Just One Night Conversation
Carried by the Wind Tsukikage Ran Meets Rurouni Kenshin
Story: Hiko and Ran have a lot in common, at least with the sake, while he and her talk, Ran confides in a secret she has carried most of her life regarding something that happened years before. Something that Hiko decides to best not tell Kenshin until after the Shishio incident.
Disclaimer, I do won either Carried by the Wind Tsukikage Ran or Rurouni Kenshin, though I do have this in mind for awhile. Because of a comment I made a few years back while watching the series. I was always thinking it might be funny if Ran and Hiko had a kid.
It was a nice night, at least for the most night, Kenshin was practicing, for the most of the time, Hiko had remained silent thinking. He looked over at the path toward his hut, he saw a woman walking up, he knew this woman, her white gi and black hakama was something interesting.
Hiko walked to meet the woman, she sat down in the hut with him, they exchanged sake and she was looking out. "A student?" she whispered. "You surprise me, Hiko."
"And you surprise me, Ran, you wander around too much," he put the sake bottle down.
"Its been seven years, you know," she took a sip and smiled a little. "I remember back when we were students together. It was just..."
"You're always talking like that," Hiko got up. "What is the other reason you are here? And where is that idiot that follows you?"
"Meow...? Hell if I know...ever since I gave up my baby, she's been disappearing a lot lately," Ran took a sip.
"You never could take responsibility, who did you give the baby too?" Hiko walked to the door, he shut it.
"Himura, he was a good guy to help me a few times," she smiled a little. "I was going to give my son his seventh birthday gift," her hands were on a small red top. "I got him a blue one for his sixth, so I was giving him a red one." She was smiling a little and looked rather surprised that Hiko was probing, he opened the curtain and pointed out. "Your little boy is out there."
"HUH?" Ran's eyes widened gazing out. She walked to the door and stared at the small red haired boy, she squinted a little. "That's my little Shinta?" She just about wanted to deck Hiko. "I never wanted him to be a swordsman!"
"And who may I ask is the father?" Hiko finally pushed her against the door so that her eyes were forced to look at him. "You screwed up with me seven years ago...that little boy is ours, right? Tell me, Ran?"
Ran's eyes were moving and she was trembling against the wall. "Okay, maybe we were stupid and Shinta was...born. I never thought you would want to be a father, Hiko. You were always so against the very idea."
For the most part, Hiko just could not think of one thing he wanted to do with Ran, he had felt angry that she had done this. She walked back to Kyoto in a few hours. Hiko put his hand on the small red top. He had no chance to tell Kenshin the truth, he had not the heart to tell him anything.
Kenshin is proud of his family, that his parents were two people who had taken responsibility differently. Hiko knew that he had to watch over Kenshin. What do I tell a child whose mother is a complete drunk?
Years had passed and seeing Kenshin now, Hiko stood very close to the edge of wanting to say, then he would wait. Let him live with the lie, but Hiko walked into his house, he had hoped never to think about it. I raise a boy, he goes to war, he comes back and I have nothing I can say to him, he thought to himself as Kenshin begged to be taught some final techniques.
I can tell him the truth, he thought and wondered why he did not even after the incident with Shishio. Now Hiko was standing staring at one grave that he knew very well, it was not the grave of Tomoe, the one that Kenshin bought with what little money he could afford. He walked up to this small almost tiny grave, smaller than Tomoe's. He set something down and looked down at it, he put the small red top down. "You know something Ran, you were stupid to think that your little boy would be better off with a farmer. Sometimes Ran, I think you intentionally make life difficult for yourself. I know you were fighting with along the side you felt you had to. That ass friend of yours came to see you I am guessing," Hiko turned his head to look at Kenshin.
"You came to see someone too?" he saw a small red top. "A son?"
"No, an idiot named Ran, she had a son she gave away, and I found him," he put his hands on the stone and sighed. "Ran was always so stubborn, worst mother I think, though her son turned just as stubborn and ten times more caring than her. She was always called Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran, carried by the wind and loved by the moon," Hiko sighed laughing a little. "I added the Tsukikage part when I was fifteen, she and I were always so haphazardly getting into trouble."
"That I find hard to believe," Kenshin smiled. "That son must have been..." That was when something clicked in him mind, he turned his head slowly. "Ka-san?"
"Yes, and she never once said anything about it to you, and I spent a long time hiding her from you. When she told me your surname, I knew the truth and I knew how stupid she had been." Hiko was staring at the grave and sighed. "The only person I knew who had hair as red as yours was her father." He walked away and gave a chuckle. "Kenshin the only reason I think I will have anything to do with you is because of that woman."
Kenshin for a moment blinked, he did not grasp the entire situation, and Hiko did not expect him. "A blue top and a red top, she really couldn't come up with a better gift for you." He sighed laughing a little.
"Who was the father?" Kenshin probed, his eyes down.
"A man who should have saved her from her drunken ways, who threw it all away for a thoughtless life of making pottery," Hiko's response was the same. "A person who should have realized she needed help and ignored her friend, Meow. I never knew what happened to Meow, she must have returned to China."
Kenshin stood staring at the grave, he blinked staring hard at the small wooden top that looked almost new. "You brought this down recently?" He went to pick it up and blinked, he wondered why he felt so uncertain of what she had looked like, a vague memory of a woman with black hair and dark eyes smiling at him as she walked toward Kyoto.
She had left saying, "You better look after Hiko, Kenshin..." She said something more and then looked sadly at him. "I haven't seen you hic...since you were a baby, hic." At that time, Kenshin and no idea what she meant.
"During the Bakumatsu, she helped in the shadows, I knew what she was doing, I didn't agree with it, that's why I forbid you to go in the first place," Hiko walked on, he turned around and looked at Kenshin with a dark gaze. "She risked some much just for a son who followed her."
"When did she die?"
"No idea, all I know is that Ran only walked into to trouble, same as you. She came in and out of people's lives like the wind. Then during the Bakumatsu, I suppose she got in with the wrong group," he gave a sigh. "Ran was one of those people who couldn't stop helping, and it hurt her more, then again, give her some good sake."
Quietly they walked back to the Aoiya. "Ka-san must have..."
"Ran was a selfish person, Kenshin, just so you know this now, her abandoning you was not because she loved you or anything of the sort, she couldn't stand being a mother," Hiko growled almost angry about it. "She never told me anything, not a damn word that I was the father of that little boy. I had to find out from her getting so drunk and telling me." He walked ahead and turned his head. "If you have so much remorse for that woman, just realize one thing...coming from how I knew her and how you met her, Ran is still the only love I ever had."
Kenshin wondered how this happened so long ago.
They stopped half way to the Aoiya, Hiko turned his head and looked at Kenshin. "The more I look at you, the more I see that silly old man she called a father. If you come to call me To-san, I'm hitting you in the head."
"Oro...point well taken, you weren't much of a father anyway," Kenshin shrugged walking off.