Kokoro No Itami Nakunaru Made Zutto: Will of the Rurouni

By: Hitokiri Gentatsu

A/N: Here is the final chapter of this one. Thanks to everyone who read this and there will be another one very soon. For the moment, I'm going to take a small break to do research for my Kenshin Site: Sakabatou/Zanbatou (http://www.geocities.com/SakabatouZanbatou). If you want to take a look at my site feel free to. 

Chapter Nine: To Journey On

"I am a rurouni and I must be wandering again."

Himura Kenshin

RK episode 31

Subtitled

Kenshin stood on a field that seemed somehow familiar to him. It was empty of anything living except a few young plants, whose leaves moved with a breeze that Kenshin could not feel. He watched them curiously, trying to figure out why they moved when his clothing and hair remained stationary. Suddenly, he felt a presence near him and he turned not surprised to see Tomoe standing there. She was always with him. No matter where he went or what he did, he could feel her next to him as if she had not died. She looked at him and smiled the serene smile he had come to know so briefly during her life. He found himself smiling back and he reached out an arm to enfold her within it. He smelled her white plum scent and he tried to lose himself in it, using it to drive the last trace of blood from his senses. He closed his eyes and pulled her closer, whispering her name. His eyes were full of tears and he let her presence wash over him, cleansing and healing his tattered spirit as it always did.

"Arigato, Koishii," he whispered as he opened his eyes again and looked into her own. "Am I dead?"

"No, the wound you received was not fatal." She looked at him in concern. "You were very lucky husband."

Kenshin hung his head, allowing his hair to hide the pain in his eyes, and then he looked at her again.

"But I have failed to keep him in control...I've failed you and I'm still a danger to others. Maybe it would be better if I was..."

Tomoe's eyes widened and she gave Kenshin a serious look. "No, you must live. You have a duty to this land and to her people. You cannot through that away. The Battousai is a part of you that can never truly be changed for you have spent too many years wearing the mask of the hitokiri for that fact to be changed overnight. This is something that cannot be changed overnight or even in a year's time. However, there is more to you than just Battousai."

"But, I don't want to be that man again. I don't want that part of myself to exist and I never want to return to that madness again." Tears burned a trail down his cheeks, becoming trapped in the scar on his left cheek. "I want a chance to become someone else…to find my true heart. I want a new life without the regret and one that is not overshadowed by my past life. I wanted to share this new era with you, Tomoe."

Tomoe smiled sadly at him and wiped the tears from his eyes and face. "I know that but it was not to be. We were only meant to save each other from ourselves, nothing more. You have to move on from that."

He hung his head again, shaking his head but not saying anything. He heard her kneel in front of him and saw her dark eyes looking deeply into his own.

"You are different from the man I once knew. Back then, in Kyoto, you were cold and seemingly devoid of any human emotion save rage but in Otsu you became noble in my eyes and you never stopped caring for me. You want to atone for everything and you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders because you feel you deserve it. You cannot live like this forever. The past is exactly that and cannot be altered no matter how much we might wish it could be. You want to make everything right but in order to do this you must begin to forgive yourself."

"I cannot, not yet. Not until I have atoned for my wrongs against you and the others. And not until I can control the killer within me."

Tomoe shook her head. "Listen, you will have good days, where the Battousai remains hidden within you, and bad ones, where he will appear because of some threat, but as long as you come back to yourself then you are still the rurouni. At the moment the bad days seem to be overwhelming the good but I can promise you that someday the opposite will be true. Someday this gentle 'mask' you now wear will become more natural to you then the 'mask' of the hitokiri you were forced to wear during the Bakumatsu ever was. This 'mask' is your true self."

"If I could only know that all this will be worthwhile in the end and that there is chance for me to be at peace again, it would make this easier," he said with a bit of rancor in his voice as he looked at her again.

"I cannot say for certain but I know that if you continue to fight with all your will behind it then someday you might be able to find peace again."

Kenshin helped her to rise to her feet and smiled at her, tears still standing in his eyes. She laid a hand on his left cheek and smiled back as she slowly began to fade from his vision.

"I will try to find peace, Tomoe. I promise."

"I love you, Koishii." Her voice faded slowly from his hearing.

"I love you too, Tomoe." He could feel himself waking and could hear the urgent voice of Toshihiro calling his name.

*

Kenshin walked slowly to the window of his room at the Asukara house and slide it open. His body was swathed in bandages and his healing wounds pulled painfully at the movement he made but still he wanted to see the sun's light and breath the fresh air. He sat carefully in the sill and leaned his back against it for support, closing his eyes. He winced slightly as a sharp pain traveled across the wound in his side but he ignored the urge to look at the wound. He felt the wind tugging at his hair and gi. He opened his eyes to see the wind moving through the garden, making the sunlight dance on the waters of the small pond nearby.

He was restless and felt the need to move on again before some new threat materialized or some old foe reappeared from his past but Toshihiro had told him that it would be several months before he could travel again. Kenshin sighed and watched a bird hop across the path in front of him before being startled into flight by something only it saw. He tried to smile at the antics of the bird, which was now screaming at the 'threat', which turned out to be a striped tabby cat, but he could not. Depression had settled over him like a dark cloud ever since he had awakened in this room to find himself still alive.

At first, he had tried not to dwell on the feelings of sadness and regret because he had been too exhausted by the pain of his wounds and the lingering fever to bother with it. But, now that everything was over, he found things he had formerly enjoyed and had found peace of mind in failed to do so anymore. He had said nothing to Toshihiro, fearing the doctor would order him to remain longer. He knew it was wrong to hide this fact from his friend but he felt as if this was too personal a matter to discuss with someone he hardly knew. So he hid his depression behind the good natured and happy mask of the rurouni.

In his heart, though, he was anything but cheerful. He was worried and afraid. The Battousai slept within him again, remaining silent since the battle with Akusura but how long would his silence last? The bloodlust and killing rage of the hitokiri he had been in the past was still with him and it would always be there, like a hidden time bomb. Who knew what would provoke him again? Who knew when the bomb would explode again?

"What if I cannot stop him the next time? What if I hurt or kill someone then? How can I fight a part of myself?" he thought as he watched some more birds fly into the garden to dive at the cat, who slinked away.

He knew that if another threat arose, whether or not it was real or perceived, the Battousai would rush to the fore again with all the fury in him, just as he had recently. Would he be able to contain that rage or was it a hopeless task from the start?"

He continued to sit in the window, deep in thought for the rest of the day and dwelling on the fact that he had almost thrown everything away and had almost killed again. He chose not to see that he had also prevented himself from doing so.

*

Three months had passed since the night in the alley. The air was warm and carried with it the scent of life and hope but Kenshin could not feel hope when everything he had worked so hard for the past year had been taken from him. A breeze blew through the valley, causing the bamboo to rustle faintly and also causing Kenshin's hair and clothing to wipe about his small frame. He could feel the sun warming his back as he made his way up the path that lead away from the village. He had left the Hiroyoshi farm early that morning, wanting to put as much distance between it and him as possible, not wanting to pose a threat to the family that had sheltered him these few months. They had thanked him for his help and had given him gifts of new clothing and food for his journey. He had thanked them politely before moving on but, on his way out of the village, he could not resist the urge to speak to Toshihiro one last time before he left the area for good. Toshihiro had been as cheerful as ever and thanked him for the fact that his clinic was flourishing due to his ability to heal Kenshin's almost fatal fever. The mayor of the village, an excitable older man by the name of Shitomori Takara, had tried to reward Kenshin for his part in the capture of the rogue hitokiri as had Hideki, but Kenshin had humbly declined, feeling as if he didn't deserve such honors.

He paused at the crest of the hill and looked down at the quiet village below him and smiled. He had learned a lot about himself that he would never allow himself to forget and most of what he had learned did not make him happy. The time had come for him to move on. He could not afford to stay anywhere for too long. There were still those that hunted him and because of that he knew he had to keep moving if he wanted to stay one step ahead of his foes.