Secrets and Lies
Part One
Rurouni Kenshin Fanfiction
by Laura Gilkey
*
Tokyo, October 29, late morning
Kenshin sat on the porch of Sasaki's school while Sanosuke leaned against a nearby tree; both were bundled in winter clothes, which still looked unnatural on Sano, but there was no denying that Winter was in the air. Autumn this year had been a coup d'etat, and now within just a few weeks the trees were bare of leaves. The sting of cold in the wind warned of snow before many weeks more.
"Wonder what the teacher wanted to talk to you about," Sano mused.
"I don't know," Kenshin said. "I'll find out soon."
Through the sliding door behind him, he faintly heard the voices and movements of Sasaki and his students, structured into unison like a sacred choral chant that the teacher was leading, but the children's spontaneity shone through in snatches, like undertones of singing birds. Just the muffled sounds of it made Kenshin smile. Even as he held his own Sakabatou against his shoulder, he deeply understood another man choosing that path over a sword of any kind. Of course, Sasaki had a bloody past, like himself, but it was immanently true that atonement could be this simple.
Kenshin thought of Soujiro at the inn in Yokohama, living there as family, caring for Tomi—who was inside the schoolroom now—and providing doubtlessly pleasant and cheery room service to the guests. Atonement could be that simple... But with over a month having passed since Soujiro left for Kyoto and not so much as a short letter having returned, Kenshin was becoming anxious.
This morning those thoughts were especially close. He was sure that whatever the teacher had asked him to come and talk about involved Tomi and was trying to prepare himself for bad news, but best not to think too darkly before finding out what it was about.
The chorus from inside turned to chaotic voices and shuffling movements as Sasaki brought the lesson to a close and the children broke into conversation while putting on their coats. Soon the sounds burst into the open as the children poured out of the building. Among them was the close knot of Ayame, Suzume, and Tomi, and Kenshin left Sano to watch over them playing as he entered the now-silent classroom. The children's shouts lowered again to the level of soft, musical chatter as he shut the door behind him. "Good morning, Sasaki-dono."
Sasaki, the only other person left in the room, had risen momentarily from his seat before the children's desks to fetch some papers. He had a mentor's presence, and was a dignified figure even with his worn face and clothes, his scruffy topknot and beard. "Himura-san, thank you for coming. Please, sit down."
Kenshin took a seat in front of the head desk. "Is there some trouble involving Tomi-dono?"
"There is a small problem," Sasaki answered. "I need you to correct the signature on her permission form." He offered it as he sat down across from Kenshin.
"They realized that the first one was a forgery?"
"No, the trouble is the name itself. You didn't know about this?"
"No, I didn't. What's happened?"
"This is very strange, that you wouldn't know," Sasaki said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "According to the government, you have been made her legal guardian."
"Oro?"
"At the office, I was told they had been instructed to alter Inoue Tomi's records. I saw the certificate myself. Where the name of her guardian was shown, 'Inoue Saburo' was crossed off, and 'Himura Kenshin' was written in its place."
"I see..." Kenshin said and let his face darken solemnly. So Tomi's records were changed, to remove her father's claim on her... The only explanation was that Soujiro had achieved it as part of a bargain he struck with the government, but in that case, why hadn't he sent any word? Letter-post was unlikely to move more slowly than such a beaurocratic detail, and even if the timing was explainable, the form of the action was not. Why would Soujiro request my name in that place, and not his own, or the Sumidas'? Every path Kenshin's mind could take in that direction was a dark and terrible one.
"I can see that this is grave news for you," Sasaki said.
He nodded. "You know about Tomi's 'brother'."
"Sanosuke told me the story, and not a day goes by that she doesn't speak of him."
"Hearing this, I am terribly afraid for him," Kenshin said. Nonetheless, he took the brush on the desk and signed the form before standing. "Thank you, Sasaki-dono, for the news. I'll do what I can about it."
"You're welcome, and I hope things go well for that young man."
Kenshin stepped outside. The three girls were still playing with some of the other children, all their cheeks rosy from the brisk wind. He took Sanosuke aside where they could watch the games with their voices unheard.
"So what about it?" Sano asked. "Something about Tomi-chan?"
"Ah," Kenshin nodded. "The paper you signed... It was my name that was needed. The government considers her my child."
"What the—!? Soujiro!"
"If he left her to me this way, it seems he isn't planning to come for her."
"Kenshin, you gotta be kidding me!" Sano protested in a sharp whisper. "I saw him face a firing squad for that kid! He's not just gonna dump her!"
"You're totally right," he agreed. "Whatever bargain Soujiro made to include this... I'm sure it also includes a reason why he can't return. Not only that, but he doesn't trust that she would be safe in Yokohama, or it would be Sumida-dono's name there, not mine."
Sano cursed under his breath.
"I'll talk with Kaoru-dono and find money for train tickets. I have to get to Kyoto as quickly as possible."
"Count me in!" Sano said. "I bet I could get Katsu to lend me some cash."
The fact that Sano was so willing to face his fear of the train for this helped Kenshin put on a smiling face as he walked over toward the children. "Ayame, Suzume, Tomi-dono!"
"Aww, I wanna stay and play!" Suzume complained as the girls came over to him.
"I'm sorry, but we have to be getting home."
**********
Yokohama, October 30, night
Clouds covered the moon and stars, casting the cold night pitch black as Soujiro approached the outskirts of Yokohama, walking along beside the railroad line. The almost-November wind was uncomfortably chilling, even through two layers of clothes. At dusk, he had seen the ghostly distant lights of the city on the horizon and promised himself that he would reach them before he slept. Now that he was closer, they had disappeared behind hills, trees, and darkness that could hide his hand in front of his face, but his feet could still feel where the linear mound that carried the train tracks began, and he blindly followed its edge toward those lights.
The metal rails conducted the rumble of an approaching train while it was still some distance away. He kept walking in the dark until the roar of it came so close behind him that its lights threw his shadow forward. The shriek of the steam-whistle knocked him sideways, and the buffeting wind of the train passing sent him stumbling dizzily into the edge of the woods—the tracks weren't raised as much as he had thought, and the train whipped by scarcely three meters away. Soujiro caught himself behind a tree and watched it. The windows of its lighted cars formed a moving string of pictures, blinks of tableaus and faces, some looking out the windows and probably trying to see the person the engineer had blown the whistle at. Very quickly the golden line of windows ended, passed him completely, and continued down the tracks to flicker between the trees and vanish.
After a long pause for no real reason, Soujiro came out from behind the tree and started down the rails again. Sometimes this past summer, if he was awake late and the night was quiet, he would hear the evening trains like that one go by, so it must already be that late. It might be midnight before he made it to Sumidaya; certainly everyone would be in bed. Still, so close, he might as well get there, although his legs ached with weariness and he was starting to yawn. That drowsy feeling was probably why he had let the train come so close...
It felt like hours more, pushing himself forward, blundering through the dark, but finally he came upon pavement and streetlamps that would guide him more easily the rest of the way. The inn was on the outskirts of the city, so from there it wasn't at all far until he recognized the street leading away from the rails past the neighbor-doctor's clinic and... home.
Walking down that street in the dim lamplight felt surreal; added to the numbness of fatigue it was a slow, dreamlike sensation. Like going back to the Hiei Mountains again after a year, everything was so familiar, and yet so different and strange...
He drifted to the gate of Sumidaya's fenced yard and hesitantly unlatched it. He knew there was no lock—the fence was mostly ornamental and too low to keep out intruders anyway—but entering unseen in the still night, he felt like some kind of skulking thief. The hinges seemed to agree as he slowly pushed the gate open and they groaned into the night. His heart sagged heavily as he shut it behind him; all the peach trees in the yard were bare, and like the trees outside town and everywhere now, their knobby naked branches clawed upward like skeleton fingers as the lamplight tinted them barely gray against the black sky. Had he expected to step through that gate and back into full green Summer? Such an absurd notion, but he felt that in some way, he had. He slowly floated down the path and up onto the porch. Everyone else was asleep; the scene was too quiet and peaceful to disturb.
So quiet... Seized with a moment of dread, he went left from the door to look in the kitchen window. In the dark, he didn't know how he could see anything to tell him if the kitchen was still in daily use, but then he realized that he could feel heat from the wall here. Just on the other side of it was the stove, still safe and warm from tonight's dinner.
In relief, he sank to a seat against the wall. The brush with fear had reminded him—as he'd been reminding himself on the road for the last two weeks—how foolish he had been to make this journey. Leaving Kyoto without a word, he could very well have arrived here to find the inn in cinders Ojisan and Obachan in jail, but he'd taken that risk so selfishly and for what? Like the trees here that couldn't grow leaves in the cold any more than other trees could, coming here wouldn't make his troubles go away, couldn't wash the fresh blood from his hands.
What was he planning to do? He was kidding himself if he thought he could bear to tell Ojisan and Obachan what was happening, but felt uncertain and ill at the idea of hiding it. But that was what he intended; he knew because along the way, he had kept checking in mirrors, unwilling to arrive here until the telltale marks on his wrists and neck were entirely gone—the broken shoulder wouldn't surprise them, and as for the abuse it had gotten since, there were plenty of excuses that could cover it healing so slowly. And what choice did he have but to hide it? Surely they wouldn't have him if they knew the truth, and really, he shouldn't complain about that because he knew that they would be right and it would be what he deserved. But he also felt a deep and desperate need to be here. Alone in Kyoto, he was sure he couldn't have endured much more.
So instead he'd risked the people he loved, and now he was going to lie to them just to find some hollow comfort for himself. Even when Reiko had first said "you're practically family," he knew it wasn't real if it was based on false pretense. Staying here as if he were family while keeping this secret, he would only be taking advantage of them. I must really be horrible...
He didn't have to do it. He could still just walk away again in the night and no one would ever know that he had been here.
But his body was too weary for that, almost too weary to deal with walking back over to the door and knocking hard enough to raise someone, and the truth was that right now, he didn't feel so bad. He'd been berating himself with all these arguments for the entire trip, but now he was drowsy enough to forget their sting, and somewhere on the other side of this wall, Ojisan and Obachan were sleeping. Such a pleasant thought, surely it would be presumptuous to wake them. Secrets or none, tomorrow he would see them again, feel Reiko-san's gentle touch... Just on the other side of this wall was her oven—her good cooking... For the first time in weeks, Soujiro looked forward to eating with happiness, not just as a chore to keep up his strength.
He pulled his right arm inside his kimono, out of the cold, and nestled his face into his scarf as he snuggled against the wall, clinging to the warmth from the kitchen stove as he settled down to sleep and allowed himself a contented smile. It felt like it had been so long...
**********
Kyoto, October 31, early morning
The train pulled into Kyoto in the dawn twilight, when the chill air was sweet and heavy with dew. Kenshin woke in his seat at the sound of the steam-whistle as they rolled into the city where people were beginning the day's business.
Yahiko had stubbornly insisted that they leave him behind to watch the dojo instead of fussing over money for another ticket, and unfortunately there had been more important things to do than argue with him. Across the compartment, Kaoru was starting to move, with Tomi still resting against her—after serious consideration, Kenshin had thought it best to bring Tomi to keep her guarded, and in case when he found Soujiro it would be Tomi's help that was needed. Sanosuke was still packed tightly into the seat beside him; judging by the dark rings under his wild eyes, he hadn't slept a wink.
But nonetheless, when the train stopped, it was Sano who picked Tomi up to carry her; she stirred a bit, but soon settled back to sleep against his shoulder. The train station bustled to receive them and the other passengers as they disembarked, but once they moved beyond that crowd, the city was eerily silent. The air was thick with moisture and potential; businesses were preparing to open behind their silent, closed facades.
Aoiya was also in that state as Kenshin walked up to its doors and knocked. The sound carried loudly in the still morning air.
Light footsteps and Misao's voice answered. "We're not open yet! Come back in about a half-hour!"
"Misao-dono, may we come in, please? It's Himura."
The lock clattered, then Misao threw the doors open with a delighted squeal. "Himura! Kaoru-san, Sanosuke!" She greeted them with a round of handshakes and hugs. "It's so good to see you! Why didn't you tell us you were coming!?"
"Well, it was all very sudden—"
"And who's this?" Misao asked merrily as she spotted Tomi still drowsing on Sano's shoulder.
"That's Tomi-chan," Kaoru said. "It's a long story..."
Misao glanced from her to Kenshin to Tomi's reddish hair. "Is there something you two haven't been telling me?"
"No, no!" Kaoru insisted with an awkward laugh. "It's not like that, just... I'll tell you all about it once we're settled, okay?"
"That's a good idea," Sano grumped. "You guys got a spare room? Tomi-chan's still out and I really need to crash..."
"Sure, come on," Misao said, leading the way. "Didn't sleep?"
Within Sano's muttered reply, "train," "dark," and the names of various supernatural creatures were noticeable.
Kenshin and Kaoru followed behind them and saw Okina coming down the stairs.
"Ji-ya!" Misao called up to him. "Himura's here!"
"Ah, Himura-kun, good morning! It's been awhile," Okina greeted, joining Kenshin and Kaoru at the foot of the staircase while Misao took Sano and Tomi to a room. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"I'm sorry that it isn't just a friendly visit," Kenshin replied, "but I'm looking for someone who I believe came to Kyoto recently."
"Tenken no Soujiro, by any chance?"
"Then he was here!?"
"Yes," Okina answered, crossing the dining room. "He was right here in this restaurant, in fact."
"Where is he now? What happened?" Kenshin asked.
Okina leaned in the kitchen door. "When breakfast is ready, bring meals for three up for us, would you please?" He turned back to Kenshin. "Aoshi and I will talk to you about that upstairs, but I warn you, you won't like what you hear."
As Kenshin's heart sank, Kaoru must have noticed, and she took his arm. "Make it for four," she said.
Okina looked at the two of them, then back into the kitchen. "Make that breakfast for four."
**********
Yokohama, October 31, early morning
In the cold, Soujiro's sleep was solid and black, tempting him neither to wake nor to dream, but it was unrestful. His body was still filled with an exhausted, leaden ache, even as the fingers of a whitening dawn reached between the peach trees to tickle him awake. His mind stirred to drowsy consciousness while his body remained sleeping and still. The welcoming wall behind the stove had cooled through the night, but now he heard the distinctive wooden noise of it being loaded with fuel. Very soon it would warm again, and he resettled himself against it with a sleepy moan.
"Did you hear that?" Reiko-obachan's voice came through clearly, strangely altered by the wall. She was probably a meter away from Soujiro, but she was in another world.
"What?" Ojisan asked her.
"I heard something behind the stove. Come here."
"Please tell me we don't have mice."
"Just listen. I think there's someone on the porch." Her voice was quite loud; she must almost have her head in the cold stove to listen for him.
"All right, I'll go see..."
Even as Ojisan spoke and walked away, Soujiro was overcome by the mental image of Obachan bent over with her head in the oven and broke into giggles. Her delighted cry resonated in its metal walls and he heard her dash away.
The sounds from inside the inn had been dreamy, like sounds underwater, but strangely, it was quieter and less real when he heard the front door open and Ojisan's footsteps. He didn't open his eyes.
"Hey, you. If you're a paying guest, come on in, but this isn't—"
"Junzo, wait!" Reiko cried, running out and past him. She dropped to her knees in front of Soujiro and lifted his face out of his scarf, where she could see it. "Soujiro! Oh, you're back! I've been so worried!" He was still trying to force his eyes and voice open as she guided him to his feet. "What are you doing out here!? Sleeping on the porch on a night like this! You could have frozen to death!!"
"I got here really late. I didn't want to wake you up..."
"How ridiculous! You silly boy! We'll have to warm you up and get you some hot breakfast before you catch cold." She pulled him inside, into the kitchen, and sat him in a chair near the stove. At last he pried his eyes awake; the kitchen was the first thing he was able to see clearly as Ojisan came in after them.
"Soujiro, what happened? Where's Tomi?" he asked.
"She's... She's with a friend. I know he'll take good care of her, better than me..." Soujiro mumbled.
"Where have you been? What's happened?"
He was far from able to answer those questions. "Please, I just... Not now..."
"We'll worry about all that later," Obachan insisted as the fire caught in the oven and began to crackle invitingly. "Junzo, honey, go get ready to open up."
"Oh, right," he said. Before he turned away, he clasped Soujiro's good shoulder. "Good to have you back."
As he left, Obachan set various pots on the stove to cook. "I'll have some breakfast ready soon. Get a hot meal in you, you'll feel a lot better." She turned toward Soujiro—he just sat quietly where she'd put him—and leaned over to take him in a warm, gentle hug. "My poor boy... It's been awful for you, hasn't it?"
"Yes..."
"It'll be all right," she soothed, stroking his hair.
He rested his face into her shoulder, wishing he could take comfort in her words.
**********
Kyoto, October 31, breakfast
"You said that I wouldn't like the news," Kenshin said across the breakfast table to Okina and Aoshi, as Kaoru sat beside him. "What happened? Is Soujiro still alive?"
"Probably he is," Okina said. "I wish I could say it for certain, but no one's seen him in about two weeks, to our knowledge."
"But you said he'd been here?" Kaoru asked.
"Yes, he was, and I spoke to him. He gave me his apology for the trouble he caused us last year, with Shishio, and told me that he was going to surrender to the police."
Kenshin left his breakfast untouched but sipped his tea. "He told me that, as well, when I saw him in Tokyo," Kenshin said, "that he was going to come here and try to make an agreement with the government, like the other Juppon Gatana."
"And that's exactly what happened," Okina said, "but it's that agreement that's the problem. Tenken no Soujiro is the Meiji government's assassin now."
"What!? Assassin!?" Kenshin cried.
"Yes. We can attribute two incidents to him in the past month, with four people dead."
Kenshin clung to his teacup, struck speechless.
"I can't believe it..." Kaoru said, numbly setting down her bowl of rice. "When we saw him... I wouldn't have thought he'd ever go back to being like he was..."
"He didn't do so by choice," Aoshi spoke for the first time.
"We're quite certain of that," Okina added, "and here the news becomes even worse."
Kenshin's eyes widened. "What happened? Please, tell me!"
Aoshi answered. "I saw him briefly, just before his disappeared from this city. . . ."
~
When Aoshi arrived at the noodle stand where Soujiro had last been seen, one glance across the tables found him surprisingly still there. He wasn't hard to recognize, but since the last time Aoshi had seen him, so long ago back in Shishio's base, he was vastly changed. Even after encountering him just a week before and seeing his broken arm and "haunted" eyes, Okina had not described him like this. His head and shoulders drooped under the weight of a wine-red scarf, his movements were slow and tight as if encumbered by physical pain, and even this oblique view made it obvious that he was not wearing his characteristic cheery face.
Aoshi sat down beside him, and although he didn't turn his head, by the way he tensed, Aoshi knew that he'd been recognized. "I recieved your message."
A long pause. "Oh."
They both sat still and silent until Soujiro lifted his chopsticks; at a peripheral flash of recognition, Aoshi turned toward him and he froze. With his hand raised and still, Aoshi could clearly see scabs above his cuff, as well as a touch of purple that hinted at more serious bruising on the far side of his wrist.
"I mean— I..." Soujiro burst out nervously, keeping his voice small. "I feel so bad about how it was before... I found what was important to you and I used it that way... When I think about it like that, it's really the same thing..."
"'The same thing' as what?"
As he lowered his hand, he obviously noticed the bruised wrist himself and pulled his cuff forward too late to hide it. He didn't answer the question; his breath was shallow and fast. From the side, Aoshi could see one of his eyes wide and absent, as if looking into another world, terrified.
'Haunted.'
Soujiro suddenly sprang up from his seat. "I have to be going now!" he cried; he'd managed to stretch his face into a smile, but it wasn't hiding anything.
"Ah, sir, just let me get your check—"
He turned sharply toward the shopgirl's voice as Aoshi stood—his greater height gave him a view downward, under the scarf where it had cupped Soujiro's chin before he turned. The darkness there was more than just a shadow; within it, a purple stripe was dyed into his skin. The way he wore the scarf, so close around his neck, wasn't for the sake of the weather. He was hiding another bruise there, the distinctive mark of a garrote...
Aoshi's own shock at the sight paled in comparison as Soujiro turned his face again, drained white, wide-eyed, now openly terrified. Their eyes met for barely a moment before he stumbled back and fled into the street with a loud hammering of footfalls. Aoshi ran to the edge of the seating area after him, but he'd buried himself in the crowd; with Soujiro's speed, a foot-chase would be useless...
The shopgirl came up beside him and glanced around into the street. "Geez, I hate bums like that."
"Give me the check. I'll pay it."
She looked up at him. "Ah! Aoshi-sama!"
~
"Hidoi(1)..." Kaoru breathed into her hand. She reached down and gently took Kenshin's wrist. He was staring down into his cup of green tea, which rippled in his tense hands.
"Gomennasai, Himura-kun," Okina said. "I had not fully realized how deeply this news affected you."
He shook his head. "Because of that, I'm grateful to hear it from you."
"To make him kill again, I'm sure they had to threaten his life..."
"Not only that," Kenshin told him. "I don't think that Soujiro has any blood relations, but the child who came here with us is his sister, who he saved from a dangerous home and left in my care when he decided to turn himself in. A few days ago, I found that the government suddenly considered me her guardian. He also has an elderly aunt and uncle. In Tokyo, he was willing to lay down his life for them; I'm certain that they were threatened, and in becoming an assassin again, he sacrificed himself to protect them."
A long moment of silence. Aoshi's long exhalation could almost be a sigh.
"Do you have any idea at all where Soujiro is now?" Kenshin asked.
"Unfortunately, no," Okina said. "We found the place where he was staying, but by that time he had gone, and we don't know to where. We'll do our best to find him for you, and with some of our resources, I think we have a good chance."
"I hope so," Kaoru said.
"The reason may surprise you, though."
"Oh?"
"It turns out that Shishio may have been overconfident, but he wasn't imprudent. A good deal of what he built is still standing."
"What?" Kaoru said. "But I thought, when we won..."
"It's true that the leadership is gone, and most of his fighting army was arrested, but he left behind his network of informants and safe-houses. The Meiji government has had a few internal witch-hunts and gotten rid of most of his spies, but the mass of person-on-the-street contacts... It was structured as an underground, with each point in the web as insulated from the others as possible so that no one person's interrogation could bring down more than a tiny piece. Because of that, we have no real idea how extensive it is because its members themselves don't, but I suspect we'd all be shocked if we knew. To destroy the entire thing would be a massive undertaking, and with the government anxious to erase Shishio, they don't want to make that much noise."
"But without a leader, what do they do? —You said these are your resources?" Kaoru remembered.
"Not in that way." Okina said. "They aren't exactly our friends, but we have gained some contacts there, and in this case they're probably our best asset; they watch the old Juppongatana as closely as they can."
"Hoping for one of them to finish what Shishio started?" Kenshin surmised.
"So it would seem, but I don't think that will happen. As Shishio's right hand, Soujiro would have been the most likely candidate, but I doubt he wants a thing to do with it, if he even knows it's still in place. Still, for it to stay so organized this long, I have the general sense of some standing orders holding it together. It's rather alarming, and this also makes the government's treatment of Soujiro difficult to understand."
Kenshin saw his meaning. "Instead of using Soujiro as an assassin, they could have commanded Shishio's remaining followers through him."
Okina nodded. "If Soujiro stepped forward to lead them, I'm sure they would follow him, even into an alliance with the government, and no one would have been hurt. I think he would easily have agreed to that."
"Then why...?" Kaoru wondered.
"If Soujiro was to be their liaison, it would have meant treating Shishio's legacy and Okubo's killer with lasting respect," Aoshi said. "Hubris and revenge were more appealing to them."
A long silence. Kenshin slowly sipped his tea to steady himself.
"Even Shishio's informants don't have access to information the government has," Okina said at last. "In that, you're more well-connected than we are, Himura-kun. Police headquarters here in Kyoto is where it all happened; if you go there, you might find some answers yourself. Katanagari no Chou may be willing to help you."
"Thank you," Kenshin said.
**********
Yokohama, October 31, morning
Soujiro numbly entered he and Tomi's old room and closed the door softly behind him; just over one month, and already it was their "old" room...
Obachan had pressed hot rice and soup on him until he couldn't eat any more, all the while lamenting how thin he'd gotten, and he supposed she was right. Now that he was cosy and warm, and his stomach stuffed full, all the sleepiness of his night in the cold was settling down on him, and Obachan had brought him back here and left him to take a nap.
It was a surreal sensation to find everything just as he'd left it, not even dusty. They must have been keeping it up for him, and now it was as if every item had been frozen in time. His dark blue Sumidaya jacket lay on the trunk in the corner. He and Tomi's futon were folded in the usual place; his eyelids were getting so heavy, unfolding his futon for a nap loomed like a huge task.
He took off his scarf and the blue-and-brown outfit he was wearing over his white uniform. As he piled the clothes on his right arm, he noticed the tsuba from Okawara-san and the old stuffed horse still on their shelf, untouched as everything. He walked over and gingerly picked up the horse, but as he lifted it, the rice-husk stuffing spilled down inside its neck, and its head fell over brokenly. He didn't want to deal with that, or to think about swords, either, so he picked up both mementos and took everything over to the chest in the corner.
Soujiro set his jacket aside, opened the lid, and hurriedly hid everything under the layers of old clothes already there, but they weren't letting him forget anything, either. There was Tomi's yukata, white swirled with red. He'd stuffed things under his own old blue kimono with purple trim—it had been the one the other him had worn in that terrible dream, but it was something different now. He eased himself down to a seat in front of the trunk and pulled it halfway out where he could see the distressed almost-tear across the chest and collar from the Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki. With his right hand, he felt the mend in its left sleeve where he had saved Okawara-san, pushing an old rusty sword into his own arm.(2) Back then, I saved someone from dying. It used to be I was like that...
In his weariness, he leaned against the trunk without meaning to, pushing its rounded lid against the wall until it lost balance suddenly—it nipped his left elbow through the sling and bit down on his old kimono with a dulled snap. As the surprise faded, he knew he should open it again and fold the kimono back inside, but he was so sleepy... He rested his head on the lid, still clinging to the purple collar and the mended sleeve.
**********
Kyoto, October 31, mid-day
Kenshin waited most of the morning by a battered wooden desk in the police station before he faintly heard one of the officers saying "Chou, there's someone to see you." He turned and watched over his shoulder until Chou conspicuously came into view.
"Oh, it's you, huh?"
"It's been a long time, Chou."
"Cut the pleasant crap. What'cha want?"
Kenshin stood. "I'm looking for—"
"Soujiro, right?"
"That's right."
"Take a number," Chou scoffed, nonetheless leading him into a richly-furnished conference room and shutting the door behind them. "He skipped town 'bout two weeks ago and nobody's found him yet." His voice dropped to the level of an aside. "If he's smart, nobody will, either."
"Please," Kenshin said. "If there's anything you could tell me that would help me find him, it's very important. His life may be at stake."
"Hey, you tell me. I was only here when it happened."
"Then as someone who was here, please tell me about it."
Chou half-sat on a corner of the massive desk with a frown. "Ain't much to tell. He turned himself in and they offered him the job they wanted him for—even got that old bastard Saizuchi in here to negotiate a deal, but he said no. They gave it to him as that or agonizing death and he still said no, so Saizuchi found what was worth it to him. They twisted his arm, gave it to him like that, and he said yes."
"To protect Sumidaya, and Tomi."
"Something like that." Chou sighed. "He ain't nothin' like he was. I swear, they made a killer out of a little kid, but hell, for Soujiro, it ain't the first time..."
"But after being made to kill again, he still isn't anything like he was...?" Kenshin wondered. When opponents like Kurogasa have come close to making me kill again, always the Battousai, the killer that I was began to resurface. With my succession technique, I gained strength for living out my oath not to kill, but even now, if a person were somehow to die at my hands, I fear that I as I am might still be lost. Might the Soujiro I met in Tokyo be lost to the Tenken, or...?
"Not yet," Chou answered. "But I can tell you, he ain't gonna last long if this keeps up. One way or the other, he's gonna snap."
Kenshin looked at him; Chou glanced at his eyes for a moment and took the cue to continue. "I was probably about the next-to-last person to see him before he took off, at the second job they gave him. . . ."
*
As the small squad of police flooded the yard, the house was silent—no surprise. If this was going according to plan, everyone inside was already dead, and hopefully it was going that way; the higher-ups had timed this one tightly. Word had arrived that the boss of some criminal syndicate was visiting his parents and expecting a contact at their house. An assassin had been sent ahead to clear the way, and it would be Chou and these police waiting to arrest and interrogate that contact—who was arriving soon, so they had to secure the house quickly. Chou took the point and entered cautiously with a sword at the ready.
Scouting the entry hallway, he heard a noise and spun around toward an open doorway. He had advanced two steps toward it when Soujiro appeared, the sling on his arm showing like a white flag against his dark clothes. He meandered out until he caught sight of Chou, put on a smile, and seemed to come together. "Ah, Chou-san, you're a little late. It's all done already."
Chou lowered his sword. "What are you talking about? We're right on time."
"Well, no matter," Soujiro went on obliviously, starting past him toward the door. "It's pretty weird anyway, for Shishio-san to send backup for me."
Chou started and put out an arm to block him as he passed. "Um, Soujiro... Shishio's dead."
Soujiro looked up at him not-quite-incredulously, but his look quickly faded to one detached and thoughtful. "That's right. I know..." He cast a distressed look back toward the doorway. "But then... Why did I do this...?"
Shit, this is touch-and-go enough without him here freaking out... "Look, is there anyone still in the house?"
"No..."
"We're clear!" Chou called outside.
As the police swept into the house, Soujiro suddenly clutched his head and screamed.
"What?" one of the officers paused.
"Don't mind him, he's our assassin," Chou said.
"Sir?" the man asked Soujiro. "Do you need some help?"
"Get away from me!!" he shrieked. "I don't want your help!!"
"Just get him out of here!" Chou commanded, following the rest of the force into the living room.
"The house is secure," another policeman informed him. "These were the only people here." Chou followed his gesture to look at the corpses of the elderly couple and their middle-aged son, the real target—only those three; thankfully "all done already" didn't mean Soujiro had killed the contact. By the look of it, only the son had had time for even a half-step out of his seat. There was very little blood on the floor; each victim had been killed with one thrust through the head. Somehow that bawling child in the entryway was still a near-perfect killer...
Chou could still hear him crying though the doorway, and with a growl of exasperation he stormed back out to find Soujiro crouched in a corner, curled with his face in his hands while that officer prodded at him awkwardly. Don't have time for this... Chou seized Soujiro by the collar, yanked him up, and punched him across the face—not a hard blow by his standards, but enough to get his attention and send him stumbling into a wall. "Dammit, Kid, the whole world ain't gonna stop for you to sit here and cry!" he snapped. "The rest of us have still got stuff to do, and we don't have time for this bullshit, so shut up and get your ass out of the way!!" Soujiro stared at him in shock as he turned to the policeman. "You, take him home!"
"I... I can get home," Soujiro said.
"Then do it! Now, dammit, now!"
Soujiro faltered for only another moment, then scurried out of the house like some small animal being chased off.
"For the perfect killer, he can be fuckin' worthless..." Chou grumbled to himself on the way back to join the group, although he knew the reason why.
~
"I see..." Kenshin said darkly. To think that he was back in the days with Shishio, it seemed Soujiro was indeed in danger of losing himself...
Chou had begun rifling through the conference room's file cabinets in front of him. "So kill me, we were flying by the seat of our pants that night," he said. "Will you quit breathing down my neck? Go sit down! —Near as we can tell, he stopped back by his room to grab his stuff and left town like that night or the next morning. All we found there was his sword. They've got some people looking, but nobody's seen him since then."
Kenshin backed off a bit and stood by the desk. "What about Sumidaya? Has anything happened there?"
"Not yet, but it's only a matter of time if they don't find him. They're watching there, since it'd be an obvious place for him to turn up."
"Do you think that's where he's going?"
"Hell, I don't know." Chou glanced back at him before opening another drawer. "I told you to sit down. —He'd be stupid if he did turn up there. He ought to drop the martyr bit and just skip the country, but I'm not bankin' on that, either. You probably don't want my guess."
"Yes, I do, no matter how bad it is."
Chou looked back at him again before saying it. There was just enough dullness in his voice for Kenshin to notice. "When he was locked up here, he was talking about Houji. If we find him, we're gonna find him dead. —There, I thought this was still in here..."
Kenshin faced him as he at last sat down at the desk, but he was distracted by the height of the chair. It was uncomfortably tall; his feet didn't touch the floor.
The file cabinet rumbled shut. "Yeah, the tall chair trick," Chou remarked, seeing his reaction. "They use that when they want to squeeze people. Including Soujiro." Before Kenshin could reply, Chou tossed a large string-bundled file onto the desk with a loud bam. "That's pretty much everything they've got on him. Have a look, maybe you can tell where he's going with that psychic thing you do. For what it's worth, I hope if anybody finds him, it's you," he added under his breath as he headed for the door.
"Chou," Kenshin said after him, "thank you very much for your help."
"Yeah, whatever." As he left, he seemed to recognize someone outside in the station. "Oh, hey. Battousai's here." The door clacked shut on any response.
Kenshin stayed alert to the door for several moments before turning to the file in the silence. Looking into it felt like prying, but he couldn't deny his curiosity and certainly couldn't waste a chance for clues that might help him find Soujiro. However, opening it on the desk and reading it from this elevated seat felt unnatural to him, so he carried it around to the other side. The chair there was low enough that with his feet on the floor, his lap angled upward, and he balanced the file there as he opened it, starting at the back where the paper had yellowed with age. There was a newspaper clipping about a Seta family who owned a rice distributing company, all of them killed by a fugitive...
**********
Yokohama, October 31, afternoon
Life at Sumidaya quickly got back to normal, and Soujiro was again in his uniform and jacket, lending a hand where he could, or at least trying. Even yet, he couldn't escape what had happened in the meantime.
The lunch dishes were piled by the kitchen sink, but they could smell the blood on his hands where Obachan and the guests couldn't, and when he went to wash them, they scattered away from him like minnows. He grabbed one squirming bowl and plunged it into the bubbly sink, but the others were headed for the door and he darted to head them off. There was no way he could carry them all back to the sink at once, but he knew he couldn't let even one escape. Dishes scurrying around the floor like mice were sure to upset the guests—worse than that, if anyone realized he'd spooked them, he'd be found out. That thought panicked him, and there was nothing to do but throw himself at the impossible task of piling them all in his arms, clutching them against his chest even as more and more wriggled free, leaped to the floor and ran off again. He was trapped in the doorway trying to keep them in the room.
"Soujiro!"
When he heard Obachan call him, he dropped the armload of dishes and they smashed to pieces on the floor. The survivors bolted past him and out of the kitchen, tripping him up as he ran toward her voice.
There were strange men in the entry hallway, who wore brown suits and had no faces—they didn't wear masks or strike him as faceless monsters, he simply didn't see any faces on them as they were dragging Ojisan and Obachan away through the door.
Soujiro's panic at this didn't feel like that with the dishes, not like anger or fear; it was quiet and stilling. The scene before him moved surreally slowly, but not as slowly as his own mind, so although he spent a very long time watching one of the men draw a black shape out of his jacket, by the time he identified it as a gun and thought to dodge, he was already hearing the bang.
It was neither loud nor painful; he didn't even feel an impact in any specific part of his body, just a soft jolt and then the world was tall and sideways as he found himself laying on the floor. He couldn't move a muscle. Ojisan was already out the door; as the men pulled Obachan away by her arms, he tried to cry "no! no!" but he couldn't make a sound—not even his breath would move. It must have gone through my heart. I must be dying. Although he felt no pain and his vision remained clear, he fought to live against that logical conclusion, but he was utterly paralyzed. He didn't know what he could do.
Reiko-obachan kept calling his name. "Soujiro! Soujiro!!"
"—Soujiro?"
He wrenched himself up still hearing her voice, and he found her kneeling beside him as he lifted his head from the trunk and a kakebuton shuffled off his back. He moaned and rubbed his eyes blearily.
"Maybe I should have let you sleep."
"No, I just had a bad dream..."
"There's someone here to see you," she told him.
"Wha? Who is it?"
"I don't know the gentleman, I just know he asked for you. Should I tell him to come back later, or...?"
"No, no, it's okay," Soujiro said, disentangling himself from the quilt and dragging himself to his feet. Whatever it was, he grudgingly admitted that putting it off would end up even worse than facing it.
"All right. He's waiting on the porch for you," Obachan said, walking with him as far as the kitchen and going to work there as he continued alone out to the porch. He froze as he found a man in a brown suit sitting on the edge of it.
When the man looked up, he at least had a face, with a mustache. "Ah, you are here. I heard that you'd arrived this morning."
"Yes," Soujiro said numbly. He drifted down the porch steps to stand at the man's level.
"You realize it was a dangerous thing you did, just disappearing like that."
"Yes."
"If you relocate again, you must notify us. Report in at a police station."
"Yes, I will."
"I hope so." The man stood. "I'll be back when we have work for you."
"I can't..." Soujiro started and faltered. "I don't have a sword."
"What? Surely..."
"Well, they gave me one, but I forgot it in Kyoto, I don't have it."
The man sighed. "I'll take care of that, too," he said, and walked away across the yard.
Soujiro watched him exit the gate, then looked around. The sky was opaque with dirty-cotton clouds hanging over the grass whose green had dulled and was further muddied by drifts of brown leaves. The bare gray-tan trees were an even drearier sight now than they had been the night before.
"Soujiro?"
"Ah!" He whipped around to find Reiko-obachan looking at him from the doorway.
"Who was that?"
"Nobody, really," Soujiro fumbled for a cover as he went back inside and past her. "Just someone I used to know, before."
"Before?" She lowered her voice as she followed him. "You don't mean in the time with that Shishio person...?"
He laughed nervously. "No, it's not like that! Just don't worry about it," he insisted, wandering urgently back into his room and shutting its door between them.
At first he breathed a sigh of relief at getting away from the need to hide everything, but within moments, he realized that he didn't want to go back to sleep, and the room was quiet and lonely, with nothing to do. Having come in here and closed the door so deliberately, it would be awkward to explain coming back out again so soon. He'd trapped himself in here for awhile, alone.
to be continued...
Footnotes:
1. "Hidoi" is the Japanese adjective for "cruel." To say it like this would be a sort of shocked "Oh my god, how cruel," but it sounded more natural to me untranslated.
2. Again, see my story Owaranakatta.
