Chapter 1 " Prologue "
Written by Raymonde , texgal & faeroen
May 1855, 2nd year of Ansei Era.
The air is warm; the moon is full.
A large man, wrapped regally in a billowing white cape that flashes in the moonlight, strolls casually through the darkened forest of his mountain, sake jug swinging from his hand and mind far away. He is not concerned for his safety, as one might expect from a man walking alone at night. The katana at his hip is all the assurance he needs that whatever troubles he might meet along his meandering path with be swiftly and easily dealt with. The thoughts in his mind trouble him far more than any threat of a would-be assassin.
_"Such afflicted times, that weigh heavy on the minds and souls of men."
Elsewhere in the dense woods, a caravan move more cautiously through the night. The caravan masters are alert, eyes and ears straining for the slightest hint of sound or movement to signal an attack upon their party. The slaves the masters are transporting are valuable assets, as are the bolts of cloth and fine dishes imported from the continent. This is a dangerous road to be taking; bandits and thieves thrive along its length, preying on caravans just such as this one. Therefore the masters are alert, their hired guards ever vigilant.
The slaves themselves are subdued, resigned to their fates as property to another. They walk close together, bunched amongst themselves as though for protection. Three young women walk side-by-side, their hands clutching each other tightly in the only visible show of unease. Slightly behind them follows a young boy, looks like being around six years old or less. His strange colouring sets him apart; his brilliant red hair flashes in the moonlight where it hangs in a loose tail, his lavender eyes straying from the road before him to the faces of the three girls. One of them looks back at him; a slight smile adorns her thin face for a short moment. Eager to return that pretty smile to the girl's visage, the little boy smiles back; gladdened in his heart when her lips tilt upwards, feeling just the slightest bit less alone with someone nearby that will share a smile with him.
Some distance from them all, high atop the mountain, there stands the figure of a girl child. She stands hidden from the creatures of the forest, her thin back pressed against the solid bark of an ancient tree of massive proportions; it's roots seem to rise up out of the ground around her, as though offering her shelter from the world She views the world with the tainted regard of an adult far older than her meagre years; innocence long since stripped from her fragile young soul; The child slowly raises her head, shaking her hair from her face so that her piercing blue eyes are free to direct their solemn gaze upon the moon and wondering what's happens elsewhere if they living the same thing than her and what's future will bring to her in this life.
Below in the forest, the large man with the cape gathered the heavy fabric around him as he walks, his thoughts bearing down on him with an innate sense of foreboding.
_"The world is headed for destruction day by day". Even if a man of incredible strength were to arise, he would not be able to stop it. It is inevitable."
Even as the large man's thoughts echo loudly in his soul, screams shatter the stillness of the night.
The caravan is in chaos; as was feared, bandits have fallen upon the travellers, looking for an easy payday. The smell of blood grows heavy in the air; bodies drop left and right, men die at the feet of monsters as women are gutted and tossed aside. The screams diminish as death descends upon the caravan, until at last all but four are forever silenced.
The small boy stands before the women; his little feet are braced apart, a katana clutched within his shaking hands. Raucous laughter rings in his ears as the murderous bandits behold their latest opponent. The boy is scared; he does not want to die here, in this dark and empty forest at the hands of this awful men. He wants to throw down his weapon and run and run and run, run until his little legs gave out beneath him; but if he ran then the bandits would butcher these women, would kill the woman with the pretty smile. He cannot let that happen. Stepping forward, the boy raises the heavy katana to swing it at the bandits – only to be yanked backwards, the katana falling out of his grasp, the woman with the pretty smile clutching him tightly to her as she shields him with her own body.
He does not understand what is happening. He can hear the bandits laughing; he hears the pleads of one of the women before she screams in death
_"Spare this child! Spare this "; He can see over the arm in front of his face as a second woman is cut down, her body toppling like a toy puppet whose strings have been cut.
He tries to stand, opens his mouth to tell the woman with the pretty smile – Kasumi, she has told him before that her name is Kasumi – to move, but it is too late; a flash of moonlight-on-steel and Kasumi screams, her weight shifting to press the boy's back into the ground beneath her body. Her tears fall upon his face as her words whisper in her ears.
_"Shinta" …. She sounds like his mother, like his mother as she breathes his name into his cheek. Like his mother before sickness took her from him.
_"Shinta, you are only a child. You haven't chosen your life, as the three of us were able to do. You cannot die now! You must live! Live a full life, live for the sake of those who have died here tonight –".
A man with a bared katana is suddenly standing above them. Shinta tries to hold onto Kasumi, wraps his little hands in her pretty kimono and tugs, but the man easily jerks her away and pulls her upright, his own larger hand wrapped in her shiny black hair. The man laughs, Kasumi cries out
_"Live, Shinta!" .And then the katana has sliced through her slim neck, and she is lying on the ground beside the boy, and her eyes are empty like his mother's after the fever came.
Shinta stares at the husk of Kasumi, not paying attention to the jeers of the bandits, not attempting to run or scream or defend himself. He was supposed to protect her, he thinks as his eyes flitter from Kasumi to the bodies of the other two women, both just as dead and empty as Kasumi. He was supposed to protect them all. He has failed.
He has failed.
The large man with the cape drops his jar of sake and smoothly removes his katana from its sheath. In front of him, the bandits hear the ring of the released steel and turn on him snarls on all of their faces. In the moonlight and the smell of blood that lies heavy in his nostrils, the bandits remind the swordsman of nothing more than rabid dogs.
He flicks his wrist as a man foolishly launches at him; the man is in pieces on the ground the next second.
_"W – What the hell are you?" A voice screams.
Hiko snorts, flicking his blade for rid it of blood.
_"You are about to die; knowing my name is useless to you."
More of the bandits charge at the white-caped figure and in minutes the master
Swordsman has sent every last one of them into the next life. It is not until he is wiping his blade clean of their blood that he realizes that he is not the only living thing in this small clearing. He steps slightly closer to the kneeling figure, carefully not to tread upon the bodies.
Shinta vaguely registers the stranger approaching him. His mind and body have locked down; he cannot move or think. All he can do is staring at the bodies of the women around him and remember the beauty of Kasumi's smile.
_"I suppose it was fate that led me in this direction tonight," .The stranger says
And Shinta twitches slightly; vaguely surprised that this large man is speaking to him at all. His voice is gruff, and harsh, and washes over Shinta like rain over a parched field.
_"You have been avenged now. Bearing a grudge against dead men will not bring your loved ones back to you. Go about your life, and revel in the fact that you survived. There is a village at the edge of this forest; you will reach it by morning if you follow this road. Go there; I'm sure they can find a place for one little boy."
With nothing more to say, the stranger turns to leave. He has taken a scant dozen steps before he finds himself glancing over his shoulder at the still figure of the boy. Something close to pity moves inside his soul, and the stranger with the cape turns resolutely away and continues on his path, stopping only to retrieve his sake jug. The boy can either take his advice or stay here and waste away. It is not the stranger's place to force him to do anything.
_'It no longer surprises me; the smell of blood is as common as the smell of white plums. Mankind lives in the hell of being slaughtered by bandits. He lives in the Hell of being sold into slavery. Such is the world in which we live, where such atrocities occur every day.'
He pauses, stops moving to gaze upwards at the beauty of the full moon. With a sigh he is moving again, his head hanging in an uncharacteristic display of sadness.
_'Such is our past, present, and future.'
The sun is rising.
The large man walks once more through the forest, a jug of sake dangling from one hand and his katana waiting at his waist. He walks with purpose, his feet seeking a certain destination rather than strolling along at their leisure.
Three days ago he saved a boy from death. Three days ago he told that boy to go to a certain village and live out his life as he chose. Just two hours ago he scoured the entirety of that same village, inquiring after the boy, only to be told time and again that he had not been seen.
'So the boy died after all, wasted away from grief. I cannot do anything to ease his spirit; I am no priest. All I can do is bury the bodies, and hope that all of them find peace in the next life.'
He is fully prepared for the stench of death and the grisly sight of mutilated corpses that should be seen when he finds the place on the road where the caravan had been attacked.
He is not prepared for the sight of a burial ground.
The boy stands some distance in front of him. Around him, behind him, stretching across the small clearing next to the road, crosses like those used to mark Christian grave stand before mounds of freshly turned earth. The boy's clothing is filthy, his hands bloody from the labour. He does not turn as the stranger nears him, and the man stands beside him for a full minute without saying a word.
When he does speak, his voice is carefully controlled, letting none of his shock be heard.
_"I noticed you've made graves for the bandits as well as your family."
Shinta stares down at the markers he has chosen for the graves of the three women even as he answers the man beside him.
_"Those people were slave traders, not my family." His voice is raw, as raw as his bloody hands. As raw as his damaged soul.
_ "I was sold to them after my parents died of cholera. Everyone always dies in the end…and after they died, there were no more bandits, or slave traders, or slaves. There were just dead bodies that needed to be buried."
_"Hmm." Curiosity seeps into the man's voice then, and he moves slightly closer.
_ "What are the stones for?"
Shinta's throat tightens uncomfortably. He has to force himself to answer.
_"Kasumi-san, Akane-san, and Sakura-san," He murmurs, pointing to each stone in turn. Their names weigh heavy on his tongue.
_"I only met them yesterday, but I wanted to protect them. I was the only boy in the group. But…they tried to protect me. They died to protect me, because I was too young and weak to help them."
He swallows, takes a deep breath to push the emotions back. His father would be shamed if Shinta were to shed tears in front of this stranger.
_"I wanted them to have special graves. I wanted their markers to be beautiful; but all I found were these three stones. I don't even have any flowers to put on them."
They stand together a moment longer, the master swordsman and the red-haired little boy, staring at the stones that mark the graves of three brave women. At last, the stranger step forward and uncorks his sake jug, which he then upends over the stones.
_"It is a shame to past into the next life without having first tasted good sake," He says to the boy, who is watching him with wide eyes that speak of his surprise.
_"This, then, will be my gift to them, to honour their courage."
_"Thank you."
The stranger straightens his shoulders, coming to a decision as he re-corks his now empty jug.
_"I am Seijuro Hiko XIII. I am an intermittent swordsman."
The boy blinks up at him, shocked by his words.
_"A swordsman?
Hiko looks at this child, who has buried so many people with those small hands, who failed to defend the women Hiko has just honoured with those same hands.
_"Boy," He says, and the boy flinches slightly at his tone but does not back away,
_"You failed to protect something very delicate. You were entrusted with these three lives –" – and he gestures to the stones before him with one hand;
_"And your tiny hands will remember how heavy their bodies were for a long time to come. But you will carry within your heart the far heavier weight of their lives forever more. You have already carried their corpses; now you must acquire the strength to support yourself and protect the lives of others. Only then will you be able to live your life and defend cherished lives."
_"Defend cherished lives?" The boy repeats in a small voice. No doubt due to his miniscule age, the boy does not seem to understand the meaning of these words.
Hiko brushes that aside; there will be plenty of time for the boy to grow and learn. For now, there is something Hiko would like to know.
_"What is your name, boy?"
_"Shinta," Is the given reply, the boy once more gazing down at the three rocks that were all he could give to the women who saved his life.
Hiko snorts softly, shaking his head.
_"That is much too delicate a name for a swordsman."
The child looks up, curiosity shining from the strange lavender eyes. Hiko allows the briefest of smirks to grace his lips.
_"From now on," He declares, resting a large hand on the child's bright red hair,
"Your name will be Kenshin."
_"Kenshin," The boy repeats, rolling the name about in his mouth, getting acquainted with the sound and feel of the word.
_"Kenshin"
The hand is removed from the boy's person, and Seijuro Hiko begins to move away, out of the makeshift graveyard and towards the direction of his home.
_"I am going to teach you, boy; imparting my knowledge of the sword to you. You will be my apprentice."
He does not look back to see if the boy will follow. Shinta – or Kenshin – will have to make that decision for himself. Hiko can only lead, offering the boy a new purpose in life, a new goal. Whether his offer is accepted or not is up to the boy.
Scant moments later, Hiko's keen ears detect the sound of soft footsteps behind him; another smirk flits across the man's face. The boy is awfully small to be learning a sword style like the Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu, but he has a maturity of spirit and a strength in his heart that will give him power where his physical strength fails him. The thirteenth master of the Hiten Mitsurugi nods to himself, satisfied that he has chosen well.
The two will continue to live and train together in the coming years. A routine will develop; the two will become content with their lives.
And then upheaval will strike, bringing change along with it.
To be continued ...
NOTES AN AUTHOR
That's my first fanfic for me ,and an other for my co-workers then be understanding , please , we have nearly made the first chapter, like in the O.V.A " Tsuioku Hen " to show the Shinta's childhood, but it not the O.V.A of all, and in the later chapters , you'll see it will be very different. that's a story is happening while the bloodiest war in the History of about the characters are not the same except for Kenshin & Hiko , the rest of crew are based by the historical characters in this war of the revolution.
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