Ame no Ongaku
'Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.'Ishmael, Moby Dick
And fair Lady Sky cried that night. Her tears were chill things indeed, and they drummed so mournfully upon the soil. Her thundering sobs rang in my ears.
Earth, teeming with cold, frigid water, swirled beneath me, around me. Unstable. The rains caused such turmoil within it. Though, I thought, the soil would dry and its scars displayed once the sun's warm rays were to shine upon it.
I flinched slightly as a soft, fragrant material brushed my hand. Casting my glance downward, I saw it was no thing but the beautiful cloth she had draped around me many an occasion. Though...it was not the warm, bright hue I had come to remember it as. Sore wa...samukatta desu... Almost as though...it had lost some thing...
Tomoe...
Savagely, the howling wind batted at the cloth. And, as I stared at it more closely, I saw how old, how aged it truly seemed. And it flitted within my mind how aged and old I was within my heart. The beautiful, lifeless cloth folded so easily in my fingers' grasp. It was empty...She was gone.
I staggered through fallen sakura, stumbled along the snowy pathway. But my heart continued to beat, to drum from deep within me. So melodic was the rhythm...so melodic and enduring. And strong. Pulsing, it raised my frostbitten feet for each new step. Pulsing, pulsing. Ore no kokoro...it drummed, beat, for her.
...Tomoe, ore no taisetsu na Tomoe.
I took from her happiness, thrust at him, cut at him. And his blood stained the cobbled street, whilst he gasped to keep, to hold, the life that slipped silently away from him. My sword tore through his flesh once more, and he was dead. No longer a man...just a body. The blood ran crimson.
But she smiled. Her happiness died in a sea of his own, crimson blood, and she smiled still.
Tomoe.
A grin danced beautifully upon her lips, though Happiness was gone from her.
The frigid air smelt...of sakura, of blood. And I walked. To her. To reach her. The sakura choked my footsteps. But I walked through their blushing petals. Tomoe...Tomoe...my heart ached.
Mokusei no juujika.
And her blood ran crimson, as that of her happiness had. By my sinful hands, it was spilt. By my sinful, sinful hands, the snow fell red.
I held her, embraced her within my arms. It mattered not how tightly I could hold her; still, her life, my dear Tomoe's life, slipped away through my bloodsoaked fingers. Her breaths were numbered and weighted.
...Tomoe wa ore no kizu o majiwaru deshita. Tomoe...Tomoe, shin'da deshita.
Gravely, I smiled. 'Hitori de, Tomoe wa odoru desu.' And I tied the empty cloth around her wooden cross.
Owari
Ame no Ongaku Japanese Translations-
'Ame no Ongaku'- Literally, this phrase means 'Rain's Music'. Ame is the Japanese word for rain, while ongaku means music. The participle 'no' connects both words so that the ongaku belongs to the ame.
'Sore wa...samukatta desu...'- This sentence means, 'It was...cold...' Sore is the noun form of 'it'. Wa is a participle that shows something is another thing. Samui means cold. But, being an i-adjective, you have to use the past-tense, 'samukatta'. Desu is just...desu. A polite ending of sorts. It is not really necessary, but it is good to have nonetheless.
'Ore no kokoro...'- This means, literally, 'My heart...' Ore is the masculine way of saying 'I'. I was quite surprised when I watched 'Tsuioko-hen' to hear Kenshin use this form. Kokoro can mean various things. Some examples are heart, mind, soul... It is a very broad word.
'Tomoe, ore no taisetsu na Tomoe...'- This phrase means, 'Tomoe, my dear Tomoe...' Taisetsu is a na-adjective. Therefore, you have to place a 'na' after it when it precedes a noun.
'Sakura'- Literally, this means, in the way I used it, 'cherry tree blossom'. I just cannot stand to say 'sakura blossom'... That is why I used it the way I did.
'Mokusei no juujika.'- According to my dictionary, mokusei, connected to a word with the participle 'no', means 'wooden'. And 'juujika' can mean either cross or crucifix. The entire phrase means, 'wooden cross'.
'...Tomoe wa ore no kizu o majiwaru deshita.'- This is a sentence pattern like none in the English language. Literally, in English it is, '...Tomoe crossed my scar.' 'Tomoe wa' means in a sense that Tomoe did the action. This part of the sentence is additive, but necessary in this case, so that the reader is able to know who crossed Kenshin's scar. 'Kizu', I learned, means 'scar'. The participle 'o' shows that the action was done to his scar. It connects the object, 'kizu', with the verb, 'majiwaru'.
'Tomoe...Tomoe, shin' da deshita.'- Basically, this sentence means, 'Tomoe...Tomoe was dead.' Shin' da, Raamen-neechan tells me, means dead. In Japanese speech, the Japanese people, especially the Japanese men, like to shorten things. 'Deshita' shows past tense.
'Hitori de, Tomoe wa odoru desu.'- This is the most important sentence in the whole story, actually. It is the only dialogue I decided to write. In English, it means, 'Alone, Tomoe will dance.'
'Owari'- 'Owari' is the Japanese equivalent, I suppose, to the English 'the end'. Though, the Japanese do not have articles in their language. Therefore, the word is simply 'owari'.