Wow, been a while, hasn't it?

I'm afraid this chapter's shortish, but it's packed with lots of plot tidbits! Also, ate my review replies last time, so I redid them. Everyone should have a reply at the end of this chapter, and if I missed you just let me know!

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Haplo was snoring again, loudly in the corner.

Haomari broke off her herb grinding, setting down the tiny mortar and pestle on the room's single bench-like table. Open containers were scattered across the surface in various stages of being filled, plants picked on the way to Kyoto spread similarly.

With the way the Battousai and now the Shadow were always getting injured, she tried to keep stocked up on her various balms and tea-additives–the latter consisting of anything from pain killers to sedatives of various strengths. Tannusen, or Tannu as he preferred being called, had actually asked her to make him a new batch of the latter–claiming that taking a bit helped him sleep.

Of course, he'd asked with a flourish of the hands, the bending of the waist, and the quirk of the perpetually-lopsided smile. Still, she didn't see why she shouldn't help him sleep, she was a healer after all, albeit an untrained one.

/ Someday I'll apprentice myself to a real doctor. / She thought, and always had.

Though that was without taking into account that she was well on her way to becoming a new, full-fledged Hitokiri. Every time the Battousai practiced with her, she had to learn more and more control methods from the more experienced boy. And every time they'd been attacked... well, ever since her brother had been killed she'd found that taking human life only grew more and more easy to accept.

Her morals didn't fit the healer, anymore, to be honest- she wasn't certain what she was anymore.

Haplo snorted in his sleep, loud enough that it woke him up. The old man's arms went everywhere in instant, floundering confusion, before he sat up off his bedroll.

"Eh? Just us two huh? You're pacing again, you know, that's not very good for the floor." He shouted the last bit loudly, apparently speaking to thin air from where Haomari watched, still seated.

"I don't think the floor minds, elder."

"Maybe so, maybe so, but you won't say that when it collapses–will you? Eh?" He demanded, scrambling to his feet. "Now come along, dear, we've an appointment!"

"An... appointment?"

"'s right! How could I forget! It's good that you reminded me, dear, come on..."

"I..." Haomari cast her glance around the room, the Battousai hadn't returned yet, they should stay put, but the old man was already doddering off for the door–his slow and arthritic walk almost painful to watch when he'd just woken up.

"Right, but only for a little while." She took his left arm to steady him as they slipped out the door of the ground-level room. He was surprisingly paranoid about stairs, and apparently about floors giving out from pacing.

Haplo covered her hand with his right and smiled eerily at her, and she didn't notice the bit of paper dropping out of his left hand before the door swung shut behind them. Nor did she notice that she'd left without her bag, and the walking stick protruding from it.

Ominous, if only she'd known.

-

"Come in, come in." Katsura was all friendliness when the group arrived, he gestured to the sitting mats in front of him even as the soldier slid the door shut behind. Kenshin obediently went to kneel on one, coming down to level with his leader but not meeting his gaze.

The two Ashkeveron shared a glance before doing the same, but they stared levelly at the leader of the Meiji revolution.

"Ah, yes, Tannusen–you and I have met many times. So you... you must be Shadow." The latter was directed at the one with the cold blue eyes, who inclined her head slightly in agreement.

"Katsura, it has been long coming that we meet."

"You... even sound like her, only less rough. And you do not limp as she did, but yet... I do not understand, Shadow, I saw you die with my Master."

Shadow herself, who had been looking thoughtfully at the floor even as Kenshin watched, snapped her gaze back up to the revolutionist. She hadn't seemed at all surprised that Katsura hadn't been expecting a man, nor that her brother had met him before... but this had caught her a little off guard.

"That..." a frown, "that was my Mother."

A long, long pause- and then; "I look almost identical to how she did at my age."

Katsura nodded thoughtfully.

"Now that you've said as much, I can see the differences. It was a long time ago, detail has blurred with the passing of the years."

The scar-laced woman inclined her head in agreement again.

"Regardless, I need your and Tannusen's help." he smiled sadly, "The Battousai cannot do all that will be needed to be done, no matter how hard he tries." Katsura glanced apologetically at the redhead before continuing. "But before we discuss details, I need to know that you won't... go berserk on my men as well."

She was never hired lightly, any bystanders tended to die as well as the target.

"I kill witnesses to my work, those who know that it was Shadow that they watched run a blade through another. I do not... berserk. If your men do not know who I am, they are safe."

"Were those children witnesses?" Kenshin demanded softly, angrily. Katsura did not object to his interruption.

"No," Shadow fixed him with her chill watch, holding the air of one who had expected the question for a long, long time. "they were assassins, all but one of them."

And no more would be said on it, the tense discussion was turned to tactics.

-

xZig-zagx (chapter 33): Well, it didn't get burnt off, just almost. Down to the bone, and all that goodness, heh. Thankfully, I don't remember it. And startling/puzzling Kenshin is good fun! That's what makes the RK series great, I tell you. :)

Wolf Kouji the Great (chapter 31): This is true. :P

the sacred night (chapter 33): Well, -I- could hold someone's mouth open without sticking my fingers in, but then, as we know now–Kenshin wasn't fighting as hard as he might have. evil grin

hitokiri-oroness (chapter 33): Thanks! :D

Cattibrie393 (chapter 33): Not all crazy old men are Zifnab/Fizban/Paladine, and certainly none that I could justify in this fanfic. Haplo's just the first name I thought of when I wrote his intro... sorry. ;P

Aharah Musici (chapter 33): Aw, I forgive you. ;)

Henrika (chapter 33): XD Thanks!

Cattibrie393 (chapter 34): Backstory is great, yep, I'm afraid I tend to get rather long-winded with it, though. g

xZig-zagx (chapter 34): Woot. Thanks! :D

Henrika (chapter 34): If that chapter gets revamped at some point I'll make it more clear, 'cause I can see where it was fuzzy. The envelope wasn't for a target, it was how to get to where Katsura's hiding out now. Sorreh about that. :) And, yeah, Tannusen's pretty predictable sometimes... grin

Aharah Musici (chapter 34): Yay! A review! ;)

Neg (chapter 34): Hahaha, I suppose no comment is better than a bad one. ;)

PFM (chapter 34): Glad to hear you're enjoying it! :D

Fantom Kitsune (chapter 34): I don't do reader-inserts, sorry. :) Glad you like the fic, though!