RuroKen Week 2015
Day 1: Dreams/Realities/Illusions
Author: Kenkaya
Genre: Angst/Drama/Horror
Type: Oneshot
Rating: General, PG
Pairings: Himura Kenshin/Yukishirou Tomoe, Himura Kenshin/Kamiya Kaoru
Summary: "Can you see me Enishi?" she asked, reaching out. Her pale, hazy incorporeal hand hovered hesitantly over his hunched shoulder. "Can you hear me?"
Disclaimer: The characters and story of Rurouni Kenshin are copyright to Nobuhirou Watsuki, Sony, and other corporate someones who aren't me.
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"You're really there, aren't you Nee-san?"
Tomoe turned to face her younger brother, shocked. He was leaning against the wooden ship rail, chin resting on crossed arms as short wisps of his prematurely whitened hair swayed in the breeze. Below them, the steady splash of waves against a pitched hull drowned out the garbled mix of Chinese and Japanese dialects shouted by the crew behind. The ship deck was noisy, teeming with activity, yet the atmosphere in that moment felt strangely isolated. She smiled wistfully from her place beside him.
"Can you see me Enishi?" she asked, reaching out. Her pale, hazy incorporeal hand hovered hesitantly over his hunched shoulder. "Can you hear me?"
The boy stared blankly out at the grey-green water, not once indicating that he recognized her presence. She dropped her outstretched limb, resigned. No one had seen her since she came to that day- floating above her weeping husband as he cradled her stiff cold body in bloodstained snow. No one had (and probably never would), still, Tomoe couldn't quite squash the desperate desire to be noticed. Couldn't help the hope that welled within her every time someone showed the slightest of signs that they might be aware…
Kenshin, she was fairly certain, had at least been able to sense her on a subconscious level. He didn't speak often or even look her way, but the tension along his jaw always seemed to soften whenever her soul approached his. When she surrounded his sleeping body with intangible arms, Tomoe swore the reverent sigh he released had been her name. Those early insubstantial days had been a violent daze of drifting through war-touched streets; she bounced between consoling her widowed husband as he resolutely held on to his humanity through each kill (regardless of the extra pain that caused him), and watching helplessly as her homeless brother became a washed out shadow of himself. Truly, she had been relieved after Toba-Fushimi. The war was over. Kenshin had walked away with a new sword and boldly declared purpose, while Enishi lingered barefoot around the docks of Osaka.
When the destitute boy finally boarded a ship bound for China, Tomoe followed without second thoughts. Kenshin would be fine now; she had faith in him. Enishi, however, was just a child. A little boy without a mother, who had recently witnessed the death of the closest thing he'd ever had to one. She couldn't care for him the way she used to, but, if her presence could someday sooth him the way it had for Kenshin- well, she would cling to that hope.
Enishi's question, though he directed the words out across a dreary February sea, was the first indication that perhaps her optimism wasn't in vain. Tomoe smiled brightly. Her ghostly steps haunted his the rest of their journey, never straying more than a couple paces. He didn't addressed her once in that time, still, she persisted. She loved her brother dearly, and so, she kept smiling in a frantic attempt to somehow project that love. Her smile didn't falter once, not even when the ship anchored and they disembarked onto unfamiliar Shanghai streets.
They wandered through dark foreign alleys for weeks. Enishi slept under a set of rickety stairs at first, then, after losing a fist-challenge by several vicious older boys, he squeezed behind a peeling blue warehouse shed. Fights broke out frequently on the backstreets. Tomoe's faith wavered the longer he lived rough, his white hair steadily transforming into a greasy grey mess. She watched, helpless, each morning as he nursed fresh wounds. By evening, the boy would be up and about: already trading back insults in Shanghainese and English while his sister gaped at the kid's adaptability. On cold nights, his nose ran, sometimes accompanied by cheeks flushed red with fever. Enishi was surviving, barely, but Tomoe wished for so much more. She thought leaving Japan had been a positive step for him, perhaps she was wrong?
Just as her spirit began to lose hope, the warehouse owner found Enishi coughing behind his shed. Tomoe initially feared her brother was about to suffer another beating, but the merchant proved to be gentle, partially-blind old man. He returned several times, hobbling on his polished cane, with offerings of food and fresh clothing, switching to flawless Japanese on the second visit after he heard Enishi's accented "thank you." Tomoe smiled again on the eighth visit when the man finally voiced an invitation. Apparently, he had told his wife about the sick Japanese beggar boy behind his shed, and she insisted on generously opening their home.
Enishi accepted. He was bathed, dressed in fine fabrics, and presented with a soft bed of his own. The boy never did realize his sister was there, silently supporting him, but he found a place where he could thrive all the same.
Tomoe remembered with bitter clarity how relieved she'd felt then. She really believed her brother's trials were over and done with. Her loved ones were doing well- so tantalizingly close to the happy endings she dreamed for them during those bloody nights she hovered by them, powerless and unseen.
Then, seemingly out of the blue, Enishi picked up a sword and wiped away her afterlife dreams with a spray of blood.
He killed the merchant first. Tomoe gasped, her smile faltering at the sudden action. The man was just as shocked, a reflexive widening of cataract clouded eyes the only action he completed before his heart stopped. Next, Enishi stabbed the wife, his expression stony as she begged, laugh lines around her eyes and mouth twisting in unnatural directions on her kind face. Tomoe echoed the older woman's begging, though those words went unheard by all but herself. She would have given anything in that moment for the ability to touch Enishi, to shake him by the shoulders and see a reaction to her screamed "why?!" Instead, the ghostly figure could only cry when their manservant ran in, followed soon after by an elderly maid. She wailed as they became victims of his blade. The maid raised frail skeletal hands in a pleading gesture. Enishi cut them off without blinking.
"What happened, Enishi?" Tomoe choked at the gore. "This wasn't supposed to happen. How did you become this?"
"I understand, nee-san."
The ghost stared at him through mist tears. Had Enishi actually… ? But his blue eyes were locked elsewhere in the room, looking forward while she curled over the ground behind him.
"E… Enishi?"
"This was a dead end path… it would've hindered us. But don't worry, nee-san!" he grinned widely at thin air. "I know what to do. It might take a while… but you can keep smiling 'cause I'll finish it for you."
Tomoe watched, numb, as Enishi turned around and left, uncaring of the way his feet squelched in puddles of red. She felt nothing when he passed straight through her form. Her brother had gone insane. He never noticed her; the boy had only imagined a warped version of his sister, a version who wasn't horrified by the mass murder he just committed.
"You were such a sweet child, Enishi. Where did I go wrong? How could I possibly make up for my failings to you now? How could I ever make up for my death?"
She couldn't. But, he was her dearest little brother, and she didn't have a heart capable of giving up on him. So, she steeled herself, unfurling to trail after him as always. The ghostly woman was certain that she would witness far worse in the future before things got better.
She was right. For once, she wished she hadn't been.
Enishi moved back to the Shanghai streets and quickly embroiled himself with the local mafia. He stole, trained in martial arts and sword forms, then, after he hit his growth spurt, the teen was promoted to grunt muscle. He beat and threatened others without regard. Soon enough, he was killing for crime lords as well. Tomoe's brother had grown into quite a skilled swordsman, especially considering he was self-taught. Rather than pride, she felt sick at his accomplishments.
However, she regained a fraction of hope when he was fifteen. Enishi had been sent after a runaway prostitute, a young naive girl he caught up to easily enough on the docks. He used his recently gained height to overpower her, corralling the girl under an out-of-the-way overhang, and slamming her against the wall to stun. The petite girl gasped, strong fingers wrapping around her slim throat. Sleek black hair spilled over sloped shoulders as she wheezed a litany of soundless, "please, please, please…"
Tomoe almost looked away. Nothing she'd experienced in or after life- her mother's death, Kiyosato's departure, Kenshin's battles, even Enishi's first breakdown- compared to watching the boy she practically raised strangle the life from a desperate girl. He teetered precariously on an edge, leaning over a dark pit which Tomoe feared he may never be able to crawl out of once he slipped.
"No!"
Suddenly, he threw the girl to the gravel below. The boy was shaking, tremors wracking his tall body, glazed eyes fixed forward while he ignored the girl. She coughed roughly as she pushed herself clumsily off the ground.
"Get away!" Enishi barked.
The girl quickly complied. Only Tomoe, invisible apparition that she was, lingered to see him crack.
"I'm sorry, nee-san," he whispered to his twisted hallucination. The teenage boy bowed until his clammy brow rested against the wall in front of him. "I'm sorry… so sorry! Forgive me!"
Enishi was punished for his failure: bound to the reed floor, blindfolded and beaten repeatedly by various gang members. And though Tomoe wept at his pain, secretly she smiled. Her brother had refused to kill for the first time. He might not be completely lost, after all.
Later, watching him ruthlessly slaughter an aging woman and her son but not the daughter, Tomoe realized what exactly prevented him from killing. Enishi couldn't bring himself to harm young women with black hair; in other words, he was incapable of killing anyone who resembled his sister right before she died. He had no morals, merely a series of conditions dictated by a corrupted psychosis revolving around her. This revelation doused the spirit with a fresh wave of guilt. She was the reason Enishi became such a brutal conflicted man. How had she managed to fail him in all the worst ways possible?
Years passed and Enishi excelled in the criminal underbelly. He worked his way up, killing less as he gained underlings to do his dirty work instead. Eventually, he reached the top. Tomoe no longer watched him commit violent acts, but now her heart sank every time she heard him order others to do those acts. What was the point of staying with him? Her presence stirred nothing in him; Enishi spoke exclusively to the vision in his head and observing him simply caused her heartache. Her faith had long since dried up, yet, she couldn't bring herself to abandon him. She followed the newly anointed mafia boss listlessly from one shady meeting to the next, finally shadowing him onto ship bound for Japan. The spirit felt no joy over their return. Why would this journey be any different than the last?
Then, she saw Kenshin on the bridge. He looked older, wiser, worryingly occupied, but, most importantly, content. Tomoe smiled again for the first time in ages and he looked back, a veil seeming to lift briefly from his violet eyes. He called her name.
"What's wrong Battousai? Did you see my sister's ghost?"
The full weight of Enishi's plan, his wide-sweeping revenge, settled on her as he declared his intentions to rip apart Kenshin's world. No, no, no! She didn't want this at all!
"Tell him, Kenshin! Please! He has to see… I never wanted this life for him!"
But the veil had dropped once more. Her husband pleaded with Enishi to focus his revenge, to leave the innocent out of his rampage, and Tomoe shook all the while: wanting none of it.
The next few days were a nightmarish mirror of those Shanghai nights. She was invisible, a passive observer as Enishi prepared for his most heinous act to come. He fought, destroyed, and kidnapped a vivacious young woman- leaving behind a grotesque corpse copy to utterly break her husband.
"No! Enishi, stop!" Tomoe whirled around the porch of his opulent island hideaway. The young man was lounging on cushioned chair, recovering, blithely unaware of the frustrated entity circling him in a frenzy. "I can't watch this anymore! You have to stop this, Enishi. Please? Can you listen to me just this once? Just… STOP!"
"Nee-san?"
Her energy spun out, leaving an indistinct stationary form. His eyes were focused on her for once, clear. Did she dare hope… ?
"You're not smiling for me anymore."
Their connection snapped, but the illusion had already been shattered.
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A/N: So… I really wanted to participate in RuroKen Week this year, but the first prompt (which started out as a short drabble in my head) ended up running on into this 2000+ word thing. The ending still feels a bit rushed to me, but I'm already two days late so I wanted to get this up ASAP. I might come back to it later and revise more. I hope you enjoyed it!