Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin, end of story.
Warnings: Future violence and blood.
Chapter One--The Diary
It was expected for Kenshin to have secrets.
He was the smiling wanderer who hid loneliness behind a mask of mild cheerfulness.
Before that, he was the Hitokiri Battousai during the Bakumatsu, a deadly and mysterious figure of legend. A man residing within a teen's body that had married and loved the fiancé of one of his victims, a woman initially bent on vengeance but couldn't find it in her heart to betray him in the end.
He was an assassin husband who had accidentally killed his wife.
And even before that, he had been the headstrong, naïve apprentice of Hiko Seijuro XIII, Master of the Hiten Mitsurugi sword style.
His identity as Shinta, the slave boy, was barely remembered underneath all the other lives, and only due to the sacrifice three compassionate women had made for him.
So yes, with all these identities, Kenshin was expected to have a fair amount of secrets. Before the group split up and Sano and Megumi went their own separate ways, Kenshin was thought to be the one who had the biggest emotional burden of them all, the one most targeted by others for the identity that brought him the most grief. He did not associate himself to the identity of the assassin Hitokiri Battousai anymore, yet still there were challengers that came forth baying for his death. He had survived, at first guiltily, but then with more determination as he suddenly found reasons to stay alive.
A prime one would be his randomly gathered mish-mash of friends. More specifically, the girl who had kindly allowed him to stay in her dojo despite knowing nothing about him (he would have to be on guard though, her naiveté was dangerous to herself), the girl who felt like a breath of fresh air on his scarred, unclean soul. Who taught a sword style that went against his past actions, yet still accepted him.
Who, until a few days ago, he had nervously planned to ask for courtship. Key point being a few days ago.
It was rather hard to ask when said girl had vanished the night before he had planned to ask, with no indication for leaving except for a hastily scribbled note stating, "Leaving for a while, don't know when I will be back. Please take care of the dojo while I'm gone. Sorry."
It hadn't reassured Kenshin in the least. In fact, due to excess paranoia from Enishi kidnapping her, Kenshin hadn't even waited past three days before going to the police to hand in a missing notice for her. Just in case, he sent off one to the Oniwabanshu as well.
Yahiko hung around the dojo a lot longer than usual, despite not living there anymore (since he had moved into the flat Sano left behind for him). Kenshin appreciated the gesture—the dojo was unbearably lonely without the presence of its true owner, the atmosphere heavier and gloomier, the dark shadows that resided in the corners of each room creeping in just a tad closer. The owner had left, taking life and cheer with her.
Without that bright spark of life which Kenshin had become so accustomed to having around, he felt like he was being slowly suffocated, running out of sustenance while physically, he was fine.
All parts of him, made up from his different identities, missed her missing presence. The wanderer missed the person that had come to represent stability and a chance at happiness. The assassin missed his redemption and the cheer that identity lacked himself. The slave boy missed her just because he liked her—because she was so kind and he did not want her to leave as the three women did (for death).
So as days passed, Kenshin sighed and looked up at the sky from his increasingly typical position sitting at the front of the dojo, absently watching the gate nearby. Waiting, waiting for more personal information from Kaoru, for more information of her whereabouts from the police (who worked hard at her case—they did not want a pissed off ex-assassin on their case), for Kaoru to come home and bring everything back to life with her bright smile and cheery, gruff words. To complete this suddenly unbalanced life.
Yahiko scowled at the whole situation, torn between anger, hurt and worry.
She'd left him, without a word. The first part made him anxious. The second part hurt him bad. The fact it hurt made him angry. And seeing Kenshin mope, just when he was beginning to recover from his trauma over Enishi's kidnapping episode, and smile gently despite the fact the ex-wanderer wanted to do the exact opposite, made Yahiko want to throw a fit.
"Stupid, ugly…where the hell have you gone, Kaoru?!"
It took two weeks before information began to trickle in from the police about several sightings of a person of Kaoru's description just outside Tokyo. It took two weeks for Misao to speedily send back a frantic reply stating that she would start a discreet search immediately; along with a half page rant on what she would do to Kaoru as soon as she was found. ("That idiot, when I get my hands on her, she'll be sorry for making us worry lie this, I'll… --insert various different threats--! She'd better be okay…")
It took two weeks before Yahiko's restraint on his temper broke, and despite Tsubame's constant soothing, he went to the dojo's living quarters and promptly had a temper fit in one of the junk rooms Kaoru used to store random objects so layered in dust no one else dared to enter and disturb the precarious stillness of the air.
Amongst the objects he picked up and threw was a small book encased in black leather. What caused Yahiko to pause was not the actual book itself, which contained yellowing pages and looked altogether old and uninteresting, but the fact that it held the faint scent of jasmine, the same scent that followed Kaoru after she had a bath and even lingered during sword practice, where the slight scent was almost completely disguised by the dank smell of sweat in the dojo.
The fact it still had this scent, despite no traces of any dried jasmine flower within the room, told him Kaoru had picked up the book rather recently, possibly just before she left. A bookmark stuck out of the book. Feeling angry and slightly vengeful, Yahiko flipped open to the bookmarked page. The last sentence at the bottom of the page caught his eye.
'I hope Kaoru kills them.'
Huh? Putting the words 'Kaoru' and 'kill' in the same sentence was just ridiculous. Flipping over the page, Yahiko encountered one sentence on the otherwise blank page, written in a different hand. Kaoru's hand. He froze.
'As you wish, mother.'
"Kenshin! I think you should see this…"
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