GLOSSARY-SAMA
Kamuro girl : child assistants of oiran, between 5-11 years old
Daimyo : feudal lords
Bakufu : Tokugawa government
Seiza : the traditional, formal way of sitting on the knees
Bozu : term of endearment for little boys
Engawa : Japanese-style front porch, often wraps around a building
Hakubaikou : white plum perfume
Meiji 2
(March 1869)
Without his wife and son to accompany him, Kenshin made the walk back to Tokyo in less than half the time.
He avoided the travelers' inns situated along the waystations, and for the most part, avoided the other travelers. Or perhaps, judging by the wide berth they seemingly gave him, they were avoiding him.
No matter.
When he reached Tokyo, he stopped at the nearest bathhouse, thoroughly scrubbed himself down and had a long soak in the communal tub. He changed into a fresh pair of clothes out of his traveling pack, then handed over his travel-stained garments to a local laundrywoman. After a moment, he handed over the entire pack.
It was daylight, after all.
He had plenty of time until evening, and that time was best spent unencumbered. The government-occupied samurai district of Kudankita would very likely not look kindly on someone who appeared out of place. The risk of assassination in such areas was always high, and with so many disgruntled samurai so close by, they were likely to be on high alert.
Not that such a thing had ever stopped him.
Roughly he pushed that thought far out of his mind and back into the war where such things belonged.
He didn't need to spend the day wandering around Kudankita and asking after Saigo Takamori. It was amazing what one could learn with a little patience and open ears at the most popular teahouse in the district.
That Saigo was a twice-married louche who favored oiran and pleasure girls alike in Yoshiwara was no particular surprise. That he would be in Yoshiwara that evening, patronizing an oiran called Michinoku, was an almost pleasant bit of news.
A kamuro girl running errands on the streets of Yoshiwara was only too pleased to tell him that Michinoku-dono would be visiting the Yoake Teahouse that evening. A second coin later, and she tugged him by the sleeve over to another kamuro girl, who was very happy to tell him that Saigo-sama was known to favor certain pubs before visiting Michinoku-dono, and wouldn't Oniisan buy her a tasty daifuku to help her remember the names of those pubs?
A couple of coins and a sweet bean pastry was really all it took.
Night fell over Yoshiwara the same way it always had in Kyoto. The teahouses and restaurants and brothels hung their brightest lanterns, but the tightly packed, wooden buildings soaked up the darkness, and the alleys were often only weakly lit with one or two lanterns, if any.
He found Saigo at the first pub the kamuro girl had named, and he settled into a nearby alley to wait.
The hour of the Dog had given way to the Pig when Saigo and his compatriots (bodyguards, perhaps?) emerged, already half-drunk on sake, voices raucous with laughter and bawdy jokes. One of them suggested taking a nearby shortcut through a neighboring alley.
Kenshin followed.
"After all, Saigo-sama," one of them bellowed, "you wouldn't want to keep a peach like Michinoku waiting."
"Peaches aren't ripe for very long," Saigo mused. "I need to drink her up before she withers."
"And then on to the next one," another man added. "If she agrees to see you, that is."
The men laughed uproariously.
Enough.
Kenshin stepped into the weak light cast by a lone hanging lantern. "Saigo Takamori?"
The men's earlier mirth melted away like fog in the sun. Several of them reeled backwards in drunken shock. But the heavyset man in the center, the one with thick black eyebrows overhanging large and sake-dulled eyes, turned instantly the color of cold porridge.
"Hitokiri!" he moaned, a satisfying note of terror in his voice, and fumbled with the hilt of his own sword.
So that one was definitely Saigo.
Images and feelings from those terrible early days of the war flashed through Kenshin's mind - of dark alleys just like this one in which other terrified men and their terrified bodyguards had met their gory end at his hands.
City alleyways, even in daylight, would always put him in mind of those dark times. And at night, when the shadows turned every corner and crevice into pitch blackness and the feeble lantern light could not hope to do more than meekly push the darkness to arm's length, Kenshin felt that those sickening days would never leave him.
But...
In those days, he would have struck first - used the confusion and surprise of his targets to his advantage and slain as many as he could before they could clear their swords from their sheaths. He would have been able to cut several down before any could even break out of their fear-induced paralysis to offer any resistance. Perhaps he might even have been able to cut them all down.
…he had taken a vow.
The bravest of the men swore loudly - probably to bolster his own courage - and charged at him recklessly, his sword drawn and held above his head in a two-handed grip.
Perfect.
Kenshin sidestepped the blow, seizing the man's wrist and using the momentum of his strike to hurl him somersaulting to the ground with a thud that knocked the wind from him and wrenched the sword from his grip.
The man groaned in pain before passing out.
Carelessly tossing the blade aside, where it fell to the cobblestones with a clatter, Kenshin turned the full force of his glare on the rest of the men. Two cowered back beside Saigo. The other drew his own sword and approached Kenshin warily.
Faster than the man could ready himself for a strike, Kenshin whipped his sword from its sheath in a blinding battoujutsu strike aimed with full force and perfect direction at the other man's sword. It struck the blade just above the tsuba with an almost musical note and knocked the sword out of the man's grip.
As the man stood wringing his empty hand, Kenshin brought the steel sheath up and around in the Soryusen, the same dual-stage battoujutsu maneuver he had used to shatter the skull of the Yaminobu leader, Tatsumi-
No!
Kenshin pulled the sheath back at the last moment, reining in the full force of the blow, and what would have been a killing stroke became a clubbing blow that sent the man sprawling to the ground - unconscious.
Not dead.
The other two men seemed to be urging Saigo to run, and Kenshin seized that opportunity to sprint forward at blinding speed. His feet hit the cobblestones, then the surface of the alleyway wall, and then he was running up the wall to a chorus of frightened shouts, springing off the wall and twisting in midair to land a blow to one man's unprotected back. And as the man crumpled, Kenshin sprang off his shoulders and came down with the Ryutsuisen, sending the last man to the ground with a definitive thud.
Saigo Takamori stood alone.
His sword was at the ready, and the expression on his face was one Kenshin had seen many times before - a man who knew he was about to die, but was determined to face it head on as best he could.
Well.
Effortlessly Kenshin swatted the man's sword aside with his sakabatou as one might swat at a troublesome fly. It clattered down the alley and was lost to the dark, and before Saigo could draw his wakizashi, Kenshin cut him off with a curt:
"Don't bother."
"Hitokiri Battousai! It really is you." The look on Saigo's stricken face mirrored the terror and confusion battling for dominance in his voice. "Have you turned against the Meiji government? Or did Katsura send you to kill me, that treacherous snake?"
Kenshin narrowed his eyes. "Have you fallen so far already that you're expecting hitokiri to be sent after you?"
"No." Saigo's eyes flickered from side to side, looking for an escape route. "But here you are."
"The Kami and Buddhas Separation Order," Kenshin said flatly. "Why?"
"Necessary," Saigo said, plainly confused but too terrified not to reply. "Unavoidable. The temples have been siphoning off money on behalf of the daimyo for generations. They were in the pockets of the Bakufu. All-"
Kenshin threw the man against the wall, pushed his blade up against his throat, and it would have been so easy-
"Those temples take in children," he said through gritted teeth. "They starved while the daimyo and the samurai filled their bowls with rice from their mouths."
"Perhaps one or two of them, but what about the ones with their gilded Buddhas and their altars made of jade and bronze?" Saigo's eyes were wide and the words seemed to tumble out of his mouth heedlessly. "The allies of the Shogun had to be purged, surely you of all people can see that?"
Too easy.
Saigo was only one man, after all, and-
No.
He slammed Saigo's head back against the wall. "And what happens to the monks then? Or the children, once the Order's been carried through to the end? Do they starve? Do they beg?" His grip tightened against the hilt of his sword, so hard that his fist trembled. "Or should they all be sold into slavery and forgotten about?"
Saigo's words came out as a choking gurgle. "What... do you… want from me?"
"Call it off." Kenshin ground the words out. "The Order. Revoke it."
Saigo's eyes widened in greater fear and his face turned almost gray.
"I gave the order a month ago," he whimpered. "Don't you understand?"
A cannon exploded inside Kenshin's head at that, and he felt his vision go nearly white-hot with rage. Before he knew what he was doing, he backhanded Saigo across the face with the hilt of his sword. The man fell to his knees, choking and gasping, and it would only take a moment, it would be effortless, he-
He forced himself to back up a step.
"Call it off anyway." His whole body trembled, and he clenched his free hand so tightly, his nails bit into the flesh of his palm. "Because if you don't-"
Blood dripping from his mouth and nose, wide-eyed with terror, Saigo nodded his head furiously.
"I made a vow to never take another life." Kenshin resheathed his sword, tsuba snapping loudly against the iron scabbard. "But it's still very new." He glared down into Saigo's bloodied, petrified face. "Don't force me to test it this early on."
Saigo's face, ashen already, took on the hue of a dead fish. A dark stain began to spread across the front of his hakama. He nodded again, his jowly face quivering.
"Go," Kenshin said flatly.
The word seemed to echo in the dark alley.
"You wouldn't want to keep Michinoku-dono waiting. After all, peaches aren't ripe for very long, are they?"
Saigo scrabbled to his hands and knees, somehow getting his feet under him, tripped over the body of one of his retainers, and fled headlong into the night. Crashing and stumbling noises echoed from his direction, growing quickly fainter until they disappeared altogether.
Before the rest of the men could regain consciousness, Kenshin disappeared in the other direction.
...
Kenshin wended through the side streets and alleys of Yoshiwara with hardly a conscious thought to where he was going or what he was supposed to do next.
Laughter and music and murmurs of conversation poured out from the tightly packed, wooden buildings lining the alleys. The occasional, lone lantern offered weak light to guide his way. He turned down a side street, then another, and then ended up on a main road.
Somehow - though he wasn't entirely surprised - he ended up in front of the Hanakotoba.
The Hanakotoba in the evening was a very different sort of place than its daytime counterpart. A blaze of lanterns swung from the entrance and from the balconies above. Warm light glowed through the expansive shoji, and the same hum of music and banter that had followed him through the alleys emanated now from the building. And, of course, there were men. In and out of the Hanakotoba and all over the street, laughing and carousing over cheerful female greetings and invitations and flirtations.
The street - and the Hanakotoba - pulsated with life, and he stood unmoored and uncertain.
"Himura-oniisan!" A kamuro girl, though not one of Yumi's, was in front of him suddenly, a wrapped package of what might have been onigiri in her hands. "Are you here to visit Hanahomura-dono?"
"I…" Kenshin blinked once, twice, and then focused on the girl. "I don't know."
The girl's expression turned sly. "Well, she's very busy right now with her very important patron, Murasaki-sama. He wants to hear her play all the instruments." She giggled behind her sleeve.
Kenshin didn't know what to say to any of that.
"Also," the girl continued, gesturing to him, "you have blood on your hakama. Why do you have blood on your hakama, Oniisan?" Before Kenshin could come up with an answer to that, the girl shook her head and grabbed his sleeve. "You can't go through the front door of the Hanakotoba looking like that. You'll scare people. Come with me, Oniisan."
With all the authority of an eight year old child, the girl dragged him down the street, across an alley, and through the back entrance of the Hanakotoba. She led him through a bustling kitchen and into what appeared to be a pantry of sorts.
"Now I have to bring these snacks to Tsubaki-dono, because her guest is very particular and just had to have onigiri with plums, instead of anything that we have in-house!" Again, she giggled behind her sleeve. "But you just stay right here, Oniisan, and someone will come for you."
She disappeared before Kenshin could ask who that someone was, but before he could grab his zori and disappear back into the street, the Hanakotoba's Okaasan appeared. She was resplendent in an expensive black and gray kimono and her coiffure was just as elaborately waxed as last time, though it was the amused expression on her face that really caught Kenshin's eye.
"And what have you been getting up to, Himura Battousai-san?" she asked, gesturing for someone to attend them. She did it without taking her eyes off of him, and Kenshin found a cup of hot tea being pressed into his hand by a maid.
Okaasan arched an eyebrow. "Has Ito Riichi been back?"
"Um. No."
Why Kenshin felt flummoxed in front of this woman, he couldn't say, but he felt compelled to explain himself all the same.
"No, it was Saigo Takamori this time."
Okaasan's eyebrows lifted into her hairline at this and the smile of amusement on her face grew - incredibly - wider.
"You do get around, don't you?"
With a shake of her head and a chuckle, she turned and walked away, gesturing for Kenshin to accompany her. They wound their way through narrow hallways, the muffled noise of a busy evening at a popular and grand house of entertainment drifting to his ears through the thin walls, and ended up in a tiny room with a high pile of neatly-folded futon in one corner.
"Now." Okaasan slid the fusuma shut behind her and sat comfortably on the floor in an elegant seiza posture. "I imagine there's something of an interesting story at work here, and since it will be some time before Hanahomura can get away from her patron to attend to you, you may as well tell it to me."
Kenshin sighed, settled himself on the floor with his sword at his side, and took a calming sip of tea. And then, much to his surprise, he told Okaasan everything.
Perhaps he just needed to get the words out to someone.
When he had finished, Okaasan was no longer smiling. Her eyes, though, held sympathy.
"You're a very noble man, Himura-san." She sighed. "For all the talk of high ideals and a better life for the common people, it's so rare to meet someone who actually lives by those words. In the old government or the new." A hint of that smile of amusement returned. "You're fortunate to be so infamous, you know. Otherwise, there'd likely be a notice out for your arrest by tomorrow morning."
Kenshin frowned into his tea and spoke the words without thinking. "I have no intention of letting myself be arrested by Saigo Takamori's agents or any other government official."
"Then it's just as well there isn't likely to be any attempt to arrest you." Her eyes suddenly hardened. "People need you, Himura-san. You'll forgive me for saying so, but you would be a great fool to put yourself in a position where you can no longer help them."
A faint smile ghosted across Kenshin's lips at that. He set the teacup down. "Is that your way of telling me not to go looking for any other men like Saigo?"
Okaasan waved that off. "He provoked that. Men who do things like that tend to wind up dying of their own stupidity." She shook her head. "No, I'm telling you to keep your handsome young nose out of the dust."
"My handsome young-"
She wagged a finger at him. "You'll be no good to anyone with the government chasing you down."
Abruptly she got to her feet and brushed down the front of her kimono. "Now, if you'll pardon me, I have an establishment to run for the evening." She gestured at the pile of futon. "You may sleep here; no one's going to need this room until well after sunrise. And I'll have Hanahomura come to see you in the morning if she can't manage to get away beforehand." Again that small smile. "Which seems fairly likely this evening."
Kenshin frowned.
Okaasan slid open the fusuma and nodded her head at Kenshin in a small bow. "Good night, Himura-san. Rest well."
The door slid closed behind her, leaving Kenshin with only a softly-lit andon lantern and his own confused thoughts for company.
For a moment, he considered heading back toward the kitchen, grabbing his zori, and disappearing into the streets. It seemed presumptuous of him to stay the night, even with the invitation, and Yumi was otherwise occupied with her patron for the evening.
In the end though, rationality won out. It was a long walk back to Mount Atago, and the laundrywoman with whom Kenshin had left his clothing and his traveling pack wouldn't be available until morning anyway. And, if he were honest with himself, he was tired.
He settled back against the stack of futon, sword in hand, and drifted off against the gentle backdrop of laughter and music.
…
"Well, good morning to you," came a soft, almost musical voice with a lilt of laughter hiding behind it.
Kenshin opened his eyes to see Yumi kneeling on the floor, leaning forward slightly, a smile of profound amusement on her face and a very full breakfast tray beside her. She was wrapped in a purple yukata that seemed far too elegant for sleeping in and her hair was styled very carefully, indeed.
"Good morning, Yumi-dono." He pushed a hand through his hair. "I probably should have been up earlier."
He had no idea what time it might have been, but whatever time it was, he should have been up before that.
"And I should have been asleep by now," she smiled. "But here we both are."
She reached for the breakfast tray and began preparing tea while Kenshin rubbed his eyes and shook off the lingering soreness in his neck from the way his head had tilted to the side in his sleep. He supposed he ought to have used the futon, but...
"Okaasan tells me you had something of an eventful night." She set down the teapot and slid a steaming cup toward Kenshin. "Saigo Takamori must not have slept a wink either."
He set his sword down and accepted the cup with a nod of thanks, but couldn't help frown. "Word really gets around here."
Yumi laughed at that, a musical sound in the still air of the quiet morning. "Gossip is a more valuable currency than gold in Yoshiwara, Himura-san. If there's something worth knowing, you can rest assured that someone here knows it."
"Which means all of Yoshiwara is going to know it." Kenshin's frown deepened. He took a sip of the tea and searched for a subject change. "Your yukata," he finally said.
Yumi quirked an eyebrow.
"It's very nice," he finished awkwardly, and only didn't pinch the bridge of his nose because of the cup in his hands.
"You have such a way with words," she replied with another musical laugh that might have been termed a giggle coming from someone less elegant. "It was a gift. A very expensive gift from Murasaki-sama."
She pushed the breakfast tray toward him and gestured for him to dig in. He picked up the chopsticks and took a bite of salmon… only to realize how famished he was.
"It looks expensive," he agreed between mouthfuls. "But it also seems like something you'd be afraid to wrinkle in your sleep."
"Oh, it is." She picked up her own chopsticks and began to eat, though much more slowly and with infinitely more refinement. "My sleeping yukata are frightfully boring to look at." She sighed. "Most comfortable clothing is, unfortunately."
Kenshin picked up a bowl of natto soybeans and dug in.
She sipped her tea. "Still, it would have been very poor manners not to wear it for Murasaki-sama. And as for sleep, well, there wasn't much chance of that on a night when he came to visit me."
Kenshin nearly choked on his mouthful of natto soybeans.
"Really, Himura-san." Yumi smiled and nudged Kenshin's teacup towards him. "You do remember what I do for a living, don't you?"
There was an almost imperceptible hint of brittleness hiding behind the humor in her voice.
The natto soybeans were clearly not the safest food choice in that moment. Kenshin set them down and reached for the miso soup instead. He paused right before taking a sip and looked at Yumi over the rim of the bowl.
"If he's ever unkind to you," he said steadily, "tell me."
Yumi's smile did nothing to mask the glimmer of sadness that flashed in her eyes for a moment. But in the next moment, she shook her head dismissively and reached for her chopsticks.
"His kindness isn't of any real importance to me," she said in what was clearly intended to be an offhand and careless manner. "He's quite wealthy, and my debt to the Hanakotoba is quite sizable. And even if I weren't concerned with my own obligations, I have Kanomo-chan and Konomo-chan to consider."
Her eyes met his for a moment, and the movement of her hand suggested that if she had been a little bolder, she might have reached out to touch him. But instead, she picked up a sliver of salmon and gave him another smile.
"You have your own family to worry about, Himura-san," she said, and that curious brittle quality seemed to ghost at the edges of her voice again.
"Yes." Kenshin drained off the soup and plunked the empty bowl down. "And if my family were my only concern, I suppose I might have made life a lot easier for myself. And yet…"
He ate the dish of pickled vegetables and started on the rice.
"You can't solve every problem, Himura-san." Yumi's voice was gentle and sympathetic - almost pitying. An instant later, though, she had brightened. "And anyway, who's to say there ever will be a problem between me and Murasaki-sama? He's far too invested in me to be unkind."
Kenshin frowned into the rice.
Yumi's tone became almost exaggeratedly conspiratorial. "Did you know that he's begun telling any of his investors who will listen that he's involved with me? Apparently he wants it to be widely known that he's successful enough to afford my company, and his further success depends upon people knowing that he's fabulously wealthy."
Rice depleted, Kenshin returned to the traitorous natto soybeans, but he set the bowl aside after a few mouthfuls and looked at Yumi.
For a brief, yet startling second, he was tempted to tell her to run away to Mount Atago with him. To grab Kanomo and Konomo and whatever they could carry with them and simply run away. Tomoe would be delighted to see them, his shishou would adjust, and they'd figure out the rest as they went.
But…
Yumi was right.
He could solve many problems, even with the blunt edge of his new sword, but this…? This was far beyond anything that could be resolved in a dark alley at night or even atop a bonsho bell in midday. This was something far beyond his specific set of skills and training.
And, if he were honest with himself, Yumi hadn't even said she wanted or needed saving.
"There's a reason you're so popular, Yumi-dono," he said quietly. "Murasaki is lucky to be in your company at all."
"And Tomoe-san is lucky to be in yours." Yumi smiled, and again there was that hint of sadness in her eyes. "My popularity comes from my value as an entertainer. Yours runs far deeper than that."
As Kenshin opened his mouth to object, she held up a hand to stop him.
"I know you're going to say that your notoriety comes from the fact that you've killed people." Her mouth twisted wryly. "But you did it in the service of fighting a war. A war to build a country and a society in which people can become anything they want to be." A slight hitch came into her voice. "If I'd been born into this age instead of the one before it… If Kanomo-chan and Konomo-chan had been…."
She trailed off, her hand gesturing emptily, and stared into her teacup.
Kenshin bit back a sigh.
The new age that he had fought so hard for had arrived, but it was increasingly clear that it would take years for the common people to be able to fully enjoy it. The people that came after them would reap the benefits, true, but in the meantime...
"If any of us had been born into this age," he said after a moment, "then who knows what direction our lives might have gone in?"
He didn't think of Sakura-san, Akane-san, or Kasumi-san. Didn't think of his parents whose faces he could hardly remember in a village that had long been forgotten.
"But we also wouldn't be sitting here now, having breakfast together." He offered her a small smile. "And I'm glad I've gotten the chance to know you, Yumi-dono."
"Oneechan!"
Kanomo threw open the fusuma. She was dressed in a plain sleeping yukata and her hair was in one long braid.
"The room is clean and we've laid out all three futon," the girl explained. "And Konomo-chan lit the bath for Himura-oniisan, like you asked."
"The bath is ready, Oneechan!" Konomo appeared behind her counterpart, dressed and braided for bed as well, and she flashed a smile at Kenshin. "We're just about ready to go to sleep, Oniisan, and the maids are going to come in here to sleep too."
Kenshin smiled back at the girls and rose to his feet, tucking his sword into his belt as he did. "Then this is where I take my leave."
Yumi smiled at him again, and there could have been any number of meanings hidden in it. Like Yukishiro-san, Yumi could make herself entirely impossible to read - though by completely different means.
"Goodbye, then, Himura-san," she murmured, rising to her feet and drifting over to him as though she were floating. Her arms went around him, and he felt himself being drawn into an embrace which lingered long past the point of a quick farewell.
And then she let him go and was out of the room before he could even bow. The girls tugged him toward the bath and left him to it, and then all that was left for him to do was collect his belongings from the laundrywoman and make the long walk home.
…
...
"Where the hell is that idiot?"
It would have taken his idiot apprentice perhaps a week to make the walk along the Tokaido back to Tokyo, all things taken into consideration, including not having to slow his pace on account of a woman and a child. The business with Saigo Takamori could not possibly have taken him more than a day or two, and the majority of that time would have been spent discovering the man's whereabouts and planning how to lie in wait for him.
A week's journey there, a day or two spent dealing with Saigo, and a week's journey back. Hardly an absurd length of time to spend on such an errand. But it had been more than five weeks already, and Hiko had still seen no sign of his idiot apprentice.
He had walked down to the village a handful of days ago to check the signboard, unable to put off the nagging worry that the fool had done something indescribably stupid and gotten himself put on another broadsheet. But there was nothing at all to be found there, and Hiko found that somehow even more disconcerting.
And without Enishi around to grouse and complain about Kenshin's absence, there was only Tomoe's quiet, gnawing worry to fill the space.
"Why Jiji make that face?"
Oh. And his grandson, of course.
"Jiji wants to know why your idiot father's taking so long to come home." He reached out to pick up Kenichi, hoisting him effortlessly up off the ground and continuing to gaze out over the slopes of the mountain.
There was still no hint of anyone approaching.
Kenichi frowned, reached out, and yanked on a lock of Hiko's hair. "Touchan not idiot, Jiji!"
"I've known him a lot longer than you have, bozu." Hiko glowered and tugged lightly on a lock of Kenichi's hair in response. "If he's not an idiot, then why can't he remember the way home?"
The boy easily returned the glower, though it didn't look terribly threatening. "So long walk." He rolled his eyes dramatically enough that Enishi might have been proud. "Too long walk. Maybe Touchan forgot?"
"This is home, bozu." Hiko barely refrained from rolling his own eyes at the faces his grandson was pulling. "This is home for all of us, including him." He sighed, casting another look out over the forested mountainside. "All I'm saying is that he'd better have a damned good excuse for taking so long to get back here."
…
…
It was strange to feel so sure of something she had once doubted and feared more than she could have ever given voice to.
Tomoe stood in the doorway of the house, the dinner she had cooked ready and waiting to be served, watching her son interacting with his grandfather, and thought of her husband. Thought of how the notion of losing him - to the war, to the Yaminobu, to the government - had filled her with such terror in the past that her heart had felt frozen. Thought of how she had believed that the loss of her second love would have driven the will to live entirely out of her, and that she would simply waste away from despair and loss if he did not return to her.
But he had always returned to her. He had promised to always return to her. And she believed with all her heart that he would.
And so, even though he was taking far too long to come home - and she would certainly want to know why - she did not allow thoughts of his death to intrude upon her.
Everything Hiko-san had ever told her about Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu and its invincibility had been proven to her time and again. She had seen with her own eyes how easily Kenshin could cut through any number of men. She had seen it in the escape from Kyoto, she had seen it with Tatsumi of the Yaminobu, and while she had not seen it during the war, he had faced overwhelming odds and still come home to her.
He would come home to her again.
That thought made her smile.
"Dinner is ready," she called out to Hiko-san and Kenichi. "Come and wash up before the rice gets cold."
Dinner was as pleasant as ever. Afterward, while she washed the dishes and tidied up, Hiko-san surprised her by wordlessly picking up Kenichi and seeing to his bedtime preparations. Indeed, by the time she had finished in the kitchen space, her son was already sitting on his futon and yawning sleepily.
"Kenichi not tired, Kaachan," he said in between yawns as she gently laid him down and drew the blanket over him. "I stay up."
He was asleep almost before her lips had finished pressing a goodnight kiss to his forehead.
Smiling, she slipped her feet into her zori and joined Hiko-san outside on the engawa. The weather was warming up nicely, and it would be pleasant to sit out in the refreshing evening air again. She accepted the cup of sake he held out to her with a nod of thanks, and for a while they were content to sit and sip and stare out at the mountainside.
Until Hiko-san suddenly cocked his head to one side with a frown that immediately became a scowl.
"It certainly took him long enough."
Tomoe felt her heart grow warm at Hiko-san's words and felt a sudden fondness for the grouchy and cantankerous man who so clearly cared deeply for their family. She looked out at the forest, but her eyes and ears were nowhere near as sharp as Hiko-san's.
"You know the sound of his footsteps better than I do," she murmured with a smile.
Hiko-san's scowl deepened. "I've had to deal with him for a lot longer than you have."
It took some time before she was able to hear anything. In fact, she had long enough to go leisurely back into the house for a third sake cup and return to the engawa before the crunch of leaves underfoot reached her ears. And a moment or so after that, she caught sight of her husband coming into view around a bend in the path.
She could not repress her smile at the sight of him.
He came up to the edge of the engawa and set his traveling pack down. And though his eyes were rimmed with exhaustion and his clothing was dusty and travel-worn, he had a smile on his face.
"I'm home," he murmured. "Sorry I took so long getting back."
"Yes, well." Hiko-san's characteristic tetchiness shone through, as it always did most clearly when he was trying to disguise his relief or camouflage the extent to which he cared about Kenshin. "I'm eagerly awaiting your explanation as to why."
He poured a splash of sake into the third cup, but before he could hand it to Kenshin, Tomoe stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her husband. He returned the embrace without hesitation, pulling her tightly against him.
"You look exhausted." She murmured the words into his neck. "Come and sit, and in a few moments I'll go and heat up the bath for you."
"Whenever you like." His words were muffled against her hair. "Thank you." He breathed in deeply, and when he next spoke, she could hear the smile in his voice. "Hakubaikou. You always smell of hakubaikou."
"Because I know how much you like it." She pressed a kiss to the side of his neck.
"Are the two of you going to simper at one another all night?" came Hiko-san's exasperated voice from behind her. "Because if you are, I'll just take the sake and sleep in the woods."
"All right, Shishou." Kenshin stepped back, and Tomoe couldn't help but cup her hand against his scarred cheek. "But Kenichi might be annoyed with you come morning."
A moment later, they situated themselves on the engawa. Kenshin propped his sword against the outer wall and accepted the cup of sake. He took a sip and closed his eyes, exhaling slowly as if he might drain out all the tension with one breath.
Tomoe was on the verge of suggesting the bath once again, when abruptly Kenshin said:
"I found Saigo Takamori." He opened his eyes and stared into the woods, expression hard. "In an alley in Yoshiwara."
Her heart seemed to take its next beat slightly later than it ought to have done.
"Is he still there?" Hiko-san inquired, his voice not quite so full of his usual dryness. She glanced at his face and saw apprehension there - she had had enough practice reading her father's moods for Hiko-san's expressive face to be an open book.
Still, she wondered the same thing.
Kenshin's eyes narrowed. "I made a vow. I don't intend to hold it cheaply."
A quivering sense of relief passed through her; she wondered for a moment whether Kenshin felt it as it washed over her. The cup trembled slightly in her hand, the surface of the sake within undulating slightly. And judging by the look in Hiko-san's eyes, he had felt something similar.
"Did you come to an agreement?" Tomoe reached over to take her husband's hand in her free one.
"We talked," Kenshin said, and Tomoe did not miss the edge in his voice. "I'd like to think an agreement was reached, but…"
He took another sip of the sake, shook his head, and set the cup down on the engawa. A moment later, he seemed to deflate, shoulders slumping and hand going to his forehead.
"He signed the Kami and Buddhas Separation Order two months ago." His voice was very quiet. Drained. "Two months ago."
Hiko-san sighed deeply - the sigh heavily tinged with frustration - and drained off his sake. Tomoe felt her stomach sink, a terrible empty feeling taking over her middle.
Two months.
They had come across the destruction at Asukaderaji half that long ago. How much worse might have happened since then? And how much might Kenshin have been able to prevent by confronting Saigo Takamori?
Her hand tightened in his, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden images of ruined temples and homeless children her mind revealed to her.
"How many other temples did you visit on your way home, then?" Hiko-san's voice broke in, anger lurking just beneath its surface. "And how many of them were still standing?"
For a long moment, Kenshin said nothing. Then:
"So many of them are just… just destroyed." His fingers clenched into his hair. "I went to Koufukuji, not far from Asukaderaji, and they had torn the walls down and expelled all the monks." His voice seemed to hitch. "They're going to turn the grounds into a park."
When he opened his eyes, they were hollow. He stared hard at the ground.
"... a park."
The words echoed dully through Tomoe's mind as he repeated them, and all she could do was imagine Asukaderaji as a park. Imagine people one day strolling on the grounds where children had lived and played and found a home. Imagine later generations who would never know that the land they thought of as a simple space for recreation had once been a haven for the homeless and a home for the monks who worked so tirelessly for the good of those around them.
"And what of the monks?" Hiko-san's voice cut in, harsh and sharp. "Where have they all gone? To the neighboring villages, to beg for food and shelter? Or did the invaders simply kill them all?"
There was an ugly tone in Hiko-san's voice that made Tomoe shiver. She was suddenly reminded of just how dangerous a man he was, of just how little the life of anyone who angered him to this degree was worth, and just how close his own brother had come to losing everything the way these other monks had.
"Defrocked." Kenshin continued to stare at the ground, his eyes boring holes into the engawa. "Some of them have been forced to become Shinto priests."
He pulled his hand out of Tomoe's grasp and rubbed at his forehead. It took a few moments for him to speak again.
"I went back to Asukaderaji. They've received children from other temples. I went to several temples along the Tokaido. I was able to help at some of them, but…" He blew out a breath. "Not enough. It wasn't enough."
Something about the way Hiko-san snorted in response made Tomoe turn her head to look at him, and she saw in his unfocused gaze an emptiness that stole the breath from her lungs. His eyes had become bottomless wells of unrelenting bitterness, and though it hurt to look at them for too long, she found she could not look away.
"Nothing will ever be enough." He drained off his sake, grimacing at the taste, and set his cup down. "No man can fight human nature and prevail, no matter how strong he is. All he can ever hope to do is carve out a small place around himself, and spend the rest of his days keeping the evil of the world from entering it." He shook his head. "And even that space can never extend too far."
Kenshin frowned but said nothing, and Tomoe suspected that this was an old argument that her husband was in no hurry to touch.
Her suspicions were confirmed when Kenshin abruptly said, "I'll take that bath now." He looked over at Tomoe. "If you don't mind."
Suddenly eager to be away from this discussion, Tomoe rose to her feet, smoothed down her kimono, and headed off towards the bath shed to light the fire for her husband.
She tried not to imagine what further arguments she was walking away from.
…
…
Kenshin supposed he was grateful that his shishou chose not pursue their old argument any further that evening.
He bathed and changed into a fresh sleeping yukata that was soft and comfortable and free of the grime and dust of travel. When he went into the house, which was lit by a single andon lantern, his attention was immediately drawn to his sleeping son, tucked into Tomoe's futon, tiny hands bunched into fists around the blanket.
Maybe he spent a long time in his own futon, listening to the gentle rhythm of his son's breathing…
"Touchan!" Kenichi tackled him into wakefulness, flinging himself bodily atop Kenshin and wrapping his arms around his neck. "Touchan is home!"
Kenshin cracked an eye open, his hands immediately going around his son's tiny body. "Is the sun even up yet?"
Kenichi ignored that. "Kaachan! Jiji! Wake up! Touchan is home!"
"He came home last night, bozu." Hiko sat up and ran a hand through his sleep-tangled hair. His scowl was of that quality it only seemed to have around Kenichi. "And we had the good taste not to wake you up because of it."
Tomoe sat up as well, her hair still in its nighttime braid and a just-awakened smile on her face. "Jiji means that he's very happy to see Touchan."
Kenichi shot his own scowl at Hiko, and Kenshin barely stifled a laugh before the boy plowed ahead with, "Touchan, get dressed! Come look at garden with me. Jiji and Kenichi work so hard on garden." He puffed up with pride. "Kenichi work hardest."
Hiko rolled his eyes expansively. "Was that before or after Kenichi took a break to go chasing fish in the stream?"
"I'll go and see to breakfast." Tomoe's smile was as small as ever, but it seemed to brighten the entire room. "You go and see how hard our boy's been working."
There was nothing for it then.
Kenshin rose and dressed and went outside with their boy before the sun had fully cracked open the sky.
NOTE THE FIRST
Kenshin mentioned Koufukuji being turned into a park after the walls were torn down and the monks expelled. This is something that happened, though the temple has since been restored for people to enjoy. And yeah, several Buddhist monks were defrocked or forced to become Shinto priests.
*jazz hands* Iiiiit's the Buddhist hunts! Where's Anji, you ask? Probably being a sad monk somewhere.
NOTE THE SECOND
I'm getting a lot of notes about Yumi. Why are y'all so suspicious of Yumi? Woman's just trying to live her utterly exhausting and caged life of an extremely popular oiran. WHY THE SUSPICION AND DISTRUST?
NOTE THE THIRD
As always, Bat-fam, hit me with your best notes and observations. It's like a shot of dopamine directly into my inbox.