Changing Leaves
Part Two

Rurouni Kenshin Fanfiction
by Laura Gilkey

*

September 23

"I didn't know you had family," Kenshin said.

"They like to be called that. Reiko-san actually insisted I call her 'Obachan.' Tomi-chan took to it easier than I did. They're not related to me, but they're more like family than anyone I ever knew. They've been so nice... I told them to tell the police I made them keep me there, but they could still be arrested for helping me..." Soujiro said. "Maybe I shouldn't have stayed, since it put everyone in danger... But when the police came, what could I do? I didn't want to fight with them and make trouble, so I just took Tomi-chan and ran. I don't remember what happened after that."

"So is Tomi their granddaughter or something? Why take her?" Sanosuke asked. He knew there was more to it—Soujiro had made him promise to keep her away from the police, after all—but wasn't letting on what he knew.

Soujiro paused awkwardly. "She's an orphan who was travelling with me. I guess since I'm such a serious criminal, they thought I kidnapped her, but if they take her, she really doesn't have anywhere to go."

"I see," Kenshin said.

"If all this happened last night in Yokohama, the police won't be far behind you," Megumi pointed out.

"I know," Soujiro said, "and I couldn't cover my tracks this time like usual. If it was just me, I could keep going, but with Tomi-chan, and my shoulder like this..."

"Are you ready to be up and about?" Kenshin asked.

"He should keep getting plenty of rest, but yes," Megumi said.

"Then you and Tomi-dono come back to Kamiya dojo with me. I'll do everything I can to keep your family safe."

Soujiro turned to him with a broad, bright-eyed smile. "Thank you! I'm sorry to be so much trouble."

Kenshin caught the same smile—nothing like the old Tenken smile. "It's no trouble. If Hitokiri Battousai can start a new life with friends and family, surely Tenken no Soujiro can, too."

Megumi helped Soujiro out of bed, and they followed Kenshin and Sanosuke out the door. As Soujiro emerged from the clinic, Tomi immediately ran to him and clung to his right arm. "Onii-chan, feeling better now?" she asked hopefully.

"Better, but not all the way," he said. Tomi made a pouting face. "Don't worry," he assured her. "I'll be okay. I just need some rest, and don't touch my other arm, okay?"

"Okay!" She turned to Ayame and Suzume, who offered their greetings. "These are my new friends."

"Are you going to Kaoru-oneechan's?" Ayame asked Kenshin, who nodded.

"I wanna go too!" Suzume called.

"Go ask your grandfather if it's all right," Megumi said, sending them scurrying off. Without the other girls to divert her, Tomi hugged Soujiro around the waist.

"I'll go on ahead and tell Kaoru-dono we're all coming," Kenshin said.

Megumi and Sanosuke both glanced at Soujiro before assenting, but with him there holding Tomi's shoulders, they didn't see anything to contradict Kenshin's judgement of safety.

**********

April 6

Soujiro sprang up so quickly at the loud noise that he knocked the alarm clock over, and it rang with a flattened sound and crawled vibrating across the floor. He picked it up and turned it off, then looked around the room—his own room, furnished with everything he'd bought the day before. Some of it looked a little strange, as the building was Western in style, but Tomi had loved fiddling with the doorknob and peering through the keyhole and the paned windows. She had taken the decorating in hand as well, and had still been trying to pick out a vase to go on the table when the sun was setting and he had to go to the bank.

"I guess I wasn't dreaming," Soujiro said to himself, smiling brightly.

Kotori-san sang and hopped across the floor after him as he paced back and forth, getting dressed. "I'm almost ready. I'll get you something to eat soon," he said as he finally picked her up. She situated her wings and grew quiet as he tucked her in his kimono again, then picked up Tomi's new ball and his old stuffed horse and set out.

On his way out he noticed the horse and cart from Tomi's house in the marketplace, and a man standing beside it, calling for people to buy the wood. So that's her father... Without quite knowing why, he stayed on the opposite side of the street until the cart was far behind him.

As promised, he bought lunch, and met Tomi in the meadow across the bridge—the same one he'd tried to sleep under two nights before—and they ate sitting in the soft green grass, then played catch with the ball for some time, Kotori-san watching from a low tree branch where Soujiro set her.

"Wow, you're good!" Tomi said. "You don't look like you're even paying attention, and you're only using one hand!"

"Oh, I guess I do," Soujiro said. He realized that he had just been catching the ball out of the air with his right hand without any thought. "Well, I'll try with my left hand, I'm not quite as good with it."

"Yeah, my left arm isn't doing so great today either," Tomi said. "I fell again last night and bruised it up. See?" She pulled back her sleeve and showed him a dark bruise wrapped around her arm, just above the elbow.

"I'm sorry. It's because I kept you so late yesterday, isn't it?" Soujiro came over and knelt next to her to look at it.

"Well, I just fell, really. I mean, you saw my yard. There's lots of stuff to trip over."

"I know, I just meant... you know, you couldn't see because it was getting dark, right? So you tripped over something."

"Yeah. It was worth it though, yesterday. I never got to do anything like that, you know."

**********

September 23

"Oy, Kenshin!" Sanosuke stormed after him once they were out of earshot of the clinic. "Is it really a good idea to leave him with Megumi and the kids!?"

"You didn't have to come with me."

Sano glared.

"I think he means what he says about why he's here. It's as if... When it rains, it pours, I suppose. His emotional state radiates from him—it's even less concealed than with a normal person. I don't believe he could affect that."

"So it makes him a crummy liar," Sano said. "Can't argue with that—like how he lied about where he picked up Tomi-chan."

"Yes," Kenshin agreed. "But she also makes me believe his story, for the most part. Her affection for him is certainly genuine."

"I still wanna know what he's hiding."

Kenshin nodded. "But I believe he was telling the truth when he asked for help, and I'm sure he isn't dangerous." He had come to the gate of the dojo and pushed it open. "Tadaima."

Kaoru came running from the dojo to meet him, but stopped short. "Okaeri! —Kenshin? Your face..."

"Ah, yeah..." He gingerly touched the black-and-blue handprint Soujiro had left.

"Yeah, he got fresh with some girl in town," Sano said, curious how sarcastic a tone he could use before Kaoru would refuse to take the bait.

Not enough yet—she whipped around to face him, huffing angrily. "Sanosuke!"

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" he said, paused a moment for effect—"Actually it was a guy did that."

Kaoru started back from him with a terrified squeak.

"It's not like that!" Kenshin assured her.

**********

April 17

When supper was done and Tomi had gotten out of the pink flowered furisode(5) and into her worn kimono and hakama, Soujiro draped a towel on her shoulder and set about wiping the salve off her face with a damp cloth. He wished he could leave it on overnight, to heal the bruises faster, but she'd already gone home to some dangerous questions about "what she'd gotten into." Bad enough that the smell would probably linger... "There, I think I got it," he said. He picked up Kotori-san and put her in her birdcage before he opened the window and tossed the bowl of washwater down to the alley two stories below.

Tomi had sat down, cuddling her cloth doll to her chest. "So I'll see you again tomorrow?"

"Of course. You see me every day, right?" She snuggled the doll fretfully, and he crouched beside her and held her with one arm—his sword-arm—around her back. "Is something wrong? Do you think you'll be okay?"

"Well, could I walk to the bank with you?" she asked.

"Okay."

"And could I take my dolly?"

"Well, it's okay with me, but I don't know if it's a good idea..." If her father threatened her over a smear of salve, Soujiro didn't want to imagine his reaction to any of the toys for her that were scattered around his apartment.

"I mean take her just on the walk and then have you hold her for me."

"Oh, that's fine," he said, crossing to the door. Tomi rose and scampered after him as he opened the door for her and then closed and locked it behind them.

All the way to the bank, Tomi held Soujiro's hand with one hand and her doll with the other—she never let the doll dangle by an arm like he saw some girls do, but always held it close against her body. Even up the bank's front steps, she clung to his hand, and she stayed there silently as he paused at the door. "I have to go to work now," he said softly.

Tomi squeezed his hand and paused. "Do you think maybe I could stay? Maybe just a little bit, even?"

Soujiro thought he should've been prepared for her to ask that some evening, but he wasn't. It felt like getting in over his head—if he said "yes" to this, how long could it be before Tomi wanted to live with him all the time? But then, would that really be so bad? Here with her he felt happy, a deep, satisfying happiness that Tenken no Soujiro could not have experienced, and the pleasance and newness of it never failed to dazzle him. And if he said no, he of all people knew the monster he would be throwing her to...

"Well, I can ask my boss if it's okay," he said.

Even as he said it, the door opened heavily, and the portly banker started slightly at seeing the two of them. Tomi immediately collapsed her shoulders so that she could hide her bruised cheek against herself.

"Ah, Soujiro. It's time for your shift to start," the man said.

"Just a minute," Soujiro said.

As he turned to Tomi, she let go of him and placed the doll in his hand. "Good night!" she cried, and ran down the steps to the street, toward her house.

"Good night! Take care!" Soujiro called after her and waved, although he was a little confused. The banker scared her away...?

"Come on inside," the man said, ushering him in the door and closing it behind them. Only a few employees were still finishing off their day's work, at some distance. "Actually," the banker said, a little awkwardly, "I've been wanting to talk to you about that little girl. I've seen you with her quite often since you came here."

"Yes, we're good friends," Soujiro said, trying to think what the point of this might be. He started and held up his hands. "I didn't hit her, I promise!"

"I know you didn't," the man replied. "Things have been that way with her for a lot longer than you've been in town. It's just that... Well, you've been doing a wonderful job here. You have a lot ahead of you right now, and I hate to see you make trouble for yourself."

"Trouble?" Soujiro questioned.

"Getting involved in something that isn't your business," he said.

"But Tomi's my friend. How could she not be my business?"

The banker sighed. "Listen, I know you want to help her, but she's her father's concern. You can't go prying into other people's family affairs."

"So because he's her father, whatever he wants to do with her is all right?" Soujiro asked. He remembered himself, not much younger than Tomi was now—all the times he had tried to run from the family he could never appease, from all the beatings and the screams that, whatever words were used, always reached his ears as 'I will never love you,' no matter how desperately or humbly he might beg. Every time he tried to escape, he risked being caught and berated and sorely punished all over again, but a few times, he had managed to get away—and then kind, well-intentioned people had picked him up with gentle hands, and brought him back to that house, and thrown him back into that hell, because 'you can't go prying into other people's family affairs.' If Tomi escaped, and ran to him... "I can't agree with that," he said.

"I'm not sure I agree with it, either," the banker conceded, getting his suitcoat and bowler hat from the coat-tree. "But if you get in this over your head, it'll make trouble for you, no matter how good your intentions are."

"I understand," Soujiro said.

"Well, good night." He put on his hat. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good night," Soujiro replied, seeing him out the door as he left Soujiro alone in the darkened bank.

"If you get in this over your head, it'll make trouble for you." Well, why should I worry about that, anyway? Soujiro thought. Surely making trouble for him was like throwing water in the ocean.

He realized he still had the doll in his hand, and tucked it inside his kimono to rest against his chest.

**********

September 23

Yahiko and Sanosuke watched from a corner of the yard as Megumi led Soujiro in, surrounded by the little girls, and Kaoru greeted them. "That's really Tenken no Soujiro?" Yahiko asked.

"Yup," Sano answered.

Soujiro was talking to Kaoru, their voices soft over the distance. "Actually, could I lie down for awhile? The walk made me a little dizzy, since..."

"Oh, yes. Kenshin's already inside getting a bed ready."

"And he stood up against Kenshin?" Yahiko asked.

Sanosuke nodded. "And he spent most of the fight holding back. He couldn't beat Kenshin's succession technique, but... If he'd gone all out from the start, Kenshin would've been in real trouble."

Yahiko set his jaw in a privately defiant gesture. Kenshin would've won anyway, he was certain of it.

"It'd be boring for you just to watch me sleep, wouldn't it?" Soujiro was telling the new girl standing with Ayame and Suzume in the yard. "It's fine with me if you want to stay and play with your new friends."

"Yeah, come play with us!" Suzume echoed.

"Okay. Sleep tight!" the new girl said, then went to join the other two as Soujiro took off his waraji by the door and followed Megumi inside, leaving Kaoru to watch them.

"Tomi-chan there came with him," Sanosuke told Yahiko. "Whatever trouble he's in, she's in it with him. I just wish I knew why."

"Gonna find out?" Yahiko asked.

"Damn straight."

Ayame had started blowing bubbles with a straw, and Suzume chased them around, trying to catch them with her hands before they popped against anything else. Tomi just followed them and watched, staring in fascination as one attached itself to a blade of grass and swirled colors for a few moments, then burst.

**********

April 21

Tomi pressed her ear against the door to the apartment. Soujiro hadn't met her by the bridge, and when she knocked and called at his door, he didn't answer. But with her ear to the door now, she could hear footsteps coming, and she stood back. Slowly, it was unlatched and opened, but it wasn't until she slipped inside that she could see Soujiro. His shoulders sagged, and he kept his head lowered and his eyes out of view.

"Onii-chan? Are you okay?"

He pushed the heel of his hand against his face. "Kotori-san died..." he managed, with a broken voice.

Tomi hugged his elbow, and with his sleeve in her right hand she pulled him over to a zabuton. With another pull, she nudged him into sitting; by now he was sobbing in earnest. Looking at the birdcage, she could see what had to be Kotori-san's body, wrapped up in Soujiro's handkerchief. She sat down beside him and leaned her head against his chest and hugged him.

"I wanted to help her..." Soujiro wailed between gasps. "But I... I left her out and the window open... That has to be what I did... And she couldn't fly yet... It's so stupid!" he cried. "It's like I killed her myself!" At that, his voice broke apart completely and caught in his throat, and he convulsed with sobbing as if choking for breath against that blockage.

"No!" Tomi could hardly hear herself over his crying, and waited until he fell to catching his breath with trembling gasps. "I know it's not like that," she said. "You were always nice to Kotori-san, and she liked you. She knows you just made a mistake. I'm sure she's not mad."

"How could she think anything!? She's dead!" Soujiro moaned.

"She was such a nice bird, I'm sure she's in Heaven," Tomi said. "Like my Dad always says my Mommy is in Heaven, so now she's there with Kotori-san, and if they're looking now, Kotori-san wouldn't want you to feel so bad."

"But it's really my fault..."

Tomi shook her head. "You didn't mean to."

Soujiro gathered up his knees and rested his arms on them. I didn't mean to turn into a killer or hurt anyone... I wish that made me innocent, but it doesn't... And then when he found Kotori-san... Surely someone who would nurse an injured bird back to health couldn't be totally bad(6), but now... He buried his face in his arms as the sobs tightened his throat again, pushing his breath through his voice into loud coughing cries.

He lost himself in his tears so much that he only gradually became aware of Tomi shaking his shoulder. "Onii-chan! Please look up! Please?" When he raised his head and looked at her, her eyes were wide with fear and concern.

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to scare you." He unfolded himself and started to hug her.

"Ow!"

"What?" Soujiro immediately released her and sat back to see her holding her left arm. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it just hurts..."

Kotori-san's broken wing... Soujiro thought. Surely anyone who would help something like that can't be all bad... Surely... "Let me look at it," he said, still with sniffles although the tears were fading back. "We'll put some medicine on it, if it's just a bruise or something."

"Okay."

He got up and gently sat her on the zabuton, and she shrugged off one shoulder of the kimono to show a dark bruise around her upper arm. He got the salve and bandages and carefully rubbed the medicine on the livid skin; even after this, she was soft and velvety as a flower petal. "How did this happen?" he asked.

"Oh, um, I accidentally closed a door on it."

"Oh, I see." With overlapping wraps of a bandage, Soujiro concealed an inch at a time of the irregular bruise. It was just clear enough to suggest a handprint.

"When I get my kimono on, we can take Kotori-san to the forest and bury her, like a real funeral," Tomi said.

"Yes. That would be good."

Once the bandage was secure, Tomi got the pink flowered kimono and Soujiro helped her put it on and tie the obi in a plump blow that rested in the curve of her back. He took Kotori-san's cloth-wrapped body out of her cage with trembling hands, and he and Tomi left the apartment. At Tomi's behest, they stopped and bought some incense, then went outside the town, into the trees where the other birds were singing. They buried Kotori-san at the foot of a tree, placed a large rock on the spot for a tombstone, and Tomi picked flowers and lay them on it.

As Soujiro lit the incense, she pressed her hands together in front of her chest. "Goodbye, Kotori-san. I hope you're watching us from Heaven with my Mommy and that you can say hi to her for me. It's sad that you died, but it was fun having you here, and thank you for bringing Soujiro-oniichan."

It was true, wasn't it? Soujiro remembered the first night he'd come to this town, Tomi had been fascinated at first by Kotori-san, not him. That was how he'd first seen the black eye, and why Tomi had wanted to meet him again. "Yes, Kotori-san. Wherever you are now, I hope things go well for you. And thank you so much for showing me where I was going." He made a deep bow before the little grave.

Tomi took his wrist and pressed her face against his arm, crying for the first time that day. Soujiro was sure she had held back her own tears to help him, and it touched him with a feeling much like sadness, but somehow precious and sweet.

**********

September 23

Kenshin sat beside the futon, vigilantly watching Soujiro sleep as if he might be able to read his dreams from the twitches of his face. His smile was such a deeply-formed habit that it tinged his mouth a happy color even in his sleep, but once or twice Kenshin had seen his eyebrows tend downward as if in distraught concern. Unfortunate that he had so much to be concerned about, but in a broader way, Kenshin was happy for him, indeed happy for a world in which Tenken no Soujiro could become sincere and caring.

He looked up at a slight sound from the doorway and saw Tomi standing there, carefully silent. He could see her plainly wanting to come in, but afraid of disturbing Soujiro's sleep. Quietly he rose and walked over to the doorway to stand beside her. "He's still sleeping, and still all right," Kenshin whispered.

"But..."

"His injuries will heal, and he's just a bit worried about you and your Ojisan and Obachan."

She gave a tiny nod and turned back to look at Soujiro.

"You and Soujiro are very close, aren't you, Tomi-dono?"

"He's my best friend ever," Tomi said.

Kenshin sat down on the floor just across the hallway, at an angle where he could still see Soujiro through the door. "Could I talk with you?" He patted the floor beside him.

Tomi tiptoed across the hall and sat down in the offered space. "Are you Soujiro-oniichan's friend, too? He came to this town calling for you."

Kenshin considered the question for a moment. "I did my best to help Soujiro once before, and I'll do my best to help both of you now. But I'm wondering, could you tell me how you met Soujiro and came to be here with him?"

"Well, he just came to town one night, and he was always nice to me, so when the police came and he had to leave, I wanted to go, too."

"He was nice to you?"

"Yeah. I was really clumsy, so I was always running into things and getting bruises and stuff. He always took care of it and never treated me like I was bad or stupid or anything."

"What about your parents?" Kenshin asked.

"Oh, they said it was okay for me to go with him," Tomi said.

"Is that true?"

She shied away from him, leaning against the wall and hugging herself around the chest.

"Tomi-dono," he said gently, "I don't want to hurt you or push you, but I want to help as best I can, and I can help you and Soujiro more if I know that you're telling me the truth. But if you don't want to, I won't ask again."

She stayed sitting in silence for a long moment. "I told Soujiro-oniichan that, too, that I was clumsy and hit myself on things," she said. "He never said anything about it, but I know he knew all along that it wasn't true, too..."

Kenshin watched her with gentle attentiveness, patient for her to talk at her own pace.

"Really... The truth is... I know my Daddy loves me, and it's really my fault, because my Mommy died having me and I was just a girl anyway..."

"Those things aren't faults of yours," Kenshin said.

"But Daddy was always upset about it. And when he was drunk, or if I did something he didn't know about or didn't want me to, he'd get really upset about it, and..." her already-whispering voice dropped even lower, just touching the words lightly with tight breath, "sometimes... a lot... he'd grab me and pull me around and hurt my arm, and he'd hit me..."

Kenshin rested an arm around her shoulders as she spoke. "...And Soujiro took care of your injuries without judging you."

"He said because my Daddy was bigger and stronger than me, he could do what he wanted and I couldn't help it. But he said that even if he was bigger, and if he was my Daddy, and even if he loved me and said he was sorry, that he shouldn't be able to hit me like that. That's why he took me with him, when my Daddy called the police..."

"To protect you?" Kenshin asked.

Tomi nodded. "He said he'd protect me until I was big and strong, too. But now he got hurt..."

"He'll be all right," Kenshin assured her.

"I hope so," Tomi said. "I feel so bad that he got hurt helping me... When he got shot, I was so scared! I thought he was going to die!"

"Soujiro is a very strong person. I know he'll recover from this," Kenshin said. His mind was flashing back to his battle with Soujiro in the Hiei mountains—unbelieveable that over a year had gone by since then. I guessed that Soujiro had never had anyone to care for him or teach him compassion, that he must have been through some unimaginable pain that would have made him seal his emotions for ten years and see the world as a heartless place where he could only kill or be killed. The idea of me protecting the weak, showing kindness and mercy... I know that deep inside himself he knew that he would have taken joy in those ideas, but he believed it so impossible, had invested so much of himself in a world without them that it broke his mind to let them in. Such terrible pain, to drive all warmth and caring out of a life... He said that when it happened, no one protected him... And now he understands Tomi-dono, who was betrayed and hurt by her father, the one she should be able to trust most of all. Now Soujiro would risk his life to protect her, to keep her from suffering cold and alone as he did... "I also know that protecting you is very important to him," Kenshin told her. "He wouldn't want you to feel bad about it."

"I know," she said, and mustered a smile again. "He's always so nice."

"I think it's wonderful that you and Soujiro met. The two of you were well-matched to help each other."

"Well, I try, but I'm too little to help much..."

"No," Kenshin said. "Meeting you has helped him more than you can know. I'm sure of it."

Tomi beamed at him. A moment after she turned away, her face fell, only a little. "But, Himura-san... Please don't tell anybody what I told you, about my Daddy. Okay?"

He smiled that she addressed him the same way Soujiro did. "I understand."

to be continued...

Footnotes:

5. Furisode: literally means "flutter-sleeves." This is a dressier style of sleeve on women's kimono, or the term can refer to a kimono with such sleeves. The shoulder-to-wrist measurement is not unusual, but the sleeve hangs vertically down to about the bottom of the calf.

6. See Fuyumatsu.