~*~*~ P O W D E R    S N O W ~*~*~

     An Rurouni Kenshin songfic

     Written by: Lexa a.k.a. Silene (yatenshi@web.de)

     Disclaimer: RK belongs to Watsuki-sama, the song belongs to Pierrot and the lyric translations belong to Brian Stewart and Takako Sakuma. I don't own, you don't sue, and everybody will be happy!

     Major spoiler-warning on the OVA and the manga volumes 19-21

     Author's note: I simply _love_ this song, you can almost hear the snow swirling! When I first read the lyric translations, the (possible) meaning jumped right into my face, inspiration kicked me and so I sat down and wrote… anyway, that's _my_ view on things, so if you don't agree with my opinion, don't flame me ~.~

     Like it, hate it, just tell me! Authors live on three things… air, bread and reviews ^^

     Special Thanks: to Hitokiri Gentatsu, who was so kind to beta-read my horrible attempt in writing English *hugs* Arigatoooo, Gentatsu-chan! What would I do without you?!

~*~

///Kanashisugiru hodo itami no nai

Owari ga mata kiteshimata///

                   (Again pitifully

                   here comes a painless end.)

     Coldly the snow whirled through the night, dancing on the wings of the icy wind, wrapping the streets in his white embrace. Like a pristine veil it also covered the blood pooling on the ground of the dark alleyway, splattered over the walls and staining the one who'd shed it.

     Battosai stood, staring with impassive eyes at his last victims whose bloody corpses  were also covered by the snow, as the flakes clung to his clothes and his red hair. The men hadn't had the time to scream when death claimed them. They'd died fast and painlessly, without being able to feel regret, grief or even fear.

     He'd brought his killing abilities to perfection. None of his victims had to suffer if they were unlucky enough to encounter him. That was, besides a silently whispered prayer for their souls, the last and only mercy Battousai could grant his opponents. (1)

     After reappearing from his hiding in Otsu to do his duty as a bodyguard almost two months ago, he'd closed away any compassion, any feelings in his heart, together with the killing fury that had overpowered him when he still was an hitokiri. He couldn't afford such emotions anymore.

///Nani ga boku wo kousaseru no darou

Jigoku e mata chikazuiteiku///

                   (What makes me do this?

                   Coming closer to hell again)

     Battousai's eyes might be impassive, but his heart wasn't. As much as he tried to suppress all emotions, to drive them away, to even kill them… a small voice in a corner of his soul pushed his way into his mind every time he was forced to kill.

     Even if he no longer stalked his victims in the shadows and cut their lives short in the name of heavenly justice, it didn't change the fact that every drop of blood he spilled stained his soul and didn't leave him alone. Every new murder made his soul slide away a little further, every death he caused brought his mind a little closer to the endless abyss of darkness.

     The dark heritage of the hitokiri… he killed to survive, to fight for this new era… but the flame behind his conviction had become smaller. Once he'd believed that only with his sword he could protect the weak and build up an era that meant equality and freedom for everyone. But he'd learned that he wasn't able to do so alone- when he hadn't even been able to protect the one he loved with all his heart…

     Sometimes he wondered why he was destroying himself like that at all, why he was willing to kill people if it brought him nothing but pain and a torn soul. But he'd promised that he'd help to create this new era and he'd fight for it again. Battousai had learned the hard way that no human is able to kill his emotions completely.

     Some day the suppressed emotions would come back, rushing down on the soul like a wave of stinging acid, tearing apart the heart… This was the fate waiting for him. Perhaps a little later, for he didn't allow himself to be taken over by the hitokiri's killing rage anymore, but nonetheless… sooner or later fate would claim him. Every death, he knew, pulled him a little farther down to hell.

///Kimi wo mitsuketa kisetsu wa masshirona yuki ni tsutsumarete
Kajikanda karada wo atatameatta ne
Itsuka kuru wakare no kage de///

                   (The season I found you is surrounded by pure white snow.

                   We warmed each other's bodies numb with the cold

                   in the shadow of a parting that was to someday come.)

     On his way back to the inn he stopped and looked up into the sky. Soft white snowflakes danced down on him, wrapping him and his surroundings in a blanket of pure white coldness. Snow.

     Something in his heart was twitching painfully. Snow. Why today of all days, when his feelings were upset like this already … For a moment he closed his eyes, and immediately the snow was stained crimson, it's pristine beauty spoiled with the blood of his wife and himself…

     Once more, he smelt her white plum scent, warning him too late that she was in the range of his blade, once more felt the resistance when his sword thrust through her and his enemy's body, because she'd stepped between them, once more felt the soul-crushing pain and the pitch-black despair torturing his heart…

     Once more, he saw her face as she laid in his arms, bloodstained, taking her last breath and closing her eyes forever, a tender smile on her lips… Once more, he saw her eyes, dark and endless like the night sky…

     Too much. As much as he tried, the memories didn't go away, but kept rushing down on him with all their force.

     Their first meeting, the fleeting gaze in the tavern… the reunion in the rain, the rain of blood he made fall, blood on her cheeks, her hands, her clothing… her words and the look of her mysterious black eyes…

How he'd almost killed her because he was startled awake by her touch… her reassuring words, her heart-warming gestures, making his soul whole again… the unusual emotions of trust and peace deep within him he'd almost forgotten… their first embrace in that little house in Otsu, when she was crying against his chest…

     Both of them were much alike, cold and mistrusting, emotionally scarred and with tortured souls. Had it been destiny that they'd met each other, that two shadowy hearts found the one who could restore their lost happiness?

     He'd known from the beginning that the happiness in Otsu, with her, wouldn't last long.

     No, a filthy assassin like him didn't deserve such happiness, such peace, and he certainly didn't deserve a woman like her. A woman who, despite or because of her reserved, cool way, was able to bring him back from his path to hell, from death to life, from mere existing to real living.

     She, too, had known that their happiness would soon come to an end… when the men that'd sent her to him from the beginning, learned from her betrayal… that she'd fallen in love with the one who was supposed to be her worst enemy…

     The shadow of division had always hovered above them, but neither of them had minded. It wouldn't last long, and it would bring nothing but pain, but it didn't matter. Everything that mattered was their meeting, that they'd found each other. Everything that mattered was her…

     "Tomoe…"

///Motto furitsumotte kono me wo tsubushite miugoki motorenai kurai ni
Kasukani warau kimi no omokage ga omoidasenaku naru made///

                   (Bury me deeper, close these eyes, until I can't move at all

                   Until I no longer remember visions of you laughing softly.)

     Battousai leaned against the cold wall of a nearby house, closing his eyes and desperately trying to will the memories away, but in vain. For a moment he thought to make out Tomoes figure standing out there in the snow and he snapped his eyes open, but of course she wasn't there.

     Was he slowly going insane again? And if he did, wasn't it the same? He'd give everything to make what happened undone, his life, his soul… but how was he supposed to give a soul and a life he'd lost long ago? A soul that was torn between the darkness of the murderer and the last trace of light desperately trying to survive. A life that had lost it's meaning the moment when Tomoe traded her life for his, when she gave herself up to death to protect him.

     Her smiling face appeared in front of his mind and he buried his face in his hands, lest to see this unbearable, tender smile anymore. He had once loved her smile, but he hated it now, for the pain brought back by the memory of this smile almost tore his heart to pieces.

     Heart? Did he even possess something like that? Wasn't he supposed to be a heartless, cold-blooded monster, like anyone saw him, like they should see him? No, the pain in his chest showed him clearly that he had a heart; if not, he wouldn't have to suffer like this!

     Leaning his back against the wall, his face buried in his hands, he slid down on the cold, raw surface until he was sitting on the ground. It was stupid and careless to sit here like this, in this upset state, but he wasn't able to stand up. The memories and the pain paralysed his body, and he wished that he'd just disappear in the earth, that he'd become stone, numb, unfeeling stone, so that he didn't had to feel this sorrow anymore…

     And Tomoe's smile remained in front of his eyes…

///Fueta kizuato wo nagamenagara
Ochita jibun ni yoishireru no darou///

                   (Looking at the growing number of scars,

                   I wonder if I will be taken with my degraded self?)

     Battousai didn't know how he'd managed to get back to the inn. But when in the dawn the dark silhouette of the house appeared in front of him he noticed that he'd covered the long way back like in trance.

     Silently he slipped up the stairs and moved in his room quickly, lest to meet somebody. At the moment he couldn't stand any human presence next to him. Except one… and this person was dead.

     Emotions still raged deep within him, but at least they weren't as plain to be seen in his face as they were before. But he knew that it took just a short encounter with someone to make his laboriously built-up self-control close down.

     As he took off his snow-drenched clothing, his gaze fell on the numerous scars covering his body. Not few of them came from that fateful day in Otsu, from that battle in the snow where he'd killed the one he would've died for without hesitating. And of course that cross-shaped scar on his left cheek, made by the two people who marked his destiny and his face… Akira Kiyosato and Yukishiro Tomoe …

     This scar was sign of his grief and also the mark of his vow he'd made to Tomoe. In the new era, after the war was won, he'd never kill again- never again! Deep in thoughts, tracing the still fresh scar, he wondered if she'd ever mean something else but pain for him.

     The scar hurt often, especially when memories of Tomoe haunted him, and at the moment the pain was as strong as if her dagger had just cut in his cheek. He wondered if she'd ever fade, or if this sign of sorrow would be visible on his face forever to remind him of his deeds whenever he looked into the mirror. But did he actually want her to fade away?

     No. This scar was his nemesis, Tomoe's sign, and wouldn't fade until he'd atoned for his crimes… if there was something like atonement for someone like him at all. If it was possible to forgive somebody like him at all.

     But up to the day when Tomoe forgave him, when he'd atoned- even though he doubted that this day was ever to come- the scar was to stay and to remind him because of whom he was still alive… and why.

///Kimi wo mitsuketa kisetsu wa masshirona yuki ni tsutsumarete
Otagai no kodoku wo nagusameatta ne
Eien wa akirameteitakedo///

                   (The season I found you is surrounded by pure white snow,

                   We consoled each other through our loneliness.

                   We gave up on forever but...)

     Nobody but Katsura knew how Tomoe had died, and that was one person too much for Kenshin's liking. Nobody should ever learn of that incident. And he'd tell nobody about it, never. Because there was no one he'd ever trust so much that he'd reveal his darkest secret to them. He'd never trust again. All his life he'd be lonely. That was his fate. He didn't deserve happiness. That was the way it was.

     Tomoe had eased his loneliness, but on that day in the snow the loneliness returned twice as hard.

     Snow... just as his scar did, snow would remind him every year of his wife and how she was killed by the one she wanted to protect.

     He remembered the marriage vow. He and Tomoe had made the promise of eternity to each other, and she'd showed him that the eternity was a really short time. Until death do us part… This eternity… deep in his heart he'd known that it couldn't be true. But this vow of eternity was the only part of the marriage promise he was sure he wouldn't be able to keep. He had been sure that he wouldn't survive the war. But he'd never imagined that she would be the one who broke the promise of eternity. (2)

     But aside of this… this promise had been more for him than just show from the beginning. Because at this point he'd already developed feelings for her an assassin shouldn't have… and never again would he feel something like that.

     Never again would he allow himself to become so close to somebody, no one else he'd trust like Tomoe. Because trust brought death… either to him or the person he loved. He wouldn't allow this again.

     Never again…

///Motto furitsumotte kono me wo tsubushite miugoki motorenai kurai ni
Chi no kayowanai kaibutsu wa kokode tada sakebitsuzukeru kara
Motto nikumikitte sonzai wo semete kimi no nakade ikiteikasete
Eguritorareta omoide wa itsuka konayuki no youni toketeyuku///

                  (Bury me deeper, close these eyes, until I can't move at all

                   Because this cold blooded beast will just continue to scream here.

                   Hate me utterly, let me continue to live on inside of you.

                   Someday this gouged out memory will melt like the powder snow.)

     Battousai looked out of the window and watched the snow falling soundlessly, softly on Kyoto. The blood shed in the streets was hidden by a layer of pure white snow glimmering bluishly in the morning light.

     He'd vowed to Tomoe that after the dawning of the new era he'd never kill again… but was it really so easy? Would the assassin's soul within him leave just like that? Would the past disappear just like that?

     No. Kenshin felt with painful clarity that 'Battousai' lived within him and would forever do so. He would always starve of blood and detest a peaceful life- if there could be something like that for him at all, and if he even survived the bloodshed to see the new era's dawn- with everything he was. Forever the hitokiri would rage within him. Kenshin and Battousai were the two sides of one and the same coin, and after so many years of killing he wouldn't be able to stop just like this.

     He knew only too well that one could become addicted to blood in a way that made it impossible to get away from… He'd seen so many who couldn't escape the blood's colour and scent and kept killing, again and again, senseless, mindless… would he end like this, too?

     In this moment Kenshin vowed to keep the hitokiri reigned within him, to never allow this part of him to break free after the war ended. He would keep his promise to Tomoe. He wouldn't stain the life she gave him by shedding blood once again.

     Tomoe…certainly you're up there now, in Heaven. What are you thinking of me? Has your love given way to hate because I killed you? Your fiancée died at my blade, and you followed his path. Are you happy now, with him? I wish you the happiness I couldn't give you, the happiness I've taken from you…

     You're probably hating me now. After all I've destroyed your life by at first killing your fiancée and then you. What are you supposed to feel for me except hate? But if that's the case, then keep hating me… and don't forget me.

     And perhaps one day my pain will melt like the snow. But one thing I know exactly… you, Tomoe, are the one I'll never forget… never.

                                                               ~Owari~

 (1) Ano… don't know if it's right. As an assassin Battousai always prayed that his victims may find happiness in the next world. Can't tell if he's still doing it as bodyguard. I just assume…

(2) Again, I don't know if it's true. I don't know what the Japanese marriage ceremony or the marriage vow to that time were like, I just thought it fitting (and possible) that the couple promises each other eternal loyalty and love, like in the 'Western' marriage vow.