Title: Sea of Darkness
Author: Serpentine Wisdom
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Kenshin killed so many as Battousai, could he really be as "together" as he seems.
Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin nor any of its characters.
Warning: Character deaths
"Blaha" Spoken words
/Blaha/ Kenshin's thoughts
'Blaha' Battousai's thoughts
(Blaha) Flashback
OoOoOoOoOoO Big scene shift
OoOoOoOoOoO small scene shift
Just as the furred shape of him was pulled from the matter of his own human body, so the rage, the destruction, was pulled from his very human psyche. His beast was formed of that part of our brains we bury, only dragging into our consciousness in the worst of our nightmares. Not the dreams were we are hunted by the monsters, but the dreams where we are the monsters.
– Burnt Offerings, Laurell K. Hamilton
OoOoOoOoOoOHimura is teetering on the edge between the vagabond who does not kill and Hitokiri Battousai.
– Okina, Rurouni Kenshin
Battousai was always there, whispering in his mind, simmering just beneath the surface. Especially during fights, those moments he could hear Battousai loosing his cool and howl for blood. It took all of Kenshin's will-power not to give in and it crippled his skills. He had to wrestle with both his opponents and his own mind at the same time. That was one of the reasons why Himura Kenshin would never reach Battousai's skill level.
Listlessly Kenshin watched as the rain fell down hard on the ground. He could hear Yahiko and Kaoru-dono snip at eachother in the background and knew for a fact that Sanosuke was playing a game of cho-han with himself in a corner. It bothered him that sometimes when he looked at them he couldn't see anything but easy targets. And Battousai continued to scream for their deaths. Ten years without a single kill had turned Kenshin's brain-ghost from cold and composed into a ranting madman, but Kenshin knew it wouldn't take much for Battousai to return to his old self.
Or for Battousai to resurface once again, he had been feeling his resolve weaken more and more each year before he had met Kaoru-dono. It had been easier to make that promise to Tomoe than to keep it – to never kill again. His friends helped him keep the killer within at bay, but at the same time they lured him out. It would be so easy to let go, to let himself become the man he had been – if there was no one he cared about besides him. And if Battousai got control now there would never again be a change of heart, there would be no Tomoe to wake him up again.
Even Kurogasa –hitokiri to hitokiri– had known it was inevitable, and had said that he would be watching Kenshin from the edge of hell waiting to see how long he could stay a wanderer. Not for very long was the likely answer. So why didn't he just leave? It would be safer for his friends that way, even though they would be upset about his departure.
But every time he thought about leaving he felt a strange ache in his chest, protesting vehemently against it. He couldn't quite imagen life without his friends anymore. And another reason was the Battousai, he felt disgusted by Sanosuke, Kaoru-dono and Yahiko. Disgusted because all he could see was that their weaknesses by far outweighed their strengths, that they let their come between them and any potential they could have had. Sometimes. If the Battousai was freed they would not live past sunset. Kenshin didn't want to risk the lives of his friends so carelessly.
Battousai had been blissfully silent for a couple of weeks now. He was grateful for the quiet although the absence of the Battousai unnerved him. It felt like someone ripped a vital part of his soul out. It was fairly ironic that he had a soul like the Battousai, he supposed, and no more than he deserved.
Kenshin could run for as long as he liked, he knew that eventually the Battousai would catch up with him. Sadly a hitokiri was a hitokiri until the day he died, he knew that – as did everyone who had ever been one and everyone who had ever encountered a hitokiri in full blood-rage. Once the darkness got it's grip on a man it never let go. Just how many hitokiris were, unfit as they were for a world at peace, walking around in the Meji era, loosing themselves to the darkness?.
"Kenshin, are you alright?"
He looked up to see Kaoru-dono's worried blue eyes looking down on him. "I'm fine Kaoru-dono, that I am." He said, smiling reasuringly. She was such a sweet girl really. How could he explain to her that he was afraid of loosing control and killing all of them? Explain that sometimes he longed for the bloodshed of the revolution, longed for the days when he had been the Hitokiri Battousai.
Thankfully she seemed satisfied with his answer and promptly forgot about him when Yahiko made another disrespectful comment about her looks. Sanosuke hadn't stopped playing cho-han, he was too used to these fights now to even notice them. Kenshin smiled gently at them. For a few moments when he was with them, he could fool himself into thinking that he had finally found a place he could call home.
Then he abruptly turned his head to the right, was it just his imagination or had he heard footsteps? Who would visit in this kind of weather? Deciding to investigate he went outside without his friends ever noticing his absence. There was no one there. Then he heard it, a young, male voice singing. Kenshin strained to hear the words more clearly but they slipped away in a haze. It felt a bit like drowning, drowning in a sea of darkness. He barely noticed that he was already soaked as he half walked half stumbled forward.
OoOoOoOoOoO
The afternoon sun was almost blinding as its harsh light shone at him. How strange, the rain shouldn't have passed so quickly. Looking around he saw that he was further away from the dojo than he had thought he was. He felt a familiar weight in his hand and immediately stiffened. No… he might have wandered out all this way but he couldn't have drawn his sword without being aware of it. As he slowly brought the sword closer to his face, his heart beating like a trapped bird in his chest, inspecting it for any evidence of combat, he saw that it was flipped over like it had been for a little while when he fought Sanosuke. There were thankfully no blood or damages to the blade that would prove his deepest fears.
/What is happening to me/
The Hitokiri Battousai would always be present, whether he could feel it or not and this incident proved it in more ways than one. The recent lack of activity from the Battousai had tricked Kenshin into lowering his guard enough for Battousai to direct him like a puppet. No. Kenshin hadn't truly been tricked by the Battousai, they both knew it, he just wanted so badly to believe he could relax and be open –for real this time– that he had convinced himself to believe in something he knew was a lie.
When he had made his way back to the dojo the sky was already darkening, he stood outside the doors for a while wondering what he would tell his friends. He had been gone for a while now and they would probably want to know where he went. Then he heard it again. The sing-song tune was softly hummed, the happy tone of it contrasted with the lyrics that followed.
'Can you see the smile of the Reaper, collecting his fee? Will they great him, or will they shun him?'
Kenshin looked to the left and saw the ghostly image of the Battousai leaning his back against what appeared to be thin air, with his arms crossed over his chest and his cold, yellow eyes sparkling.
'Forget it all and fight again, for he's a'coming, like tomorrow never seen.'
He couldn't turn his eyes away from the Battousai, he felt somewhat like a mouse in front of a snake. That song… he knew it from somewhere.
'Never let the sun shine on your face, it will take everything away. A beacon of light burning all lies into nothingness.'
Though a bit wild eyed, Kenshin didn't react to his alter ego's presence. He tore his eyes from the taunting image and calmly opened the door to the dojo and passed a worried Kaoru-dono without even taking notice of her. Once he was back inside his own room he sank down on his futon.
Kenshin closed his eyes, pressing his fist against his forehead, he could almost see the cold smirk on Battousai's face as Kenhin softly continued the song on his own. Almost as if he were possessed. "Ah, the guilt that never sleeps, and the sins that never die."
OoOoOoOoOoO
These days no matter what I drink, I only taste blood.
– Battousai, Rurouni Kenshin
Kenshin looked out over the river, trying to calm himself down. He came here every time that he had been in a fight. As long as the adrenalin still sang in his blood he never trusted himself to be close to anyone. It had been worse this time, he had almost killed that man – without any influence from the Battousai at all.
The man had been a real nasty peace of work, even for a yakuza. Apparently he lured young girls and boys living on the streets into his house with the promise of food and shelter if they just did him one little favour… It all continued innocently enough as the man got the children addicted to opium, telling them it was medicine. And that was when things turned bad for the children as the man forced them to work as whores to a rich clientele that had no interest in, ah, older merchandise.
'That man deserves to die.' A sharp voice hissed in his ear. 'Have you forgotten Heaven's Justice so soon?'
/As if I could./ Kenshin thought darkly.
There was no answer. Not that he had been expecting one either. The Battousai never answered Kenshin's questions and rarely bothered to argue. Back during the Bakumatsu they had been one, neither ever being able to hide their thoughts from the other because they were practically the same. That was the reason that Kenshin felt so much guilt at those he had killed. It would be easy to blame everything on his darker half but the truth was that the only difference between him and the hitokiri was a reluctance to kill children and a somewhat less vicious disposition.
Now all that separated them was the wall that had sprung into existance the moment he killed Tomoe. Killed the sheat of his madness. Kenshin hurriedly chased away an image of her lying pale on the snow, covered in her own blood. He could almost hear her voice echoing in his head. Your fault, your fault…
He could practically feel the Battousai snarl in the back of his head at the very mention of her name. 'Good riddance.'
The Battousai had never liked Tomoe, he had hated her at first sight. Which was partly why Kenshin had payed her any attention at all, the Battousai was usually completly indifferent to women – at most treating them as a lesser spieces, nothing more. Perhaps the Battousai had sensed how important she would become to Kenshin, he would never know.
Kenshin could never understand how Tomoe could have ever forgiven him, he was a murderer no matter how anyone looked at it. But she had seen a side of him that he had almost forgotten, Shinta. Shinta the idealistic young child he had been, the face he wore for his friends. The only part of him that was repulsed by the cold-blooded killings that he committed during the Bakumatsu.
'Idealistic is only another word for fool.'
He had become involved in the Bakumatsu to fight for a new era of peace and prosperity, but all he had found was enough blood and darkness to rot even the purest man's heart. No one escaped unscathed. Most soldiers that came home could heal the wounds that had been inflicted on their souls. A hitokiri didn't have that luxuary.
They had lived with the fact that they had never been soldiers, only murderers, every day, and that could twist men into horrible monsters. Monsters that could never stop. Never. Madness was the only pay a hitokiri could expect for his services and it marked them. Whatever they ate it turned to ash in their mouths, whatever they drank tasted of blood. They lived hollow, pointless lives that could only be satisfied by killing. They were nothing without the chaos of war.
Shishou had been right all along, he had been too young. He had truly been his baka-deshi. Kenshin wished he had ended things better with the man that had been like a second father to him. A sometimes harsh, narcissistic father, but a father nonetheless. Not that it mattered anymore. Perhaps it would have been better if Shishou had never rescued Kenshin in the first place.
Kenshin knew that if the Battousai ever got lose, the first thing he would do, besides killing all of Kenshin's friends to make sure nothing would be able to give Kenshin the strength to repress him again, would be to seek out a leader. The Battousai could kill, slaughter and maim throughout Japan as much as he wanted, but to truly be satisfied he needed someone to give him orders, someone to give him a purpose again.
It was one of Kenshin's greatest fears, to meet a man that could give the Battousai his purpose. Thankfully, the Battousai would not follow anyone that wasn't stronger than himself and such men were rare. Still there was a nagging feeling at the back of his that something was going to happen soon, something was going to go very wrong.
OoOoOoOoOoO
It's because you're weak. In this world, the flesh of the weak is the food of the strong. The strong live, the weak die.
– Shishio, Rurouni Kenshin
The police chief sighed wearily as he prepared himself to go inside the Kamiya dojo, he didn't like having Himura-san helping with police business. Somehow he could never make peace with the idea of asking a former hitokiri for help, however reformed he seemed. Sasuki had been present during the revolution, he had just been an ordinary soldier that had never risen particularly high in the ranks. He had, of course, been on the Ishin Shishi's side and he knew what happened to hitokiris. They either went mad and had to be disposed of or the enemy got to them.
You could never trust a man that enjoyed slaughter for its own sake, and Himura-san had been such a man. And now this Saito Hajime, under the name of Goro Fujita, was going to test if Himura-san would be of any help to them and Sasuki had a funny feeling that this "testing" would include Himura's friends. The least he could do for them was warn them.
Sighing he opened the doors and stepped through. At first he was perplexed by the silence, the Kamiya dojo was many things but silent was never one of them. The unusual silence around the dojo was soon explained by an sickening smell – the smell of rotting corpses. What had happened here?
(Shocked, Kenshin starred at his bloodied sword. His brain refused to comprehend what he had just done. Then his mouth stretched into a slow, shaky smile that in truth looked more like a baring of teeth. The body lying on the ground beside him was bloody and lifeless.
"Kenshin, Kenshin are you okay?" A young, brash voice rang out.)Sasuki tried to not breath through his nose but the smell seemed to force itself down his throat. He felt sick. Systematically, he began to search the rooms for the dead that would be waiting for him.
("I've never felt better, Myojin," he answered while wiping of his blade on the dead mans clothes.
"Kenshin, what have you done?" The Kamiya girl cried out.
"I have delivered Heaven's Justice to someone undeserving of life," he half-purred at her as he stalked closer with the grace of a cat. His face was oddly slack –so cold– the only life that could be found in it was the insanity burning feverishly bright in his amber eyes.)
It did not take long to find them. Though the bodies were stained with blood and had long gashes, there was very little blood on the floor, suggesting that they hadn't been killed in the dojo. Sasuki avoided looking at them, his stomach wasn't as strong as it had been a few years ago. Scolding himself –he was a police officer!– he forced himself to turn around and scrutinize the bodies without touching them. Seven bodies. Three of them were children.
(Kamiya looked heartbroken as she realized he wasn't her Kenshin anymore and soon tears were streaming out of her eyes. Pathetic. Why had he wasted his time protecting her? He supposed she could be called beautiful, in her own way, but Battousai had never cared much for the company of women. He could still hardly believe that he had put up with Tomoe all those years ago.
"Kenshin, " she pleaded, " listen to yourself. This isn't like you!"
"This isn't like me?" He said and arched an eyebrow. Before any of them could do anything he had the sharp edge of his sakabatou at Sagara's throat, effectively incapacitating the only one who was even a slight threat. The betrayal on the fighter's face faded fast to be replaced by anger, almost mirroring Myojin's as the young boy trembled with barely supressed rage.
"Kenshin you ass, you can't do this!" The boy screamed in Sagara's place as Sagara himself couldn't say anything without getting his throat cut up.
"Can't I?" He said and pressed the blade closer to Sagara's throat. A trickle of blood ran down the fighter's neck and continued down his chest. "You wanted to use a real sword once, this is what a real sword does.")
Sasuki recognized all of them. Kamiya Kaoru, Takani Megumi, Sagara Sanosuke, Myojin Yahiko, Dr. Gensai and his two grandchildren. A body that was most definitly not there, was Himura Kenshin's Where was he? Had he gone after the murderer? Or was he the one that had killed them? Had he slipped back into a hitokiri's state of mind?
(When the boy seemed to be on the verge of attacking Battousai with his wooden sword, Kamiya grabbed his shoulders tightly. She refused to look at the Battousai, as if it would make him go away if she didn't acknowledge his presence. "That isn't Kenshin, Yahiko. It is the Battousai. If you attack him now, he will kill you," she said.
"I am Himura Kenshin, the real Himura Kenshin – as real as he can ever be. The Kenshin you knew was a cover, an act I used in the beginning of the Bakumatsu. True, he was what I started out as, but he has been dead for years."
He looked at their blank eyes, they would never understand. Just like they would never understand how it felt to take a life and enjoy it. They couldn't possibly understand. They might have been born in the Bakumatsu, they might even have had a small taste of the chaos of that era, but they would never understand. They had known the chaos was there, might have seen it, but he had been the chaos. He starred into the Kamiya girl's pleading eyes and felt his lips curl in distaste.)
Sasuki's eyes wandered towards a scrap of papper lying besides Kamiya-san, he picked it up. On the note was a single sentence:
If Heaven's Justice is dead, then let those it protected die as well.
OoOoOoOoOoO
"If you have a normal mentality, you can't survive. This beast called chaos… is all about that."
–Shishio, Rurouni Kenshin
Battousai sat by his table, a cup of tea in his hands. Some might have been surprised at his choice of drink in a place like this, but they took one look at his sword and declined to ask. That seemed to be an unspoken rule here: "Don't ask any questions."
It had been a week since he had killed off the "Kenshin-gumi" now and the police were still looking for him. It was fairly annoying, since he couldn't walk the streets publicly anymore. It was not really bothersome but annoying nonetheless. He was leaving town tonight and would prefer not to have to have to slash his way through the local police –that would only make them more determined to catch him– and he didn't want to spend the rest of his life running from them. Killing them all whenever they came after him was a solution, but it would get tedious rather quickly since few police officers were even worth a second look.
He was thinking of going back to Kyoto. A rumor was floating around about a man called Shishio Makoto. His very own successor. Shishio's name was spoken with the outmost reverence ,as if he were a god and not just a man. Shishio seemed like an ambitious, charismatic and most important of all powerful man. A man that might have use of the Battousai's services.
It irritated him to admit it, but he needed someone to give him targets. Just killing randomly chosen victims could suffice for a while but he needed a purpose, a purpose that would suit him. Perhaps it was time for the Hitokiri Battousai to leave Heaven's Justice behind and take up the banner of Chaos. He stod up, his cup of tea stood half-empty on the short, wooden table. It was time to pay a little visit to Shishio Makoto.
The End.
Author Note: This was my first Rurouni Kenshin fic, I hope it wasn't too bad. If you have any constructive critizism, please tell me.