Disclaimers: Rurouni Kenshin's characters are Watsuki-sensei's. If any of them shattered your window with a sword don't come sueing me, I have nothing to do with it. "Solitary Shell" is not mine as well. It's Dream Theater's, the lyrics are by John Petrucci (had I had the ability to write like Mr. Petrucci, mwahaha...).
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This piece is a melting of two ways of songfic-making: singing parts of the original lyrics on the story and changing the original lyrics. So, for the ones who don't know the song, or at least the lyrics, a little remark: the parts writen normally, with no signs are from the song; the italic ones are writen by me. If the part writen normally is placed between "(...)", it means that is the original lyrics; if it has no signs at all it was mostly changed by me.
He seemed no different from the rest
He was far the best one though
His skill has always been the best
Although his life had been quite torn
Learned to fight before the time
And never cared much to beheld
After a tragic bloody night
He drew in solitarry shell
Yet a boy he was entrusted an odd task
In leadership he took his time
He controled with strenght and temperance his group
But the depth of that weak man wasn't fine
Okina blew his tea and sat patiently. His head ached, for he wasn't a young lad anymore to go on a saké spree like the previous night's one. His expression was though the most neutral he could stand pretending.
His eyes were partially closed: he kept on paying attention to every movement on Aoi-ya. "I'm a ninja, so don't try to decieve me, young boys and girls..." he siped the tea, thinking to himself as if anybody had challenged his keeness, while watching the chores that were being carried out by Omasu, Okon, Shiro and Kuro.
"Feh... Misao's missing again..." he couldn't hide a smile. "When will she learn it's useless to try to rescue him?" He turned his face to a corner, where the rests of some leaves layed helplessly, traces of the care the girl smashed and brewed up, before sneaking out of the restaurant. "When will you understand you must let him take his time, my tinny girl?"
"He's a Monday morning lunatic
Disturbed from time to time
Lost within himself
In his solitary shell"
Misao entered the temple, carrying something on her hands. The priest was away and so she thought Aoshi would be: she was wrong. She climbed falterly the stairs till she reached its top, from where she could see the shadow of a slender man sitting, his back to her. Tiptoeing, in an effort not to take him from meditation, the girl approached and got down to the floor, leaving the cup of tea next to the man.
This very moment he opened his eyes, as if waking up from a heavy sleep, and looked at her, not moving his head to face her. She gasped, kind of ashamed, then took a breath and said aloud, as it was particular of her way of speaking "I brought you some tea, Aoshi-sama."
She waited some minutes, her heart throbing violently for the expectation of an answer: there was none. For some minutes, so sound was heard by them: they were deaf and dumfounded. "There's nothing to be said, you fool!" Misao thought to herself. "Get lost and let him go on his prayers." With this thought she turned her body and meant to leave imediately.
When she reached the door though, a husky voice echoed and reached her at the top of the stairs. "Thank thee, Misao-san." She stopped dead and turned suddenly to him, a sheepy smile on her lips. She answered something similar to "feel free" and climbed down the stairs in kind of a rush.
At the temple yard the girl hid herself behind a tree and, after a while of blankness, a sea of thoughts came to her mind, drawing her into it. "Damn... I can't fear that man... I can't hate that man... He's imune to any of my bad feelings..." She shed a tear and her smile vanished, giving place to a bitter thought. "He could have killed Okina. And maybe he would if I hadn't appeared at that moment, if I hadn't cried for help... Yet I cannot hate him..."
She looked in the direction of the temple: there she saw him, eyes partially closed, gazing the nowhere beyond the blue sky. A bird whized at the temple, right in his sight, but he managed no motion: his eyes kept as a dead man's ones. Misao felt a needle thrust her heart. "Hate to see him so helpless... I can't face the fact that he's the monster who attacked Okina. I can't face the idea of the existence of such a monster..."
"Temporarily catatonic
Madman on occasion
When will he break out
Of his solitary shell?"
He struggled to get through those days
He was helplessly behind
He poured his soul into revenge
Blaming to hide his self denial.
As a man he was rebuilt within himself
In lackadaisical rebirth
His defeat was not the only price to pay
But to throw away what life made him not worth
Blankness as he tried to bleach from his mind the sounds of that night: in the time of two psychological seconds he was carrying four heads, his gi was full of blood, the bullets still burning on his legs, their red-wet hair clenched in his hands so tigh that his own fingers bleed...
He looks at his hands: there's no blood. Glancing around the place there was no corpse, no shotgun, nothing that could remind him of that fateful night but his own presence. Nothing that could recall the helpless inner cry he uttered, in an effort to bring his companions back to life. The helpless...
He sees a cup by his side. The tea was smoking and its scent reminded a word his conscience hadn't tasted for some time: innocence. Innocence... chastity... fidelity...
Misao had been there. "Oh, yes... I recall having seen her, then I thanked her for bringing me tea... For bringing me any link with the real world, for bringing me the lost sensation of care... No, she must not have understood what I thanked her for... It is better this way."
His breath was harsh. He was affraid. Yes, he was affraid, he was a man, after all: he had blood into his veins, he still felt the pain, and with the pain came the fright. Fright of what...
He lost himself in his thoughts again. Not knowing how much time had gone this way, he came back afloat of reality, again scrutinizing the place before moving. Looking beyond the building, to the yard, he saw a womanish sillouette beneath a tree's shade. He didn't have to spend much time to guess who it was.
"I'm a Monday morning lunatic
Disturbed from time to time
Lost within myself
In my solitary shell..."
He saw her eyes; she saw his eyes. They didn't truely face: they stared at each other's staring. He lowered his head and kept on prying, as if she wasn't there. She didn't feel pity: just a thrusting feeling that she couldn't define, for his being so aloof and so lonely more than it has always seemed. She could remember the words she read on a book he forgot opened when he left to the temple, a couple of weeks before, that had been pummeling her brains since then.
"A momentary maniac
With casual deilusions"
She turned her back again, till he vanished from her sight. The words echoed on her head, as a question on how to help him, how to make him see that there was no reason to hide or mope or blame himself anymore. On how to make him abandon the fright he felt of acting wrong again, the fright he felt of himself, of his old own.
She walked in an easy pace, yet concerned steps. At the very borders of the yard she halted, turned again to the temple and gazed one last time that man. She didn't know if he'd come back to the Aoi-ya, if he'd kill himself, if he'd run away, so she wanted to take a last sight from him, fearing nothing but his fear. A whisper sliped from her mouth and softly poured on the wet ground.
"When will he be let out of his solitary shell?"
She ran.