Blurbs: In the bloom of Cherry Blossom under the sun of spring, Seta Soujirou escorts a child to the Kamiya Dojo, life is about to get very interesting, and not necessarily in a bad way.
Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin and subsequent characters belongs to Nobuhiro Watsuki. Steal my characters without my permission and die
Timeline: Spring, 1882—Meiji year 13; PostJinchuu (No, I don't know when the Meiji year starts or whatnot, this is just estimated through the birth dates)
Beta: Khori Bannefin and Bloodedwyngs
00: Forgotten, Not Gone
Small fingers trickled over her face in an effort to wake her, drawing an inward smile as she feigned deep sleep.
"Mou!"
The infant's frustrated voice drew a minute tug at the edge of her lips.
"Okaa-sama!"
She laughed then, and surged up, scooping the little boy in her arms and started tickling. Her reward was the precious, precious shrieks of laughter.
She awoke with a dying scream in the back of her throat. A name, choked back at the last moment like a dying flutter of a dove.
Memories… for the past few months she had been slowly dreaming of things she wasn't aware she had forgotten. And she had not known, even now, to want the memories, or to hate them. Nevertheless… memories came, slowly creeping like age, like a sleeping glacier, slowly but sure.
There was no good in hating realizations, or knowledge. Thus she welcomed them.
Irony was not lost on her. Irony in all its' form, irony in its' finest.
Kenshin regarded himself as tainted due to his past as hitokiri Battousai, and most of all perhaps, Tomoe. In turn, the hitokiri turned rurouni placed her on a pedestal of purity so high up she couldn't see the base of the construction. But if Kenshin was tainted, she was just as tainted, if not more.
Kenshin had been an idealistic child trapped in the wave of the Revolution. She had always known what she was walking into.
Who then, were the innocent?
But one thing was clear, one thing that no one really could deny.
She was not a good mother; not good enough to not let go for the sake of her son. In the end, she had chosen to save herself, fearing her inability to keep herself sane.
Not even for her son.
The sound of the wind was loud against the otherwise silence of the night. Kaoru watched, slightly apprehensive, as the candles burned on their stands, palms slightly sweaty. She stifled a gasp when her senses abruptly registered a flare of ki sudden like a microburst, stronger than a tsunami.
Zori(1)-clad feet landed on the engawa, just outside the only open shoji screen of the dojo; Kaoru wasn't afraid of any interruption with Kenshin out of town, Sano packed off with Megumi, and Yahiko safely sequestered in the Akabeko. There was only one possible visitor she was expecting, and the scent of bamboo, incense, and slight fire smoke informed her that this was indeed the guest she was waiting for.
"You came, Hisui-sama."
"Aa,"
He hadn't changed a bit. Kaoru watched him with deep fondness and apprehensive pulse as she took in the red eyes, tousled ink-black hair that fell over his gaze, and the floor length black haori(2) with its embroidered coiling black-thread serpents, visible only when certain slant of light hit it in certain ways. The black iron fan in the obi(3) of his black hakama sat against the backdrop of deep maroon of his kimono, dark against his pale flesh.
No deepening line in his flawless face, two years weren't enough to age Touda Hisui.
"I thought the term was for three years."
"There is not a point anymore," Hisui approached without a sound, his zori neatly placed outside the dojo. "You remember."
"I remember, and that's it?" Kaoru questioned uncertainly.
Hisui's eyes were unreadable. "Your punishment was not remembering. The feeling of loss that you can't explain but almost overwhelming. Now that you know what it's all about, there really isn't a point in keeping that three years schedule."
His right hand shot forward, but before Kaoru could do more than flinch that pale hand had gripped, and reached in through cloth and flesh, searching for the seal that had locked away all of her power and her skills and left her as weak as a child.
He found it quickly, and Kaoru gasped in slight pain as Hisui ripped away the seal, power and skills returning to her like a thunderbolt, momentarily overwhelming her in a flood of sensation. Her senses overloaded until her brain couldn't take any more and cut off all signal.
She thought her heart stopped.
Gradually, she came aware, and found herself lying on the floor, and for a moment stayed there, enjoying the way she could again fling her senses far and wide, the sure knowledge of what her body can do, the way her analytical mind filters away everything for future reference, and the thrum of magic in her blood.
Hisui's tall figure—unusually tall for a Japanese—cast long shadow from the open shoji, and the almost overwhelming power she now freely felt once again wound tightly around him, ready to burst as soon as he let slip that control. The black serpent hissed at her, part welcome, part reprimand.
"You didn't have to be that rough," she commented mildly, her voice more mellow than it had been for years.
Hisui looked back at her and she could see that a storm had gathered and started while she was reacquainting herself, the flashes of lightning illuminated the coiling serpents on the black haori, the texture so alive that for a moment Kaoru thought she could see it move, ready to uncoil. "Think of it as a petty little revenge."
"Aa," Kaoru assented, "I was stupid."
"You were," Hisui was never one to try to make anyone feel better. "Don't do it again."
Listening to the thunder, Kaoru closed her eyes and felt the electricity in the air wash over her, the drumming of the sky, and the power in the storm. "I will try. That's all I can really promise, Hisui-sama."
"Just as long as you remember that your life isn't cheap." And it wasn't, she knew. Had she not been shown, then and again? She knew, she most horrifically knew. She just never understood why her life was worth so much.
"My—"
"You'll get the boy back soon enough." Hisui forestalled her question. "Until next time." He departed like the way he arrived, an abrupt blink between there and not there. Kaoru pulled herself up and wrapped her arms around a raised knee, staring at the storm. Her eyes darkened into cobalt.
Then she smiled.
The snow melts,
Water is free
(to) flow once again.
Author Note:
-Whew, finally beta-ed. Everyone, applause for the wonderful blooded-wyngs and Khori Bannefin who so kindly beta-ed my work.
-Now that I read back, things seemed kinda strange; and I decided that no, I did not like what I had been doing with the sequel of this story and chucked it back to the plotting stage. It seemed to be a habit with me.
-To anyone who had supported me so far: thank you very much, and sorry for the long wait!
1 Zori -- Cloth, leather or grass-woven sandals. Zori may be highly decorated with intricate stitching or with no decoration at all. They are worn by both men and women. Grass woven zori with white straps are the most formal for men. They are similar in design to "flip-flops". This is what Kenshin usually wears in the manga (the straw version, at any rate).
2 Haori -- Kimono coat worn over the attire, usually three-fourth length or shorter.
3 Obi -- belt or sash, any kind