Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. Watsuki Nobuhiro does. Please do not sue me.
Summary: Kenshin contemplates his sword in a brief break in a battle during the Bakumatsu.
Rating: PG-13
Never Enough
By Colleen
There's never enough time to clean the sword.
The quick act of chiburi will shed most of the blood from it but not all. During a prolonged fight it's the best you can do but eventually you need to give it a good cleaning.
In time blood will discolour the steel but tallow is much worse. The yellow marks caused by the blade passing through human fat are pretty much impossible to get rid of, no matter how diligently you clean the weapon.
Somehow I find these yellow stains far more disturbing then the blood.
Maybe it's just that I see so much of it. The layers of a person can quickly become indistinct under the red haze that fills the air between you and them as they die. Yes of course organs and body parts often come loose but usually my attention is taken with the next opponent, the next man to die. There isn't any time to look too closely at the corpses.
Thank God.
Bad enough that I can remember all of their faces and most of their deaths. A complete catalogue from strike to the stiffing of their bodies would drive me insane.
Assuming I'm not already.
Perhaps that is why I stand here staring at the cutting edge of my sword; it helps to distract me from the dead at my feet. Except for those yellow marks, a forever reminder, and a forever stain.
I consider attempting to clean the blade as best I can but already I hear the sounds of the returning battle. The pocket of stillness I carved out around me will once again be filled. More men will arrive. More men will die.
No, there's never enough time to clean the sword.
End
Notes: I don't actually know that much about swords and what stains them so some of what I said here may be incorrect (but then the piece isn't really about sword cleaning now is it). This little thought piece came about because I was reading the manga and the first time Kaoru looks at Kenshin's sword she says it hasn't been discoloured by tallow. That line just sort of set this little scene off in my head. Sometimes I really depress myself.
December 7, 2001