Title: One of These Nights - Ten Years Later
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: No, I didn't get Kenshin for Christmas, sadly.
Summary: Now that they are direct targets, Kenshin's friends need to know the truth about his past - every detail of it, if they are to understand.
Warnings: Slightly gory imagery? Nothing too graphic, though.
Note 1: There's a small reference to Fred Ulhman's Reunion in there. :) … and 2: the title was inspired by one of the pieces of the Trust and Betrayal soundtrack.
One of These Nights - Ten Years Later
Kenshin doesn't know why he tells them every gruesome little detail, but he does.
- His blade was sharp enough that he barely felt the change in consistency when it met his victims' flesh and bones. It was like slicing through air, through air that screamed and bled and died, air that fell heavily to the ground and around him, air that he inhaled, that traveled to the bottom of his lungs and passed into his own blood and stained every single fiber of his being, and all this time he told himself to just breathe, breathe, breathe, the fool. -
"I killed her fiancé; she wanted revenge" wouldn't be any less true.
They have all gathered around him, waiting to know why they're being attacked this time and somewhere between their concerned glances and their moving to the backyard the answer became the story behind his cross-shaped scar, the story of his life.
Some say that tension can make the air thick enough that one could cut through it. He knows that to be true. First hand.
His victims never stood a chance back then, but maybe this is their revenge. He never forgot their faces and now he's telling his friends how they got imprinted in his mind in the first place.
He wouldn't have made it back from Kyoto alive if not for them.
He owes them. Truth. Answers. Knowing just who they helped and saved.
And they thought Shishio was the monster.
Maybe so, but Battosai - he - hadn't been called a demon for nothing.
So he tells them every gruesome little detail and risks horrifying them away.
- The clouds above Kyoto rained blood during the night. And if it rained during the day, ominous streams of blood painted the streets a dark red, not washing it away but spreading fear and rumors, birthing Battosai's legend and making it grow darker and more horrifying by the night. -
He will have to fight this battle alone if they decide to leave, but if that means that they will not be targeted then he's willing to take that risk. More than that, he has to.
Because even demons have a heart. Shishio had one.
- He thinks of Yumi and of Tomoe, of parallels and irony and how easily a blade slices through hearts, lives, air. -
He stares at the ground between his feet and bares his soul for them, exposes himself to them and their judgment.
He stares at the ground between his feet, the rest of the world disappears and he is fifteen again, slicing air and breathing it in again; the ghosts whisper and he realizes that his nightmares are nothing but sickeningly accurate memories that his imagination merely takes a little further, if at all.
He thought he had surpassed the other one and left him behind, but where his guilt goes Battosai inevitably follows. In every strike of his sakabato, in every breath he takes - when so many others don't.
Every gruesome little detail…
- He killed them just fine, in his own words, convinced himself it was not harder than breathing (and who wouldn't breathe - live - for a noble cause?) and ignored the knot right above his heart, his nightmares and how sake tasted more and more like iron. -
His friends almost ask questions but stop themselves at the last second, not willing to interrupt - he'd never start again if he had to stop. He doesn't see the tears making Tsubame's eyes shine, doesn't wonder if she's scared or if she feels sorry for him.
- Katsura-san narrowly escaped from the Ikeda-ya incident and Tomoe accepted to not just pretend to be his wife (oh, how he wishes she'd said no) and… -
He… needs a break. Time to breathe. His memories run away with him and he needs a moment to collect them, to steal himself for what is yet to come. He hasn't told anyone the truth before. The Ishin Shishi, Katsura-san… They all thought it had been an accident. A plot designed to bring Battosai down that Tomoe had got caught up in by mistake. No one knew just who had held the sword that had killed her. No one except for himself, and Enishi.
- He never asked why his victims were chosen. They were a name on a face and a function, nothing more. Knowing them as husbands or fathers or friends would have made this air he breathed that much thicker. The cut would have been less clear. He might have hesitated. He didn't know if they deserved to die and didn't want to. As far as he was concerned, the less he knew, the better. But Iizuka, the traitor, the one who had set up the trap that had led Tomoe to her death… he had deserved to die. If anyone did, and Kenshin had learned that the important word there was the "if". But if anyone deserved to die, then certainly Iizuka had. -
He hasn't forgotten the shock pain incomprehension horror dread panic and the cold, soul-shattering cold, he felt when he realized what he had done. But he'll tell his audience every detail and relive it all, then and there, and the dread is already here, the familiar nausea returning.
They settle back around him - the cup of tea placed next to him will remain untouched; he could never do something as mundane as drinking at this moment - and, when he speaks again, he is tense - sick, tired - enough that his voice comes out as little more than a choked whisper.
- The world was not the dark blue, black and silver of the city at night, cold as steel. Suddenly there were lush greens and the deep sky ran from one horizon to the other. Suddenly there was warmth. The screams in his mind quieted, ghosts moving further away. There was her voice, her smell, the soft noises she made as she moved through their home. There were simple-yet-delicious meals prepared by the two of them and shared in comfortable silence. There were smiles, and softening eyes…
Then the first snowflakes came, snowflakes that flew soundlessly to the ground, snowflakes that danced and whirled, snowflakes of pure soft white. Then a clash and a slash through the air and white turned red.
And then, again, silence. -
Silence that did not leave him for the next thirteen years. When Kenshin reaches the end of his tale, it is tightly wrapped around each of them, weighing them down and forcing them to remain immobile for several minutes, except for him. He is shivering, trembling ever so slightly, trying to calm his shaky breaths. No one seems to notice but that's the least of his thoughts.
He has realized something else. He has realized how his time at the Kamiya dojo reminds him of what his stay in Otsu taught him. The warmth he felt then is spreading again in his chest, growing with every day he spends with his friends. With Kaoru.
There can be happiness for him. Even he has something to lose, here.
And then everything is clear, and he knows exactly who Enishi is after.