Life Without You

By: Hitokiri Musei

Rated: T

Summary: On the anniversary of Tomoe's death, Kenshin gets a look at what the Kenshin-gumi's life would be like without him.

Warnings and Disclaimer: This does have suicidal themes, angst, and stuff like that. I've been thinking about this fic, and I'm still not sure I like it, but I thought I'd see what everyone else thought. I don't own Rurouni Kenshin.

(Kenshin)

I opened my eyes that morning with the feeling of sorrow coursing through me. I knew what day it was, just as I did every year. The anniversary of my beloved Tomoe's death. I sat up slowly, rubbing sleep and resident tears from my eyes. I had slept a little later than usual. I stood slowly, going to the shoji door that led outside in my room. I slid it open to look out at the snow, and nearly screamed out in fear.

The snow was stained red, blood was everywhere. I rubbed my eyes frantically, trying to erase the horrible vision, but I only found that blood coated my hands and my yukata. I slammed the shoji shut, backing away to fall onto my futon.

Almost instantly the blood went away, and I found myself breathing heavily on the messed up blankets. I sighed, reaching up with one hand to cover my eyes. Sometimes I wondered why I continued to deal with this living nightmare.

I opened my eyes, peering through my fingers, and almost immediately caught sight of the sakabatou, lying innocently in front of me. Before I knew I had reached out to brush my fingers over its sheath in near wonder, eyes wide and thoughtful.

I yanked my hand back in horror, knowing fully what thought had been drifting through my mind at that time. But…somehow I was not disgusted by the thought. I reached out to the sakabatou again, this time wrapping my hand around its sheath and drawing it closer to me.

I drew the sword slowly, watching its clean blade with a quiet resolve. 'You could end it,' a voice whispered in the back of my head. 'Get rid of all this pain.'

I flipped the blade of the sakabatou, dropping the sheath beside me. It fell with a clatter, but I didn't pay any attention to it. I opened my yukata with a hardened resolve. 'I can't take this pain anymore.' I thought with finality. 'I'm going to rid this world of someone so stained…'

I leveled the sakabatou's sharp point just below my heart, angling its blade so it would pass between my ribs, puncturing my lung and slowly killing me as it filled with blood, choking me to death. This was the only death I deserved, unhonorable.

I tilted my head back, closing my eyes while pausing, and then pulled the sakabatou to my chest. I choked as I felt it pass through my skin, pain roaring through me. I fell heavily to my side as I felt the sakabatou's blade pierce through my back, completing the journey fully through my body.

I immediately felt the warmth and burning from inside my chest, and I choked on the blood coming up through my mouth. 'Kami it hurts…' I thought dimly, but I did nothing to alert anyone else. 'I deserve the pain…for killing one that I loved…'

My lung began to fill with blood, and I could feel it running down my chest, and trickling down my chin as it filled my mouth. I coughed, and blood splattered the futon I was laying on.

Breathing became more difficult as my lung slowly filled, and I began to surrender to the darkness creeping into my vision. 'Gomen nasai Kaoru-dono…' I thought dimly through the dusk, and then my vision faded, and my head fell limply to the futon.

(Kaoru)

I woke slowly, stretching like a cat and standing. I pulled on a hakama and gi, going out of my room. 'Strange, I don't smell breakfast.' I thought as I entered the hall. Usually Kenshin was up and going by now, serving me breakfast and a smile.

I was shocked to find the kitchen void of any life. "Kenshin?" I called tentatively, looking around. "Where are you?"

I began to get worried. Kenshin had been acting strangely the past few days, as though he was sad. His smile had been strained, not quiet reaching his eyes like it usually did, and he had been lost in thought quite a few times.

I finally resorted to going to his room. I knocked on the wooden frame of the shoji first. "Kenshin? Kenshin, are you there?"

There was no answer, and I pushed it open slowly. My hands flew to my mouth as I screamed.

Kenshin lay still on his futon, and the mattress was soaked in blood. There was a puddle of it across the floor, spreading even more as time went on. Kenshin's face was deathly pale, and blood covered his chin, flowing down the skin of his throat.

The sakabatou had been driven through his chest, buried to the hilt while the blade protruded from his back. Blood was still flowing sluggishly from the wound, and one of Kenshin's hands was wrapped limply around the hilt of the sword.

What scared me most were his eyes. They were still open a slit, showing dull lifeless violet eyes, just beginning to glaze over with death. I ran to him, ignoring the blood pooled around his body.

I put a shaking hand on his pulse point, and began to sob. He was gone… "Kenshin! How could you!" I screamed, sobbing into my now bloody hands. "How could you leave me!"

'Oh Kami…' I thought. 'Why would he kill himself?' At least that's what it looked like. There was no one else there, no sign of a struggle, it was as if Kenshin had just woken up and run the sakabatou through his chest. But why?

(Kenshin)

I opened my eyes. 'What? Shouldn't I be dead?' I sat up, and then looked down. I screamed.

My own dead face looked back at me, laying on the futon. I jumped away from my body, huddling against the wall. I looked down at my hands, frightened to find I could see the floor through them. 'I'm a ghost?'

I looked back at the futon, shivering at the sight. My blood was spreading across the floor, and the futon was saturated. It wasn't until I heard the knock on the shoji frame that I grew afraid again. "Kenshin?"

My eyes widened. 'Kaoru!' No! She couldn't see! I didn't know what I could do, and the next thing I knew the door had slid open and Kaoru's scream echoed around me. I covered my ears, trying to block her out, but I could still hear her anguished cry. I watched her as she ran to my body, kneeling by it despite my blood everywhere. She checked for a pulse, which I knew she would not find, and then buried her face in her hands. "Kenshin! How could you!" she screamed, sobbing. "How could you leave me!"

I felt the tears begin to run down my face. "Oh Kami, what have I done?" I whispered. "What have I done!" I stood, running to my body. "Iie! I don't want this! I didn't want to do this! I don't know what I was thinking!"

But nothing I did could change what I had done. I was dead, and there was nothing that I could do to change it.

I heard footsteps outside of my room, and I heard a gasp. There stood Sano, chocolate eyes wide in horror. "Oh Kami, Kenshin…" he murmured.

Kaoru looked up, her pretty face smeared with tears and my own blood. "Sano!" she cried, flinging herself at him. She cried into his shoulder while he looked my body over from a distance.

I was in a state of grief. "What have I done?" I murmured again, dejectedly. I looked up at Sano and Kaoru, watching as the girl, no the woman, that I loved cried over my death. Yes, loved. I had finally realized it, but too late to do anything about it. "Gomen nasai Kaoru, my love. I didn't know… I was too stupid to realize it…" I whispered, moving towards them and reaching out a hand to touch her. My fingers passed through her, and I pulled back sadly. 'So this is my punishment…'

Sano pulled Kaoru away from the room, sliding the shoji shut behind him and hiding the ghastly scene of my dead body. I followed him, passing right through the door with hardly a thought.

I spotted Yahiko coming out of his room, rubbing his eyes with a grumpy expression. Kaoru's scream had woken him, and he was about to demand why.

Sano shook his head firmly, stopping the boy where he stood. Yahiko looked over Kaoru's sobbing form, and blinked. Yahiko stepped closer to Sano, and the taller man whispered in his ear.

Yahiko's eyes widened and I saw tears fill his eyes. "Tears?" I whispered. "Yahiko, you are so strong, you need not shed tears for me…"

The tears did not fall from his brown eyes, but he looked sadder than I had ever seen him. "I'll go get Megumi…She'll help Kaoru…" he murmured, and left.

I decided to follow him, not wanting to watch Kaoru mourn over me any longer. Once Yahiko was away from other eyes he allowed the tears to fall, sniffling. "Kami Kenshin, why'd you have to leave us?" he murmured, glancing back at the dojo. "What were you thinking?"
I sighed. "I honestly don't know Yahiko… I really don't." I knew he couldn't hear me, but I couldn't help responding to his question.

He wiped away his tears and continued to the clinic where Megumi was. We got there rather quickly, too quickly for my tastes. I didn't want to see this reaction, but I felt somehow I needed too.

I wasn't in the room when Yahiko told Megumi, but I didn't need to be there. Megumi's scream was enough to tell me. Sobs echoed around me, and again I felt the need to cover my ears.

Yahiko led a crying Megumi out of the clinic, back to the dojo. I followed at a distance, tears running down my own face. I honestly didn't know why I had done what I did now, but I could do nothing. I was dead.

Once back at the dojo I saw that Sano had taken my body out of the room, moving it to the bathhouse. Kaoru was still crying in the main room, and Megumi joined her there while Yahiko went to help Sano clean up my body, preparing it for cremation I assumed. Sano slowly pulled the yukata off my body while Yahiko watched.

Sano gently pulled my hand off the hilt of the sakabatou, and then grasped it, pulling it from my chest. It came loose with a sickening sound, and Yahiko had to run to throw up. Sano looked a little pale, but he lay the bloodied sword aside and immersed my body in the cold water.

With shaking hands he closed my still half open eyes, and then began to wash the blood from my body. I turned away, unwilling to watch this sad task. I drifted back towards the dojo, to where Kaoru and Megumi huddled together for comfort. I saw Yahiko going back towards the bathhouse with a clean hakama and gi for me, but I ignored him.

Kaoru was sitting lifelessly in Megumi's arms, still sniffling periodically. Megumi's eyes were bloodshot, tears still falling down her cheeks. Kaoru's face was still smeared with my blood, and I winced when I saw this.

It wasn't until Kaoru wrenched herself away from Megumi, running into the kitchen that I grew frightened. "Kaoru!" I cried out on instinct, worried about where she was going.

I heard Megumi's scream of fear, but I paid her no mind, following Kaoru. Once in the kitchen she grabbed a carving knife, and it was then I learned her intention. "NO KAORU!" I screamed, running towards her.

She angled the knife, pointing it towards her heart, but before the knife pierced her skin the entire scene froze.

I was crying, sobbing on the floor in front of her, afraid of what I had inflicted. I waited for the thud of her body falling to the floor, for the sound of her pain, but it never came. I looked up and saw her unmoving in front of me, and then my attention was turned to behind me.

There in front of me was a gleaming presence. I fell to my knees, tears coursing down my cheeks anew. "Tomoe…"

She was still as beautiful as I remembered her, black hair framing her delicate face and bottomless eyes watching me with love. She nodded. "Hai anata, I am here."

"But… Why?" I murmured. I looked to Kaoru. "Why is this frozen?"

She smiled slightly. "You wanted to know Kenshin, what would happen if you had killed yourself long ago."

"I did?" I asked, confused.

Tomoe nodded. "In your subconscious mind. In your grief you decided that life was no longer worth living, but I found the need to show that it was, that indeed there is a reason for you to remain on this Earth." She gestured to Kaoru. "Her."

"So…None of this is real?" I whispered.

Tomoe smiled. "Iie my love, I halted you before you could commit the deed, and I decided to show you what would happen if you actually had done it. Kami-sama gave me permission, as there are still many things you have to do before you die." She took a step towards me. "Are you ready to go back anata?"

I opened my mouth. "Tomoe, I…"

She was suddenly kneeling before me, her hands touching my face. I closed my eyes, reveling in the feel of her skin against mine. "I know Kenshin, my love… I did what I did because I love you, and I wouldn't take it back even if Kami-sama gave me the choice." I felt her lips on my forehead, and colors began to swirl around me. "Now Kenshin, go back to her, she needs you…"

(Kenshin)

I opened my eyes with a start, and instantly dropped the sakabatou from where it had been leveled at my chest. I breathed heavily for a moment, and then looked up with new purpose.

I picked up the sakabatou, sheathing it with a click. I placed it in a corner, and then the knock came to my door that I had heard in my vision. "Kenshin?"

I strode to the door as it slid open, wrapping Kaoru in my arms and locking my lips over hers, dipping her down slightly. I heard her give a muffled squeak, but I kissed her with all the love I possessed anyway.

When I released her and stood back I studied her quietly. Her cheeks were flushed, breathing heavy and eyes wide. She stuttered. "K-Kenshin?"

I smiled, hugging her tightly. "Kami-sama, I love you Kaoru. I've been so blind before now, and I finally realize how much I need you in my life."

I felt her startled breath on my neck, and then her arms wrapped around my waist. "You don't know how long I've waited to hear you say those words Kenshin!"

I smiled. Everything was as it should be. I looked up slightly. 'Arigatou Tomoe, my koishii. I'll never forget what you've done for me, and I love you.'

I could have sworn, that as Kaoru and I went into the kitchen to make breakfast together, that her voice floated on the wind. 'You're welcome my love, and I love you as well, with all of my heart.'