Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. It is not mine. *cries* I want it to be mine, but it's not. *cries more*
Summary: Hitokiri Battousai and Himura Kenshin. Two separate entities of the same soul. Yokishiro Tomoe was the woman responsible for the division, but what would have happened if on that night, when the bloody rain fell, if he had not hesitated. What would happen if he had not forsaken his satsujin ken? Can he truly continue to live in the Meiji Era as a hitokiri?
Prologue:
The Rain is Stained With Blood Tonight
He had been somewhat of a surprise, that assassin from the shadows. He has not expected that attack. Out of nowhere had come the kusarigama. Aside from that he had not been a particularly skilled hitokiri. He has killed him with little effort and even less thought. It had taken longer than usual, though. Too long. Long enough for there to be witnesses.
A woman in a white kimono, ethereal and achingly beautiful, with pale skin and eyes like liquid night. A woman who had gotten her white kimono stained red with the blood of a nameless hitokiri.
The reek of alcohol and white plums was strong about her, just as the reek of blood and steel was strong about him. He stood there for a moment, and then finally looked up and met her melancholy eyes.
She did not run, nor scream. All she did was stand there, staring. Staring at him, like he was some sort of monster. He could admit to as much. He was a monster. A remorseless, soulless killer that felt nothing, that did not think. Indeed he was a monster, and it didn't bother him at all, yet still she stood there, staring.
Thoughts ran through his mind frantically. It was an indecisiveness that he was unaccustomed to. It was there though. Thoughts screaming in his head, contradictory and painful. So many thoughts. He wasn't accustomed to thinking like this.
Kill her.
It was a simple enough instinct for a hitokiri. To kill. It was a simple enough code. Killing was easy as long as you didn't think to hardly about it, but if you were like him, you didn't have to think at all. He was told where to strike, and there he struck. He did not see the need to question. His only need was to kill. Simple, until you came upon a situation such as this.
She needed to die, simple enough. He did not have to be told this. Leave no witnesses, he had been told, and he did not intend to. The dead have no tales to tell, and no one should know of my existence, he told himself. Still, he hesitated. She is merely a woman. A drunk woman. Where is the honor in killing her?
Hitokiri have no need of honor.
He could recognize that voice inside himself. A voice that grew more familiar each day. It was a cold, merciless voice. A pragmatic voice that stopped him whenever he tried to do something soft like this. It was always right, and recently he had been hearing it much more often. He had even been speaking with it a much more often.
The pacifist and the killer, he thought, which one am I? He turned to look at the woman curiously. She was still staring at him with cool appraisal. He met those eyes once again as he left his introspection. He met those sad eyes and held them.
"Are you the one who made the bloody rain fall?"
Her voice was cold and distant. Monotone, but at the same time full of so many things. What had she asked him? Bloody rain? Yes, he supposed that he had. He had made the rain become crimson with blood. He had stained the rain just as he had stained his own hands.
He finally decided. In a split second he made a decision. This woman had to die.
With the rapidity of lightning he resheathed his katana. With equal rapidity he unsheathed it in a lethal blow. Battoujutsu. He watched her fall to the ground dispassionately as he mercilessly quelled the protest of the pacifist within him. It didn't matter if she was "innocent". During the Bakumatsu, there were no "innocents."
Really, he thought as he cleaned the blood off his katana on the dead woman's kimono, the only difference her death makes in the course of things was that now whoever finds this hapless bunch will have to take care of two bodies as opposed to one. Satisfied, he again resheathed his katana and walked off into the night.
