His swords.

The rest of the world moved around him as if underwater, the others shouldering their way through the closet to gather their belongings, but for a time the world contracted to the lacquered scabbards that held his life. They lay amid the lank strands of mops and the dusty splinters of a straw broom but nothing could hide the beauty of their craftsmanship, the elegance of their form. Having spent the last month in a shoe-closet with a raving orangutan and a pair of psychopaths for company, without water to bathe or more than bread to eat or a proper shirt on his back, it was the loss of his swords that had weighed on him the most. He had failed them--they were his to own and care for, as he was theirs, and they had been stripped from him and abandoned in a [i]fucking broom closet[/i].

It was fortunate that Ryotaro was dealing so adeptly with the guards of the establishment. Ibiki would likely have been more final.

As he stood with the pair of blades in his grimy hands, his smile softened, his demeanor shifted. He was no longer a caged man kept from freedom by fate--he was a samurai again, as he had begun to fear he never would be. His shoulders softened, his posture straightened, his movement became more fluid. Aside from the stubble on his chin, the exhaustion, the grime of his time in squalor, he looked much better already. He turned, slipping the blades into what was left of his obi, and bowed to the woman who'd so expertly assisted him.

"Thank you." He said softly, his voice still a bit hoarse. He'd managed to forget that, moments ago, she'd said something he should be blushing over. "I am in your debt."

And with that, he turned to leave this awful place. He stepped over the guards on the floor where Ryotaro had knocked them out, a last flash of irritation in his eyes before he decided it was beneath him to worry about them further. Hisao was squealing about something already--how had he managed to injure himself literally a minute after escaping?--but he followed him regardless. He would have liked to have a shirt, but the reassuring weight of steel beneath his hand was too refreshing for him to care overmuch.

"We should go." He agreed, nodding down the alley. "Though we're a bit noticeable like this. I..." he blinked, stopped, realized that in his haste for his swords what he hadn't found was...

"Actually don't have any money." He finished dumbly. Of course they'd taken his stupid coin pouch for themselves. Swords might have been hard to leave off a manifest but coins? [i]What coins?[/i]

Assholes.

"We can't stay like this, and we'll only have until someone investigates all the howling before it's clear that we've escaped." The howling, of course, caused by the brothers being left behind who had no interest of missing out on the jail-break quietly. Ibiki, of course, had no intention of releasing them himself--[i]he[/i] had been wrongfully convicted. [i]They[/i] were a pair of disgusting pigs who thought forcing themselves on a woman was acceptable. Still...

"We need a plan."