Author's Notes:

This is the first story that I would release. I have written before, I just never let them see the light of day or the eyes of anyone else for that matter. Anyhow, please do let me know what you think of it. Constructive criticisms are welcome.

The plot has been brewing in my head for quite some time now and it just has to have an outlet, hence the story. After having seen that depressing Seisouhen OVA, in my opinion, there was no real closure among the characters especially between Kenshin and Kenji, Kenshin and Saitou and Kenshin and the rest, so here's my take on what just might happen if they would have lived in this day and age with unresolved conflicts thrown with the wackiness and expect-the-unexpected theme of the RK world. This prologue is pretty dark, mind you. Ok, not just pretty, but really dark. Furthermore, the overall tone of the story will be dark,. You have been warned. Although, I will try to intersperse some of it with something lighter.

Italics denote character thought and flashbacks.

This is an AU story set in modern times.

Disclaimer: Standard Disclaimers apply. I do not own the concept of Rurouni Kenshin nor do I own its characters. I am merely borrowing them in the interest of squeezing my creative juices.

The Mandala by nuhnari

Prologue

It was a windy autumn night. In a few hours, the moon will set and the sun will again shine on the tall towers and concrete highways of the busy city; its dwellers are showing no sojourn in their activities, even at this hour. Another day will come and it will be another day for chasing after things they will never acquire, things they convinced themselves to be essential. Another cycle begins.

In the outskirts of the city, there was a room with no windows. It had a man with unusual hair shifting listlessly in his bed. As the clock on his bedside ticked, his shifting became more restless, tossing until the sheets tangled in his legs and absorbed the trickling sweat from his bare back.

September 28, 1915

In the unforgiving metropolitan forest known as Tokyo, a lone wolf was battling a bigger beast.

Yet this battle was not waged in the fierce streets and was unknown to its inhabitants but the aura it shed can be attested to by the howling winds that suddenly gripped the city.

An old lady named Shimizu-san exited the compound where she worked as a laundrywoman. She moved an arm to wrap her tattered shawl more securely around her bony shoulders, while her hair flew and tickled her eyes. The chill in the winds did not help her much, as her knees wobbled uncomfortably in response. It was very unusual, like the wind was desperately rushing to something. She then gingerly took out an apple, which she acquired without permission from her employer's pantry and did not mind that what she did was considered stealing.

Feh, stealing! I could care less. She mused.

In fact, her actions were prompted by the whipping reprove she received from her employer earlier that day when she made a move to wash his fudonshi. Apparently, it was only him who could wash it. She did not think the man had it in him to still give such a frosty speech. However, it affirmed the rumors she heard about her employer, about him having partaken in the Boshin Civil War and having served as a Metropolitan Police back in the Meiji Era. But she did not mind any of it, as long as she worked and got paid. She took a bite out of the apple and twisted her head to look back at the compound that emitted a quiet eeriness as crickets continued to hum inside. The conservativeness of the compound was a harsh miscegenation with the city. In a course of a few decades, the newer capital shed off its old Imperial skin in exchange of embracing an enchantment with the West.

She looked around her, looked down to both sides of the streets and looked up to see faint stars being blotted out by the city lights, though this time she was actually seeing more than just looking. Gone were the wooden edifices that used to inhabit the city grids. In its place, somber concrete buildings and houses lined with glass windows that catches the light of the sun and reflects it to another window, effectively trapping the light, just as how foreign ideas have ensnared the people. Before, trees were abundant in the metropolis, exhaling precious oxygen for the city dwellers. Now, hollow and lifeless smoke-emitting poles stood looming in its stead, choking the residents with its black air. It was a very different city from the one she used to remember as a child.

As they say, these are all for the sake of progress, she bitterly thought

Another gust made her remember what her mother said about the chill in those kinds of winds. She stood there, thinking about her mother's imparted knowledge. These winds were never good, not when the chill seeps through your bones and into your marrow, bringing with it a foreboding sense of aloneness in a dark place.

That was what her employer was feeling right then.

Inside the compound, sitting in a Seiza position, Fujita Goro, also known by many other names, has a body that has been carrying the burden of ages yet still strung by such determination characteristic of Mibu's Pack. The intensity of the internal battle being waged can be witnessed by the uneven strokes of a brush dipped in an ink made out of the writer's own blood as its owner wrote in an old leather journal that was of the same texture as his aged skin.

"I have seen so much, yet it is not enough to satiate me.

I have been growing weaker as my life drips away like a leaky well. My dreams are no longer of blood, but of far earlier, almost forgotten, memories in Aizu. It is a pity that the Imperial capital drew victory from the stains invisibly covering it. Stains made from my comrades' blood, unwillingly given at the height of battle."

At this point, Saitou Hajime was seized with racking coughs, making his fragile body more bent and with it betraying his true age. When he was still enough, his dutiful daughter-in-law lifted a pair of chopsticks with detached hands, void of either compassion or revulsion, and slowly removed with cotton the old phlegm that has made a residence in his throat. Years of smoking and drinking did not help his health at all.

"I am a pathetic mockery of what I used to be. This wretched and decayed body that my warrior spirit has inhabited is not even worth the dust of my former self's shadow.

I am a wolf in a sheep's carcass.

There are moments when I deem that it would have been better that I had joined my former comrades and made Kyoto our tomb. Why I had survived still eludes me. "

Again, Saitou Hajime has been seized with another series of coughs, tipping the life scale in favor of the bigger beast. He knew he didn't have much time and strength left in his weary hands. The air seemed much colder and the room much darker.

"Yet I know the fates are wise. I know that karma has already set everything to happen for a reason only Buddha knows. I have reached this decade, this age, through detours that have not been walked in my pursuit of Justice. Many call my methods diabolical. I am inclined to think it is sublime. There is no greater content to feel than my katana ripping an ingrate's marrow and my sense of smell inhaling the living crimson liquid gushing from their dying heart. I have not given a damn about how I went by my principle."

Saitou took a pause and looked into the moon whose cold light reflected the color of his eyes. It was the same moon that was the constant companion of wolves, shedding enough light to dark nights, allowing them to see their prey when they needed to hunt, when they needed to swiftly slay. But it was different tonight. The orb seemed like a portal, a fragile connection to a memory that transported Saitou Hajime back into the days when the color of the moon was that of the fire pushing out of the earth.

The sacred Temple ground was a scene of sacrilege. Warm yet unmoving and unfeeling bodies served as the temple gates. The wind was whistling death's tune to some of the men who were struggling but then breathed no more. This is the unspeakable picture that has leeched itself into Saitou's unconscious. The ground was made more red by Okita's excretion, as he heard the boy being seized by coughs. He knew Okita would no longer see the trees coming to life next spring. He looked around once more, taking in everything with each of his senses. Just then, a member of his squadron informed him that all this, this massacre, was orchestrated by the Ishin Shishi's artist of death, the feared Hitokiri.

A round of murmurs erupted and Saitou could smell the fear that reeked in the breath of some of his lower ranked men, mere boys that did not deserve to be called his comrades.

Someone whispered to another "He might even still be here, watching us and bidding his time! What shall we do? These men were some of the best we had and yet it seemed like he was merely dealing with amateurs. I doubt even our captains can truly match him in skill."

Irked at what he heard and in seeing the men's wobbly knees as another round of whispering about the Hitokiri ensued, he decided to bring justice to these rats for betraying the ideals upheld by the Shinsengumi. As the bodies of the traitors crumpled one by one, a rhythm of cascading heads can be heard as they tumbled down the Temple's steps to join the other damned at the entrance. Okita just looked at him, unable to voice his clear disapproval, because he had just finished another round of coughing. Saitou wiped his blade, not wanting to stain it with undeserving blood that was even more cursed than the Hitokiri's. He was getting tired of endless nights chasing an elusive man. He exhaled, then looked up at the moon that was now reposing in the black clouds. He would never forget.

The descendants of those clouds now hid the moon from Saitou's feral stare. He resumed his writing, although now, his thoughts were tuned in to the man that was responsible for the blood sacrificed at the temple.

"You are even worse than I ever will be while living in this dead sheep. Your "non-killing" path is one of putrefaction, one of resistance, as the Hitokiri in you faced slow death. The man that you had become after the Civil War is not even worthy of being bestowed the tile of being my adversary. Though I admit you are not weak, your warrior cadence has slowed to no more than that of a trudging, slimy snail. Every day that you attempted to live, the Hitokiri's hold on your consciousness became fainter. Yet I do not doubt the potency of his rage and his strength. This man that you tried to suppress will win the battle of control in another time, in another life, where the Vagabond's consciousness to preserve life despite the screaming instinct to kill will be but a fading memory in your mind.

I do wonder with much disdain, have you really reached your so-called atonement?

Were your personal sacrifice and of those who you love enough to have appeased your silly little quest? Even your death is pathetic…"

The sentence, however, remained unfinished. Slowly, Saitou Hajime's eyes did not see the wrinkled pages of his journal or the glassy surface of the pond reflecting the moon in his garden. His sight was instead being replaced by unrelenting darkness. He could not feel his hands and could not finish his journal entry. Unwillingly, the last air has been expelled from his lungs, leaving a burning sensation that raced up his veins. He saw the valley of a battlefield and heard the shriek of a victorious beast: an aria of death.

Outside, Shimizu-san snapped out of her reverie with another shiver. She then turned her way to the road home and was about to take another bite out of the apple when another strong gust of wind sent it flying to the dusty road. Just then, a carriage passed her, smashing the fallen apple to pieces.

There goes my dinner, she wryly thought as the whirling dust began to settle once more around her.

After more than a thousand cycles of the sun and moon, a pair of angry Amber eyes opened abruptly to a dark room.

Author's notes:

So, was it grisly?

I apologize but it is necessary for the plot. If it is any consolation, this will be one of the most, if not the most grisly part of the story.

All the information about Saitou Hajime in this chapter I got from this website: first I was shocked to read about his manner of death. But then, he is Saitou, so it befits him in a macabre sort of way.

Some vocabulary:

Fudonshi- underwear

Seiza position- From what I understood from my source, it is a sitting position wherein your legs are tucked under you and you are sitting on your heels with your back straight. It entails a lot of concentration.

Some history tidbits:

Japan's first capital was the city of Nara, which was modeled after the capital of the Tang Dynasty, Chang-an. It was moved to Heian, which was also a direct replica of Chang-an, by Emperor Kammu in order to move away from the Buddhist influences that wreaked havoc on Court. Heian was subsequently renamed to Kyoto and was the capital of Japan for the next 1000 years or so until the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The capital, where the emperor resided, was not necessarily the same place where the Bakufu, or tent government, of the ruling Shogunate was located. It was usually far away from the capital so as not to distract the Shogunate with the extravagance of the court. It would often be located in the stronghold of the ruling Shogunate's clan. The base of the last Shogunate, the Tokugawa, was based in Edo, which was renamed to Tokyo after the Emperor was restored.

The Civil War aforementioned is the Boshin Civil War, which resulted in the fall of the longest running Shogunate of the Tokugawa's, and the restoration of power to the Emperor.

Yes, I'm a history nerd.

Hope you find that useful though.

Anyhow, please review!

Thank you!