The World Forgetting, By The World Forgot
Written By diamondsforever
Original: Rurouni Kenshin by Watsuki Nobuhiro. Standard disclaimers apply.
Summary: Post Jinchuu Arc Megumi thought that only hope lay ahead of her as she prepared to depart for Aizu, but a new frightening reality unraveled before her in the form of a man she buried long ago in her past: Takeda Kanryuu.
Any Pairings: Undetermined. I'm hoping to work on various pairings between characters (if possible), rather than focusing on just one.
The Origin of the Title: Extracted from the lovely poem 'Eloisa to Abelard' by Alexander Pope. "The world forgetting" means that the world, or more precisely - the people of the world, are losing the memory of something. "By the world forgot" means that they have already forgotten it. The phrase basically means that if nobody makes an effort to remember something or an event, it will fade from existence as though it never existed in the first place or occurred.
Chapter One
Dreaming Without Colour
Takani Megumi was not one who spoke of her nightmares. Nightmares, she called them, rather than dreams – for that is what they were to her and she was a realist; there was no sense in calling something by any other name if it wasn't true. Her nightmares had varied across time – they had started as dreams, as a child, spinning carefully from a cluster of coloured euphoria into moldy black and white by the time she matured through her youth. It was when her dreams lost their colour that she realized that sleep was no longer a sanctuary of comfort, but a door to another world of horrors, woven carefully by fragments of her subconscious mind.
The nightmares had started with doorways and obstacles, chasing after her family as they vanished one by one, running further ahead of her – and with her powerless legs, she could never keep up. She figured that she was lonely then – dreams were hardly lies if they reflected people you knew based on situations you might have once experienced. Megumi was looking for them, after all, but she always failed to catch up to them in her dreams. She wondered if the remainder of her life would continue that way – searching for them but failing to find them; she hated those nightmares, for they reflected her greatest fear.
Her nightmares took a twist when she pursued her medical career with that lovely doctor in Tokyo. Becoming his assistant almost immediately after showing her willingness to study and learn, living up to her family's name as she did so, she started to dream about her patients. Sometimes she'd see their faces, while other times she saw faceless strangers – they all came to her for help, but she always failed and they'd come back to haunt her. The colour returned a little in those dreams, but only in one shade – scarlet blood on her hands, smearing the black and white walls of pseudo-security. She would cry and cry in those dreams, but she always saw through her tears and memorized the horrified facial expressions of her failures on the operation table. She'd wake up with shivers of cold in the night soon after, and realize that she hadn't failed at all and that the nightmares were only nightmares and nothing more.
Megumi's nightmares were eventually replaced by sinister portraits of guilt that drowned her in a bottomless ocean of red – red, yes, but this time it wasn't blood. These nightmares came alive during her captivity in Takeda Kanryuu's mansion – the doctor she had worked for had been slain by the cruel businessman by then, and so it was she who worked on the creation of opium for the man's petty business that thrived on misery. Her nightmares were oh-so-red then, but the red wasn't thick like blood, because she never saw the deaths of the addicts whose lives she took. She read about them in the newspapers, or heard about them in the corridors of the mansion, and every now and then on her monitored outings to town she saw addicts scrambling to purchase more opium with their meager salaries or stolen money. She witnessed the horror that she created, but she saw no blood – she only bore the cruel conscience that she was an indirect murderer of the body and soul.
She didn't call herself a doctor again until the man named Himura Kenshin saved her life and touched her mind. That was when the nightmares stopped and colour returned to her dreams once again.
Megumi clenched her teeth and opened her eyes to the dark ceiling as she woke from her sleep. Her mind registered the nightmare; it was the first one she had had in a long time. Her palms were sweaty, and a clammy stickiness had claimed her body. An uncomfortable strain welled up in her neck – she must have pulled a muscle in her sleep. Facing the ceiling, she took a deep breath and counted to ten; with each breath, she convinced herself that it was only a bad dream, and nothing more. Yet, the malicious feeling that daunted her lingered under her skin, refusing to go away. Bolting upright in her futon, she looked around, her eyes scanning every inch of the room for the presence of a hidden stranger or shadow, but found neither. Relieved, she let her eyes adjust to the dark before stumbling out of her room.
She had been grateful to Kaoru for letting her stay another night as she tended to everyone's wounds periodically – Sanosuke's hand had to be examined quite often, after all. She was particularly worried for Kenshin; hopefully the battle with Yukishiro Enishi was his last – his own technique was taking a toll on his slender body, and she never failed to voice her disapproval when it came to his waning health. Perhaps everyone else saw Kenshin as timeless, or perhaps an invincible immortal of a swordsman, but as a doctor, she knew his physique best – another heavy battle just wouldn't do. Megumi entrusted this serious piece of knowledge most of all with Kaoru – she was Kenshin's most precious person, after all, and hopefully she'd see to it that he wouldn't push himself to his limits ever again. Secretly, Megumi hoped to never have to treat his wounds ever again; she hated her knowledge as a doctor when it came to Kenshin – she hated watching his body break down bit by bit, even if he seemed marginally fine on the surface.
Megumi never spoke her innermost thoughts aloud, and one of them was that small sparks of envy ignited whenever she saw Kenshin and Kaoru together. The whole affair of Enishi's revenge had shown her that they belonged together and that nobody would ever be able to tear them apart; acceptance had come a long time ago but she still longed in her mind – a little wishful thinking never hurt anyone. Yet, as a doctor, she was obligated to touch her patients, and she cherished every passing moment she spent tending to Kenshin's wounds – touching but never truly possessing, she called it. There was always sincerity in the man's eyes and she appreciated the thankfulness he reflected through them, even before he spoke the actual words.
Megumi knew that she would always love him, even though she would easily move on and find another one day. Kenshin and Kaoru belonged together after all – star-crossed, she called them.
The night was calm and she felt the stickiness on her body cool down with a passing breeze. She felt secure in the Kamiya residence, though she knew that she would be leaving soon to become a doctor in Aizu. There were plenty of people in need of doctors in that district, and she knew that she would be able to put her skills to good use there. Also, as everyone else had figured out in a heartbeat, she knew that Aizu was the one place where she had a chance to truly search for her lost family members. She never truly knew what happened to them or where they split up to – and now the opportunity had finally arrived for her to unravel her missing past.
Yet, why had the tarnished black and white returned to haunt her dreams?
Her nightmare had not been fictional – it was a flashback; a clear, concise one comprising of random snippets of her past. It was almost real; like she was reliving her past, listening to those voices, and feeling the myriad of emotions that once robbed her idealism and replaced it with hostile cynicism. She had seen the face of Takeda Kanryuu there, held the poisonous opium in her hands, and drowned in the crushing pangs of guilt for the first time in a long, long while. Kanryuu's words were crystal clear – that Takani Megumi belonged to him, whether or not she enjoyed it, and that she would follow him in both his rise and fall. There was no-one to save her in this nightmare – Kenshin and the others weren't there to rescue her; nobody took her hand as she was dragged down to hell by the drug lord. That was when she had woken up, sweaty from the heat she thought were the flames.
Collapsing against one of the supporting wooden beams of the dojo, Megumi stared out into the night, afraid to close her eyes in fear that the flames would return once more.
"Megumi-dono," a voice broke through her conscience, pausing, before speaking her name once more, "Megumi-dono."
She felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently, and she stirred from her slumber. Her eyes flickered for a moment, attempting to adjust to the bright morning sun that pierced her pupils.
"Ken-san?" she mumbled, recognizing the distinctive red head kneeling before her. Looking around, she realized that she had fallen asleep on the open corridor outside her room.
"Why were you sleeping out here? It's unhealthy, Megumi-dono." Kenshin asked, concerned.
"I guess I had a bad dream, that's all." Megumi replied, smiling weakly, "It's nothing to worry about."
"Your worries will be gone soon, won't they?" he returned a smile, "In just a few days, you'll return to Aizu, and find your family again."
"Yes, I should hope so." Megumi nodded, taking Kenshin's helping hand to pull herself up. She took a moment to inhale the fresh air, catching the scent of burning breakfast from the direction of the kitchen.
"Honestly," she coughed, "You're letting Kaoru-chan cook?" It smells bad even from here. "You should have woken me up earlier, or asked Misao-chan to do it instead."
"Ah, we'll be missing your cooking once you're gone." Kenshin said, "Yahiko especially."
"Then… If Kaoru-chan lets, I'll cook dinner for you all tonight."
"That sounds great, Megumi-dono. I'm sure she wouldn't mind."
Preview (Chapter Two): That same day, Megumi heads down to the marketplace, in search of ingredients for the dinner she's planning to cook for her friends, when she sights a familiar, haunting face amongst the distant crowd… Could it be that her nightmare was a premonition for something even more sinister than before?