Souls

By Mizuki

Battousai


Upon entering the reading room, Monica immediately made a bee-line for the row of computers at the other side of the vast space. There weren't many people around – it was an early Saturday morning, after all – so she had no trouble finding a place where she would not be disturbed while she searched for her answer. There was something she had to know, and even though a public library was not the best place to procure this type of information, it was still better than her husband's laptop.

She didn't believe in reincarnation – how could she? – but there was something not quite right, something that kept bugging her, bringing up forgotten trivial memories, and she knew she would go crazy if she didn't at least check it out, find out for sure that it was unimportant, that it couldn't be in any way connected…

So she'd left the house immediately after breakfast, fleeing the heavy, awkward atmosphere at the family table, intending to make a quick stop at the library on her way to Dr Zimmermann. She just had to disprove this stupid theory before speaking to him about her son's delusions, because… Because what if…?

Settling herself in front of the screen, she launched the search engine and typed the word that hadn't stopped bothering her since yesterday.

Bahtosai.

For a single instant she held her breath, but then frowned.

Your search – Bahtosai – did not match any documents.

She exhaled, half in relief, half in disappointment. Of course, it had been stupid of her to think that it had any meaning, she must have been mistaken, it had been so many years ago, after all… It must have been some other name, some other famous assassin from a Japanese revolution… or perhaps it had been a different revolution altogether…

"Excuse me," a soft voice spoke from behind her and Monica flinched in surprise.

A woman stood next to her chair, a book cart at her hip. She was tall and willowy, her face beautiful and ageless in that effortless way that spoke of an Asian ancestry. Only the specks of grey in her jet-black silky hair revealed her to be over forty.

"Yes? What is it?" Monica asked, confused.

"Excuse me for prying," said the woman in a polite, quiet tone, "but I couldn't help but notice that you might have made a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"Yes. Were you looking for a famed Japanese swordsman?"

Monica blinked in shock. "Why, yes… Yes… You see, a friend of mine… back from college… Well, he was obsessed with kendo, and well, I've recently remembered something he'd said… And, well…"

She didn't know why she felt the need to explain herself, but there was something about this woman that made her feel uneasy.

"I see…" she said slowly, her face unchanging, fathomless black eyes blank. She took out a small notebook and a pencil from her skirt pocket and after a moment handed her a piece of paper. "Then I believe this is what you are looking for."

Monica looked at the scrap of paper in bewilderment. In a neat, elegant hand, the woman had simply written: Battousai.

"Oh. Well, thank you…" She smiled gratefully, and turned to type the correct name into the engine.

Once again she held her breath, and this time for good reason. Several sites popped out, one after another, but what caught her attention were the three example images at the top of the page.

The first one was a blur of red and gold, a comic rendering of an unnaturally beautiful, demon-like person, with flaming red hair and flashing golden eyes, a cross-shaped mark on their left cheek, a deadly, glinting sword at the ready. The second was more subdued in color, but much more horrifying in imagery: it was a traditional Japanese painting of a lonesome swordsman, half-hidden in the shadows, a man with the same long, blood-red hair and yellow eyes, his face grotesque, disfigured by an angry black scar and a spine-chilling scowl. The third was an old, black and white photograph, the scan so small that you couldn't see the details on the thumbnail.

Thoroughly disturbed, and quite a bit afraid, Monica forced her eyes away from the first two images, and clicked on the third.

She heard a gasp from behind her – it was the woman, she hadn't realized she was still there – but she quickly looked back at the image, her heart in her throat.

Four people were posing for the photo: a tall, tense young man in white clothing on the left; a young, smiling woman in a kimono, sitting elegantly on a chair in the centre; a spiky-haired boy with a practice sword swung over his shoulders on the right; and a small man in the back, his left hand perched confidently on the hilt of his sword, while the right rested on the back of the woman's chair. It would have been a completely innocent and irrelevant picture were it not for the fact that the last man's hair was considerably lighter than the other three's, and his left cheek was marred by a cross-shaped scar.

And if the other people in it hadn't been so familiar.

The caption under the picture read simply: Yokohama, Meiji 11, photo custody of the private archives of the Myojin family; the long-haired swordsman is by some historians considered to be the rumored Hitokiri Battousai.

Monica felt her energy drain from her body as she stared at the screen in horror.

So oblivious was she that she didn't notice the woman push away her book cart, her black eyes focused inwards, lips half-smiling.


A/N: Well, this should answer some of your questions regarding other reincarnated people. :P Hope you liked it :)

Of course, as many of you might have already realized, the photo appearing in this chapter is the one from Episode 22 from the anime. I'm not a fan of the anime, and base my story mostly on the manga, but I decided to include the idea of a group photo, because it was actually the only good part of an otherwise completely ridiculous and badly-drawn filler episode xD And besides, it works quite well into my plans :P

You can expect the next chappie on Friday :)

Great thanks to my reviewers: broomclosetkink, Beth, brit02, Juliez18, SoraNoMiko, caithzadz, SRAS9, miniwoo, skenshingumi, AndreiAstaroth and Inner Poise is great :D I'm very happy to see such a great amount of wonderful feedback for this little silly project :D