Author's Note: Ugh, this chapter would not come out right. I still don't like it, but it's been months. Sorry about that, by the way. I had a lot of Important Things to do for grad school. Anyway, I wrote and rewrote this stupid thing over and over, but now it's time to just freaking bite the bullet and post it. Or else it'll never be finished.
For King and Country
The Power was not only an ability to perform Greater Magicks. It was also the knowledge of what those Greater Magicks were, and how to perform them. It told Kenshin how he could remove the mantel of Apprenticeship from himself, but it also told him that no one had ever made the attempt.
It surprised Kenshin. Surely there had been Wizards like him, people who did not feel they were suited to the Power. People who feared they were becoming corrupted by the power the position granted them, people who felt their strengths lay on different paths…
He knew it was dangerous; the Power told him that, too. But his choice was made. He could see what destruction and pain this war was wreaking. He could not sit on his mountaintop and do nothing, not when he had the ability to make a difference.
Magic had done nothing to help the people he had seen ill, seen dying. It would not help the people who were suffering now. But if, with his sword, he could save even one person the least suffering, he would do so gladly.
Chapter Fourteen
Kenshin reached out and touched the back of Kaoru's hand where it rested beside her on the futon. She did not stir, and her hand was chilled, but he could see the slight movements of breath and pulse in her body. It was reassuring. He didn't want her to die.
It went beyond simple duty. He could admit that much to himself. He no longer cared only for her fate as a matter of life-debt. She was important. Her philosophy was important. Kenshin couldn't bear to see her gone from this world; she was everything he had fought for. A pure sword… A strength that didn't take, but gave.
He closed his eyes and took a breath to calm himself.
The paper door behind him slid open with a soft shush of sound. Kenshin knew who it was even before the old man spoke.
"Your pardon, Himura-san," the doctor said, setting down a tray bearing rolls of bandages and a bowl of water. There were herbs floating in it, perfuming the air with a cool medicinal scent. Doctor Gensai set it beside Kaoru's insensate form and set about checking up on his patient. Kenshin waited several moments before asking him:
"How is she?"
"Alive," Gensai sighed. "Her pulse is steady, if a touch slow, and her wounds are healing well. I would have expected her to wake, but…"
"I…see…" Kenshin lowered his gaze to her face. Gensai took that as an opportunity to turn back to his work. He dipped a folded cloth into the herbed water and rung out the excess before laying the cloth over Kaoru's throat delicately. The skin there was bruised from Shishio's grip, and inflamed red as if sunburnt.
Kenshin felt the fragment of magic still in him stir—like a dragon coiled around his heart—in response to the emotions the sight invoked in him. He turned his face to the side, unable to watch as Gensai checked on her other wounds and re-bound them.
"Will you let me check your arm?" Gensai asked when he was done. The cut on Kenshin's arm was shallow and thin, but surrounded by burned flesh. It hurt, a buzzing of sensation at the edge of his attention. Wordlessly, he held out the limb.
Kaoru had to wake soon, or else he'd have to leave her in the hands of the Oniwabanshu. He had gleaned more from their visit to Shishio's lair than the Necromancer probably would have wanted him to know. He, and his army of dead things and corrupt humans, would move on the King soon. Kenshin had already sent word to the King through one of the Oniwaban, but he had other tasks that fell to him alone. He could not wait forever.
It helped to remember that he would be leaving Kaoru in trustworthy hands. He had been surprised, but pleased, to find that the girl who had confronted him in the forest was a member of the Oniwabanshu. The group had been all but destroyed in Kenshin's time, early victims in the same way the Messengers were here, now. They were the trusted Shadows of the King.
The group now was not bound to the King, though they sided with him. They were too few, still rebuilding from the bitter blow the Necromancer had dealt them centuries ago—finding far-flung clan members, rediscovering lost knowledge, re-forging their spells and weapons. They had not offered to the King, yet, though they planned to. He knew he could trust them, as he used to know all things, the spark of his magic resonating with the slivers of the binding Oath spell still clinging to these Oniwaban descendants. He could leave her here with no fear they would harm her… but with no guarantee that she would be herself when she woke, or that she would wake.
Gensai tended his arm and left while Kenshin's brow was still furrowed in thought. Sinking into a more comfortable place next to Kaoru, he reached out to brush his fingertips over her hand again.
She was strong; she would wake.
The memory seared its way into her thoughts, causing a tremor to course through her soul.
It had been a week, but Kaoru still couldn't get the smell out of her nostrils. It seemed to linger, and no amount of incense seemed to clear it from her nose or her memory.
She hid under the heavy blanket of her futon, curled into the tightest ball she could manage, and tried not to think. Her sister found her there; Kaoru heard the door slide open, then shut, and the sound of soft footsteps across the floor as her sister moved silently across the room. Tomoe knelt beside her and stroked her hair gently, but didn't speak. After a while, Kaoru crawled into her sister's lap, pressing her face against Tomoe's shoulder.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Tomoe asked quietly a moment later. Kaoru shook her head, but then said:
"It was terrible." Her voice was a croak. "The… the smell—"
Admitting it aloud was worse than simply remembering. Kaoru lurched out of her sister's arms, throwing open the door to the engawa and vomiting over the side into the grass of the garden below. Tomoe followed her, holding back Kaoru's hair and stroking her back as she heaved painfully.
"Oh, little sister," Tomoe said softly, sadly. "I wish…"
She sighed and did not voice her wish, smoothing a cool hand across Kaoru's forehead. Kaoru tucked herself, shivering, under Tomoe's arm.
"There's only three of us left," Kaoru said in a thread-thin voice. Tomoe tightened her embrace, but there were no reassurances she could make, because it was true. All the others had been killed.
Kaoru tumbled out of the memory and into another.
She dismounted the horse with easy grace, handing off the reins to a stablehand and striding quickly and firmly toward the King's private gardens. This time of day, she knew he would be there, and not in the audience hall. The guards stopped her as she stepped down onto the start of the smooth stone path of the pond garden, and she identified herself and gave up the sword at her hip into their keeping. Message satchel bumping at her hip, she continued on down the winding, peaceful path until she saw the upright, elegant figure of the King paused by a blooming azalea.
"Majesty," she said, stopping and going to one knee at the proper distance from him. He turned to face her.
"Messenger Kamiya," he greeted her solemnly. His face was drawn and pale; he hadn't be sleeping well, not since the first attack…
"A response from the lord of Echigo," she said, trying to banish the memory of Michiko's tears, Haru's empty room in the Messenger barracks… She offered the scroll up on both hands. He took it from her and broke the seal, unrolling it. It took a moment for him to read it, and Kaoru waited in case he wished to send a response immediately.
Akira lowered the scroll and gazed at the azalea with the carefully blank expression Kaoru had learned was a mask for his worry. But she was kneeling before him as his Messenger, not sitting beside him as a friend and almost-sibling.
"The lord reports drought and a blight," he said finally. "A wave of death is sweeping across his province from the north…"
Kaoru felt chilled; other northern lords were reporting much the same, with some of the farthest north also reporting sightings of strange creatures. She saw Akira's hand, half-hidden by his voluminous sleeve, clench, crumpling the missive.
"So…" he murmured, "we have a sorcerer."
Kenshin's voice drew Kaoru up as if from a great depth, though she still couldn't command her body to sit up, her eyes to open. She laid still and could only listen.
"—she, Healer?"
"We've managed to avoid infection," Gensai's cracked voice said, "which can be difficult when dealing with burns. But she should heal up just fine."
"Thank you, Healer Gensai," Kenshin said sincerely. The healer puttered around a little while longer before taking his leave. Kenshin stayed, though he did not speak at all and Kaoru could only tell he was still there by the slight sound of his breathing. After a moment of silence, he shifted, sleeve rustling, and touched two fingers to the pulse at her wrist.
Kaoru waited for him to say something or to leave, but he just sat there, her pulse throbbing slow and steady under his fingertips, and slowly Kaoru's awareness faded back into darkness.
Tomoe laughed a soft, lady-like laugh as Kaoru scrunched up her nose and tried to finish chewing the mouthful of rice she'd just taken. It was crunchy and burnt, her umpteenth attempt at cooking what should have been a simple dish.
"Don't worry, little sister," she said. "It takes practice to keep the fire at the right size and heat to properly cook rice. Next time you'll do much better."
"You said that last time!" Kaoru protested, pouting. Tomoe gathered her up in a gentle hug.
"And haven't you improved since then?" she asked. Kaoru grumbled, unappeased. Tomoe ran a hand over Kaoru's hair. "How about, next time, I watch over your shoulder and help a little?"
"But I need to know how to do it myself!" Kaoru said.
"And you will," Tomoe replied calmly. "But little sister, nobody knows how to do something without first learning how."
Kaoru blinked into the angry face of Enishi.
'You are wasting time,' he said. 'You should be trying to find Shishio's weakness, but you are just playing around in your memories!'
'Playing around?' echoed Kaoru blankly.
'Yes!' he said, face like a thunderstorm, 'None of these memories will help! You must go forward, not backward.'
'But I—' Kaoru started. Enishi thrust out a hand.
'Here!'
The laughter was perhaps the worst, drawing out her fear and speeding her heart. She urged her horse faster, though it was already galloping as fast as it could, its eyes rolling with its own fear. The dog-shaped creatures chasing them bayed.
"The weak die and the strong survive!" Shishio said mockingly, his voice carrying to them easily despite the sizeable distance between. "And the cowardly flee from their fate!"
As Kaoru glanced back, Tomoe rose in her stirrups, turning gracefully with bow in-hand. The white-fletched arrow flew true, and pierced Shishio's chest. A heart-shot, but he did not fall off the crooked back of his mount. Instead, he laughed, and pulled the arrow from his flesh.
"I am the strongest!" he called to them. "Even stronger than death!"
"Tomoe…" Kaoru said worriedly.
"Just run," Tomoe said grimly, bending forward over her horse's neck. They flew across the long grass, wind whistling in their ears as they rushed down a slope. Kaoru couldn't help but look back again over her shoulder, heart in her throat.
Shishio lifted Tomoe's arrow over his head, and it rose into the air over his palm. He caught Kaoru looking, and grinned, a mad flame blazing in his eyes. His hand swept down in a gesture like throwing, and suddenly there was a cloud of arrows raining down on them…
"TOMOE!"
"Wake up," Kenshin said, voice rough. Kaoru floated awake. "Wake up. Please…"
His hand was warm against her cheek, and she could feel the calluses arching across his palm. She fought to open her eyes, to even make her eyelashes flutter, anything because she could feel in his ki how badly he needed her to be alright.
Why was he so suddenly agonized over her situation? He had been calm, maybe quietly grim, the last time she had been awake… Had her condition worsened? Was she dying? She couldn't feel anything. Her wounds did not hurt, she didn't feel weak… She just felt disconnected, but that wasn't any different than before…
Kenshin cursed and she heard and felt the thump as he punched the floor in frustration. Fear and worry filtered weakly through her muffled spirit, and swept her away.
Darkness pressed in around her. Kaoru stumbled over the broken ground and the scattered remnants of the long-ago war, searching for a warrior's heart. She wasn't sure where to start; she had little experience with the Greater Magicks. But she did remember her father saying once that a warrior's soul was his sword…
Kaoru grimaced as she stepped over a moldering cuirass, foot knocking gently against the helmet lying beside it. Searching for his heart was almost ridiculously like searching for a needle in a haystack. She saw many swords, many weapons, but none of them seemed… right. His spirit was still keen, still solid. His sword would be the same. None of these rusted, broken blades were right. His sword would be graceful… deadly.
She detoured around a clump of shattered bones and decrepit armor, eyes narrowing. The weak moonlight glittered against metal here and there, gleamed dully on bits of still-smooth lacquer. Stepping over another skull, Kaoru shuddered hard without warning. She hunched her shoulders and glanced around, discomfited by the sudden chill. The spirit-swordsman had not returned, and the wind was not blowing…
"I guess someone walked over my grave," she murmured, rubbing her arms to try to smooth her goosebumps. The chill passed as she moved around the slope of the hill, eyes scanning the ground. She sighed, kicking the shaft of a broken polearm. At this rate, her grave would be this hill.
Lifting her gaze to scan the horizon, her breath caught as her eyes snagged on the perfect sword. "Oh," she breathed, and hustled toward it.
The katana lay on its own, bare, moonlight a graceful line down the blade, the delicate patterning of the steel barely visible. Kaoru's hand hovered over it, hesitant. When her first touch did not cause it to crumble to dust or explode into flames, or whatever she had feared it would do, Kaoru picked it up. The blade was loose in its hilt, but it felt balanced in her hand. A bit different from her personal and style preferences, but finely made all the same.
Kaoru wondered if it was exhaustion or the mood of the moment that made her think she could feel a warm pulse beating through the blade…
"Her hands are cold," said a young female voice over Kaoru's head. "Is that alright? Should we put more blankets on her?"
"Misao…" said the healer's raspy voice with a tone of wearied patience. The hands clasping Kaoru's fell away and she heard shuffling.
"But Gensai! She's like ice!"
"She's been chilled the whole time she has been here," Gensai said. "It is not a new symptom for—"
"Well, maybe, but it can't be healthy to be—"
"It's death," Kenshin quiet voice still managed to interrupt the strident tone of Misao's. "Death lingers close to her. Its chill is what you feel."
Kaoru gasped. Or, at least, her spirit did. Her body remained motionless. Kenshin's words set off a cascade in her mind, connections made, revelations dawning…
"The Necromancer's abilities always ran to breaking things."
"Shishio has separated their spirits from their bodies…"
Shishio's burning touch… "I am immortal! I am stronger than death!"
This chill…and…
"Time is short," Kenshin said presently. "Give me a moment."
"Very well," Gensai said, moving toward the door. Misao hesitated.
"Himura," she said. "I… we'll watch over her, I promise."
"Thank you," Kenshin said. There was a stilted silence, as it seemed Misao fought with herself, but she ultimately decided to leave it there, and exited the room without saying anything more.
The door slid shut and there was silence. Kaoru knew, though, that Kenshin was still there. She could just feel the warmth of him kneeling beside her, as he had before during her lucid periods. He spoke:
"I am leaving."
No! He couldn't! Not yet! Kaoru struggled to wake. 'Kenshin! No!'
"I will send Shishou back to you. He… should be able to help you." Send? Why not bring? What was he going to do? "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. Everything… This is all my fault. I'll fix it. I promise."
'Damn it, Kenshin!' Kaoru shouted, 'Don't you dare! Kenshin! I KNOW HOW TO STOP HIM!'
His hand cupped her cheek. "Thank you for everything."
His touch moved to her hair, and Kaoru felt a slight tug as he cut a lock of it off.
"Good-bye," Kenshin whispered, his breath warm against her face, and then he pressed his lips to her forehead in a chaste kiss.
It was light, quick, but the effect was thunderous. Kaoru felt the sensation of the kiss ripple through her, the warmth of his touch lingering.
He'd kissed her body and spirit both, and the contact anchored her, brought her fully into herself. The silk wrapping her, muffling her, disappeared. She felt her heart throbbing in her chest, felt the blanket press against her as a soft, warm weight, smelled some kind of spicy food cooking elsewhere in the building.
She didn't waste time marveling over it. She hurled herself to wakefulness… but nothing happened. She could feel every itch, every tingle on her skin, but still she couldn't even flutter an eyelash. 'No!'
Death didn't grip her close any more, but she was still a prisoner in her own body. 'Please, please! Come on, just get up! Get up!'
If she didn't wake up, Kenshin would leave and face Shishio once more, alone. And since he didn't know how to defeat the Necromancer, he would die.
Warmth was spreading through Kaoru's body, thawing her, radiating out from the spot on her forehead Kenshin's lips had touched. Life… And as long as she was alive, she couldn't give up. 'Move. Move. Please, move! Please… Kenshin will die…'
She didn't know how long she lay there, willing her body to move, begging and pleading that it would do so soon, begging and pleading that Kenshin would be alive for her to save once it did. Sweat gathered at her hairline, as if the strain were physical as well as mental.
…A tremor ran through her body. Her fingers curled, her lips parting in an exhale.
Kaoru opened her eyes and lurched upright. Her head spun and her vision whited out, but she ignored it and staggered upright. She nearly tripped over the hem of the yukata someone had changed her into, which was slightly too big for her, but recovered and hiked it up. Holding the hem up, and clutching the collar closed with the other hand, Kaoru stumbled out the door into the small hallway outside her room. She nearly ran right into the elderly man who was walking the other way.
"Ah!" he said, a smile creasing his face, "My patient awakes! How are you feeling?"
His voice was easily recognizable as that of the healer—Gensai?—who had been caring for her. She released the hem of her yukata and grabbed his shoulder. "Where's Kenshin?" she asked. "Please, has he left yet?"
"What? Well, yes, two days ago—" Kaoru made a distressed sound and released him, staggering down the hall a bit further. Gensai called after her: "My dear, wait!"
"Hey, Gensai, what—Oh!" A petite girl dressed in blue stopped at the end of the hall, looking surprised to come face-to-face with Kaoru. Kaoru recognized her voice as the one who had led Kenshin to this place—Misao. She locked eyes with the younger woman.
"Please, you have to help me!"