Kokoro No Itami Nakunaru Made Zutto: The Will of the Rurouni

By: Hitokiri Gentatsu

Author's Note: The continuation of my wandering years series 'Kokoro No Itami Nakunaru Made Zutto'. Kenshin struggles to tame the hitokiri within before he can be released again. His will to live his life as a rurouni is tested as he spends the winter near a small village that holds a deadly secret of its own. Can Kenshin remain true to his non-killing vow or will he be forced to become the hitokiri again to survive this deadly encounter?

Prologue: Meiji 2. November 12, 1869

"A man who cannot hold to his beliefs is never more than pathetic, dead or alive."

Saito Hajime

Episode 49

(subtitled)

"There's a small farm about a mile up this path," the elderly gentleman's voice said quietly. "They are usually willing to trade food for work."

"Arigato, Mazumoto-dono." The red-haired youth bowed respectfully to the older man and turned away, walking toward the path the older man indicated.

"No, it is I who should be thanking you, Himura-san. If you had come by when you did...If you had not heard our screams and stepped in to stop those thugs in town my granddaughter and I would be dead right now. I was a samurai but..."

The young man paused and turned his head slightly, so that he could fix the older one with one sad, violet eye and thought: 'If he only knew...would he be so thankful to me then?'

"It was nothing that another could not have done in my place." He turned to face Mazumoto again, a serious look on his face. "I must ask you to forget that you saw me. There are people who are searching for me and I do not wish to be found. If they learned that you knew where I was, both you and your family would be in danger and I cannot allow that. Do you understand?"

Mazumoto looked at the young man before him, taking in the red hair and the cross scar on the man's left cheek and nodded. He also noticed how the boy's eyes held more sorrow and loneliness than anyone his age should have in their hearts. A sorrow he well understood.

"I again must thank you for you kindness," Kenshin said as he turned away again. "I wish peace and happiness to you and your family."

Mazumoto watched Kenshin take to the path he had pointed out and smiled.

"Good fortune to you, Himura-san," he called after Kenshin, watching the young man's retreating back. "I hope you find what you are searching for somewhere on this road and that peace might come to your troubled heart," he whispered after the former hitokiri.

Mazumoto turned away and began walking down the path that would take him home, deep in thoughts of his own past.

"I have been where you are now, Himura-san. It is a hard road you have chosen to travel. I understand that too well. You will find peace only when you can come to terms with who you are and what you have done. If you do not then..."

Mazumoto continued home and he never saw the former Hitokiri Battousai again but he would always remember the chance encounter.

*

Kenshin sat before a fire in the forest very near the farm that Mazumoto had mentioned to him. Kenshin knew he could have easily made it there in a few hours but he had opted to remain one more night under the stars before he settled somewhere for the winter. He looked up at the stars and sighed. For almost an entire year he had been a rurouni, wandering wherever his spirit lead him. In that time he had saved many people's lives and had protected them from evil men who sought to take advantage of them but in his heart he felt no change. The hitokiri still raged within his heart and his soul was still tormented by his past deeds. Worse still was the fact that his past always managed to catch up with him. It made no difference that he was now several weeks journey from Kyoto and his past life. It didn't seem to matter that the sword he carried was no longer a hitokiri's sword. It was just as he feared it would be: People knew who he was or at the very least suspected. He was not accepted anywhere for long because of his past and in his heart he knew he would never be given the chance to find peace or to prove there was more to him then the dark legacy of the Hitokiri Battousai. There was too much blood on his hands. Peace was not something that he could ever hope for or even deserved. The best he could do was to try and atone for those lives. But he felt in his heart that his life meant nothing, that it didn't matter if he lived or died.

Up until six months ago he had tried to hide his identity from others because he believed that he could earn acceptance on his own merit without bringing his past into it but now he knew that was a foolish notion so he had stopped trying to hide his scar. It didn't matter anymore because people eventually found out who he was anyway no matter what he did to hide his past from them. Then he would be told or forced to leave or more often he would leave on his own before he was asked to. He well understood why people would ask him to leave, he didn't like it and the hitokiri within himself liked it even less but he would not endanger the lives of anyone who had helped him, even if that meant he had to sleep in the rain or snow.

Life on the road was difficult and only grew more so as the months passed. More often than not he found himself sleeping under the stars but at least he could now follow his master's teachings the way they were meant to be followed and maybe someday he would be able to atone for his crimes.

"If there can be such a thing as atonement for one such as me...I did what I did because I thought I was doing it to create a new and better world but all the time it felt wrong. All that time I was nothing more than a murderer, a creature of shadow spreading fear and now I am paying the price for those years of bloodshed. I am as alone as the widows and orphans I created with my sword."

He stared into the fire and thought of everything he had seen and done in the past months and the lessons he had learned in that time. Most of those months had been spent in traveling from place to place, helping the people who he encountered. Occasionally he had taken on jobs in order to feed himself. Most of those had dealt with chores of a domestic nature rather than anything to do with war but he had also taken on a few bodyguard assignments, none of which had turned out well for him when the men he guarded found out who he was. The last one about a month ago had been the worst of the lot.

He grimaced at the memory of that last bodyguard assignment. From the moment he had accepted the position, it hadn't felt right even though the man who had hired was well thought of be the people around him. Kurayami Hisoka had been a member of the Bakufu and was now and official in the Meiji government. Kenshin had signed on as an elite bodyguard, not noticing at the time that the people who hired him had been overly interested in his skills. After only a few days in the man's service, Kenshin discovered that the man was not what he seemed to be to those outside.

The man was as corrupt as they came, having taking his post by killing all those who stood in his way. The job Kenshin had been hired for was not that of a bodyguard. Instead Kurayami wanted him as a member of his assassination ring. He was hoping to gather together the strongest hitokiri of the Bakumatsu who had nowhere else to go and nothing to do with their skills now that most of the fighting was over. Most of the men in his elite guard were hitokiri who took cruel, even sadistic pleasure in killing. They were twisted and evil men and Kenshin could not bare the sight of them or smell of blood that hovered around them. His soul was neither cruel nor twisted and he had never enjoyed killing even at the height of his hitokiri days. Kenshin had left after knocking them all out and leaving a note to the police about them before leaving that town behind him.

Corruption was nothing new to him. He knew there were evil men in the world that would stop at nothing to gain power over others. Every government, no matter how pure its intentions were, had its share of corruption and he had never believed that the newly formed Meiji government would escape unscathed. What had truly bothered him about Kurayami was not his corrupt nature nor the evil men gathered about him but the feelings that such things evoked in him. He had been careful to only knock Kurayami and his followers out but the hitokiri within him had seen the evil of those men and had wanted to kill them. He had felt again the black tide of the hitokiri's rage within him but the rurouni within his heart had won out but only by the narrowest of margins.

He had left that town as quickly as he could and since then he had not taken another bodyguard assignment no matter how hungry he was. He was afraid that the next time he would not be able to hold the hitokiri back from a kill. It had been a year since he had left the hitokiri's blade on his last battlefield but Kenshin was still struggling with the legacy of that blade. The hitokiri still raged within his heart. Hitokiri Battousai was not dead and what's more he wanted to see blood arc through the air again. He wanted to feel the power that the fear of others evoked in him when he saw it on their faces moments before his sword put an end to their lives. The hitokiri's voice called to him, whispering in the back of his mind whenever he drew his sakabatou to do battle. The hitokiri reminded him nightly of who he truly was and of what he used to do. There had been times in the past several months when he had been hard pressed to control that part of himself. In those times he had had to repeat his oath to himself.

"After the battle has been won...I will never kill again...never again."

He had made this oath to Tomoe and to himself. It was the one thing of his past he wished to hold onto and it was this oath that was the basis for his life in the Meiji era. It was for this purpose that he had sealed away the sword that kills and had left behind his old life and name in Kyoto, which he would never return to. But still, even after a year of trying, he had not managed to seal away that part of himself that had been born in the chaos of Kyoto during the Bakumatsu. That part of himself called the Hitokiri Battousai was still with him and would be with him for as long as he lived. It was not something that could be easily discarded like his sword and name had been. This was a part of his very soul and one could not just throw a part of themselves away like a damaged sword or worn piece of clothing.

And yet...

There had to be a way to control the killer within himself. There had to be a way to temper the hitokiri's rage before it was released again into the new world of peace. If that should ever happen then all he was trying to do would be for nothing and his oath would become meaningless. He could not allow that oath to become meaningless. It was too important.

"I will not allow it to happen," he though fiercely. "I will find a way to control that part of myself. I must do so."

He continued to stare into the flames wondering where this path would lead him and whether he would find a small measure of peace in this place.

"Please just give me the chance to rest for a little while. Only that..."

He needed the rest. He was tired and completely worn out. He wrapped himself in some blankets and leaned against a tree, his sakabatou resting on his shoulder. Closing his eyes, he fell into a troubled sleep.