Disclaimer: I have been an avid fan of Rurouni Kenshin and dreamt of it being solely mine then I realized that Watsuki-san would be displeased for this is his masterpiece, so I still don't own Rurouni Kenshin. Though, this plot is mine.

Warning: Mature things can happen here, verbally, mentally, physically and systematically, though they are never truly graphic or very revealing to the point of excess. I have just told to assure everyone.

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Consistent Perseverance

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I

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"In this battlefield where I have slain men and thus have slain myself
with wretched interest I continue to live;

Flowers bloom, and the fields now renewed are harmonious'

Your sweet call reminiscent

Your eyes innocent and so naïve

To this heart for

I am a man with no definite love except you."

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Returning to my home I had washed my face with an earnestness that could rival my true complicated passions. Passions and interests – intertwined with time and ever-changing, like a heart matured and immature, a body experienced and naïve, a soul ruthless to determination or thoroughly engaged. Time is inconsistent, time is consistent; time is but a blend that blinds all and that which I see is the blurred product. Well, for me the case is there. The future is more unpredictable than the norm thus I am perpetually concerned. What will happen to me? A rhetorical question; a common question: everything of fate is emulsified by this one question of divided proportions. I cannot tell if this practice (of the question) will see my need for alteration and soon evolve to a matter less restricted by complication. However, who will provide me resolution to escape such a problematic condition. Even the one who makes my heart cradle the emotion of love may not bless me with the decisions appropriate for the change. I am concerned and its expression graphic. Maybe, this destined fate may be soluble to a kinder fate. I have the life and time to see the change. Death is the fated climax I do so abhor.

My washing is done, finished and completed – I feel I had bathed as a one assured he will attend his own wedding with decency and glamour. I cannot help the chuckle that is resonated or its followers, for the ideology of me marrying in present is but a backward way of an ignorant mind. Even an orthodox personage is slightingly aware of the mysterious fate to which I have plunged into – mysterious as it is noxious, weary as it is stealthily somewhat evident. I can only assure inconsistency in my life, a habitual phrase that I am fatigued by but the irony of me allows the acceptance of this ridiculous trait. My whole existence was unsure; my birth unplanned, my decisions unthinkable, my errors unsound – the only sound portion of me has now become a determination. I cannot think of another use of living. Living to be with the one allows me, even in the dream of it, so exultant that as if I have I gone to heaven. Heaven, such a dream, such a dream so distinguishable far from my hands yet I dream of its Eden and angels with her as my princess to stand with and love all beauties with her being my primary observation at all eternities (seeing time has no meaning in afterlife).

The rain is incessant and my thoughts follow it. My mind is my only companion, here, in this deserted place, house and soul. I feel brusquely agitated by the loneliness, whose embodiment as a fever, was upon my limbs, torso, mind and heart – such a fever is highly unappreciated. It reminds me of the childhood I had encountered, predictable in pain and malicious in misery, such feelings tempt me to be weakened or better still feel sympathetic for my own self. How ridiculous and idiotic can one get? I suppose I must try to swallow diner or will my emotional nerves prove my enemy there as well? I know I should be eating dinner; I have these pangs from hunger from cleaning the house that is abandoned and now I must really nourish myself. Hmmm…why did I come here specifically? Was it not a risky thing to do? Why I know and why the risk in action I can foresee the presumptions…but, I am nervous so I repeat these tit-bit questions. Me and nervous shouldn't be there but I can say that no immediate confrontation is my invitation, unless he would like to come – he is my equal in many ways. Fighting him hard is hard for once we were more than acquaintances, we were the best of friends, but I had stained the relationship – I had done it to protect my loved one. I feared her safety, but my cowardice allowed me this devious plot. I, Soujiro Seta had hurt my friend to protect the woman he loved and barely knew. It hurts me that the choice forwarded itself, but I could not argue or suffice another reason.

Thunder cracks its gargantuan voice as if his verdict of me is given. He thinks I am a traitorous bastard to my friend, but, he thinks I did fairly for the woman who I love. Maybe, the thunder says in total I am a bastard but my inventions say otherwise. I only tried to protect her, my life never was there for protection but assassination but I could not argue for a simpler life for that was not a simpler time. Complications of a society can lead to complications to an individual, a minor household incident does the same thing, I cannot have a choice for these interventions of predictable destiny, yet, I had yearned for a simpler life. A life blessed with the bounties of naivety and innocence in beliefs and actions. Innocence is a word I know, naivety is a thing I have heard; never in my life were these materials mine and as they could not be mine I felt weary of my own being. As a thirteen year old child my mind thought that my descent and both my ascent relied in darkness. My existence may have been made from the clay of sin and therefore I can never find solace in this systemic violence that had been my life. I was Soujiro the Tenken, the equal to Hitokiri Battousai in the arts of killing – the art to which the demons smile and the angels cry: the art that is of pretense and never a beautiful resonance of the qualities a man should possess.

I am extremely hungry now. I crave for the fish I had caught in the nearby little pond. The fishes are small in size but my hunger could be satiated by their mixing of rice and vegetables. I decided to bring the wood for the fire to cook and soon a fire was lit. I cook the fish in whole for my hunger cannot give me time to attend to things such as style or proper cleaning (though I had somewhat cleaned the fish). I boil the vegetable roughly and cook the rice neatly, according to the right specifications and soon an hour leaves and I sit to eat. I use the utensils already present in the house, they needed cleansing and nothing more for they still had their senses of finery. At first my hunger commanded me and so I hate voraciously, with big bites but soon a registered cough allowed me my slowness in eating, unless I was to choke favorably for death. In silence I ate; in silence I thought; the changing world allowed me comfort – The Meiji Era with its restrictions and whatnot pleased me, my killing can now be ceased it seemed – I really can't fair well when even the upheavals in the government allow my killing a place to originate and expand. I cough lightly, it is somewhat cold here, and I put more wood to the fire. I have plenty wood seeing that I have spent the day gathering them; mostly the rain seeing my progress. I was somewhat cold but not ill for the rain was little compared to the actual heavy release it gives but soon as my wood collecting was almost finished the rain dived towards me with the arms of a lover. I scurried quickly back to this house, my shelter, and then decided to eat so that my strength can be replenished. My bites continued I am eating excessively; my hunger was more due to the fact in two days I had barely consumed. My heart raced with the rain and thunder; this house is abandoned and so it serves as my shelter. The rice is almost gone, there are good quantities of the vegetables but the fish is done. The leftovers must be safely kept for breakfast; I cannot do any food searching for tomorrow for I shall leave this abandoned house who had welcomed me with protection and warmness. Despite these beautiful presents I must be selfish and listen to my emotions of discomfort which were there for the house. I really wouldn't like living in the place where Kenshin and Tomoe lived as lovers.

Soon, I clean the utensils and the other materials and store the leftovers which I will eat in the morning. I clean the dining area thoroughly as Miss Tomoe always did after meals; it is my present and obligation to that lovely lady who I had contributed death to. I sit thinking of her with radiance, her feminine qualities and her strong ways of both physical influences and verbal persuasions. She was a daughter of a shogunate yet to an enemy she gave love and passion to whilst her primary motives must be to the fact of the reverse. I can see her coolness and coldness; she was not so loquacious or energetic in animation. Yet, this does not mean she acted as the diseased yet her demure beauties were mostly her with her highly efficient intelligence a challenge to question yet when monitored allowed inspiration. Her love and admiration of Hitokiri Battousai was secrecy for if known the consequences of the emotion may encourage revenge and annihilation. She cared not for political parties or their motives but love was strong in her for Kenshin. No stirring rampage or disastrous element could have swayed it; even in the mortal end was she victorious by love. I respected her primary key, which was her love for my friend Kenshin – the manslayer as I, the feared Hitokiri Battousai, which was never ebbed nor devastated in any way. I felt wrong in her death, soon I felt guilt by my actions, everything was wronged by everything planned being reversed horribly. How could it have been so wrong?

My pocket watch tells me it's late. Midnight has passed but the rain lives on quite perfectly, heavy in her emotions and cloudy in her features. I soon tire with my endless thoughts endlessly pursuing me. Tomorrow, I will clean the house and soon set out over the mountains. I cannot believe the house is abandoned – I cannot believe Kenshin does not live here. I cannot believe I have dared to live her after my actions have hurt the loved ones with death and despair whose damage can never truly be perfected. Does Kenshin live here? Or does he pass this place regularly? If so; my burning smoke and fire may have alerted him of the unknown presence in the house shared by his love. Hmmm, in actuality I have truly never decided my feelings as to why I am living here now. I have come upon the place, not by chance but by magnetism and I could not overlook it as my residence. I was confused, a day's worth of stay here was a perplexing issue for I cannot live here, it may give shame to my departed friends (as one has passed from this life and the other passed through life elsewhere) for they know me as the cause of their turmoil. Yet, I could not dissuade the magnetism and so from early morning to now I have been living here. I will go away tomorrow, my departure is certain. I now realize I came here to see the faces and lives of the friends who I will forever find love for…

The door opening had gotten my attention. A sheer surprise printed on my features – I did not face the door for turning slightly in my mild sleep had become a habit of mine. What? Footsteps, not muffled, not loud, yet approaching slowly, a person was coming towards to where I was sleeping. My breathe slowly raised – I had gotten afraid. Me, the Tenken who slew without so much of a nagging emotion was afraid now. Was it a burglar? No, I knew the man here that is why I was afraid. My assumptions were right, I knew it unwise to stay here but…my emotions persuaded me otherwise. I may have signed the proposition to death most earnestly. I knew death was here now. It could not be separated:

' So, I see you dared to come and live here – you killed my fiancée Tomoe for your own wants and now you dared to live here in my house!' he was very precise even when I heard him take out his blade and plunged into my abdomen with a clarity to death.

My voice was shaky as I felt the blood pour in a fashion of rivulets, I could not answer, dared not to, knew I could not answer, answering was irrelevant. The only thing important now was death and it alone. I am slowly dying. Dying painfully and painlessly at the same moment: I was happy in both.

He picked me up by roughly grabbing my gi and his strength was avidly immense for though my eyes were closed for pain, fear and punishment I could feel his firmness of hand tell me that he was not even slightly impeded by my weight. It could be possibly due to my malnutrition also but that was irrelevant too. My death was his want and he clearly seemed to have quenched his thirst for my death. The numbness of my body slightly increasing told me that my blood loss was severe.

' Tell me Soujiro, are you pleased? Pleased, that my love you had stolen away by your dirty plot!' Kenshin was screaming most violently. He cared very much for volume.

' Kenshin…Kenshin…I…' I really wasn't going to explain. I just wished to apologize, this was needed – I want him to know that I accept his punishment wholeheartedly.

He stabs me most immensely on my delicate chest area. My death was immediately signed. My eyes shot out with no longer a patience to close themselves. This severe pain of death was predictable and unpredictable. I was shocked as I could feely my systems pounding, slowing descending from the crescendo of life and I was exulted too to see that my friend now could attain some piece. I smile unnervingly and nonchalantly. A hardship is over: for the both of us it seems. That…that…is…when…I…noticed…it…

It was not Kenshin! It was…It was…it was him…but…but…it was Tomoe as well…it was a disfigured man-woman figure which was naked and severely grotesque and supernaturally evident. It had two heads – one of Kenshin and the other of Tomoe – it was covered in its own blood as it by merging like this caused it this blood – I could see some fleshed voids were organs used to be especially the heart and the liver. It was horrifically designed and I was frightened beyond any normal circumstance!

' Now we kill you and then we can dismember your body to bits and bits!' the maniac of the voices of the Tomoe-Kenshin hybrid scared me to the point of death and return! I screamed as its fangs ravished my neck and the blood poured in correspondence with the rain…Soon I screamed over and over as I was dismembered…

' AHHHH!' I screamed as I woke…woke…was it a dream? I don't know. My sweat is pouring like the rain and my beating heart dances to the tune of fear and adrenalin and my comprehension is clustered as my blood. Blood! Where is it! I remove the covers…my abdomen is intact and I touch my face and my heart- they are perfectly contained without even a drop of crimson. My only drops are my sweat – I see the smokes of the burned out fire with the door lock and the silence of a house abandoned. I lay here alone in the futon. I still breathe heavily for my imagination had bizarrely put me to the debts of fear. I console myself through steady breathing: everything is immaculately distant from the dream…the horrid dream that is the scarred appendage of a gruesome nightmare.

I feel the rain is over. It must have been over some hours earlier – good, soon, at daybreak I shall travel the mountain path and visit my master, Hiko Seijuro, who might tell me where she is. I want to see her again, I want to know if she has faired well as now the Tokugawa Era is no longer active. I close my eyes and start to dream of her. The angelic maiden who stole my heart: Kaoru Kamiya.

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Author's Note: "I'm sorry that I still can't explain completely what is going on, that's the enigma of the tale which will be revealed as the chapters follow. One thing is certain that this Alternative Universe Fic has both Kenshin and Soujiro being members of the Ishin Shishi and Soujiro is involved in a betrayal. Tell me what you think!"

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