O-GLOSSARY-SAMA
Butsudan : Buddhist family altar
Ochazuke : green tea poured over rice. A popular breakfast or snack
Shakujou: pewter staff topped with metal rings traditionally carried by Buddhist monks
Erabitori ceremony: "pick and keep an item" ceremony on baby's 1st birthday
Engawa : Japanese-style front porch, often wraps around a building
Bozu : term of endearment for little boys
Tattsuke-hakama : hakama that are bound at the legs (Soujiro wore them in his final match with Kenshin)
Samue : monk's work clothes, but is also worn by farmers and artisans and other workers
Meiji 3
A moment later
Hiko had never been one to speak to the dead.
At best, he'd offered libations and benedictions for their peace, but never attempted to say anything lengthy or deeply meaningful. As such, he found himself at something of a loss for what to say to his shishou's spirit as he stood at the man's graveside.
A few paces away, Jiyu stood in respectful silence.
"I suppose I should apologize for not coming up here long before now." Hiko sighed and reached out to begin removing the encroaching vines from the sword he had used to mark his shishou's final resting place. "But I had nothing of real importance to say until now."
He paused and frowned.
"No." He crushed the vines in his fist, their dry leaves crackling. "No, that's not right. I had plenty to say."
He stared down at the ground, recalling exactly how draining the process of burying his shishou had been. His heart and mind had wavered between the numbness of shock and the acute agony of knowing exactly what he had done. What he had become a part of.
"But that can wait another few minutes." He plucked the last vine free of the sword. The blade was rusty, the wrappings beginning to fall from the hilt, but it still stood straight.
Hiko squared his shoulders. "I didn't give you a proper burial, either. But rather than apologize for that, I've brought someone to help me set the matter right."
Jiyu knelt down in front of the grave and removed several items from his bag. Some of those items, Hiko had expected - they had discussed them beforehand. But there was one thing they had not discussed at all, and Hiko couldn't help but be drawn to it, though Jiyu set it aside without comment.
Very well.
His brother took a moment to set up the incense in a small burner, before passing Hiko a stick of incense - smoke making thin curls in the air - and a small string of wooden prayer beads, pungent with the scent of cedar.
They had not discussed which sutra Jiyu would chant - Hiko had left that decision to his brother - but as the sutra began and Hiko held forth the incense the required three times, he closed his eyes. Piously? Certainly not. Reverently? For the man's life and what he had represented, absolutely.
The sutra ended.
Together, he and Jiyu planted the wooden memorial tablet upright behind the sword. They had decided on his shishou's posthumous name - Shunbin - together, for his shishou had been a keen and quick-witted man.
Jiyu recited another sutra, and as Hiko once again made an offer of incense, he was suddenly struck by the finality of it all. He and his brother were completing not simply the funerary rites of his predecessor, but what amounted to the funerary rites for three centuries' worth of what Yukishiro had termed "inherited trauma."
The last murmuring syllable of the sutra trailed off. The last whiff of incense wafted away on the crisp mountain breeze. Hiko opened his eyes to take in the sight of the grave before him, now properly appointed and consecrated.
He turned to Jiyu, who picked up the object they had not discussed, stood, and pressed it into Hiko's hands. It was a small, black-laquered memorial tablet, suitable for a butsudan, with both his shishou's hereditary name of Hiko Seijuro XII - for Hiko had never learned the man's birth name - and his new posthumous name written in careful, golden brushstrokes.
"The dead only rest in peace when we continue to honor their memory," Jiyu said quietly. "And we can only attain peace with their passing when we allow ourselves to acknowledge and move on from the loss."
Hiko nodded, staring down at the tablet in his hands. He had no butsudan, had never seen the need for one or had the desire for it either. Yukishiro's carefully-tended butsudan held a row of memorial tablets, each one a monument to an individual tragedy but all of which combined to represent a lifetime of grief. Had Yukishiro moved on? Was it even possible for him to do so?
And yet Hiko had spent the past fifteen years unable to escape from the events surrounding his succession. He had focused more and more of himself on breaking that cycle for the sake of his family. Perhaps this was simply another important step in that process.
"I'll have to make a butsudan then."
The suggestion of a smile twitched at the corners of Jiyu's mouth, and then he moved some distance away, sat down in a meditative posture and closed his eyes, leaving Hiko at his shishou's grave.
"So," he murmured. "That's done. Again, I suppose it ought to have been done long ago, but…" He trailed off, unsure of how to complete the sentence or the thought.
There was so much to say. So much he had thought and felt and feared. So much still to be done, and so much left uncertain.
"Every master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu has suffered under the knowledge of just how deadly the art is." He felt the weight of the cloak drag at his shoulders as though invisible hands were yanking it down, just as he always did when thinking of his dead shishou. It was as if the man's spirit chose to settle its weight on him, to remind him of what he could never atone for.
But perhaps he could.
"And I suppose that every master needs to know that, to prevent him from becoming a monster who deals out death on a whim." He shook his head. "But my idiot apprentice learned that lesson through his own folly - and mine," he added grudgingly. "And the vow he's taken never to kill again reflects both his good heart and his idiot stubbornness." He snorted. "You'd like him."
Hiko sighed again. "I've stepped far away from the path I was once set on. Far away from the path you trod. I've taken on and released a second apprentice, I've revealed the secrets of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu to outsiders, and I plan to change the process of succession as well."
He breathed in and out several times, shakily. "I believe I've found the way to stop the loss, the grief. The 'inherited trauma', as a wiser man than myself called it." He bowed his head. "I believe it will work. And I believe it will change things for the better."
He stood there in silence for a long moment before raising his head and speaking again.
"What I have in mind will take some time to prepare. But if it works -" He paused, thinking of every reason he had to hope for success. "- then I'll come back, and I'll tell you everything."
And was it his imagination, or did he feel the weight on his shoulders increase for an instant and then lighten, as though his shishou had answered him?
Reaching for his sake jug, he thought of how he had told Kenshin long ago that it was a shame to enter the afterlife without knowing the taste of good sake. How he had poured out his own offering to the three girls whose graves Kenshin had adorned with river stones in place of any real memorial markers.
He poured out a splash of sake onto the ground between the sword and the new wooden memorial tablet, tapped the stopper back into the jug, and inclined his head one last time.
"Goodbye, Shishou. And thank you."
…
For two days, they stuck to retracing their route back toward Asukaderaji with Jiyu's carefully marked map.
The silence suited Hiko.
In the spare space of a small Shinto shrine, where they had bedded down on worn futon after a meal of ochazuke and pickles, Jiyu spoke first.
"Was it what you had hoped for?" He lay on his back, hands folded across his chest.
Hiko found he didn't have a ready answer for his brother's question. After all, he mused, what had he hoped for?
"I don't know," he finally said, staring up at the beams of the lofty ceiling. "But at least I've done right by him as far as his burial rites are concerned."
His legacy - the legacy of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu - was another matter entirely.
"Good." Jiyu glanced at him. "Because that was my first one."
Hiko rolled his head over to cock an eyebrow at his brother. "I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me," he replied. "Why, did you make a mistake you were hoping I wouldn't catch?"
"Well, if I did, I'm never going to tell you now." The barest hint of a smirk flitted across Jiyu's lips.
Hiko snorted. "It would have amused him to know his funeral was carried out by an amateur."
"I don't know if I qualify as an amateur. I've participated in plenty of funerals." Jiyu shrugged. "This is just the first one I've ever been asked to lead."
"What's the difference?" Hiko propped himself up on one elbow.
"Participation is just…" Another shrug. "Chanting, really. Group chanting. In nicer clothing than I normally wear."
Hiko's brow furrowed almost involuntarily. "Should you have been wearing 'nicer clothing' back there, then?"
"Shouldn't you have?" Jiyu shot back.
Hiko's eyes narrowed in his customary glower. "I'm not the one who's supposed to be a professional."
"No one would ever mistake you for such," Jiyu said serenely. "Oniisan."
"Certainly not." Hiko smirked. "Especially after the beef hotpot I tried back in Tokyo."
"The what?" Jiyu shifted to look at him.
"Oh yes." Hiko's smirk intensified. "Apparently the Westerners eat it every day. Or something approximating it. I didn't bother to make that much of a distinction."
"They eat plow animals?" Jiyu raised an eyebrow. "Every single day?"
"So they say." Hiko recalled what he'd told Yukishiro and barely managed to stifle a chuckle. "That, and something made from solidified cow's milk."
His brother actually made a noise of disgust. "Now you're just being deliberately provocative."
The chuckle escaped at that. "It's the truth."
Both his brother's words and his own, as it happened.
…
A few days after that, they stood under the straw eaves of a small house in a nondescript fishing village, taking shelter from a storm that had quite suddenly chased them off the road.
"Why beef?" Jiyu asked abruptly. He took a bite of the plain onigiri the woman of the house had given to him.
"Why not?" Hiko replied around a mouthful of his own onigiri, which, as befitted the nature of the village, was filled with fish. "It's flavorful and hearty, and nowhere near as objectionable as other Western foods." He frowned, remembering the dreadful Portuguese wine. "Or Western liquor, for that matter."
Jiyu raised an eyebrow. "You've eaten other Western foods then? Perhaps the solidified cow's milk you were so eager to mention?"
Hiko rolled his eyes. "No. That was the objectionable one I was referring to."
"Well, I'm not surprised you've had Western alcohol." Jiyu bit off another chunk of onigiri. "I still don't understand eating a plow animal. There are other flavorful, hearty things to eat."
"Not like beef." Hiko chuckled. "I can't do it justice by explaining it; you'd have to try it yourself."
"I'll pass, thank you."
Hiko's chuckle turned into a full-out laugh. He hadn't expected anything else out of Jiyu. His brother took his monk's vows very seriously, and while Hiko hadn't agreed with them in the beginning, he'd come to respect his brother's commitment to them. Still, it was entertaining to poke at him once in a while.
"Fine," he snorted, polishing off his onigiri. "More for me."
…
A week into their return trip, they ended up in the same fishing village where they had taken an impromptu swim after their beachfront lunch.
Hiko bought sticks of grilled fish from the exact same fishmonger, while Jiyu once again contented himself with a few sticks of dango. They sat in the sand, sword resting on one side of them, shakujou on the other, and the symbolism - the duality - was not lost on Hiko.
"You and I have chosen very different paths in this world." He ate a mouthful of fish, chewed pensively. "And yet those paths continue to cross."
"Purposefully, I would think." Jiyu glanced at him. "Seeing as you've chosen not to cross your path with our eldest brother."
Hiko scowled at him. "On the way out here, I told you I didn't want to talk about the rest of them." He tore off a bite of fish with his teeth and savagely chewed. "That hasn't changed, whether in the past few weeks or the past twenty years."
Jiyu actually rolled his eyes, before his expression abruptly became more somber. "I think you don't like to talk about any of us, really. I wonder sometimes if I had not told Kenshin-kun myself that we're brothers, you would have ever told him."
Hiko's scowl deepened, but there was very little he could say to refute his brother's words. The truth was that he had always refrained from telling his idiot apprentice too much about himself for a very simple reason: If he revealed one thing, it might prove to be the first link in a chain of revelations which would lead to the one secret he had always needed to keep.
That secrecy had been a shortcoming of his relationship with Kenshin, and for a long time, Hiko had not thought of it as a problem. Better for their eventual parting of ways to be as painless as possible, he'd reasoned - better for Kenshin not to become too deeply attached to him.
But now…
"It was complicated," he sighed. "But I suppose everything's just gotten more so lately."
"Oh?" Jiyu shifted slightly in the sand to look at him. "It seems to me the purpose of our journey was to begin to uncomplicate the tangles of your life."
"It was." Hiko turned to regard him. "But altering the course of a life - a life with three hundred years' worth of tradition behind it - isn't an easy thing." He snorted. "A worthwhile thing, certainly. But not simple."
"Well, you do like a challenge, Seijuro," Jiyu said. "You'd be the first to point out that anything worth doing is worth doing correctly, no matter how difficult."
Hiko finished his last bite of fish, washed it down with a swig of sake from his jug, and gave his brother a small but genuine smile.
"I can't think of anything more worth doing."
…
By the time they trudged back into Asukaderaji, over a month had gone by since he'd left his idiot apprentice on the road back up to Mount Atago.
If things went the way he'd planned - the way he hoped - then he would be the first master of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu who had ever survived the process of succession along with his pupil. Which would mean that he could begin to repair that rift between himself and Kenshin.
Though, the more he considered it, the more he realized that not only would he have to tell Kenshin the entire story, but he would likely have to tell Tomoe as well. And as for Kenichi, he would have to decide how much to tell him. After all, his grandson had chosen the bokutou at his erabitori ceremony, and he was rapidly approaching the right age to begin his own training…
His life had somehow become more complicated - and more worth living - than he had ever imagined possible.
He spent the night at the temple, for it was already late by the time he and Jiyu arrived, but he was eager to be off after breakfast the following morning. There was, after all, still one more stop he had to make before returning home.
"I'm still not tired of you," he smirked as he clasped his brother's hand in farewell.
"See how long it takes you to return," Jiyu said, over a cheerful chorus of "Bye, Ojisan!" from the children who had clustered at the gate to see him off.
…
The forge on the outskirts of Kyoto was inactive once more when he arrived, which was not surprising. He felt his heart sink, however, as soon as he noticed the somber banners hanging down from the eaves, fluttering gently in the breeze.
Arai Shakku had died while Hiko had been away.
With an emptiness in his chest both for the loss of the master swordsmith and the fear that he had not completed his final and pivotal blade, he skirted around the forge to the family residence situated a bit further back and was greeted with more white banners that denoted a household deep in their mourning.
He breathed deeply to steady himself and knocked at the door.
After a moment, the door slid open, revealing a young woman - perhaps the same age as Kenshin - in an unadorned kimono, her expression as somber as those terrible banners.
Shakku's daughter, perhaps.
"I'm sorry, Honored Guest," she said quietly. "But we're not seeing any new customers right now."
"I'm not a new customer," he replied. "I'd asked Shakku-dono to craft a sword for me a little over a month ago."
He'd known that Shakku had been ill, deathly so, when he'd made his request. But he'd at least hoped that the man would live long enough to deliver it into his hands - to see it off on its journey. He hadn't expected to return to the home of a dead man.
"I-" she started, only for Shakku's son - Seiku, was it? - to appear next to her, putting one hand across the door as if to prevent her from leaving.
Or, more likely, to prevent Hiko from entering.
"I'll handle this, Oneesan," he said, glaring up at Hiko with undisguised hostility. "Please tend to Okaasan and our sisters."
The young woman hesitated for a moment, then offered Hiko the smallest of bows before disappearing into the darkness of the house.
Seiku didn't wait. "Why are you here?"
"I'd hoped to claim the sword your father was making for me." Hiko likewise did not hesitate. It wasn't in his nature to do so anyway. "And now, it seems I'll be paying my last respects to him as well." He inclined his head slightly at the boy. "You have my sympathies. He was a master among masters."
The boy snorted, but seemed to bite back whatever he had truly wanted to say. Instead, what came out was, "If you'd like to pay your respects, make a donation to Kifune-jinja. It was my father's favorite Shinto shrine."
He moved to shut the door, but Hiko quickly placed his foot in the path.
"I would rather pay my respects directly to him, if you don't mind." He wondered again where the obvious divide between father and son had come from, and wondered why that thought suddenly made him so uncomfortable. "And I would also like to collect what he made for me."
Seiku wrenched the door open, and for a moment, Hiko thought he might attempt to slam it against his foot.
All he did, however, was glower up at him. "Swordsmen have been coming far and wide to pay their respects for the past two weeks. Enough respect has been paid to a man who helped kill thousands of people. Keep your respect to yourself and leave my family alone."
Ah.
"Do you remember what I told your father the last time I was here?" Hiko's eyes bored unblinkingly into the boy's with all the considerable intensity he was capable of. He wanted Seiku unable to look away, unable to shut out the weight of his words. "Do you remember what I wanted him to make? And do you imagine that I've come to collect another tool for killing?"
Seiku glared at him for a long moment, before stepping outside and sliding the door shut behind him.
"I remember." He whispered the words, but they were soaked in venom. "I remember that you're Himura Battousai's shishou. You taught him to - how did my father phrase it? 'Pave a road of corpses right into our glorious new era'? You know what else I remember?"
He glanced back at the house, as if to make sure his mother and sisters wouldn't hear him.
"I remember that you said you had no intention of making any vows that you would never kill another man." The boy's face twisted into a scowl. "That you want a sakabatou not so you can ease the burden of your conscience, but so that you can somehow keep Himura Battousai from killing you. So concerned about not traumatizing him further, without worrying about all the people he's already traumatized."
"And do you also remember that I told your father that my idiot apprentice had managed to use the sword your father crafted for him to fulfill his vow of never killing another man?" Hiko's eyes narrowed in the face of the boy's misplaced and misguided anger. "That the sakabatou he was crafting for me was meant to represent a new and better path forward for the deadliest style of kenjutsu in the history of this world? Or do you only remember the things that help you to feel anger instead of sorrow at your father's death?"
It was a bit harsh, perhaps. But Hiko had never known a better way to cut through mental and emotional defenses to reach the absolute truth.
The boy recoiled at that as if struck, but once again reached for the easier comfort of his outrage.
"You said you have no intention of making a similar vow," he spat. "You said that. So once you're done teaching Battousai how not to kill you, what's to stop you from picking up your old sword and killing any man you care to? What good is a sakabatou stuck in the rafters somewhere?"
"As much good as one that never makes it to my hand because of your stubbornness." Hiko glared at the boy. "As for my own vows, it's true that I have no intention of never killing a man again." He allowed his voice to soften just by a fraction. "But I've allowed more men to live after facing me in battle than I ever would have before my idiot apprentice picked up the sword your father made for him. Make of that what you will."
Seiku was silent for a moment, though he worked his jaw as if deep in thought. Finally, all he said was, "Why?"
Hiko raised an eyebrow. "Why what?"
The boy glowered at him in clear exasperation. "Why have you allowed more men to live than you would have previously?"
Hiko looked down at the boy, the anger in his eyes so familiar. Like Kenshin's. Like Enishi's.
Like his own.
"There are crimes that deserve punishment by death." He looked directly into the boy's eyes. "And there are men who deserve no less than death for what they have done. But not every crime, and not every man." He sighed. "And Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu does not allow for such distinctions. It is slaughter with unearthly swiftness."
He paused.
"Unless its power is held in check." He tapped the shoulder of his cloak. "As with this. And as with the sword your father forged for my apprentice."
Hiko sighed again. "I have killed hundreds of men in my life. Most of them would have killed me instead, had they been capable of it. Most of them had already done unspeakably evil things, and would have gone on to do more. I can never entirely forswear killing, not when such men still threaten the delicate fantasy world that my idiot apprentice fought so hard to bring about."
His eyes unfocused pensively as he recalled what he had said to Shakku before departing. "But I can at least do something."
"Delicate fantasy world…?" Seiku folded his arms and stared down at the ground. "You don't believe in the peace this new era is supposed to bring? All the killing, all the deaths, all the people my father helped to kill with his swords - it was all for nothing?"
"I've seen too much of the world to believe in a peace that can persist forever." Hiko shook his head. "But I allowed my apprentice to return to the war because there would have been far more senseless death otherwise. Those who suffered and died would have been innocent."
He stood there looking at Seiku, whose face was still resolutely turned to the ground. "Was it all for nothing? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Only time will tell."
The boy sighed.
"We worked day and night on that sword." He walked toward the forge, Hiko following behind him. "My father knew it was the last sword he would ever make, and he also knew he didn't have much time left."
He wrenched the door open, revealing an interior that felt dark and cold and, without the fire of the forge - and the man who had crafted his masterpieces using it - surprisingly empty. Hiko felt as though he were stepping into a bygone emperor's mausoleum - a monument to a departed man.
It was Shakku's absence, as much as the absence of the fire, which made the forge feel cold.
Seiku leaned his head against the doorframe. "I told him working day and night on that sword would kill him, but he didn't want to stop." He squeezed his eyes shut. "And I know it's not true. I know he would have died anyway, but…"
"He knew it was the last creation he would leave to the world," Hiko replied evenly. "He said so himself. He knew exactly how ill he was, and yet this work was important enough to him to want to complete it."
He turned to face Seiku full-on, even though the boy's eyes were still closed. "And it was important for him to complete it with you."
"Maybe."
Seiku opened his eyes and looked away, then abruptly pushed himself off the doorframe and moved through the crowded forge with familiar ease. Gently he removed a cloth-wrapped object from a shelf, then wound his way out of the building and onto the engawa.
"We didn't have time to add the hilt or the tsuba," he said quietly, unfolding the cloth with something close to reverence. "But the blade is…"
"A masterpiece," Hiko finished as he laid eyes on it.
The curvature of the blade was smooth and elegant, never varying and smooth as fine porcelain. The edge appeared keen enough to cut the very air which blew over it, with a temper line which recalled the rippling of ocean waves. The strange asymmetry of the whole, the reversal of its sharp and dull sides, was beautiful in a jarring and yet mesmerizing sort of way.
And on the tang, carved in precise characters, were the master swordsmith's final words.
The blades I forged to kill were the legacy I dreaded to leave behind.
But the blades I forged to dull the edge of a killing style are the legacy I dream of as I face my death.
Hiko turned his eyes away from the sword and back to the late Shakku's son. "Did you know he wrote this?"
Seiku's fingers dug into the fabric of his mourning kimono so tightly, his knuckles whitened. "He struggled to do it. I had to finish it for him." The boy's eyes swam, and he looked away. "He composed it though."
Hiko looked down at the sword once more, the characters and their meaning stamping themselves as indelibly on his mind as they had been upon the metal.
"But you don't believe it in the same manner as he did."
"I don't know." Hastily Seiku wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "I hope that in this new era, blades won't be needed at all. Meiji is supposed to be about peace for everyone."
Hiko thought back to the discussions he'd had with Yukishiro and Kenshin. About the adoption of Western weaponry and tactics in warfare. About the ease with which the untrained and undisciplined would be able to slaughter scores of people, and about the role of true warriors - masters of their art who had sacrificed and trained for their power instead of having it handed to them in the form of firearms and iron ships - in such a new form of war.
"There will always be a need for blades," he said with conviction. "But there will always be a greater need for those who wield them for good." He looked into the boy's reddened eyes. "And if my idiot apprentice believes in peace enough to spend his life fighting for it, there is at least hope for it to come to pass."
Reaching into his cloak, Hiko came out with his coin purse. But when he opened it and tried to hand Seiku the payment for the sword, the boy shook his head vehemently.
"I don't want your money." He gestured toward the forge. "I don't want payment for any of this."
"But your mother and sisters need it," Hiko reminded him gruffly. "And how will you live if you don't light this place up again?"
"I'll figure something out," Seiku said, with the sort of exasperating obstinance that at once reminded Hiko of both Kenshin and Enishi.
He resisted the urge to whack the boy on the back of the head and instead offered him a nod and a grunt.
On his way out, he simply left the money on the engawa.
…
That afternoon, he visited an artisan who agreed to make the mountings and sheath for the sword. The man had been the one who had crafted the fittings for all of Shakku's swords.
"He was a master craftsman," the man said wistfully. "There will never be another like him, though… his son is quite good."
"But conflicted." Hiko sighed. "He can become a master if he chooses to be, but that choice is some time in the future."
The man hummed in response, then gingerly lifted the new blade out of its wrapping. "I haven't seen many like this." He studied the tang for a moment, then looked back at Hiko. "What will you do with such a sword?"
Hiko gave him a wry smirk. "More than most."
The man raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Well, what you want is simple enough. Come back in three days."
He spent those three days in the forest outside the city, preferring the wilderness to the crush of humanity. Also, since his coin purse had lightened considerably after paying for the sword, he needed the little he had remaining to pay for its mountings and so could not have afforded food or lodging. He made do with the fish he was able to catch and slept under the stars as he had often done with his shishou on their wanderings, and with Kenshin during his training.
When the work was done, Hiko paid the artisan (his coin purse was now fit only for show) and set out at last on the final leg of his journey.
By day, he walked along well-used roads without fear, for those who would not give him a wide berth could be easily dealt with. By night, he made camp in roadside groves. There, he made small fires and roasted even smaller fish before testing the balance and heft of his new blade...
...and exerted powerful efforts of will to remind himself that the sharp and dull edges were reversed.
Not only did this mean reversing certain sheathing techniques - and even inventing one or two new ones - but it also meant realizing that certain techniques (the Ryushousen in particular) had to be modified. It would not do, after all, to put his hand on what instinct told him would be the dull back of the blade only to cut himself to the bone on Shakku's trademark razor edge.
But the sheath was lined with steel for a reason, and so he practiced night after night. And as he neared home, he retrained himself until he was satisfied.
…
He hadn't seen his family for six weeks, he realized as he climbed the last stretch of mountain that would bring him to the house. Long enough for them to begin to miss him as deeply as he found he was missing them. Or, he supposed, for them to become used to his absence.
He frowned.
Tucking his new sword out of sight beneath his cloak - it would need to remain a secret for the time being, until after he'd carried out his plans - he walked the last few paces until he crested the hill and caught sight of the house.
Kenshin waited by the side of the house - clearly he had heard him coming - holding a basketful of freshly harvested daikon radishes. Kenichi stood next to him, covered head to toe with dirt, radishes nearly as big as the boy himself clutched in his tiny hands, bouncing on his toes with a wide smile on his soil-streaked face.
"Jiji!" He dropped the radishes to the ground and ran toward Hiko, filthy hands held wide. "Jiji's back!"
Not missing a beat, Hiko reached out a hand to ward off his grimy grandson. "Did you swim in the garden, bozu?"
Kenichi pulled up short and frowned. "No." And then without missing a beat himself, quickly added, "What did you bring me?"
Still standing by the side of the house, his idiot apprentice had the absolute gall to laugh at that.
Hiko's self-recrimination at having forgotten to bring something home for his grandson was quickly matched by bewilderment at realizing that this was the first time in the boy's entire life that he'd been apart from Hiko for so long. And he hadn't even thought to look for something.
"It wasn't that kind of trip, bozu." Hoping to head off Kenichi's inevitable disappointment, he hastened to add, "Maybe next time." He reached into his cloak and removed his now-useless coin purse, holding it upside down and shaking it to emphasize its emptiness. "Jiji has no money."
"Oh." Kenichi followed Hiko toward the house, right as the door rattled open to reveal Tomoe. "Jiji's poor now."
Kenshin snorted into the radish basket. Tomoe quickly schooled her smile into something more neutral.
"Welcome home," she said. "You're just in time for lunch."
"Jiji's poor now, Kaachan," Kenichi supplied helpfully. "He needs to eat all the onigiri because he's poor."
Hiko scowled, but the expression failed to reach his eyes. "Well, it has been about a week since I've been able to eat any rice."
"Well, everyone go wash up." Tomoe turned to go back into the house, pausing to add. "Kenichi, let poor Jiji go first."
Kenshin set the radish basket down on the engawa. "Jiji went on an expensive trip, it seems." He didn't comment any further though, instead saying to Tomoe, "I'll just bring in the other basket, shall I?"
"Jiji's poor now," Kenichi said, as he followed his father around the side of the house and into the garden.
"Shall I take your traveling pack?" Tomoe offered.
"Thank you." Hiko held the bag out to her. "I'll just go and wash up."
Once she had turned her back, he darted into the miscellaneous sundries shed to hide his new sword where no one would find it. He then headed to the newly-expanded bath house, where he looked longingly at the large soaking tub before briskly scrubbing himself clean for lunch. There would be time enough for a proper bath - and a proper soak - after he'd had a proper meal.
The onigiri was simple, yet very welcome, variously stuffed with fresh daikon radish, chopped fish, and salted plums. The tea, just brewed, was quite welcome as well (though the sake that would come after the meal would be more so).
Kenichi chattered happily about the planting they had been doing while Hiko had been away, adding, "And not so much eggplant this time, Jiji. No weeks and weeks of eggplant."
A smile tugged at the corner of Tomoe's mouth. "We're still working out way through the ten jars-"
"Five jars," Kenshin said without heat. "We're working our way through five jars."
"Five jars," Tomoe repeated. "Only five jars of eggplant."
"And I haven't planted five jars' worth this time," Kenshin added. "Though this time, if the crop is that robust, maybe I'll try selling some of it."
"Because Jiji's poor now." Kenichi took a bite of onigiri and flashed a rice-sticky grin at Hiko. "Right, Jiji?"
"Yes, bozu." Hiko grumbled and rolled his eyes, but mostly tried to suppress a chuckle. "Jiji's poor now."
Tomoe sipped her tea and directed her attention to Hiko. "Now that you're home, will you return to your efforts at making shibori?"
"Among other things." Hiko set down his empty dish and looked around the hearth at the family.
His family.
"Starting first thing tomorrow."
…
When Hiko rose the following morning, the sky was the foreboding slate-gray which always heralded storms. Heavy dark clouds, nearly black, hovered on the horizon and obscured the sun. The air itself seemed thick, billowing past his face in fitful gusts when the restless wind puffed.
Perhaps not the most auspicious of signs for the day he had chosen to set his idiot apprentice on the path to his final instruction. But he would not renege on the promise he had made to himself, to his dead shishou, to his brother, and to Kenshin himself.
"Why Jiji look so serious?" Kenichi stood on the engawa with Hiko, clinging to the hem of Hiko's sleeping yukata.
"It's a serious day, bozu." Hiko reached down and scooped up his grandson in one massive arm. Now that the boy was clean, after all, he had no qualms about doing so. "A day I've thought about for a very long time."
Kenichi giggled and stretched himself out, flopping backwards so he was practically hanging off Hiko's arm. "Is Jiji less poor today?" he asked, right as Tomoe called them in for breakfast.
"Probably not." Hiko righted the limp child, who flopped against his shoulder, and headed towards the house.
"Touchan, Jiji is still poor," Kenichi announced as they settled around the hearth with their rice porridge. "Jiji is still poor, Kaachan."
Kenshin wasted no time bolting down his porridge and throwing his gardening clothes on. "I want to bring in the rest of the daikon before the rain comes." Before he stepped out the door, he added, "Kenichi, join me when you're finished."
Tomoe frowned. "This doesn't seem like it's going to be the best weather to start your shibori again."
"No," Hiko agreed, halfway through donning his training gi and tattsuke-hakama. He had set out his leather bracers as well. "But it's good enough weather to start something much more important."
Tomoe's gaze drifted to the bracers. "Does it have anything to do with what you put in the sundries shed yesterday?"
Hiko inhaled so sharply he nearly choked. Coughing, he snapped his head around to stare wide-eyed at Tomoe. "How…" He cleared his throat. "How did you know about that?"
Kenichi slurped up a spoonful of porridge. "Kaachan have eyes in the back of her head."
Tomoe simply nodded.
"No." Hiko cleared his throat again, uncomfortably. This woman with her uncanny insight and her seeming prescience was unnerving at times. "No, it doesn't."
However, it did have a considerable amount to do with his idiot apprentice, who would be finished soon enough with pulling out his radishes. And the coming rain made little difference to what they had to do.
Hiko finished his preparations, securing his bracers, settling his cloak about his shoulders, and sliding his sword into his belt. Tomoe watched him while cleaning up the breakfast dishes.
"Jiji is getting ready to fight people," Kenichi pointed out helpfully. "Like Touchan in the village many days ago."
Hiko paused in the midst of reaching for his boots, turned, and frowned at the boy. "Your father had a fight in the village while I was gone?"
"There were bandits." Tomoe stood at the wash basin, back to both of them. "Kenshin was… less than pleased."
"Touchan was not happy," Kenichi added with all the considerable cheerfulness of a near-five-year-old child. "He only wanted to eat soba and buy rice and go home."
Hiko sighed. "I imagine he did, yes."
He mentally cringed at the image of the last time he'd seen his idiot apprentice fight, and resolved afresh to pummel some of the sloppiness out of him before resuming their training in earnest.
Pulling on his boots, he cast one more look around the house before stepping off the engawa and into the clearing. His grandson followed a pace or two behind him.
Kenshin had just finished slapping the dirt from one of the daikon radishes and was setting it into the gathering basket when Hiko reached him. The overcast sky darkened as the first of the thunderclouds drew overhead and a few scattered raindrops began to fall.
"Kenshin." Hiko's tone was serious even in his own ears. He rested a hand on the hilt of his sword for emphasis. "It's time."
For a long moment, Kenshin said nothing. He straightened and wiped his hands down the front of the brown samue Tomoe had made for him, eyes straying to Hiko's sword and then to his own, propped against a rock only a hand's breadth away from his place in the garden.
"I thought you might say something like that," Kenshin finally said. "But we haven't talked about this either."
"You said you needed time."
Hiko was surprised at how evenly he was able to say it, given the sudden rush of thoughts and emotions which flooded over him. He'd needed time as well, and made what he believed was decent use of it. His mind and spirit, while not perfectly calm and clear, were certainly far improved from where they had been only a year ago.
"I gave you that time. And now the time has come."
The rain began to fall in earnest. Neither Hiko nor Kenshin moved from their respective spots, and Kenichi looked back and forth between them with inquisitive eyes.
"Why now?" Kenshin's voice was not even, and neither were his hands, though only the slightest twitch gave that away. "What's changed?"
Hiko once again felt the burden of knowing how flawed the relationship between himself and his apprentice had been. How little he had told Kenshin, because of how much there had been to lose.
But now was the time to repair that flaw. Or at least to begin to do so.
"More than you know." Hiko locked eyes with his apprentice. "But enough for you to learn."
"I…" Kenshin swallowed. His gaze shifted to his son, still taking in everything with a child's earnest curiosity, then back to Hiko. "I don't know if I'm ready."
I wasn't ready either, you idiot.
In the depths of the dark clouds above, flashes of lightning flickered. A rumble of thunder rolled over their heads, and the rain became a gray waterfall.
No apprentice of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu is ever ready. But when this is done, you'll be better off than I ever was.
"But I know." Hiko gestured toward the house. "Go get dressed. It's time."
Kenshin said nothing to that, and for another intolerably long moment, Hiko wondered if he was going to press the argument further.
"It's raining." Kenichi tugged at the hem of Hiko's cloak. "Jiji, it's raining. We need umbrellas."
Without a word, Kenshin picked up his sword and the gathering basket - only half-filled with daikon radishes - and headed toward the house. He passed by both Hiko and his son without a backward glance.
"Go sit on the engawa, bozu."
Hiko gently nudged his grandson in that direction, tension and anticipation setting his heart to beating rapidly until he willed it to resume a more normal pace. He'd often envisioned what the end of his life might be like, and he'd never feared it until his idiot apprentice and his family had reminded him that life was worth living.
Perhaps - and his heart thudded within his chest as the epiphany struck him - perhaps his shishou's final words had only been half-right. Perhaps the true final lesson of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu was not the paradox he had claimed, that his own life meant simultaneously everything in the world and nothing at all.
Perhaps it simply meant everything.
Perhaps the true lesson was the one he would learn by surviving the succession.
NOTE THE FIRST
Yooo, here I am - about 5 days later than I wanted to post, but better a few days later than SEVERAL MONTHS, AMIRITE? I'm still working out what my new posting schedule is going to be and I'm still trying to aim for every two weeks on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, but I'm not quite there yet.
But I really do love this story. Like a lot. Like I think about it when I'm doing normal people things like being on vacation. So even if my posting schedule is erratic for a bit, this story is not going anywhere any time soon.
NOTE THE SECOND
It's messed up that Hiko XII died without telling Kakunoshin his birth name, but when would it have come up? As the man was dying?
"Your own life means everything... and nothing... oh, by the way... my true name is actually Mi-" *dies*
Which means, no, Kenshin doesn't know that his shishou's birth name is the extremely doofy Niitsu Kakunoshin, because Jiyu stopped calling him Kakunoshin a few years before Kenshin entered the picture. And the Japanese changed their names as easily as they changed their socks back then (which I still refuse to acknowledge in-story with Kido Takayoshi - sorry, KATSURA KOGORO, also known as He of the Dozens of Easily Dropped Names).
Oh, about Hiko XII's posthumous name. That was (and is) a thing in Japan. Buddhist temples made their money by charging families for posthumous names. The longer and more elaborate the name was, the more money it cost, and that's how they kept the temples running. But... it also caused a lot of resentment among regular folks, who wanted to ensure their deceased relatives had meaningful names even if it cost them far more than they could afford.. which brings us back to *jazz hands* the Buddhist hunts.
(No, Jiyu didn't charge his own brother for Hiko XII's posthumous name, though he should have, simply as the cost of putting up with his brother and being dragged across the country on Hiko's own personal Odyssey.)
NOTE THE THIRD
I'm still working through my inbox, but one of my ffn readers suggested cross-posting the story on ao3, and one of my ao3 readers suggested cross-posting my story on ffn. BEEN DOING IT ALL ALONG, MY DUDES. All of my work (plus this story) is on ao3 (under frostyemma), so if you're interested in any of my non-RK stuff (MCU, Star Wars, Venom, other things that have briefly caught my interest at one time or another), head there. I use ffn solely for this story, because that's where the bulk of old school fandoms hang out to this day.
Anyway, keep filling up my inbox. You know I love it.