Notes: Okay…if anybody knows if this chapter title is really a phrase, PLEASE let me know!! ~.~ You ever have one of those days when you know what phrase you’re trying to think of, but for the life of you, you just can’t remember if you have it right? -_-() And then you go on the web trying to hunt down idioms to see if they have it anywhere and you STILL can’t find it????? ><;; Yah. I intended for the title to mean, putting a spoke in the wheels, therefore impeding the progress of the cart (or, whatever the wheeled object may be). Is that right??? It seems weird to me, because a spoke is a part of a wheel. I think I’m thinking too much about it, making it more confusing. Well, anyway…thanks to Red-chan for trying to help me in my hour of need. ^_^ Daaaaa!!

Thanks too to Kaze-chan for putting up with my frantic queries regarding the "speed" of the story: since you’re so nice, maybe Nuriko will kiss you again. ^_^.n And Emily, thanks for bugging me about writing, no da! ^_^ Only one more day until Harry Potter!! Hang in there!! Hope you guys like it!

They stopped on the border, the city in sight.

We're too late, thought Kouji, his heart sinking. We're too late. We couldn't stop them...

"Kouji-san?" said the strange boy—Shunshuu—quietly. "Are you all right?"

He put on a bitter smile and met the child's eyes. "'Fraid we mighta missed the war," he remarked without humor.

"Oi, Boss!!" one of the bandits called up to him. "Over here! It's Asaku!"

Kouji turned quickly, jumping off his horse to greet the young man who had been shadowing Shi and the traitors. Asaku looked as if he'd not eaten or slept in days; his reddish hair was matted, his cheekbones surprisingly prominent.

"Get him somethin to eat," he instructed, before addressing the go-between. "Did you see? Did you see what happened?"

Asaku nodded miserably. "They went...yesterday. Last night. It was over so quickly...I tried to get into the city, but anyone from Konan—any outlander at all—is either being imprisoned or killed on the spot. I was able to get away, but…they could’ve caught me if they’d wanted to."

"No," he muttered to himself. "No. It’s not too late. It can’t be."

"It’s not too late, Kouji-san," said Shunshuu, who, along with Chiyu, had appeared at his side. "It’s not. We were called. And we only just got here. It can’t be too late, because we still have to do whatever it was we were summoned to do!"

He looked them over silently. Who the heck ARE these kids?! And why do I BELIEVE them? It's crazy, talkin of being "called," or "summoned..."

He counted off names one by one, mind racing, the strange mish-mash of confusion that had gathered there gradually beginning to clear. Tasuki and Chichiri: still alive and kicking. Nuriko and Hotohori: reborn as Horyuu and Kentoku. Tamahome, from what Genrou had told him, had been reborn in the Miko's world, so that left...

Mitsukake. And Chiriko.

It makes sense!! Of COURSE I didn't recognize them! I never met them!! Kouji began laughing quietly; it was rather fatigued laughter, but genuine all the same. I never met them. Chiriko...died before I had the chance. Mitsukake, too...but I saw him, after he was wounded...that day...when we came to aid Konan against Nakago and his army of mercenaries...

He peered carefully into the face of the larger of the two boys, and felt the tiniest prick of recognition in the back of his memory as the blue eyes blinked back at him.

It HAS to be.

The children, meanwhile, had taken a few steps back, uncertainty written on their faces at his unheralded burst of good humor. The bandits, too, now that he noticed, were staring at him with rather too neutral expressions.

Smiling, Kouji ran a hand through his hair. "Heh. I'm okay, don't worry."

"You sure, Boss?" Asaku rasped, always vocal despite his weakened condition. "Ya went a little Humor-of-the-Gods on us, there."

"I'm okay," he repeated, giving the two boys a reassuring nod. But they don't know who they are. Just like the other two. They're just normal kids with normal lives, and they have no idea...shit. I hope Genrou found out how to handle the situation with the first batch of incarnates, cuz he's got a freakin line at his door. "You're right," he told Shunshuu. "We can't be too late.

"There's still hope. More than I would've imagined..."

And suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, the sky fell on his head.

~*~

"Sorry, Kouji-kun, no da," Chichiri apologized profusely, brow furrowed in apology. "It's just so hard to tell exactly where this thing is going to land us, no da..."

"It's okay, it's o..." Kouji began, rubbing his head, when an arm snaked into his and began whirling him around in circles.

"KOUJI!!! How've ya been, man?! Didja miss me??"

He winced. "GAH, shit, Genrou!! The freakin dance is givin me a migraine!"

Tasuki stopped short, eyes wide and hurt. "What the hell, Kouji! We always do the dance! It's a freakin tradition! Crap," he muttered, "yer just gettin old."

The blue-haired bandit tactfully ignored him. "Look," he said proudly, softly, nodding in the direction of his two young charges. "Notice anything familiar?"

Shunshuu and Chiyu were involved in a game of exchange with Horyuu and Kentoku, jabbering on excitedly...or, at least, Horyuu was jabbering on excitedly. The others just sort of stood there...listening to him talk and trying to avoid getting whacked in the face by his exaggerated gesticulations.

"I-it's..." Tasuki's mouth fell open as he gazed (in a manner rather pathetic for a bandit) at the familiar faces.

"Chiriko and Mitsukake," Kouji prompted. "Am I right?"

His friend nodded slowly. "Chiriko looks...the same! Exactly the same...but it's still not him, is it? Not really," he murmured quietly. Before Kouji had a chance to react to this strange, obscenity-less musing, Tasuki had more or less rebounded. "Ahh, crap! Chichiri! You seein this?!"

The monk was smiling calmly. "I see it, no da."

"Mitsukake..." the red-haired man said in a voice that somehow managed to be gruff and squeaky at the same time. "He…he…"

"I know, no da," said Chichiri, trying to smooth over the shock of the unexpected reunion.

"He…"

"I know."

"He…he’s so cute as a kid!!!" Tasuki covered his mouth with his hand in an attempt to hide his quivering lower lip.

Chichiri stared at him, then rolled his eyes. "Oy, no da…"

"I’d never be able to picture freakin Mits as a kid!" the younger man went on. "But look! That looks just like what he’d look like if he was ten years old!!"

"Maybe because…that is him, no da?" his friend suggested. "In appearance, at least, na no da."

"And…the situation in the war-torn capital is?" inquired Kouji bluntly, spreading his hands.

Tasuki and Chichiri glanced over at him.

"Oh….yeah," muttered the fiery bandit.

"Rishun has control of the city and the army, no da," Chichiri explained grimly. "We don’t know much more than that. He’s sending soldiers around to the homes, no da, and imprisoning people…seemingly at random, no da…"

"Psychopathic freak," Tasuki put in.

Kouji shook his head. "No. Not at random. Outsiders." He explained about Shi, and the messages the boy had sent, confirming Rishun’s ultimate goal of destroying Konan as revenge for the toll the war had taken on his own land.

Chichiri considered this. "But…how could he know? How could he possibly know who was from where, no da?!"

"I don’t think that’s quite the freakin problem we should be focusing on," said Tasuki. "Bastard’s gonna go for Konan eventually. Do we know when? How?"

"Since they moved into the city, our shadow band hasn’t been able to contact Shi," said Kouji. "I’m afraid we’re as clueless as you are where that detail is concerned."

"Well…we know he’s going to attack Konan sooner or later, no da. The only question is, how long will we wait on the border to stop him, no da?"

"As long as it takes," Kouji promised, glaring at the capital. "As long as it takes."

~*~

The eyes, as it turned out, belonged to a young girl…a small, thin young girl with long, reddish hair, dressed in an elaborate black outfit. She stepped slowly out of the shadows and stared at him, her cheeks wet.

He relaxed, and smiled sadly. "Soi."

With a slight nod, she shrugged self-consciously, a nervous little grin flitting across her face. "Kourui."

"Shi." He nodded back.

"You…remember, too?" Kourui asked.

"Yes." Do we all remember? Have we all been reborn? This is so…strange… Does she regret, as I do?… "I…shouldn’t speak to you. If someone should see…"

"Yes," she agreed, lowering her eyes. "Y-you can…you can visit the harem, if you like…they haven’t locked us up. There aren’t…a lot of us left, but…"

He looked at her in shock, until he realized that she only meant to talk. She knows I’m not really working for Rishun. Somehow, she knows. "Um. I will," he confirmed, trying to keep his voice reassuring even while he walked away from her.

Yes. He thought he could. If the way he himself felt about his past life was any indicator of how his compatriots felt, he was almost certain that Soi, out of all of them, would feel the guilt of having been under Nakago’s control. She had always been kind to him…kinder than the others, anyway…and he suspected she really had been a kind person at heart. But the Shogun, as he had done so many times before, had corrupted her somehow.

"So."

The second voice caught him off guard, as the first one had. But this one… It sounded like…but it couldn’t possibly, he was in the anteroom, plotting with himself!

But it was him. The quiet, dangerously gentle tone. The coal-black eyes, the ash-gray hair, the rather hooked nose…he was staring at Shi almost placidly, examining him as he might some sort of scientific specimen.

"So," Rishun said again, his mouth twisting into a soft smile that was made sick and unnerving by the hard, piercing evil in his eyes. "Ashitare."

TBC…. (DUN DUN DUNNNNN!!!!!)

Notes: Whoah, the soap-opera-ish plot continues!! But what Rishun DOESN’T know is that Shi’s mother is actually his own sister’s former psychic counselor who saved him from a pack of wild boars when he was just a baby, but not before killing his parents and selling him to a weevil salesman in exchange for a seat in Parliament… ~.^ never mind, no da.

Thanks for reading!! I forgot to thank all you guys at the top, so I’ll do it down here. ^_^ It’s really so cool to know that you guys actually read my stuff, and I love you forever for it!! **throws kisses, cookies, flowers, and sushi** **gets in trouble with the custodian for messing up the floor**