A Nightingale's Song
I don't own anything but the song.
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Watching the blood spill, falling slowly from the cracks in the walls, holes in the roof, between the thick layers of wood on the floor. Everywhere did it come, an endless river, an endless flood. Like a rain, but never that, it would never be described as that, this vision, this image. She never would have described something like this as a bloody rain, but more of a blood-filled hole, my victim's lost souls swimming about in nothingness as loved ones own tears turned into the thick liquid and joined it all. Such sadness, such grief, but had anyone ever stop to think about the killer, the one who finished them all off?
No, I didn't think so; she didn't even seem to think so. Just stood back for sometime, watching…just watching with no emotion. Did I have any emotions? For so long I had tried to fight off everything that involved that word, but nothing is ever emotionless, not even a rock. Everything has to feel something! Even I. Even a blood-filled rain.
Rain, such an endless cleansing act, as when it is water anyway. It washes away past sins, even brings forward new life. I like to think that all those I killed in the past would one day equal the number of those whom I was able to give a new life to. But it is never that easy, never has and never will be.
"A new day will come/with the rise of the shinning sun/The dragon rising in the sky/His talons soaring through the clouds/And finally you would be there…All mine own."
My voice, it could be considered husky, baritone, and also higher, more tenor, but in the end, neither where what was really there, only a silence as my words filled the rain-filled silence. What would it be considered now? Would that little girl I met long ago laugh and giggle, eyes filled with light as I sang her little song?
A smile, a rare smile at memories, that small girl smiling as she giggled endlessly and gazed at me with wide dark eyes. I never did figure what color they really were, a sapphire much like that or Kaoru's, or a dark black much like a moon less night sky. A mystery I could never figure, I had lost the girl to the fast paced life of the Revolution; her grandmother had sent her back to a controversial Edo, or the now a-day Tokyo.
"Kenshin?" Kaoru's voice, to my ears, sounded much like the sound of a bird, the sweetest and most innocent one of the flock, my very own nightingale. If only she could really be mine. Of sure, I knew of her intentions, of her strong and true feelings of love for me, but I was never sure of mine. Sure I was stained with blood, but she taught me something, to let the past go and live on, but one can never forget a bloody past.
"Yes Kaoru-dono?" The tenor was there, the rurouni I so played, like an actor ready to come out onto the stage and play my rehearsed act to the entire world. Only a few times did this mask fall and give away to my other mask, the mask I had back in the Bakumatsu, when I was the legend Hitokiri Battousai. But only a few times over the past few years did my mask fall to that, and that was always good, I wouldn't worry her that way.
"Did I hear you singing?"
"Oro? Me? Singing?"
"Yes, I thought I heard singing, the same song someone had taught me when I was young…" Those sapphire eyes looked at me, misty with sleep, but she looked out at the rain, and I briefly wondered what it was she was thinking. What this angel of mine had hidden deep in her mind. "When I was young/I saw my dragon fly through the air/Breathing sweet scented fire/As the war and clashing swords continued on/Just me and my dragon/Lost in the endless void."
I swear her voice dropped several octaves, but it was a sweet soprano, mixing and echoing in the rain with a grace that surpassed my own singing.
"Yes, I was." I wasn't looking at her, at nothing at all. Lost in the rain as my slow steps took me there, mindless of getting soaked in the cold. Almost like I was letting it wash everything inside me away, all of my dreams, thoughts, pains, fears, everything gone and creating a new me that the world would finally love. And suddenly I was singing once more, my mask gone, leaving my open to the world.
"Dreaming of something…"
"But it is never anything…" Kaoru was singing with me! Somehow, she was the young girl who I had met then, the small child who taught me a song that seemed to rhyme but would never be able fit with anything else. It made me think about the difference between a man and a woman for the first time, long before I had laid eyes on Tomoe for the first time, long before everything.
I had seen her, a small girl who taught me a song about a dragon, the same song her grandmother had taught her just a day before. I had to smile as I remembered, the song still coming from our lips.
"An endless bliss."
"That makes me wish."
"Hello mister!" a small girl cried out, her fists full of freshly picked flowers from the field. I would have been surprised of her appearance if she hadn't been trying to make as much noise as she possibly could. Like she wanted to on a certain purpose. "I know a new song!"
"That's good." I replied, children where a innocent type of creature, one I didn't want to touch with my hands, but they seemed to levitate to me, calling out for me to come and play a silly little game with them.
"Can I teach it to you?"
"And my dragon smiles at me."
"As I smile on back."
"Why would you do something like that?" I was surprised; this small girl wanted to play with me, all the while her hands where fixing together a ring of flowers, braiding them as she gazed up at with me with blue-black eyes.
"You look like you need a friend—and friends teach each other songs!" She smiled and held up her new ring of flowers, reaching up with her short arms to plop it on my head. Picking her up, I sat her on my lap, and she was able to do so. This child, this little girl had a will that I wouldn't be able to get past, so I took, strangely, the least painful way out and went along with her plans. "Now repeat after me!"
"Standing in a field."
"Among the flowers of love and life."
"See you are getting it!" Her laugh filled the air, the song was over, and she had created another ring of flowers, placing it around her own head. "Now we are friends!"
"But I didn't give you anything." She was a girl, but still, no one gave something with out wanting something in return. But her cute smile had turned into a frown.
"True friends don't have to. But if you wish, then you can do something for me!"
"Like what my little hime-chan?"
"Together forever."
"Forever and ever."
I didn't realize that we had come closer together, her small body wrapped in my arms as we both sung softly, our bodies swaying softly to music only we could hear, the steady beat of the rain keeping us in its hold.
"It was you…" Her voice, my dear Kaoru's voice was music still, but it was pained, as if tears were on the threat, and they were, proved when I looked into her sapphire eyes. I had no clue as to what color my own eyes possessed, but she wasn't afraid of me, she wouldn't have come to me if she were scared. But something was different—not just in my mask, but the way I felt, this feeling of completeness inside me that seemed to be filled when she was about. Like I was finally whole.
Her body was so close, crushing into mine as I gripped her to me, letting her cry no matter how much I disliked having her worry, but I was crying as well, soundless tears as I gazed back at the dojo, my home—no, our home. It was finally our home.
"Kaoru, koshii, marry me."
"Anything for you, always."
Our lips met in the rain, despite the cold, the wet, the tears and confusion the cold drops of water seemed to bring. Everything was perfect now, I was whole and could finally being a new life, one where the past could be left behind and not be in the way, even if it would always stay there.
But, in the back of my mind, hidden there I heard her reply to my question long ago when we met that first time, her sweet voice and smiling eyes as they looked upon my own so trustingly.
"Marry me."
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AN: A sweet, sappy piece of cra—fluff…god, I am starting to scare my self. Anyway, I hope you liked it, and please review if you did; it would mean a lot! And thank you MoMo-ChAn for proofreading it for me!