Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin not mine blah blah blah...
Author's note: Has Kenshin ever worried about his master at all? Just for once he really should get an opportunity to justify his callous attitude towards his master (not that Hiko was a role model), shouldn't he?
Warning: Angst ahead
Mere Human
As morning dawned over a rain-washed field, two very different figures--- one tall, majestic and white clad, and the other a short, youthful redhead, regarded each other with strikingly similar solemnness.
"So, have you discovered what it is you lack?"Asked the former figure.
"No." Came the latter's reply.
It held no hesitation, defiance nor bitterness. He was weary. Too weary to summon forth any more of anything. This whole affair was a blind man's search for light to him--- hopeless and worthless. He did not know what the answer was. Even if he did, he felt fairly sure that it would do him little good.
Perhaps he did not deserve an answer. Perhaps, his master had been right when he refused to teach him the succession technique in the beginning...
"Perhaps you have finally reached your limit." The smug reprimand or taunt Kenshin was secretly hoping for never came. If anything, his master sounded almost as weary. "One as incomplete as you will never win against Shishio. He can't win against the manslayer in his heart, either."
"Even if you were to live, you'd be in agony for the rest of your life. You'd be tormented, eaten alive by loneliness, and you would... slay men."
Kenshin's memories stirred upon hearing these words... hadn't Hiko told him something similar a long time ago, with the same foreboding, before turning his back on him right here? A strange fear gripped him. He did not want his master to turn his back on him, again. Not if he knew what was going to happen...
His fear was addressed by a raw metallic clang and a loud splash.
Hiko's white cloak, trademark of a Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu successor, lay discarded in a puddle at his feet. It's loaded with springs suppressing the wearer's strength... Kenshin realized with a start. But why?...
"Because of that, instead of the final attack, ending your life is my final duty as your master." said Hiko, grimly.
His massive arm, now freed from restraint, gave his sword a casual swing, and even Kenshin had to raise his arms for protection as a knife-sharp wind lashed his face. But he was not its target--- yet. His eyes widened in horror as he beheld a groove in the ground as deep and clean as one slashed by a sword--- etched by nothing but Hiko's kenki.
An unfamiliar chill raced down his spine.
My hand is shaking... why am I afraid?
He had never dreamt of this, not even in his worst nightmare... but it was not the display of might that fazed him. Cloaked or not, Kenshin knew Hiko could beat him senseless without trying. It was the mere notion that Hiko wanted him... dead... that paralyzed him with fear. The same fear he had seen often on the faces of those cowering before his "Heavenly Justice"--- he was the one helpless in its grip this time.
What goes around, comes around. The irony of it struck him. Heavenly Justice indeed!
True, Kenshin had fought innumerable opponents, and had cheated fate more times than he could count. But even opponents almost as strong as himself--- Okita Souji, Saito Hajime, Udou Jineh, Shinomori Aoshi and and Soujirou the Tenken--- he knew he could defeat for sure...
... though maybe at the cost of his own life.
Yet, nothing in the past prepared him for now!
He had never seen his master like this: the mocking fire in those obsidian eyes was gone. They were now hard and pitiless, like the bottom of an abyss... an abyss of death. And Kenshin's numb fingers were slipping off its edge.
His heartbeat braced itself for the impending plunge to oblivion. This is it: this time, he could cheat fate just as surely as he could cheat gravity; could fight it just as easily as a falling man could bruise a cliff bottom!
Am I afraid of Hiko Seijuro... of the absolute death that lies behind him?
"Are you ready, Kenshin?" Came his master's voice, cold and murderous as the sword in his hand.
I'm not ready... Kenshin wanted to protest.
I still have duties. I must stop Shishio Makoto from taking over the country...
I must protect this peaceful era for the people!
But this mental voice was weak... too weak. Deep down he knew it: the duties that called him today were no less absurd than the duties that had called him fourteen years ago. Nobleness had become something distant and hypocritical, and the path he trod had long since turned every noble thought into shame, and every righteous endeavor into nothing but guilt... and more victims...
Perhaps the only thing left that mattered was atonement now. How fitting to let his victims be avenged by Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu itself, and even more fitting to have his death meted out to him by the first person he failed!
Why am I afraid? Thought Kenshin, clenching his hand into a fist with resolve.
Don' t be afraid!
"You hopeless idiot!" Roared Hiko. His charge that followed was too fast for Kenshin to see, but his mind's eye could see the kuzu ryusen, no, the death that was hurtling towards him, and it was going to swallow him whole and rend him apart!
With a similar cry, but for a different reason, Kenshin threw himself forth to embrace his due... or so he tried. Life flashed past his eyes: the three sisters that protected him from the bandits; Tomoe; his new friends in the Meiji era, and Kaoru-dono...
A woman's wail resounded in his ears. He would remember it until his dying day:
Shinta! Shinta! Just try to live on. You' re still small, so you haven' t chosen your own way of life like we did. But at least, until you can choose how to live your own life... you must stay alive!
Shishio... Meiji... atonement...
In a split second, all these no longer mattered. A new conviction burned in his soul. Death would appease neither the living nor the dead! A voice cried out. I must stay alive!
With that, his mind's eye snapped back to the present. Suddenly, it saw the dragons' fangs poised to snap him apart, and the cutting wind of kenki close in like a sharp net. Death had become as inexorable as fate itself: even if Hiko himself relented at this moment, he could not have stopped his fatal charge!
Yet Kenshin could no longer submit to despair. He took hold of himself entirely in a millisecond, and seized his hilt with a deathgrip. The approaching fangs that filled his mental plane faded as his newfound spirit flared forth. In that split second, it was as if an unquenchable flame had filled his soul, transforming him into something more than a mere mortal. Even death itself would not have been able to touch him--- he was Life itself, the presence within him exhaled, joyfully. And no matter how bleak his adversaries were, he would simply crack his way out... hard.
Then just as suddenly, the invincible presence released its hold on his mind, and left him feeling strangely at peace... and alive, if a little shaky as he skidded to a stop on the opposite side of the glade.
"Yes... that' s it." A voice broke through the inky silence.
Even his master' s voice was less caustic than usual. It was almost warm, tinged with an unfamiliar note of acknowledgement.
The realization of his success hit Kenshin almost as an afterthought, so great was his joy of survival!
"Because you have slain many people, you don' t even value your own life." The voice continued. "That is what allows the manslayer nesting deep in your heart to take over your soul."
"Even by sacrificing yourself to save your loved ones, those you leave behind will never truly be happy; and, in this tumultuous age, laying down your life with the Buddha' s benevolence is nothing in the long, continuous passage of time."
"Live on, Kenshin! Then, you' ll be able to use the Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki as you please, and you' ll never again lose to the manslayer within you!"
Kenshin' s eyes snapped open. Something was amiss... his master' s voice sounded increasingly distant and strained, as if he was yelling at Kenshin across the few dozen feet that separated them, yet at the same time not getting heard.
"Don' t let it bother you." Said Hiko, as if reading his thoughts. He continued, his voice growing ever fainter. "This is the fate between a master and student of the Mitsurugi Ryu... I, too, mastered the ougi at the cost of my master' s life. Think of this event as removed from your vow to never kill anyone again..."
Curiosity was killing Kenshin. He whirled around, his mind half prepared to find himself being made a fool of and fully prepared to launch an objection...
... but what greeted his sight was a gigantic splash as his shishou fell headfirst into a puddle of water, in an entirely messy and uncoordinated way. Then he lay still. His long black ponytail floated in the rainwater idly.
Shock and confusion crossed Kenshin' s face briefly, before he rushed to staunch that look. After all, one could never be certain what new trickery Hiko had devised to embarrass him.
"Shishou?" He ventured, hoping that it might persuade the older man to give up his act. At least I wasn' t fooled this time... He comforted himself. It looks totally unconvincing…
The silence was sepulchral.
He tried again. "You' ve got to be kidding, Shishou. You know there' s no way I can ever kill you with one blow from my reverse blade."
He was getting unsettled by this... suspense. What was it that his master had rambled to him about... killing his own master with the Amakakeru no Hirameki? It was surely a joke in the worst taste. To begin with, Kenshin' s slight frame was ill suited for a style as powerful as the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. All he had ever hoped for was to land a scratch on Hiko that would be somewhat less of a joke. Even by using his full strength, he was certain he could not have hurt someone of Hiko' s physique that much.
That was, if he managed to hurt him at all. Why he still had to put up with this humiliation, now that he had finished his training, was beyond him.
Hiko did not stir. For the first time, Kenshin wondered if the unthinkable had happened. His eyes widened. All caution was flung to the wind as he raced forward to his fallen master' s side.
"SHISHOU!"
Kami-sama... let this be a trick!
Hiko's handsome face was deathly pale, and his eyes were closed tightly. Kenshin willed his hands to stop trembling as he turned his master' s unresisting body around. Ribs moved under his hands in a disturbing way, but it was the long, impossibly deep bruise down his master' s torso and that made panic clench his heart.
There was no trace of his master's ki anywhere. That was nothing unusual, though. Hiko was perfectly capable of hiding his ki from Kenshin.
Yet Kenshin knew for a fact that no one could hide his heartbeat and breathing as well.
As an ex-assassin, he had been somewhat of an expert when it came to making sure his targets were silenced. The case before him needed no further examination: Hiko was dead.
For a long moment, Kenshin had no idea what to think or how to think. He merely knelt next to his master' s body, searching for some sign, any sign... to refute his dreadful conclusion.
How could it be possible? Was the first thought that stumbled into his disheveled mind.
It was against logic itself, just... absurd. He could not have done it; Hiko himself had told him to count the event as an exception, meaning that he knew Kenshin could use it without killing anyone. How, then, could something that would not kill anyone kill his master?
Still, he charged at me with the Kuzu Ryusen... the voice of rationality suggested, tentatively. With the momentum that comes from god-speed, the recoil from its impact with the Amakakeru no Hirameki might be sufficient to stop his heart altogether...
His irrational thoughts lashed back: But how could I have thought of everything? They groaned.
But as rationality pointed out, he was indeed not totally responsible. Hiko had simply committed suicide with the two most powerful techniques of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, if that provided any comfort. It didn't. The vast proportion of his mind was still in stunned disbelief.
Still, it can' t be...
It was a thought so... alien. Hiko Seijuro' s skill was as boundless as his arrogance--- that was what Kenshin had believed in as a child. As a far more experienced adult, he only managed to further confirm it as fact, for everything he knew were, to little surprise, still as useless as childhood pranks against his master...
He was almost like a wall in Kenshin' s life: so tall as to be unscaleable, but one that he could always count on to be there. Now it was as if this wall had crumbled under Kenshin, leaving him leaning on nothing but air.
Kenshin felt betrayed: his master was, unbelievably enough, a mere human.
But even the bitterness of being betrayed and abandoned was nothing compared to the other feeling rising in his throat...
Kenshin had taken the life of someone he cared deeply about before--- the loss of Tomoe was a constant reminder of his failure: failure to protect her life, her fiance' s life, and her happiness. It was a perpetual pain that ate him up with remorse, as well as fantasies of what could have been, if he had just tried a little harder to right his wrongs...
The loss of Hiko, on the other hand, was a completely different matter. Kenshin was struck by the realization of how everything was right. Hadn' t he been trained for this purpose all along? He had acted in self-defense, and even his master had affirmed that Kenshin finally got something right. If he had not killed Hiko today he would have killed him yesterday or fourteen years ago. The ending was as inescapable as the period at the end of a sentence.
Perhaps the only pain came from finding out, too late, how little he had cared about his master as a human being. Then again, that was not Kenshin' s fault--- Hiko Seijuro was a man difficult to approach and impossible to be concerned about. Kenshin had long ago learned this the hard way, when every effort to get to know his master would, inevitably, end up making Kenshin himself the object of ridicule. Unfair was the only word for it. What Kenshin did not know about Hiko was as extensive as what Hiko knew about him, like:
What was his master' s real name?
Did he have family?
Did he even come from somewhere?...
No one would miss Hiko Seijuro, that's for sure. It was almost as if he existed to be forgotten... conveniently. The thought sickened Kenshin to the stomach.
This was the one failure that haunted him: he was the only soul who should know--- and care--- about this enigmatic man who had raised him, and he failed. Even as Battousai, he knew more about some of his victims than he knew about Hiko...
Yet again, no blame lay upon him--- everything happened just the way Hiko had planned. For one last time, Kenshin was deceived, and that's all that could be said about it.
Tears of rage stung his eyes. Hiko had told him to think of the event as removed from his vow not to kill... but how could he? Did he really think that Kenshin could reason the whole affair away and make it all right? Shouldn' t he know his baka deshi well enough not to expect that?
Even such anger was useless now... his master was no longer there for him to be mad at.
For the first time in his life, Kenshin fully understood why no righteous purpose could justify the taking of a human life.
He had escaped from this truth for far too long--- by channeling regret into self-hatred, and self-hatred into self-sacrifice. But he' s incapable of self-sacrifice now, just as a bird that has learned to fly is incapable of leaping to death. But instead of newfound freedom, the naked weight of a life now bore down upon him solidly, and he had no choice but to live with it.
It made him wonder... did his Shishou feel it too, when he cut down bandits like they were nothing? Did he feel it when he sipped his sake with cold-blooded passion, as scores of people died under his mountain?
It never made sense to Kenshin how sake could taste good under such circumstances. His master' s words echoed in his ears:
"Spring brings cherry blossoms to comfort you. The summer: stars. The harvest moon in fall and the powdered snow in winter... All of these things, and the promise of them, are what make sake taste so good."
"Why?" Puzzled, he had asked back then.
"It' s something you can only sense, not describe... much like kenki." Said the swordsman, after a pause. "Yet it is stronger than kenki. You can feel it in the spring--- when things sleeping under the earth rise to crack their icy coffins, and sap works its way up frozen husks... All things respond to it, and its presence gladdens you."
The significance of these words resurfaced. He could sense it perfectly now, what his shishou had alluded to: trees murmured in greeting around him; from the undergrowth and among the branches, trills of challenge teased him... and through them all flowed the same indomitable will to live, raw and rampant...
Yet no words or reasoning could describe it: it was as if Kenshin, like a finely tuned instrument, was at last able to join in a symphony he had never heard before.
All things respond to it...
Suddenly, Kenshin felt the faintest of hopes stir. His hands still on his master' s chest, he summoned once more the power that drove the Amakakeru no Hirameki ...and this time, the will to live flowed from him easily. The same explosive force that had turned his blade into something harder than steel minutes ago now pounded relentlessly into his master' s body like red-hot lightening.
You can't die, Shishou! He screamed wordlessly through the electric presence in his soul.
For a full minute that seemed like eternity, he hovered between dread and anticipation. The unheard symphony around him rose in volume. With a mightly roar, trees flailed and flung torrents of leaves upon him, as if in encouragement, and the flame within Kenshin surged even higher in reply, until it seemed that it would burst him apart. Every fiber of his soul strained to provoke the smallest response in his master... Then he sensed it: an almost imaginery spark of ki at the edge of his awareness! Something trembled under his fingertips, and Kenshin' s heart almost stopped to reassure himself that it was Hiko' s heart, and not the pounding of blood in his own palms. The faint spark he sensed fluttered feebly with each contraction of his master' s heart. Then, suddenly, a violent shudder seized Hiko. He took a tortured gasp of breath, then--- Kenshin did not know which was worse--- promptly fell limp again. Only the lingering wisp of air from his master's mouth convinced Kenshin that he had restored some sign of life in his master.
That was when Kenshin himself finally remembered to breathe again. He focused his entire being on remaining extremely still, fearing that his master might slip away if he so much as blinked. But that did not stop tears of relief streaming frankly down his face.
Thoughts raced around in the confines of his head, searching for something he could do... His master needed medical attention. His face, which had looked pallid before, was now positively ashen, and his lips were tinged with blue. His heartbeat and breathing were, at best, barely perceptible. Yet it was his master' s ki that worried Kenshin the most. Not matter how much Kenshin stretched his superhuman senses, he could not help but feel its presence fading. He knew, with ominous foreboding, that it would inevitably go out if nothing was done.
The feeble tremor that ran through his master' s body alerted him to the mountain wind lashing sharply upon his face. It did not affect Kenshin much. But as a child, it had chilled him to the bone. It occurred to him that Hiko was drenched and the cold air was leaching what little warmth left in him.
If anyone were to suggest to Kenshin, a day ago, that mere mountain wind could be the death of his shishou, he would have found it very funny. Right now, he could only berate himself for not thinking of this sooner.
He decided to get his master back to the shelter of the cabin first, then figure out what to do from there.
Though his heart was thumping within him like an unruly trapped deer, Kenshin's hands were surprisingly steady as he slowly eased Hiko' s almost lifeless body up his back, securing him by draping the massive arms over his own slender shoulders. He clutched them as if his life depended on it. The ice had finally broken between them, and he would not allow Hiko to drift away again... not until he wakes up, at least.
He almost started when he felt warm liquid soak his collar, before realizing that it was blood seeping out of his master' s mouth.
Of course... He quelled his panic. Some of the broken ribs might have gotten his lungs...
What surprised Kenshin the most, though, was the discovery that his master did have something as mundane as blood.
The prospect of worsening Hiko's injuries filled Kenshin with apprehension. But his master's heart beat a little stronger against the warmth of his back. This reassured him somewhat.
He rose shakily. Even with knees dragging along the ground, his master was heavy. For about the millionth time, Kenshin wished that he was not, as Hiko had often taunted him before, so short and scrawny. But then again, carrying bodies larger than himself was always his forte.
This time, however, he felt proud of the fact, for he had not failed his burden.
The End
A/N: Don' t worry, Hiko will get back to normal (or abnormal) shortly, at which point Kenshin will start regretting what he thought...
I was inspired to write this fic by the supreme confidence Kenshin has in his shishou's superhuman abilities (like greeting him from behind with a battoujutsu and sending him off to protect his friends without providing an address). Fortunately, his trust has never been misplaced!