fell into step beside Kenshin while they followed the path of carnage Sano had left on their run into the building. He stopped when Kenshin did, just inside the shadowed doorway.
“I must ask a favor of you,” Kenshin said at last.
Saito grunted that he was listening.
“Arrest me for the rape of Kamiya Kaoru.”
That got a reaction out of him. Saito's eyes went wide, then narrow. “Repeat yourself.”
“Please don’t make me.”
Saito whistled loudly to one of his nearby cops. The man trotted over and passed over the manacles without question when Saito demanded them. He did give Kenshin a questioning look, but ultimately, and wisely, stayed silent as he hustled off.
“I’m going to need an explanation soon, Himura.”
There didn’t even seem to be the usual amount of satisfaction as Saito locked the manacles around Kenshin’s wrists. Saito slid the sakabato free and held it in his left hand, his right hand locked onto Kenshin’s shoulder.
Kenshin nodded. He would have to explain, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice it just yet. He’d just begun the final few steps toward the door when he had to stumble aside and retch. There was nothing in his stomach, so he vomited up only bile.
Saito gave him a moment to recompose himself, then put his hand back on Kenshin’s shoulder to steer him outside. Even the hand on his shoulder was gentler than Kenshin expected or deserved. He’d seen the way Saito treated men like him once, and Kenshin was surprised he was still standing. Saito wasn’t known for being a kind man, but he gave no quarter to those who forced themselves upon women.
He’d been in the police station on other business once when Saito returned, dragging a man by the hair. The man had been protesting his innocence. Then he’d let slip, “That bitch was asking for it.”
Saito had him up against the wall, a hand on his throat before the man had even finished his sentence. It looked like it was taking every ounce of Saito’s extreme willpower not to skewer him to the wall. It seemed the rush of other men to gently pry them apart was more to keep their boss from murdering a man in the middle of the station rather than out of any urgency to protect him.
Kenshin caught a glimpse of Megumi emerging from behind a wall formed by Sano and Aoshi’s shoulders, probably placed there to give Megumi a little privacy with Kaoru. He ducked his head and went where Saito directed him.
They were nearly out of the commotion when Kenshin heard footsteps running up behind them. He kept his head down and kept walking.
A full slap on the face nearly sent him to the ground. It happened so suddenly that it took Kenshin a moment to even realize why his face stung, another to confirm none of his teeth were loose, and yet another to realize it was Kaoru standing in front of him. She had a blanket draped over her shoulders to provide some level of cover.
“I…what?” Kenshin managed stupidly.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kaoru demanded.
“What I’ve done is unforgive—”
“Shut up, Kenshin.”
He did.
“You did what I asked you to do.”
That made his head snap up. “You never asked for this.”
Kaoru rolled her eyes up to the heavens as though to ask why she’d ended up in this place. “No, obviously I never asked for this, but the choice was between you and him. What the hell else do you think I’d pick?”
“I hurt you,” Kenshin protested.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she retorted. Saito snorted. “I’ve managed to hurt myself worse cleaning.”
She stepped in closer and put her hand over the scar on his left cheek, comforting away the last of the pain from her slap. Saito stepped a little bit away and was smoking and watching his men do their work, although there was no way he couldn’t hear all of this. He did an admirable job of pretending.
“Kenshin, I wanted this.” She suddenly flushed scarlet. “Not…not this. But if it had to be someone, I’m glad it was you. I know you did it to protect me. I know it hurt you. And…and yeah, it’s gonna take me a little bit to figure out how to…” she trailed off, then forged ahead again fearlessly. Kenshin’s heart ached with love for her. “Figure out how to be alone with you. Not because I don’t trust you. But because I didn’t ask for this to happen. Because if it was going to happen, I wanted it to be because I’d asked.”
Saito returned and unlocked the manacles and gave Kenshin a little shove toward the road. “Go home with your woman, Battousai. I’ll take care of things here.”
Kenshin suddenly didn’t doubt that the man—whoever he was—might find himself wishing that he’d tangled with Battousai at the height of the Bakumatsu rather than Mibu’s wolf just now. Kaoru took Kenshin’s hand hesitantly, but she seemed to relax when he laced his fingers with hers, as though she’d expected him to rebuff her.
“And Himura?” Kenshin looked back at Saito. “If I ever hear anything like this again, I kill you where you stand.”
Kenshin bowed his head. “I will not attempt to stop you.”
“Everyone will be back at the dojo when we get there.” She cleared her throat and stared straight ahead as they walked. “Megumi is the only one who knows. Aoshi might suspect something. But I, um, asked Megumi to get some herbs for me. Just in case, you know?”
Kenshin wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, but he didn’t. He squeezed her hand gently. “You only have to ask and I’ll leave. Until that moment, I’m here with you no matter what happens.”